Zendesk Unveils Zendesk Voice: The Fastest, Most Affordable Way to Set up a Call Center

September 12, 2011

Plus, Zendesk Donates Free Subscriptions to TechCrunch Startup Alley Participants and Contributes $10 per Minute of Voice Usage toward $1 Million Pledge to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital

TECHCRUNCH DISRUPT SF 2011- SAN FRANCISCO, CA -– September 12, 2011 –- Zendesk, the proven cloud-based help desk software provider, today announced at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2011, the debut of Zendesk Voice, a disruptive new capability for customer and technical support operations. In minutes, Zendesk Voice empowers customer service organizations to set up cloud-based call centers at a fraction of the cost and without the complexity of conventional voice systems.

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  Zendesk Voice is available for all subscription plans (Starter, Regular, Plus+ and Enterprise) and delivers:Rapid Results—Zendesk Voice is a VoIP system so no hardware or IT support is needed. You can set up a phone number and have incoming calls available in Zendesk within minutes.

• Affordability—Zendesk Voice is based in the cloud, eliminating upfront capital investment and delivering voice capabilities at just pennies per minute.

• Customer Choice—Zendesk adds voice to its wide range of ways to communicate with customers including email, web forms, online chat, and Twitter. Zendesk Voice is ideal when a customer wants to speak to a person to quickly resolve an issue.

• Automated Tracking—Zendesk Voice instantly transforms voice conversations and messages into trackable assets. They are recorded, converted to transcripts and embedded into Zendesk tickets. Customers are even able to listen to their previous phone conversations through the system.

“Traditional call centers are a source of frustration to customer,” said Zack Urlocker, COO of Zendesk. “You’ve got long wait times, complex phone trees and, most of the time when you finally get through to a real person, they don’t have access to the right information. Zendesk solve this frustration by converting conversations and messages into a digital format, Zendesk Voice helps ensure that nothing falls between the cracks. The customer service team can see all the customer’s details and history, making it easy to resolve issues immediately.”

“Zendesk Voice is solving all of our phone support needs, said Sander Daniels, Co-Founder and Director of User Happiness at Thumbtack. “Previously we had to use separate clients for email and phone support – this was a real pain point when trying to keep track of everything and respond to customers in a timely manner. Over the last month, however, we’ve moved our entire phone support to Zendesk Voice and are already seeing a significant increase in productivity. Our team has loved it and we’re hoping to expand it company-wide ASAP.”

Currently, Zendesk Voice is available in the U.S. and Canada, with international availability late in 2011. Calls placed to the system are billed at just 5 cents per minute, with no additional upfront costs or hidden fees. Zendesk Voice is powered by Twilio, the leading cloud communications infrastructure for voice and text applications. For more information go to www.zendesk.com/voice

“Twilio is proud to power Zendesk Voice with Twilio Client,” said Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio. “We’re all about enabling companies to build killer apps that communicate, and Zendesk is taking rich customer support experiences to the next level with cloud communications.”

Zendesk Named Official Help Desk Service Provider and Announces Donations

Today’’s announcements were made at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2011 where Zendesk was named Official Help Desk. At the conference, Zendesk also announced that it is donating free annual subscriptions to all participants in TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Alley. This is part of the new “Zendesk Loves Startups” program (www.zendesk.com/startups) that provides free Zendesk subscriptions through more than a dozen business and technology incubators worldwide.

“Many of today’’s fastest growing companies such as Groupon, Airbnb, Cloudera, and Dropbox started with Zendesk as small ventures driven by their desire to deliver superior customer service,” Svane continued. “With the new Zendesk Loves Startups program, Zendesk wants to help other small startups join this list of fast-growing companies.”

Finally, Zendesk today announced that it will donate $10 to the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital for each minute of Zendesk Voice usage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. This is part of Zendesk’s year-long initiative to raise $1 million for the hospital.

About Zendesk

Zendesk is the leading provider of proven, cloud-based help desk software. For growing organizations, Zendesk is the fastest way to enable great customer service. More than 25,000 Zendesk customers, including Adobe, MSNBC, Sony, OpenTable and Groupon, trust Zendesk with their most valuable assets: their customers, partners, and employees. Founded in 2007, Zendesk is funded by Charles River Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Matrix Partners. Learn more at www.zendesk.com.

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