Independent study finds Zendesk customers accrued NPV of USD3M, ROI of 390pct over three years

Zendesk on Monday announced the results of their Total Economic Impact (TEI) commissioned study to examine the potential return on investment (ROI) that organizations accrued by utilizing its customer support products. The purpose of the study, conducted by Forrester Consulting, was to assess the potential financial impact of Zendesk on these customer organizations.

In an effort to better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with a Zendesk implementation, Forrester studied seven organizations with experience using Zendesk's customer support products. Prior to Zendesk, the organizations used a variety of cloud-based software tools.

Key Findings from the recently conducted study titled, The Total Economic Impact of Zendesk are as follows:

The following risk-adjusted present value (PV) benefits are representative of those experienced by the companies interviewed:

Increased efficiency of agents- Using Zendesk, the organization streamlined interactions with customers through automated responses to 20 percent of emails and a reduced length for the average customer phone call. These improvements affected tens of thousands of interactions and avoided the need to hire headcount, resulting in a cumulative savings of more than USD 1.2 million.

Deflected customer interactions- The organization used Zendesk to deflect interactions to self-service and to lower-cost channels such as chat. By the end of three years, the organization deflected 15 percent of interactions to chat and 20 percent to self-service, for a total savings of USD 686,490.

Improved agent experience and retention-Zendesk was a more user friendly tool that allowed agents to focus on solving customer problems rather than managing multiple, nonintuitive screens and older call tracking systems. The organizations experienced an improvement in both retention and recruiting of agents, avoiding costs of USD 287,304.

Avoided cost of maintaining previous platform- The previous platforms used by the organizations required more system administration and ongoing maintenance than Zendesk. By moving to Zendesk, the organization avoided these costs and saved USD708,753. Benefits and Costs Increased efficiency of agents: USD1,254,567 Deflected customer interactions: USD686,490 Total costs: USD770,763 2 | The Total Economic Impact of Zendesk

Avoided license cost of previous software.- By not renewing the license for the previous software platform, the organization no longer incurred this cost. The savings totaled more than USD250,000 each year and USD837,548 over three years.

Increased conversion rates engaging over chat.- Organizations that used chat during the sales process found that customers were more willing to engage and that conversion rates increased. Although quantified, this benefit is excluded from the ROI calculation.

Forrester's interviews with seven existing customers and subsequent financial analysis found that an organization based on these interviewed organizations experienced benefits of USD3.8 million over three years versus costs of USD770,763, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of USD3 million and an ROI of 390 percent.

"Our previous tool lacked the ability to make changes and adapt on the fly. That particular tool was very cumbersome to make fields and system changes. Something as simple as that often times required developer knowledge to get that accomplished," the director of customer care at one company told Forrester.

"What we didn't have with our previous tool was a way to streamline telephony delivery. We had three different call centers and each had their own phone numbers and phone setups," said another director.

"Using Zendesk made it a lot easier for us to grow and add on locations, diversify for a little disaster recovery, and to make it seamless to the customer. We very carefully track customer satisfaction from customer calls and within the first nine months of implementing Zendesk, we realized an 8-point increase on a 100-point scale," added a company executive.