Zendesk Blog

Best Farewell Ever

2009-06-27T07:49:20-07:00

On July 9 TechCrunch Europe is hosting The Europas, a tech innovation award show honouring the best tech companies and startups across the web and mobile scene from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Zendesk is nominated in the category Best Enterprise B2B Startup.

You may not know this, but Zendesk is a European startup, more precisely a Danish startup, but have always had global operations, and right not we're in the process of relocating our headquarters to the US. Give us a good farewell by casting your vote on Zendesk!

Bug Tracking Meets Help Desk: Zendesk and Atlassian Tie the Knot (technically speaking)

2009-06-24T04:02:37-07:00

Bug tracking is usually reserved for the engineers in the back room who hold all of the technology secrets. The customer service folks get to walk people through the solutions once the engineers figure them out. Until now, marrying the two was not a very harmonious proposition. Today, Zendesk is announcing integration with Atlassian, which builds Web-based collaboration tools for developers and has more than 15,000 customers worldwide. JIRA is one of their most popular tools, and it’s one of our favorite applications for bug tracking.

Now JIRA developers can integrate with Zendesk to offer a customer support interface that, as we like to say, is beautifully simple. Now any support organization can integrate their Zendesk with their engineering department's bug tracking application. This means that Zendesk tickets and JIRA issues become part of the same system, enabling engineers to report back to the help desk on progress resolving product issues. In turn, help desk support people can keep customers abreast of progress. And informed customers mean happier customers!

The integration requires installation of the Zendesk Updater plugin, which is available via Atlassian's Plugin Exchange. Please refer to our support forums for further documentation on the integration. Also observe that we have open soured the JIRA plugin, and you can access the source code from Zendesk's Github repository.

San Francisco Meet-up v3

2009-06-23T06:52:36-07:00

We're back in San Francisco for another meet-up for Zendesk customers, partners, friends and fools. This year we're co-hosting with our friends from Get Satisfaction.

Looking forward to seeing you at The Brick House Cafe in SOMA on Wednesday July 1st from 6-8pm. As always please RSVP via the Facebook event page.

Dropbox Support for iPhone and Android Apps (PR)

2009-06-18T05:01:17-07:00

We're pretty psyched to announce a new mobile Dropbox that you can embed in your iPhone and Android apps. Zendesk has had a web Dropbox for a while now. It enables you to easily embed a feedback or help mechanism in your web site without building your own html forms or integrating to our API. You can see an example of a Dropbox right here on this page, it's the little tab on your left. The mobile Dropbox does exactly the same for your iPhone and Android apps.

So are you an app developer for one of these platforms and do you want to make sure that your customers can always submit feedback or support requests directly to you from within your application, you can now embed a mobile Dropbox in your application. All customer requests are being piped directly to your Zendesk ensuring that your customers get the service transparency they expect and you as a developer gets professional-grade workflow to properly deal with customer service and support.

The talented people at jTribe and Headnix are already embedding the mobile Dropbox in their popular apps, and you can too by downloading the code libraries directly from Zendesk's GitHub repository. Both the Cocoa library for iPhone and Java library for Android are available and we've open sourced it so that you can extend and customize it to your needs exactly.

Full press release below the fold.

iPhone and Android Users Can Now Get the Help They Need

Zendesk Develops First Mobile Dropbox for Help Desk Functionality

Boston, MA, June 18, 2009 – Thanks to Zendesk, The pioneer in transcendent, online help-desk solutions, iPhone and Android application developers now have the ability to embed a mobile dropbox in their applications integrated directly to Zendesk’s professional grade help desk backend. With this dropbox in place, iPhone and Android users can easily and quickly submit a bug report, feature request, question or service request directly to the developer without having to leave the application.

Apple reports nearly 50,000 applications available in their store and four million application downloads a day, demonstrating the need for a feature that allows users to connect with developers. To bring this functionality to developers, Zendesk developed and published the source code and documentation enabling developers to extend and modify the dropbox behavior to their own requirements and needs.

“The jTribe GPS aps are popular tools for folk who enjoy real-time trip tracking,” said jTribe Director Daniel Bradby. “With more than 3 million geo locations stored in our database and 30,000 application users, we occasionally encounter difficulty accessing information and providing it to the user. Zendesk gives our users the ability to interact with us and the confidence that we can help them with any jTribe issue they have.”

Support drop boxes are a ubiquitous feature on the web where users see them labeled as “feedback,” “support” or even “help,” providing an easy way for visitors to interact with the site owner. However, until now, mobile application users have not been able to enjoy the same convenience and access on their devices as they have online. In the past if a user was playing a game, for example, and it crashed, the user had to move out of the up, open a browser and try to find the developer online. Now the user can send a note the moment the game locks up.

“Headnix relies on Zendesk for all of our service needs,” said Headnix Founder Bill So. “All support for our application, which turns any iPhone, iPod Touch, or Mac or PC desktop into a Chinese writing tablet, is managed through Zendesk. Whether our users contact us via email through our site, post a question in our forums, or send a note through their mobile devices, we have clear visibility into each and every issue, and can manage them appropriately to maintain customer satisfaction.”

“One of the big reasons why we all love our iPhones and G1s are the fantastic aps on them,” said Mikkel Svane, CEO of Zendesk. “But let’s face it, if one locks up or doesn’t work right and the user can’t tell anyone about it, it is abandoned for the next best that distracts us. For developers, this is not a comforting thought as they vie to attract users. With our application, developers don’t have to worry that a bug they aren’t aware of will prevent their application from spreading. Users can easily contact the developer from their device giving the developer instant and actionable visibility into a potential issue.”

About Zendesk

Zendesk is inspiring the help desk 2.0 movement through a focus on enlightened customer support. As the first organization in the industry to leverage SaaS and the benefits of web-based communication and social media, Zendesk provides the only professional-grade on-demand help desk. Combining the convenience of the web and agile support, Zendesk extends good help desk karma to any company, large or small, looking to offer beautifully simple online support that is flexible, rich and intuitive.

Backed by Charles River Ventures, Zendesk was founded in 2007 and has more than 1,000 customers including Books-A-Million, IDEO, John Lewis, MSNBC, The Rackspace Cloud and Twitter. To learn more, go to www.zendesk.com or follow @zendesk on Twitter.

Boston Meet-up this Wednesday

2009-06-18T01:20:15-07:00

As we're preparing for today's meet-ups in Hamburg and Copenhagen, we're thrilled to announce that we'll have our first meet-up at our new Boston HQ this Wednesday already. A lot of things are going on in Boston next week, and we also hope to see a lot of our friends from the Enterprise 2.0 conference coming by.

Look forward to seeing you on 107 South Street Wednesday 24 June from 6-8pm. Zendesk will host an open bar and nibbles. As always please RSVP via our Facebook event page.

Zen Tunes has Arrived to Facebook

2009-06-17T14:08:19-07:00

Now you can chill out to soothing Zen tunes on Facebook too, as the virtual Zendesk Buddha Machine now is available as a Facebook app. Go visit and share it today for good help desk karma.

More CRM for your Help Desk

2009-06-15T13:18:24-07:00

The last thing anyone wants to do is get in the way of a sale. Woe is the guy that costs his company some much needed revenue, especially in these times, because he lost some information or wasn’t aware of a customer support issue. As a help-desk company that also likes to make sales, we really understand the value of good customer service. (Side note: good story on value of good CRM data on InsideCRM.com).

That is why we are happy to announce our two-way integration with Tactile CRM, a great UK company that provides web-based contact and sales management system for small businesses and departments. With this integration our customers can display user information from Tactile CRM on ticket requesters directly in the Zendesk user interface, and ticket information from Zendesk on customers in Tactile CRM.

So, if you're running both Tactile CRM and Zendesk you will always know what customer information you have on your support requesters, and vice versa, the outstanding support tickets you have with customers. Voila, no more sales lost because of miscommunication or lost information.

From Zendesk simply go to the Account tab and configure the relevant Tactile CRM widget (going live Tuesday morning CET). From Tactile CRM simply enable the integration from the Admin area as described in this nifty little video from Tactile CRM embedded below.

Want to learn more? Meet both the Zendesk and Tactile CRM crew tomorrow at Zendesk's meetup in London at The Dover Castle, 6:30pm Tuesday, June 16th. We look forward to seeing you there.

Mobile Branding and Localization

2009-06-13T05:29:28-07:00

With the feature upgrade last weekend, the mobile Zendesk UI experienced some improvements.

Your branded color-scheme and i18n settings are now mirrored in the mobile user interface. So if you have enabled the chinese end-user interface and have a red color scheme your mobile login page would look something like this example. The "remember me" login feature is now also fully supported in the mobile interface. So no more repeatable logins. Please note that the mobile UI is not iPhone optimized, but accessible from any mobile device with a web browser.

Stay tuned for next week where we have more news for our iPhone and Android developers out there.

Also, remember to check out the details for the latest feature release, that included a new ability to merge tickets, full CSV downloads (no more pagination), client capture and auto-subscriptions. Read more about it in our support forums. Have fun.

Support Billing with FreshBooks

2009-06-09T11:59:54-07:00

There’s nothing like capping off good work with an incorrect invoice — no client likes getting a $4,000 bill for a $500 issue. Accurate and efficient billing is essential to any professional or organization who provides time and material-based services. The good news is that it’s easy to get this part right.

We're pleased to announce the FreshBooks Widget, which allows you to easily report time on FreshBooks projects from within Zendesk. FreshBooks provides the fastest way to track time and invoice clients and has helped more than 800,000 users since 2004. Now you can do incident-based billing without leaving Zendesk during your daily work.

The widget can be configured in just a few minutes as described in our support forums.

If you are not already using FreshBooks, use the coupon code "zendesk" to save $20 on a new subscription. You can also read more about the integration on FreshBooks' blog.

First Copenhagen Meetup and Last Farewell

2009-06-08T16:30:39-07:00

On Thursday June 18 we hope to see all Danish customers, partners, friends and fools for our first actual Copenhagen meetup, which will also be a farewell to Copenhagen from the three founders Alexander Aghassipour, Morten Primdahl and Mikkel A. Svane, as we're joining our US crew in the new headquarters in Boston.

Please join us at Fischer from 5-7pm, where nibbles and, more importantly, the bar tab is on Zendesk. As always we kindly ask you to RSVP via the Facebook event page.

See you in Copenhagen!

Hamburg & London Meetups

2009-06-04T12:03:08-07:00

If you're already a Zendesk lover, you know that Zendesk meetups have been announced for both Hamburg and London.

In Hamburg at the Chilli Club, 6:30pm Thursday, June 18th. (RSVP via Facebook).

And in London at The Dover Castle, 6:30pm Tuesday, June 16th. (RSVP via Facebook).

Zendesk meetups are informal events open to Zendesk customers, users, partners and friends where Zendesk staff is hosting gossip, snacks and drinks. Don't forget to join Zendesk Lovers and be the first to know when meetups are taking place.

Tidbits: Pass-Through Email and CAPTCHA

2009-06-03T17:13:23-07:00

This weekend will bring some nice new features for Zendesk and in general June will be packed with announcements. Anticipating the new features, don't forget to check out some of the latest announced product additions and features.

Early april we announced enhancements to the Reporting capabilities, new widgets and a new features called pass-through email. The latter allows you to make sure that whatever email address your customers are contacting you on, they will receive updates and replies from that same email address. As you already know you can set up your Zendesk to receive emails sent to any email address you want to, and dedicate separate workflow to each of them. If you maintain separate brands on separate email addresses the pass-through email feature will allow you to keep those brands separate.

Later in April we introduced CAPTCHA validation of anonymous user requests, a new tagging UI, and centrally managed topic and ticket subscriptions. Often it makes sense to run an open help desk, especially if you have many spontaneous or intermittent customers and don't want to hassle them with a registration process. For that purpose we now have implemented CAPTCHA validation on the online ticket submit form to ensure that your help desk isn't flooded with spam.

Don't forget to check out what's coming to your Zendesk by following our Announcements (also via RSS).

A Tech Support Hero is Something to Be

2009-05-27T03:21:37-07:00

Organic Technology Consultant Adria Richards of Aden Networks, model Zendesk customer and blogger on But You’re A Girl, has a daily web show called Ask Adria.

We've mentioned Adria before (see There are Women Out There that Wants to Wear Your Stuff) when she called us out and made us aware that our tee line was men-only.

This week Adria has received a copy of our new tee line, and has dedicated her Tuesday show to talk about her many years of experience with various help desk systems titled "Be a Tech Support Hero with Zendesk". Get some insight from a person in the know and watch the show. We've embedded it here (it's approx one hour), and love it. Not (only) because Adria is a big Zendesk fan, but also because Adria talks about these things in a way we all can relate to.

Adria, you got some big fans here too!

Amsterdam Meetup

2009-05-26T01:56:46-07:00

Zendesk meetups have mostly taken place in the US and APAC region. But that's going to change as we're now announcing the first in a series of European meetups. This one is to take place in Amsterdam on Tuesday June 9 from 6-8pm at Café Restaurant Dauphine.

Yours truly is in town for SIIA OnDemand Europe 2009 and we wanted to take advantage of the trip to reach out to Zendesk customers, partners and friends in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands is not our largest market, but we hope to see as many as possible of the ~100 Dutch companies and organizations that have taken Zendesk for a spin. As always please RSVP via the event's Facebook page. Everybody's welcome. See you in the bar!

Stay tuned for news on Hamburg, London and Copenhagen meetups.

Boston HQ Sneak Peek

2009-05-25T11:51:16-07:00

On this quiet and uneventful Memorial Day we hereby offer a sneak peek at the new Boston Zendesk headquarters, where the sun always shines, and the buddha machines quietly hum in harmony as tickets are being resolved and new features being designed.

SSO with Django

2009-05-22T12:16:38-07:00

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. Jon Gales is a Django/Python developer and he has recently posted instructions on how to enable Zendesk remote authentication with Django.

Jon writes on his blog:

I had a pleasant time yesterday hooking Zendesk into an existing Django site. Their API has a hook for remote authentication which is a lot easier than their chart makes it look. Actually it was accomplished in only a couple lines of Python. [...] To the user it’s all transparent. Kudos to Zendesk on making it so easy.

Thanks to Jon for sharing and good luck and have fun to all Django developers out there. You can read more on the Zendesk Remote Authentication API in our developer section.

Zendesk Buddha Machine v2

2009-05-21T12:06:27-07:00

Together for the first time. Zengirl and Zenbaby presenting the new Zendesk Buddha Machine version 2. With new tunes, pitch control, slimmer packaging and an even greener Zendesk green.

Share your Zenfessions to get your own ZBM2!

G'day Again

2009-05-18T14:16:14-07:00

We're back in Australia for a couple of meetups. In Melbourne on May 27th and Sydney on June 1st. As always we look forward to seeing our friends, customers and partners in the neighborhood. And feel free to bring a friend--or a prospect.

In Melbourne we'll see you at The Bull & Bear from 5-8pm. In Sydney we'll be at The Australian Hotel also from 5-8pm.

As always please RSVP via the Facebook event pages. See you there!

Thank You, Wellington

2009-05-13T15:10:33-07:00

Last month's meetup in Wellington was a lot of fun and splendid networking in this beautiful city. We want to thank our good friends, customers, partners and other aficionados for turning up, here amongst the guys from Xero, Madefromnewzealand.com, Silverstripe, Ponoko and everybody else. Great seeing you.

Next up: Sydney, Melbourne, Hamburg, London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Boston and San Francisco. Again. Stay tuned for updates. Or go become a Zendesk Lover on Facebook for the latest.

ScreenSteps Brings Tutorials and Guides to Your Help Desk

2009-05-12T16:01:28-07:00

Another day, another integration. Today we're very pleased to show you Blue Mango's ScreenSteps integration that brings instructions, tutorials and guides directly to your Zendesk help desk. The ScreenSteps widget allows your help desk agents to search for and grab content from your ScreenSteps Live account directly in your Zendesk help desk, and include links to relevant material from ScreenSteps in a ticket.

Blue Mango has put together this nice little video that demonstrates the widget integration:

You can get the full details on the widget on Blue Mango's blog.

According to Blue Mangos web site, "the ScreenSteps Support Suite allows companies and organizations to transform the way they approach customer support. It is built around a simple philosophy: each step of providing instruction to a customer should be easy. It should be easy to create customer tutorials and guides. It should be easy to publish them. It should be easy to deliver to the customer. And it should be easy for the customer to understand the information they are given. And that is what the ScreenSteps Support Suite does, it makes it easy to turn customer support into customer satisfaction."

Disclaimer: The ScreenSteps integration widget was created by Blue Mango and is not an official Zendesk widget and not supported by Zendesk support.