productivity

Zendesk Relate is finally over and we can’t wait to share with you the lessons we learned in this conference during two days of talking customer support, innovation, marketing and more.

It’s okay to expand your reach

It is  common knowledge that you should stick to what you know. However, Zendesk surprised us by going beyond the customer experience software. Zendesk Sunshine, Zendesk Explorer, and Zendesk Sell join the Zendesk family. These products will be now available for free for all current Zendesk customers.

Zendesk Sunshine is the open, flexible CRM platform. Built on AWS, Sunshine lets you seamlessly connect and understand all your customer data?—?wherever it lives. It’s fast, powerful, and gives you the freedom to build whatever you want.

Don’t be afraid of the competition

In Silicon Valley, there is a big misconception that you have to dominate if you want to build a successful business or if to deliver value to your customers and become a freaking unicorn.

It doesn’t have to be like that. In fact when asked about the competition, Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane shared that Zendesk will be growing exponentially in the next five years but they have no intention to compete with the big giants because everybody can innovate in the CRM and customer experience apps.

Great people build great products and great people tell great stories

Omar Johnson, Ex VP of Marketing at Apple delivered an outstanding keynote about marketing and building a brand based on his experience pushing Beats. And these are the 4 key takeaways:

1. Listen to diverse voices
2. Define your product emotional role
3. Think experience, not demographic
4. Leverage free Media

Don’t hire assholes

Silicon Valley is the biggest talent hub in the world. Companies are actively looking for amazing talents. But that doesn’t mean you should compromise your company values in exchange for skills

Khalida Ali, Senior Manager of diversity and inclusion at Zendesk explained in the startup dna session that Zendesk doesn’t hire assholes and neither should you.

Pedro Muller, Startup Initiatives Manager, Zendesk added:

“Most of the time in silicon valley culture has been defined for what’s not: the hoodies, the ping pong table… But those are only the aesthetically parts”

We were really happy to be highlighted in the diversity and inclusion panel as a use case on setting the ground to grow in a startup :)

AR is the future of customer experience

Max Luthy started his session discussing trends like AI and how we perceive technology.

“We are getting used to the idea of technology that’s smarter than us” he said.

He also emphasized on the importance of thinking beyond convenience in order to make the sale. This is where Augmented reality shines and leads the future of customer experience according to him.

You either build or destroy where you come from

One does not simply forget about Cleo Wade’s inspiring words on the impact of community building, the power of self-love, and the importance of social justice.

Cleo love, speaker, author and poet explained that businesses should have big dreams in order to make an impact:

“If we are gonna build better businesses, if we are gonna build a better world, our dreams have to be bigger than us” she said.

Self-care comes first

At Zendesk Relate, we had the chance to meet a lot of beautiful minds like Jenny Dempsy help coach and customer experience specialist.

Her session about self-care was so successful to the point they stopped letting people in the room.

There is a misconception about self-care. Self-care is not slacking off. You need to take a break even if you hate yourself for it.

She sums it up: in order to take the best care of others, you must first take the best care of yourself.

Relate was an amazing experience for us. We learned a lot and most importantly we launched our Zendesk Integration. Request an account now and see for yourself.