Zendesk Duet: break down the silos between sales and support

By Ryan Nichols, Vice President of Product and Marketing, Sell

Published June 19, 2019
Last updated October 8, 2020

Sales and support teams aren’t meant to be in silos—both have too much important information on the customer to keep them apart. Sales teams provide crucial context into who their customers are and what they want, and support has critical insights into how expectations are being met.

It’s a growing need for businesses that want to deliver the best customer experience possible. A recent Zendesk survey found that 86 percent of small and mid-sized businesses rank the sharing of customer data between sales and support as “very important” while evaluating software to purchase. Additionally, 79 percent said their sales and support teams use each others’ tools to learn more about their customers.

The big issue is many sales and support teams aren’t enabled to exchange information with each other in a seamless way. They’re stuck in rigid systems that keep them siloed and locked in a workflow that eventually leads to further disconnection. These businesses need tools that allow for flexible growth and maintaining a clear view of their customers’ experiences—or, better yet, they need a single solution that can provide those benefits.

Sell + Support = Zendesk Duet

That’s the idea behind Zendesk Duet, which brings Sell’s sales automation and Support’s ticketing capabilities together into a single package. Designed specially to provide a holistic view of customers for both support agents and sales reps, each team can easily access the other team’s tools to tie customer conversations together and gain a fuller insight into the entire customer journey.

Duet is essentially a “super seat” that gives users access to both Sell and Support, enabling them to take advantage of the data flow between them. That means Duet seats can be allocated to fit a business’s needs—the size of a sales or customer support team can be adjusted as necessary. It's a game-changer for businesses that need flexibility during critical periods of growth, especially when they're resource-constrained and need their employees to serve multiple roles.

No matter where the seats are, each team is enabled to share data. Should a sales rep want to deliver a more informed pitch and turn a conversation into a conversion, they can look into a ticket to understand prior support interactions. If customer service wants to deliver more personalized support, they can view the details of the sales process and gain more context.

Keep the conversations going

The value of keeping everything on a single platform is a key component of Duet, an ideal that’s shared throughout Zendesk’s products. Both agents and sales reps can know their customers from pre-sales through post-sales, and all via a seamless end-to-end experience. Sales and support software doesn’t have to be a barrier to a business’s growth—your team can start benefiting from its flexibility and collaborative capabilities right away.

Optimize your sales CRM to improve customer service

In this eBook, we'll discuss the benefits of a consistent customer experience and how you can optimize your current tools to deliver results.