Traditional support channels were designed for the customer of yesteryear – now we need NON-traditional.

Zendesk recently announced a new integration that enables businesses to employ channels that do just that. This includes static reviews, comments and messages that now can all become two-way engagement opportunities for companies to easily and efficiently connect with their customers.

According to Zendesk senior vice president of product development, Adrian McDermott, businesses on Amazon, eBay and Trustpilot are already managing these types of interactions with the new offering from Zendesk.

“The future of customer service is immersing both service and engagement into the overall customer experience,” says McDermott. “Zendesk is strengthening the relationship between businesses and their customers by embedding customer service into the right places at the right time - and on any channel.

It's clear that the increasingly digital consumer is demanding more flexibility and agility from companies, wanting their services needs to be met on their preferred channels. According to Zendesk, their new framework allows businesses to turn online marketplaces and review sites into opportunistic customer service conservations – enabling the management of all interactions in one place.

Trustpilot head of global data products, Niklas Stephenson provided the example of someone leaving a post on their review site. A customer service ticket is automatically created in Zendesk and agents can then respond directly to the ticket, which will post back to the review on the site in moments, negating the need to navigate across multiple sites.

“Companies using Zendesk's integration to respond to Trustpilot reviews are communicating with their customers more efficiently than ever before. With Zendesk, companies can now listen to their customers everywhere they are online,” Stephenson concludes.