Deliver better ecommerce customer experiences with Zendesk and Shopify
Give your agents instant access to customers' details and order information—all inside Zendesk.
Once a destination to march steadily toward, digital transformation has suddenly arrived all at once. And while nearly every industry has been fundamentally changed by Covid-19, retailers have been at the forefront of the new digital-first world.
Over the past year, customers have embraced online shopping like never before, forcing businesses to quickly adapt their tools and processes. In some cases this meant shifting to an ecommerce-driven strategy for the very first time.
The rapid rise of ecommerce has been a saving grace for businesses who can no longer rely on foot traffic. But with a spike in online sales came a surge of customer service requests across a variety of new channels businesses are still learning to adopt.
Among Zendesk customers alone, retailers saw a record-high 38 percent increase in tickets during the pandemic — more than any other industry.
To make life easier for businesses and more seamless for customers, we’re excited to launch an updated Shopify integration that puts some of the most important features of the popular ecommerce platform right inside Zendesk.
A single view of the customer
With the sudden shift to digital and accompanying surge in customers reaching out for help, businesses need to be faster and more agile than ever.
Customers want you to meet them on their terms, and can no longer afford to wait for you to catch up.
For example, one of the most remarkable transformations we’ve seen over the past year is the rise of messaging — both on the apps we already use with friends and family, and embedded within business’ own websites and mobile apps.
We’ve seen a massive uptick in tickets on social messaging channels since the start of the pandemic, with a 101% surge on WhatsApp alone.
With Zendesk, agents already have a unified view of customer conversations across all digital channels, from messaging, to email, to live chat. But sometimes agents need other important context like purchase history, order details, or profile data to do their jobs.
The new Shopify integration puts all this data at your fingertips, allowing agents to deliver faster, more relevant, and more personalized support.
Transforming the ecommerce customer experience
Among the thousands of businesses that have been forced to pivot to digital in the past year is global lifestyle brand Spartan Race.
Best known for its gyms, obstacle courses, and physical events, the company also sells branded athletic clothing and gear, using Shopify.
Once a sideline business, its ecommerce sales went into overdrive during the pandemic, increasing 300 percent. More sales, of course, translates to more support emails and chats.
By allowing them to view customers’ purchase history and even process refunds within Zendesk, the Shopify integration empowers Spartan Race’s support team to work faster and stay focused on serving customers, said Aja Varney, Director, Global Customer Engagement.
In Varney’s estimation, 99 percent of customer questions can be answered without leaving the agent workspace, saving roughly 30 seconds per ticket.
“Every moment they don’t have to leave that ticket and don’t have to take their attention elsewhere is extremely valuable,” she said.
Shopifying your Zendesk
Our new Shopify integration for Zendesk Support and Chat integrates seamlessly with your Shopify storefronts.
The application queries your Shopify stores to find the customer’s details and recent orders. If a ticket or chat is linked to an individual order, the app will display that order information so your agents have instant access to the right customer context—all inside Zendesk.
Agents will then have access to order details and tracking numbers, as well as the ability to process full or partial refunds, and cancellations, directly from the sidebar app.
Along with the sidebar app, we’re also releasing a new Shopify integration with Sunshine. With Sunshine profiles, agents get access to Shopify details like a customer’s previous 12 month spend. With Sunshine events, recent Shopify activity is also displayed within the interactions history panel.
This gives agents a unified timeline of recent customer interactions across their entire journey, from help center articles viewed, to Shopify order updates. The Sunshine integration will remain in Early Access (EAP) until later this year. You can sign up for access here.