Using Zendesk CSAT Reviews and Slack to Appreciate CX Agents

Announcing the launch of a free new Zendesk app, Agent Slack Shoutouts.

“Everyone does it differently. Everyone does it, but they all do it differently.” – Domenic, Customer Success person at MaestroQA

Domenic interfaces with our customers (customer support teams) all day long. He was referring to the idea of recognizing agents for their work, by sharing their positive Customer Support (CSAT) reviews with the rest of the team.

Though many customer service managers do this, there is no standard or easy method:

• Some write notes on a whiteboard.
• Some dedicate time to drafting a weekly email.
• Some have developers spend their time configuring web hooks.
• Some can’t recognize agents as much as they want to because of the effort required.

(Spoiler alert: Here’s the solution...and it’s free)

If everyone knows the benefits of agent appreciation around customer satisfaction, why isn’t there a smarter solution, and why do all cases require so much time and effort?

As an engineer at MaestroQA, I live in the sweet spot where software and customer support overlap – not only do I create technology to help customer support professionals, I also provide support to our customers.

After talking to Domenic and customers directly, I was convinced that someone could solve this problem with a simple software solution, and that I wanted to be that person.

So I brainstormed with my team, got to work, and recently launched Shoutouts, a free agent celebration app which uses positive CSAT reviews from Zendesk and sends them to Slack.

The app surfaces support-related positive Zendesk CSAT comments into a Slack Channel. Show me the free app!

This app directly integrates Zendesk with your Slack instance, taking positive, support-related CSAT comments from customeers, and posts them in a Slack channel for your team to see.

Since some CSAT comments are about topics outside an agent’s control (shipping, product, billing, etc.), the Shoutouts bot is programmed to send comments it has determined are support-related. It looks for obvious words like “support” and “service”, as in:

>> Your support is the best! It’s what keeps me coming back :)

as well as more subtle clues like mentions of quick replies, as in:

>> Impressed at the fast responses. Much appreciated.

It only uses real quotes from customers.

Shoutouts doesn’t use generic encouraging phrases, and instead uses real customer quotes that relate directly to how an agent did. Agents are real people, customers are real people, and real people appreciate knowing they help real people.

Shoutouts sends the comments to a channel, instead of direct messaging individual agents, so the whole team can share in that agent’s win. Teams have sent us screenshots of their Shoutouts channel, and the Shoutout bot’s messages each have reaction emojis underneath them. Agents love celebrating their colleagues, and are excited to have their own accomplishments in the spotlight for everyone else to see as well.

It can be customized to meet your team’s needs.

Teams have the option to receive notifications on all CSAT reviews, not just the support-related comments if they want as well. You can choose whether to send “good,” “bad,” or “all” comments.

Some teams choose “all” comments to give management a real-time stream of what customers are saying about their brand.

Show the whole company how awesome your customer support team is.

Shoutouts is not limited to telling the agents how impactful they are. It can also show the rest of the company how impactful the entire support team is – elevating the support team as the value-driver that it is, as opposed to the cost center many companies mistakenly see it as.

Agent morale impacts company success!

Consider a typical day for a support agent, Mary. She talks to a hundred people. Some conversations go well, some don’t go well, and at the end of the day she leaves. Perhaps she’s stressed because of rude customers, and perhaps she has no idea that there are six customers who:

1) are happier because of her help, and

2) will be repeat customers because of her.

We believe that if Mary knew about how much these six customers valued her service, she’d go home happier at the end of the day, and return to work happier the next day.

Agents impact people's happiness, and they impact the business. Shoutouts makes sure agents know their impact.

Wrapping up

I’m glad I had that conversation with Domenic, because it made it clear to me that there was a missing tool in the customer support ecosystem. There should never be a problem that requires 50 different companies hacking together their own separate solutions.

But beyond that, building Shoutouts made me realize the actual significance of raising visibility of high-quality support’s impact on customers. A lot of good happens when the support team’s impact on real customers is illuminated, within the support team or across the whole company.

Shoutouts is totally free, and takes only a few clicks to set up. I hope you find it helpful, and that your team has some fun seeing the fruits of their labor: happy customers.

Learn about MaestroQA's other integrations here, or download the free Shoutouts app for your team!