Fine Tuning: What to consider when going live with Zendesk Support

This Fine Tuning is about going live with Zendesk Support, including:

Please share your own advice and ideas for going live with Zendesk Support in the comments!

To find more Fine Tuning articles, see Fine tuning resources.

Part 1 Build: Tips for planning a successful Support launch

Create a checklist of all changes you’ll need to make from your existing software to Zendesk Support. This will be useful for making sure you haven’t missed changing any inbound channels to Support.
Review how you plan to set up Support with a trusted agent(s) before you start customizing, so that they can give you real life input and feedback.
Make sure to brand your Support experience (Help Center, ticket forms, etc), so that customers don’t necessarily feel a change.
Develop a communication and awareness campaign for both internal agents and external end users.
Explain why. People are more accepting of technology changes if they understand why and how it’s going to help them on a daily basis.
If the look and feel of this Support interface is a drastic change from your old system, add banners/pop-up messages to share this with your end-users.
If your support email address is going to change, put the new email address in all employees' email signatures. (Optional: Set an end date on when you’ll no longer accept emails to the old email address.)
Use email and social marketing resources to notify partners, customers, etc. about your new software change.
Use change as a marketing tool to highlight other positive changes in the company. Ex: A new focus on putting customers first.
Have dedicated customer-facing staff individually notify important customers.
Develop a training plan for internal agents.

What are your best tips for getting started? Add them below in the comment section.

Develop a plan for how you’ll test Zendesk Support from internal agent and external end-user perspectives.
Train a small group of trusted agents on Zendesk Support and ask them to pilot using the platform with a small group of VIP customers.
Ask a few VIP customers to partner with you on testing. Ask them what their customer experience feels like and adjust as needed.
Enroll agents in Zendesk agent training courses or implement a customized training plan for your agents.
Help agents understand how Zendesk Support works by adding your company’s terminology and process to any training materials.
Reinforce any major changes you’ve made to your support organization’s workflow.
Share top 10 glossary terms within Support that are different from your other system (ex: Desk called it a case, but Zendesk calls it a ticket).
Draw out your support organization’s workflow and use it as a visual training tool. Here's a great example of how this might look.
Roll out Support in waves to different group of agents. This will enable your internal trainers to focus on a specific group and make sure they’ve successfully launched before moving on to the next group.
Use the fun Zendesk brand to get your agents excited about the change. Print out some Zendesk-branded flyers and post them around the office, with the URL for your help desk and/or email address to send in tickets.

What are your best tips for getting started? Add them below in the comment section.

Give swag prizes to early adopter agents. Getting buy-in from power users will be valuable!
Create a continual training plan for new agents that join and refresher courses as you roll out additional Support functionality.
Ask your agents to be involved in evaluating the experience.
Hold a meeting or lunch every week for the first few weeks to gather suggestions from your agents on how Support workflows can be improved / changed. Your agents will feel like they’re involved in this new change instead of feeling like they have no input.
Celebrate the wins with your agents. Share examples of how your agents are using Support and how it’s affected their lives.
Share the customer satisfaction report with the rest of the company on a monthly basis.

What are your best tips for launching? Add them below in the comment section.