Recipe for the customer-centric company: Collect customer insights and act on them

<div class="article-banners">
<div id="docs-wmp-link"><a href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5411234991258-plan" rel="noopener" target="_blank">What's my plan?</a></div>
<div class="article-banner" id="suite_all">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<strong>All Suites</strong>
</td>
<td>Team, Growth, Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="article-banner" id="support_all">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<strong>Support</strong>
</td>
<td>Team, Professional, or Enterprise</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can optimize how you support your customers based on what you know about them. These
recipes outline how you can set up custom fields for two different types of companies to
provide better, more personalized support. Featured ingredients: custom user fields and custom
organization fields.</p>
<p class="p">Also, see our other recipe for the customer-centric company, <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882418458" target="_blank">Gather customer info for every support request</a>.</p>
<p class="p">This article contains the following sections:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_tmc_xtt_mm">
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><a class="xref" href="#topic_wvn_xtt_mm">A recipe for the retail (consumer)
business</a></p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><a class="xref" href="#topic_v4n_x5t_mm">A recipe for businesses providing software
support</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_wvn_xtt_mm">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">A recipe for the retail (consumer) business</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">As a retailer, you face a variety of customer types—from a one-time shopper to a lifetime
loyalist. How do you target the customers who would benefit from some extra attention? Using
custom user fields, you can segment your customer base by capturing relevant data and
creating unique workflows based on these data points.</p>
<p class="p">This recipe walks through how you can configure your user fields and business rules to
optimize how you support your customers based on what you know about them.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Skill level:</strong> Beginner</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Time required:</strong> 30 minutes</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_nxv_15t_mm">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Ingredient list</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_nxv_15t_mm__ul_snp_c5t_mm">
<li class="li">
<p class="p">2 date user fields</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p">2 drop-down user fields</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p">1 trigger</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_4nx_c5t_mm">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Instructions</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Step 1</strong></p>
<p class="p">Start by gathering <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822051866" target="_blank">customer data in user fields</a> in your Zendesk
account. As a retail business, you may want to capture the following types of information
about your customer. Knowing their spending habits, billing cycle, and social influence can
help determine which customers you need to prioritize.</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="tablenoborder">
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="table" frame="border" id="topic_4nx_c5t_mm__table_bp4_h5t_mm" rules="all" summary="">
<colgroup>
<col>
<col>
<col>
</colgroup>
<thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;">
<tr class="row">
<th class="entry nocellnorowborder" id="d48e153">Name of field</th>
<th class="entry nocellnorowborder" id="d48e156">Field type</th>
<th class="entry cell-norowborder" id="d48e159">Field options</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e153">Date of last purchase</td>
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e156">Date</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d48e159">Manual entry, via the API, or via bulk import</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e153">Subscription renewal date</td>
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e156">Date</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d48e159">Manual entry, via the API, or via bulk import</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e153">Average annual spend</td>
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e156">Numeric</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d48e159">Manual entry, via the API, or via bulk import</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e153">Service level</td>
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e156">Drop-down</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d48e159">"Platinum", "Gold", "Silver", "Bronze"</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry row-nocellborder" headers="d48e153">Social influence</td>
<td class="entry row-nocellborder" headers="d48e156">Drop-down</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e159">"High", "Medium", "Low"</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Step 2</strong> </p>
<p class="p">After you create your custom user fields, you can now set any user field as a condition in
a Zendesk Support business rule, such as a custom trigger. </p>
<p class="p">For example, if a high-spending, influential customer submits a support request, you might
want to alert the appropriate team members. This example trigger escalates any ticket from a
customer on a platinum service level or one that spends over $1000/year with your business,
or has high social influence. </p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_v4n_x5t_mm">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">A recipe for businesses providing software support</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Its common practice for a software company to track customer type and service level plan.
For a B2B company, you most likely want to capture customer information for a group of
customers—an organization.</p>
<p class="p">This recipe outlines how to configure custom organization fields and workflows to support
your customers at different times of a sales cycle.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Skill level: </strong>Beginner</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Time required: </strong>30 minutes</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested1" id="topic_jnb_1vt_mm">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title6">Ingredient list</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_jnb_1vt_mm__ul_k2q_bvt_mm">
<li class="li">
<p class="p">3 drop-down organization fields</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p">1 numeric organization field</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p">1 checkbox organization field</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p">1 trigger</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title7" class="topic nested1" id="topic_2fx_bvt_mm">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title7">Instructions</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Step 1</strong> </p>
<p class="p">Start by gathering customer data in organization fields in Zendesk Support. For each
organization, you can capture the organization's account type, monthly spend, contract
agreement, service level, as well as if they have agreed to be a referenced customer.</p>
<div class="tablenoborder">
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="table" frame="border" id="topic_2fx_bvt_mm__table_hbd_3vt_mm" rules="all" summary="">
<colgroup>
<col>
<col>
<col>
</colgroup>
<thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;">
<tr class="row">
<th class="entry nocellnorowborder" id="d48e338">Name of field</th>
<th class="entry nocellnorowborder" id="d48e341">Field type</th>
<th class="entry cell-norowborder" id="d48e344">Field options</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e338">Account type</td>
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e341">Drop-down</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d48e344">"Active customer", "Prospective customer", "Churned customer",
"Partner"</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e338">Monthly spend</td>
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e341">Numeric</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d48e344">Manual entry, via the API, or via bulk import</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e338">Customer reference</td>
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e341">Checkbox</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d48e344">Mark checkbox if true</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e338">Contract agreement</td>
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d48e341">Drop-down</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d48e344">"Monthly", "Quarterly", "1-year", "2-year"</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry row-nocellborder" headers="d48e338">Service level</td>
<td class="entry row-nocellborder" headers="d48e341">Drop-down</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d48e344">"Platinum", "Gold", "Silver", "Bronze"</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Step 2</strong></p>
<p class="p">After your organization fields are in place, you can create a trigger based on the
organization field data to set up a dedicated workflow based on customer type. </p>
<p class="p">For example, when your business prospects submit a ticket, you can create a trigger to
automatically set the priority of their tickets to high and loop in relevant sales teams,
who can be agents or light agents in your Zendesk account.</p>
<p class="p">The next recipe in our Customer-centric Cookbook is <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409155756186" target="_blank">Create meaningful views of your customers</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>