Practical Zendesk Administration

Foreword

We built Zendesk back in 2007 because we were frustrated with the quality of the customer service applications that existed at the time. The vast majority of these "solutions" were big, clunky, on-premise enterprise applications, distributed on CDs, and took forever to deploy. Even proof-of-concept projects often took months to complete. And when all was said and done, no one, especially the customer, was really ever satisfied.

Zendesk was the first, true cloud-based application that you could sign up for online, subscribe to online, and configure and launch online. And all of this could be done instantaneously. All it takes is the click a button, and you are on your way to providing top-notch customer service across your entire organization.

Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine software being distributed or packaged any other way. We revolutionized an entire industry in only five years, yet that handful of years seems like a lifetime ago.

We didn’t have a very advanced business plan or go-to-market strategy when we started out. In many ways, we approached building Zendesk in the same way a carpenter approaches crafting a new piece of furniture. It was all about creating something beautiful and unique, imagining how people would use it, looking for form and function to meet and create new meaning.

Of course, when you set out to do something that changes everything, your goal is to do just that. Still, it is nonetheless a very humbling experience to watch your product become wildly ...