Voice of Customer Solution Centred at Cloud-based Performance Analytics

In an era where many businesses are moving to subscription-based consumption models, customers more than ever have the ability to quickly break free from vendors that do not convey a servant culture at every touchpoint.

ZOOM provides a highly innovative, easily consumable Voice of the Customer solution that is centred on its cloud-based Performance Analytics (ZPA) backbone, which aggregates fragmented datasets into an executive friendly visual display.

In support of ZOOM's obsession with serving the needs of its customers and partners, every customer support case is followed up with an NPS survey via email or SMS. The survey allows the recipient to rate their service experience and leave text-based feedback. To provide this solution, the company required custom integrations between ZOOM's internal systems that included Cisco, Salesforce.com, and ZOOM's core technology.

Chase Tarkenton, EVP, Sales & Channels – Americas at ZOOM International successfully converged data analytics with processes that have helped drive a culture that rallies around customer experience and has contributed to an industry-leading NPS score of 81.

Each week Chase hosts an all-hands meeting with the Americas sales operation to review key performance metrics, track progress against strategic initiatives, and review Zoom's NPS for the week as well as customer feedback.

Through the use of Zoom's Performance Analytics, he has successfully devised a process that allows the team to quickly and easily identify at risk customers, relay feedback to marketing and product development, as well as identify best practices that enable repeatable excellence.

Further, Sales is notified in real-time if a customer provides a detractor score, and through alignment of culture and process the unhappy customer will receive a follow up within the same business day.

While seemingly simple in description, the industry has yet to hear of another organization that has achieved such an innovative approach to marrying technology with a process that ties directly back to driving a servant culture where the Sales department is so very obsessed with delivering an amazing customer experience.

The innovative approach put forward by Chase Tarkenton to rallying the Sales organization around a weekly cadence of reviewing company's NPS for the week as well as all customer survey feedback has allowed it to reduce customer churn and achieve record-breaking service scores.

Through Chase's innovative approach of bringing customer survey data and feedback to the surface on a weekly basis, ZOOM has found success at helping the industry to view not only just their call center as the sole nucleus for customer engagement, but breaking down walls that now allow employees from all departments to improve the customer experience.

Similar to its customers, this innovate approach has helped Sales teams become more service-oriented within the company boundaries itself.

Through this innovation, Zoom maintains very low customer churn rates and has been recognized by DMG Consulting as #1 in Customer Satisfaction for consecutive years. It has also maintained an industry-leading NPS score of 81.

Overcoming Challenges

Speaking of the challenges faced in the journey, Chase recalls that first, adopting such kind of innovation can be challenging for organizations that do not currently keep customer experience as a top strategic priority.

Second, one must have both executive sponsorship and capable IT personnel who can bring such a solution to the users. It's possible to outsource the IT integration effort, but in-house executive sponsorship is central to achieving this innovation for one's organization. The company relies on its in-house IT staff to handle the integrations between Cisco IPCC, Salesforce.com, and ZOOM International.

The Transformational Journey

Chase Tarkenton joined ZOOM International in February 2011 after achieving marked success as an Account Manager at Cisco Systems.

As one of only three US-based ZOOM employees, the Americas business unit had fewer than 50 channel partners and less than 100 customers upon Chase's arrival. Through Chase's efforts, ZOOM quickly demonstrated record-breaking growth in sales, channel partner adoption, and overall customer satisfaction.

Recognition in these domains is substantiated by the analyst community including but not limited to DMG Consulting's Annual Report and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Workforce Experience Management.

At the age of 30, and after three years with ZOOM, Chase was the youngest employee in ZOOM's history to be promoted to an executive position. Chase is now a key member of the ZOOM executive leadership team with oversight of 55% of ZOOM's global revenue, profit, customer and partner density. In his current role as EVP, Sales – Americas, Chase leads a team of talented individuals who encompass the Sales, Channels, Alliances, Marketing, Training/Consulting departments including Sales and Financial Operations.

In 2016, Chase established ZOOM's first Channels team, correlating go-to-market strategy for the Americas. Since then, ZOOM has demonstrated annualized double-digit channel partner adoption rates and resulted in a channel sales framework adopted worldwide within ZOOM.

ZOOM remains as the only WEM provider on the Gartner Magic Quadrant that maintains a 100% indirect sales model.

In 2017, Chase was tasked with leading the post-sale Training and Consulting team for the Americas. Upon inheriting the team its NPS (Net Promoter Score) sat at 38 and Chase successfully coached and led the team to an industry-leading NPS of 71.

Driving Business Excellence

In parallel to improving NPS, Chase recognized an opportunity to better serve varying customer segments while delivering improved financial efficiencies to the organization. In 2018, Chase segmented the salesforce into teams focused on either Commercial customers or Enterprise customers. Since then, the results point to a very successful strategy with the Commercial segment posting 47% growth and 17% growth for the Enterprise segment. More so, however, the change in model delivered an 8% financial efficiency improvement to ZOOM, which enabled increased investments in R&D as ZOOM moves to a micro-services based product architecture.

Since 2018, ZOOM has worked to capture market share by offering software subscriptions to its customers. Chase successfully leads the Americas team through this transition and has delivered 385% growth in subscription revenues.

Today, the Americas team now supports over 160 channel partners and serves over 830 customers. Chase credits these results to his amazing team for their hard work, cultural commitment, and ingenuity at solving the toughest of problems. Without them, none of these results could have been achieved.