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CUSTOMER STORIES | Media & Entertainment
www.zendesk.com | [email protected] | 1.888.670.4887 Lonely Planet | 1
Managing a Lot of contEntBased in australia, Lonely Planet is the leading global travel information company. it covers all the usual must-see spots, but also encourages travelers to get off the beaten track and experience more of the nature, culture and environment in each destination. Lonely Planet currently employs more than 360 writers, researchers and photographers and produces about 500 books, downloadable digital guides, an award-winning website, wireless applications, and cutting-edge television programs.
“As soon as I saw that Zendesk would let us send information to external targets and use triggers and widgets in creative ways, I talked to my boss about expanding our use of Zendesk,” says McInnes. “We never thought we’d be able to bring our guidebook support, internal feature request tracking, mobile support and several other functions onto one system.”
thousands of custoMEr suBMissions strain in-housE suPPort tooLEven Lonely Planet’s globetrotting founders and large staff can’t keep up with the latest news from every corner of the globe. to maintain accurate listings of hotels and restaurants around the world, Lonely Planet relies on information submitted by ordinary travelers.
hoping to enhance the customer experience while reducing its data processing burden, Lonely Planet added get satisfaction to its technology mix—but still lacked a key piece of functionality.
“some of the feedback we receive about our website and guidebook is private,” explains steve Mcinnes, associate product manager, community, Lonely Planet. “We needed a place to track that feedback while also centralizing all the communications we have with our audience.”
Lonely Planet
at a gLancE
www.lonelyplanet.com
Industry: Media & Entertainment
Location: footscray, Victoria, australia
Customer Since: october, 2009
Use Case: internal help desk and customer support
Why Zendesk:
• Abilitytohaveprivate conversations with customers
• Simple,intuitiveinterface
• Usefulagentfeatures,suchas views, tags and macros
• Powerfulyetflexibletriggers, targets and automations
• EasyintegrationviaZendeskAPI
CUSTOMER STORIES | Media & Entertainment
www.zendesk.com | [email protected] | 1.888.670.4887 Lonely Planet | 2
Busy staff of 27 suPPort agEnt EMBracEs onLinE custoMEr suPPort soLutionWhen Mcinnes noticed get satisfaction integrated with Zendesk,hesignedupforafree30-daytrial.SurprisedbythesimplicityofZendesk’sinterface,itsusefulagentandsupportticketworkflow,andthepowerandflexibilityofitsautomatedfeatures,McInnesdecidedtoincorporateZendeskinto Lonely Planet’s customer support processes.
“first, we designed an architecture based on a positive customer experience,” Mcinnes explains. “We then used Zendesk’sAPIstointegrateticketmanagementintotheprocess.OurZendeskrolloutwaslikenothingI’deverseen.Word spread quickly that our trial team was having a great experiencewithZendesk.IactuallyhadpeopledemandingthattheybebroughtontoZendeskaheadofschedule.”
Within a few short weeks, Lonely Planet’s entire customer-facing staff in Melbourne—including 27 support agents—went liveonZendesk.
usEr gEnEratEd contEnt is kingLonelyPlanetinitiallysawZendeskasatoolforstreamliningcustomer support for its website. Mcinnes soon realized ZendeskcouldhelpLonelyPlanetdomuchmore.
“AssoonasIsawthatZendeskwouldletussendinformationto external targets and use triggers and widgets in creative ways,ItalkedtomybossaboutexpandingouruseofZendesk,”says Mcinnes. “We never thought we’d be able to bring our guidebook support, internal feature request tracking, mobile support and several other functions onto one system.”
WhenLonelyPlanetmoveditsmobilesupporttoZendesk,its customers gained a private place for discussing bugs related to the company’s iPhone app. as a result, travelers now have an easy, standardized way to submit feedback on Lonely Planet’s guidebook.
“Theheadlineforusisthatrightout-of-the-box,Zendeskoptimized how we handle the core of our business: user-generated content,” says Mcinnes. “When we get a tip that a popular restaurant in katmandu is now closed, the value of not having to send an author there is huge.”
Withauser-friendlyinterfaceandaZendeskback-end,LonelyPlanet is now getting to know its audience better than ever. teams across the company can easily access all user-generated content in one place.
“We now have central visibility that we never had before,” says Mcinnes. “We can see all the interactions of a single customer in one view, which is helping us figure out what really drives our travelers. in a sense, we’ve discovered that our world is smaller than we ever realized.”
