“Kate brought a rare blend of empathy and clarity to this project. Our agents finally have the context they need—without the clutter.”
Biz/Org
Zendesk - Platform, Sunshine / Icarus
Year
2020-2021
CX SaaS
Product Strategy
Product Overview
“Now I know what’s going on before I even say hello.”
This feature set gave agents instant visibility into prior customer touchpoints and key context.
Defined UX for surfacing recent conversations, order status, and customer sentiment.
Coordinated across product and CX teams to identify critical context fields.
Helped architect a live data panel for CRM and custom source integration.
Balanced context with speed: the right info, in the right moment.
Drove alignment on what agents need to resolve cases faster.
Product Goals
How might we help agents understand the full story before taking action?
Zendesk agents often work blind - juggling tabs and tickets just to figure out what's happening. These tools aimed to reduce time-to-context and improve the experience for both agents and customers.
Reduce first-response time and back-and-forth.
Avoid duplicate work across agents or teams.
Provide contextual clues to guide better outcomes.
Help new agents ramp quickly with high confidence.
Challenges
Context needs varied widely by company and use case.
Pulling from multiple sources risked performance issues.
Required thoughtful UI to avoid visual overload.
Couldn’t slow down agent workflows for the sake of completeness.
Solutions
Created lightweight context panel that updated in real time.
Prioritized fields through agent ridealongs and data analysis.
Exposed customization options for admins to tailor views.
Benchmarked performance and iterated based on usability testing.
Outcome & Impact
Reduced agent handle time and increased resolution accuracy.
Boosted CSAT for teams using contextual views.
Became a core part of Zendesk’s agent workspace strategy.
Supported larger CX transformation initiatives.
