Zendesk, a company that provides AI solutions for customer experience (CX), has introduced outcome-based pricing for AI agents. This new pricing model directly aligns costs with the tangible value delivered by AI, ensuring businesses only pay for successful and measurable resolutions. 

Vasudeva Rao Munnaluri, RVP India & SAARC, Zendesk, told businessline, “AI is disrupting how businesses function. CX is one industry influenced directly because it impacts both customers and the business, and we can measure results immediately. After the advent of AI, we expect customer interactions to increase by almost five times.”

The implementation of the next generation of AI bots, or AI agents, has certain challenges., he added. This includes alignment with customers’ key objectives, measuring consumption and how these agents work, the automation rate they bring in, the number of questions they resolve themselves, and handling any cost escalations.

“With this industry-first pricing model, we can align the cost directly to the value customers will receive, along with the results driven by the AI agents. That is fundamentally why we came up with outcome-based pricing,” said Munnaluri, adding the tenets were to provide AI access to all, and to ensure transparency, flexibility, and scalability.

He noted that 83 per cent of the leaders in India say traditional CX will be dead in about three years, and believe all channels will be powered by AI. Alongside, 92 per cent of CX leaders believe the volume of customer service interactions will increase by about five times in three years.

With this model, the pricing will be directly tied to the outcomes delivered by AI agents, meaning customers will only incur costs for issues resolved autonomously by AI. This model ensures businesses invest in successful outcomes, aligning costs directly with the value received, ensuring they pay only for real results delivered by AI agents.

Incorporation of AI

Businesses can incorporate AI agents in a way that aligns with their specific objectives, offering options to continue utilizing human agents where necessary.

Customers will also have the tools and flexibility to optimise their AI integration as their business evolves with an in-product dashboard that provides visibility into automated resolution usage and automation rate. As usage increases, Zendesk’s pricing model scales accordingly, allowing businesses to manage their budgets while avoiding unexpected costs. 

“A starter-level usage of automated resolutions is available in all our plans at no additional cost. As customers try, test, and deploy it, with growth, they can purchase more as they need. Whether SMEs or large organizations, everybody can adapt it,” Munnaluri explained.

Zendesk has over 100,000 customers globally. The company processes about 8 billion daily requests; around 4 million agents and admins use its system, and about 13 billion total end-user accounts and 19 billion tickets have been processed on its platform.

Globally, Zendesk has about $2 billion in revenue, which it attributes to the adoption of its core CX product and expansion with its long-term customers. “We are doubling down our commitment to deliver Intelligent CX, a blend of traditional and emotional intelligence. It gives businesses the tools to see customers as more than one-dimensional transactions,” he said.

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