Zendesk Sunshine Platform UX and Customer Context

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.