Route all upgrades and renewals requests to SalesForce (remove Zendesk)
Problem
Currently there are two places requests for upgrades and renewals for gitlab.com customers are processed:
- SalesForce
- Zendesk
This leads to customers not receiving timely responses because extra resources are required to check two places and remove duplicates.
There are currently 180 open tickets in Zendesk for Upgrades and Renewals and it is not easy to determine the status of requests. Customers report that they are not getting timely responses.
Proposed solution
Following discussion with @kavas I propose that all upgrades and renewals requests should be routed through SalesForce. The benefits of this are:
- Relevant people with Zuora access work primarily in SalesForce (saves them having to check Zendesk)
- Prevents duplicates that need to be manually resolved
To achieve this we need to update links on screens like this:
This currently links to a Support form: https://support.gitlab.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=334447
Instead this should link to: https://about.gitlab.com/sales/ where the customer's request will arrive in SalesForce.
We would also create a macro and instruct Support staff to redirect any requests that do end up in Zendesk to: https://about.gitlab.com/sales/
Long term solution
The above steps will make the current process more straightforward. Longer term, Vilius is discussing with product how to automate the process which is the best solution for us and for customers.
Next steps
If this proposal receives approval from relevant people I can make issues and MRs to get the links updated and inform the support team.
I'll cc a few people, but please add others for discussion.