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Zendesk Sell Series Part 2: Zendesk Sell to Pipedrive: Is Pipedrive Really the Right CRM for You?

• Motii • Season 1 • Episode 15

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In This Episode

Zendesk Sell users know the decision point is coming. With Zendesk Sell being retired, many teams are now asking the obvious next question: is Pipedrive really the right CRM to move to?

In this episode of the Motii Playbook, Fred Schnell is joined by Ben Fuller and Kile Rogers to unpack why Zendesk has recommended Pipedrive as the official migration path, what makes it a natural fit for sales-led teams, and where businesses still need to be careful before making the move.


What We Cover

  • Why Zendesk has recommended Pipedrive as the official migration partner for Zendesk Sell users
  • The three key reasons Pipedrive is a natural fit: Zendesk integration, sales CRM focus, and platform alignment
  • What Zendesk Sell users are most worried about when changing CRM systems
  • Why CRM selection should start with process, not software features
  • How Pipedrive compares with other CRM options like HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Capsule and Insightly
  • Why simple, activity-based CRM design can be a strength for sales teams
  • The importance of user adoption, mobile access, integrations, reporting and automation
  • Why businesses should avoid treating CRM migration as a straight software swap
  • How a CRM can become the backbone of a growing business, rather than just another platform


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SPEAKER_00

Modi acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia. We pay our respects to elders past and present and acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this land. Welcome to the Modi Playbook. If you've ever felt like your systems are technically in place, but somehow still feel chaotic behind the scenes, you're in the right spot. This is where we share what we're seeing, what's working, what's not, and the lessons businesses learn the hard way. Think of it as practical strategy straight from the trenches. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to the Moti Playbook One Shift, One System, One Measurable Outcome. I'm Fred Schnell, Managing Director here at Moti. This is the second episode in our Zendesk Cell series. In our first episode, we covered everything you need to know about the actual retirement of Zendesk Cell. If you missed that episode, you can always find the link in the notes below. Today we'll be talking about what's next, where to from here. And Zendesk itself recommends Pipedrive as the official migration partner. So today we'll explore in a bit more detail why Pipedrive could be a natural progression for your business moving away from Zendesk Cell. I welcome Ben Fuller, co-founder and technology guru here at Moti. Over the years, Ben helped hundreds of businesses with their technology projects and also in particular with their CRM system migrations. We also have Kyle Rogers with us. Kyle is in our BD team here at Moti and he works closely with businesses navigating CRM decisions and helping them find the best fit for their business. Gentlemen, welcome. Cheers. Thank you very much, Fred. Great to be here. Thanks for having us, Fred. So, Ben, as brief, you mentioned before, uh, Zendesk has officially partnered with Pipedrive as the recommended migration path. But why PipeDrive? Why do you think PipeDrive makes it such a natural fit coming for someone coming out of Zendesk Cell?

SPEAKER_03

Um, I think there's probably three things involved in this decision of Zendesk to recommend PipeDrive. Uh, first of all, is the quality of the native integration between Pipedrive and Zendesk. Uh, it is probably the best of the major CRMs, and obviously their help desk clients are Zendesk core clients. And so making sure that that integration is nice, easy to use, works straight out of the box is probably the major driver of this decision. Secondly, I think probably PipeDrive's quality as a sales CRM. It's easy to use, it's an activities-based CRM. It fits neatly with what Zendesk helpdesk does as a help desk. And I think probably the most, maybe the most important factor for Zendesk at the end of the day was not to introduce a competitor to their client's tech stack. And what I mean by that is take, for example, HubSpot. It's a decent CRM, right? A little bit expensive, but a decent CRM. And but HubSpot has a help desk feature as part of their product suite. And it just does not make any sense for someone like Zendesk to introduce a product like HubSpot as the CRM, because then they will always be running danger that the clients will be switching or HubSpot will be trying to switch those clients across to the help desk feature. And so I think it's those three factors, really, at the end of the day. Probably one more thing, maybe, is Pipedrive has, like Modi, for example, a really strong partner network. And a number of different partners, including Modi in the Asia Pack region, have built dedicated migration tools that will make that transition from Zen Desk cell across to PipeDrive nice and easy. And so that strong partner network may have had a bit of a way, may have weighed a little bit on their minds as well.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. No, that sounds good. And so, Kyle, from from your conversations that you're having with uh with clients, uh, what do you think are people most worried about when they change or move systems?

SPEAKER_01

Like, I think it's really a couple of things. The the biggest thing that stands out is adoption, ease of use. So a lot of those customers are going, yo, we've we've spent time and put in effort and hours into trying and getting our team to use it. We don't want to move to another CRM that's gonna be too complicated that our sales team doesn't end up using, then we don't get the data and reporting we need to make the right decisions around our sales strategy. So I think that's really the big thing is it is it gonna be simple and easy to use and easy for the team to adopt? And then I think the other thing that really comes into consideration is data. You know, is it gonna be easy and relatively simple enough for us to move our data across without too many hiccups or I guess um hurdles to try and make it a nice, easy, smooth transition? So I think that'd probably be the main things that I hear about from customers when they're talking about those sorts of migrations.

SPEAKER_02

And and so, Ben, you know, you've done quite a few of these migrations. Do you think businesses tend to overestimate or underestimate what it means to move from one system to the other?

SPEAKER_03

I think it's usually underestimated. Data migration is one of the most complex parts of setting up a new CRM. And so the data migration itself is always underestimated. The architecture architecture or the architecting of a CRM, I think it doesn't need to be super complex and plenty of people are capable of architecting a CRM. But at the end of the day, it's really that data migration, and that's where a lot of complexity comes in. And so I think also to Kyle's point around or the answer to Kyle's question as well, what people worried about losing. I think the other thing that Zendesk cell users are worried about losing is that integration to the help desk. Right. Like for me, would be at the top of my mind if I was migrating. I'm like, how is this going to work with Zendesk Help Desk, which is a core system that I have?

SPEAKER_02

So how would it work in your experience? What, what, what's what what are you what is your answer to that question?

SPEAKER_03

Well, so basically you need to offer the same or similar functionality between PipeDrive and Zendesk help desk as what they currently have between Zendesk Cell and Zendesk helpdesk, right? And Pipedrive's native integration offers all of that, right? So with the native integration, what you've got is the ability to be able to see Zendesk tickets inside a pipe drive and pipe drive deals, persons, and organizations inside of Zendesk. And the updates between the two, just using the native integration without us overlaying any complexity, like say by Zapier or Make or the API, just using the native integration, we have instant updates, visibility of both systems in both platforms. And so you're really not losing anything by moving across the pipe drive, and it's that out-of-the-box functionality that is there right from the get-go.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, very good. Now you you mentioned other CRMs, and there's plenty of CRMs out there in the marketplace. So let's be a little bit more specific around, you know, in your experience, what what does a business look like and feel like where pipe drive would be a natural fit?

SPEAKER_03

Well, the the simple answer is that they would want to have a sales focus, right? They would regard sales as central or the the key plank of their business. So, because pipe drive will cover those sales needs, right? And then the support or the help desk aspect, they've already got covered with the Zen Desk help desk feature. Um, so there's that they they their teams who wanting their teams to focus on those sales or regarding sales as core or the most important part of the business, they probably want an easy-to-use CRM and they're probably on a budget as well. I think this is probably the other thing that, or they don't want to spend too much on the migration because, in a sense, it's a forced migration, right? And so, as an example, you can implement pipe drive. Like I'll use Modi's pricing, right? Pipe drive versus Monday, which we also implement. Generally, it's half as much cost to the client to implement pipe drive as Monday. If you take something like HubSpot, pipe drive's a third of the cost to implement. If you take something like Salesforce, it can be between five and ten times cheaper to implement pipe drive. And so because this is a force migration, I think that that probably comes into it a lot.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, good point. Let's move a little bit to the sales and BD teams point of view, Kyle. Why do you think reps really like using pipe drive as opposed to uh avoiding it and find it finding workarounds using post-it notes and and and uh Excel files?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, look, great question. I look, I think as far as pipe drive, it's the fact that it's I think I mentioned this before, right? Really, really easy to use and adopt for your sales team, right? You don't need to, you don't need to have a PhD to be able to jump in and start navigating around. It's quite visual as far as your pipeline. The drag and drop functionality, people love being able to just visually see their deals moving through the pipeline. And obviously, we help as far as sometimes automating some of that process as well, depending on different triggers. But that's a I guess getting into the weeds a little bit. The activity side of things, you know, it was PipDrive was designed by some sales reps for sales reps to be able to follow up on all the various opportunities they're working on. So being able to clearly see what are my activities, where am I up to, what do I need to action today, what's overdue, or that I don't have an activity scheduled against, just having that high-level overview of all of your opportunities in your pipeline makes it really easy from a sales rep perspective to go, okay, I you know, I've missed a couple of things there, or from a sales management perspective to go, I can see the teams drop the ball on a couple of things there, I'll get them to chase up on that. So it's just it's being really, really easy and really simple to use, very visual. And as you've started using it more and more, similar to what Ben said, it's easy to start customising more and more to get better reporting or reporting on different things that you might not get when you first start using it. So as you want to keep pivoting your sales strategy, you've got that ability yourself to go and make those changes and and take ownership of that program. Anything throughout, Ben? No, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_03

I think probably we'll we'll talk about a few other platforms a bit further down the track, but Carl's really covered off the greatest hits of pipe drive there and why it is such a successful CRM.

SPEAKER_02

So we've spoken about, you know, how complex and stressful moving um CRMs could be for some businesses. And firstly, you know, there's the platform decision itself, like which platform is the right fit for my organization. But then I guess there's also the actual migration process itself, and we touched on that previously as well, which as we all know is, and we said that it's underestimated quite a bit. So if someone is deciding to move from a Zendesk cell to say a pipe drive, what does Moti do differently for a small and medium-sized uh business? Ben, can you can you just elaborate on that a bit?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, sure. First of all, we've built a data migration tool, right? Yep. So this means that you'll spend less money, the data is migrated more quickly, more easily, there's less human hours involved, um, which, like I said, leads to lower cost. Um, so it's really that data migration thing is, I think, the biggest part of all of this. Then you've got the system architecture, right? Like we could easily work with the client to exactly replicate their Zen Desk Cell setup. However, it's probably not the smartest thing to do. No doubt since they're first set up Zendesk Cell, some things have changed for the business. Maybe Zendesk Cell just wasn't set up all that well to begin with, right? And so Zendes Cell's, it's a it's an okay CRM. I wouldn't say that it's great. It used to be it's it's the old base CRM. Um, and so it's a little bit buggy, it's a little bit sluggish. And so it does have its issues. And so replicating it exactly, probably not the smartest thing. So that system architecture is the second thing there. Then adding another level of complexity is the integration to third-party platforms, right? So none no one's tech stack exists in a vacuum, right? So there's obviously the integration, which we've spoken about already, to Zendesk helpdesk, that platform. But the client will have, our client will have, on average, five other softwares that need to be plugged into the CRM, right? And it's those third-party integrations, whether that's by Zapier, make or API, that add another layer of complexity. And generally, this is what people can't do themselves, right? Which is integrate to third-party platforms. Then overlaid over the top of all of that is the training aspect, right? So as you know, Fred, um, Modi create a video-based training manual for everyone. Um, and then there's the live training that we provide as well. And that's sort of broken down by team or department and requirement and need. And then sort of we analyze how sophisticated or tech savvy the clients are and adjust our training to fit the audience. I suppose at the end of the day, like the reason people pay consultancies like Modi or agencies like Modi is that we guarantee success, right? We we save time, but we guarantee success at the end of the day. And so whether it's getting the system architecture right, getting the data migration right, um, nailing those third-party integrations so they work and they're not buggy or providing the training, all of that just wraps up into one neat little package of we guarantee success. And so to come back and answer your question, that's why people will use an agency like Modi rather than trying to do it themselves.

SPEAKER_02

And so, Kyle, I'm sure you've seen plenty of, or you've spoken to plenty of people out there that that experience system migrations that probably went badly and turned more into migraines than than migrations. So, in your view, what makes the difference between a migration that goes really, really well and compared to one that does not go well?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I think there's two, I think there's two really big parts of this. And it's all revolving around the human element. So I think it's firstly the internal side of things. So it's making sure that the people internally know why you're doing this, why you're making the move, why to this particular system, making sure that they're across it, they're involved in the process, that it's going to suit them if they're using it every day. A lot of the time we see where management sits there and rolls this out, and then the team that's actually using it day to day doesn't know how this system's meant to work. So then no one adopts it, they end up living in their own spreadsheets, management complains that their solution sucks. And it's often not the case. It's just the fact that it's not set up for success internally. And on top of that, then there's obviously the training side of things as well, right? Where people just don't know how to use the system. So it just becomes simply too hard and too manual. I think the other side of it, and this is tying back to what Ben was talking about integrations as well, right? It's the customer side of things. So, as Ben said, on average, five different softwares that a business might use that needs to be integrated in, it's making sure that the customer feels like they're they're valued, they're important, you know, that you've got their history and you've got that one single view of all the conversations that you've had with them. So they're not speaking to the sales team and having a conversation. And then that's siloed from the services team or the support team who's having a conversation with them. So if I'm the salesperson, I can jump in and go, oh, gee, I can see they've had this really big issue. I'm going to make sure I jump on that when I when I next call that particular customer so that they know that the left hand talks to the right hand. So I think for me, it's it's usually those those two sides of things, the internal battle as well as making sure the customer is at the center of everything that they're that they're doing within the business.

SPEAKER_02

No, I think it's a really good point because there's a lot of businesses that treat like a CRM implementation as a technology or an IT project without involving the people that actually use the system. And so you end up with a very expensive, highly customized CRM potentially that no one actually wants to use or no one knows how to use, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And I think the the point there around um the training is critical, especially in the first few weeks, right? Like this is where the adoption can either succeed or fail, um, or the switch can either succeed or fail. And it's knowing what to look out for inside of the system, right? Like Marty, we know how to run a report that will tell us who is lagging and who is not and who might need that additional training, right? And we know not to rely on everyone saying, yeah, it's all fine, it's all good, when we can see that there's three people out of 10 who simply aren't using the system. Yeah, right. And so it's making sure that you are like sort of no soldier left behind type thing when it comes to adoption of the system and making sure that uh everyone's along for the ride.

SPEAKER_02

Now, I guess every system will have its strengths and as well as its limitations. So then um thinking about pipe drive, who would you say pipe drive is probably not the right fit for?

SPEAKER_03

Uh look, if you're less of a sales operation and more of a project management-oriented business where sales is obviously a part of that, but the key part is the onboarding and the implementation of whatever it is that you do or sell, then potentially Pipe Drive's not necessarily for you. Pipe Drive's working very hard on their projects feature at the moment, and it does look really good. The new version of that that's been rolled out, um, but it's no Monday.com when it comes to project management. And it's not trying to be Monday either, right? And so I think if your business has a heavy sales focus or if sales is absolutely critical in that sense, then Pipedrive is probably the best choice for you. But if that takes a bit of a backseat to the project management and implementation side of things, then Monday.com is probably uh a really strong choice for you. Keeping in mind that the native integration between Zendesk and Monday is not anywhere near what it is between Pipedrive and Zendesk. And to get the same level of integration, Modi will need to do some custom work with that integration with Monday.com to make that actually work in the same way as what it does with Pipedrive. And I don't think you'll ever quite get it there because just the different way that the two systems are structured. But Monday.com on that side of things is a strong option. I can't really, Fred, think of another use case outside of those two platforms in a sense, because on one side you've got the the sales first CRMs, like Hype Drive for argument's sake, and then you've got the project management platforms like Monday, for example, right? Usually in that mix, you would throw your help desks and everything like that. But these are all Zendesk customers who are already running Zendesk. So they don't need another help desk platform thrown into the mix. And so in my mind, the choice is really between PipeDrive on one hand and Monday on the other hand, depending on what the client's requirements are.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, now some platforms um, you know, they claim to be very, very strong, kind of the marketing and lead generation side of things. What would you recommend in in this respect with you know someone moving to a pipe drive or a Monday?

SPEAKER_03

The CRM that's strongest in that marketing automation area is HubSpot by quite some distance, right? Like HubSpot is really a marketing automation platform with a CRM attached rather than being CRM first. And if you are a business, like if you're mainly an e-commer business that is heavily focused on digital sales, heavily focused on the marketing, things like abandoned carts and all that type of thing, then yeah, HubSpot needs to be a consideration for you because of the strength of the marketing automation side of things. However, I would be very surprised, Fred, if if they don't already have in their tech stack something that fills that gap already, right? Because you're not going to be coming across from Zendest Cell and all of a sudden realize, oh, I need a massive marketing automation piece because what's been doing that job for you previously? Right. And so um usually that job is being done by Active Campaign or MailChimp or Clavio, um, that type, those type of products, right? And no doubt that will already exist in the tech stack. And so, in that sense, again, Pipe Drive fits well within that tech stack because of its easy, it's easy to integrate to those three major platforms. It's got an amazing integration with MailChimp. Clavio's strong integration, active campaigns also got a strong integration there. But if you are that one in a million business that really needs marketing automation but hasn't had it so far, then yeah, HubSpot should be something that you would consider, right? You you would definitely be looking at it for sure.

SPEAKER_02

So, Kyle, if if someone's listening to this podcast and still isn't quite sure which way to go, what do you think will be the three questions that they should ask themselves?

SPEAKER_01

Guess the the big three that I would think of would be, and I think I've already touched on this, or Ben and I both touched on this adoption, ease of adoption. Um, how easy is it going to be for our team to pick up and and use so that they hit the ground running, they're not having to take months to figure out how to use a system? Where do we integrate this to? What do we rely on? What do we need to connect to? As as Ben's talked about, right? That importance of integrating this into Zendesk so you've got that sales to support that handoff right there. And I think the you know, probably the most important thing, I argue the most important part of it is is sales the primary thing or the main thing that we need to manage out of this? Or do we need something that's a little bit more of a wider used tool for maybe project or operations management, um, like a Monday.com as an example. So I think it's yeah, to break it down sales versus projects and operations, you know, make that decision first, and then how easy do I need this to be for my team to be able to use? And then once you've got those answered, then you can start to look at the integrations, what's easy to integrate into what are the solutions, like your Zen Desks.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So Co is is what you're saying basically, you need to do an analysis of your tech stuff. Make sure that you don't have any gaps and work it well. Make sure that whichever CRM you choose is not going to create any gaps in your tech stack, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I and I think that's the important thing to have that I guess that inflection or that internal look is do we have any gaps? If so, how do we fix those? How do we bridge those gaps? How do we reduce that knowledge gap between sales, between support, between accounts and finance as well? So I tend to see whenever businesses sit there and map that sort of stuff out, they've got a better idea of where they can then go from there or what's going to help find a solution, as opposed to just going, I'm just going to get a CRM for the sake of hosting some contacts and some you know some data.

SPEAKER_02

Should be a bit more than just a database, right? Yeah, correct. Just with all the AI hype out there in the marketplace, um, then how much should a business really be focusing on kind of the AI features that a tool has to offer?

SPEAKER_03

As far as their CRM goes, that there's minimum requirements for it, right? Which is things like note takers that integrate to the CRM so that when you do a meeting, the updates to the CRM are sort of semi-automated. And we've seen Pip Drive roll that out recently. We know Monday's got a good solid AI suite. I know platforms like Close, for example. Close have their AI agent, which they call Chloe, which does outbound calls and then moves the deal to the next stage in the pipeline when the Chloe, the AI agent, qualifies that person via the outbound call and stuff like that. And so it really depends on what your requirements are and what the top of funnel sales process looks like. So take Modi, for example, right? We would very I can't foresee us using an agent like Chloe, which Close use to make outbound cold calls. It's just not in our DNA, right? And a lot of businesses are like that. But a lot of businesses will make outbound cold calls. And when you can make a hundred calls in a minute using Chloe, which Close have integrated to their CRM, right? Why would you pay someone a decent amount of money per hour or per league to do that when you can get an AI agent to do it? It's just a matter of how many leads can you generate, um, or how many leads could you set up for that agent. So to come back and answer your question, Fred, I think it depends a lot on what the business structure and requirements are. It's still very early days with bringing AI into your tech stack, and the changes are going to be huge over the next few years. But I think at the moment, no one's quite sure where everything's going to fall. And I wouldn't be too concerned about being a little bit conservative on the AI side right now. Um, it is a massive buzzword, but you genuinely want to make decisions that are going to benefit the business and not just bring chaos, I suppose, is one way to look at it. And so AI is important, but I wouldn't say that you should base your whole decision on it at this stage. At the end of the day, business fundamentals matter more than the latest AI technology at this stage.

SPEAKER_02

So if I if I hear you correctly, um, it's it's kind of getting the business foundation right is and the workflows right is a lot more important, and making sure that the tool actually fits with your kind of business structure and and your requirements as a team is a lot more important than any kind of ER feature that's that a technology has to offer.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and I think also this comes back to sort of my philosophy around tech stacks more broadly, right? And this is even more important now than it was three or four years ago, which is you need to maintain as much flexibility as possible in your tech stack. Um, and so you don't want, you don't want to have the Swiss Army knife problem, right? Where you've got this one product that does everything because you're beholden to that software vendor. And I'll I'll use an example, NetSuite, big ERP platform, they have a CRM aspect to it. Every single person who uses the NetSuite CRM thinks it is total garbage, which it is. And so Moti does a huge amount of work plugging in pipe drives easy to use CRM to the NetSuite backend, right? And so you want to maintain flexibility within your tech stack, and the danger of Net Suite, for example, or a HubSpot, even, which has now got a module for just about everything, is that you get locked into the ecosystem. And HubSpot is famous for getting you into the ecosystem and then ratcheting up the price across every single product. And all of a sudden, you end up paying three, four, five times for a CRM module than what Pipedrive might offer or what Monday might offer from their CRM, right? And so I think the most important thing with all the change that's going on at the moment is to maintain flexibility within your tech stack and make sure that you're not locked into a specific vendor. And that applies on the AI side things as well, right? Make sure that you're not locked into a specific vendor, which doesn't give you the flexibility from an AI perspective to roll out the latest and greatest, because who knows where the hell we will be in 12 months from an AI perspective. And if you don't have a flexible tech stack that can't roll out maybe this new amazing feature that everyone now desperately needs, then you're behind the eight ball because you've locked yourself down too much.

SPEAKER_02

I guess it's that, you know, is that question, and it's it's a big debate, always kind of the all-in-one system that you know does it all, the Swiss Army knife kind of approach, or the call it the best in class software stack, right? Where you say, okay, now for marketing I choose this, for sales, I wanted this, for finance or that. But I then making sure that these systems actually communicate to each other and and and exchange the information uh well enough, right?

SPEAKER_03

So well, this is a misconception of modern software. The misconception is that, and let's take HubSpot or Netsuite, for example, right? People have this misconception that because their CRM, their help desk, their project management, their invoice generation, and whatever else are all done by NetSuite or all done by HubSpot, that it's going to be a smoother, easier process, right? Because of modern APIs and how interoperable software is, if you run your sales in Pipedrive, right? And then your project management in Monday or your project management in HubSpot's project management feature, for example, the transfer of data between Pipedrive CRM and the other tools project management is seamless. It's exactly the same as if it was done within Monday or within HubSpot or within Netsuite, right? And so people have this misconception that they need to be using all of the same product because it's going to be easier and better. And it's just simply not. And so I think maintaining flexibility in a tech stack is not being beholden to a single vendor because you do run the danger of not being able to keep up with the Joneses and slot whatever it is the latest and greatest product is into your tech stack. And you also run the hub spot danger, which is they will get you into the ecosystem and then they will ratchet up those prices because when you need this tiny little feature here, it's like, oh no, you've got to be on the next tier for that. And everyone needs to upgrade, right? Um, so yeah, people need to be super careful with a lot of this stuff.

SPEAKER_01

I think just on that point too, Ben, I think what a lot of people forget as well, as you said, right? Having that one throat to choke as far as a software vendor, but a lot of those vendors have also acquired a lot of those point solutions and bought them into their tech stack, right? Like NetSuite started out as an accounting and financials package and then went and acquired a PSA or a project management solution to tie that to their consulting side of things, right? And then you know, bolted in a CRM to that. So it's not necessarily all built on the same tech stack anyway. They've just acquired it, put the NetSuite label on the top of it, and then gone, okay, there it is. Now you've got your best in class one Swiss Army knife solution. Here you go. But a lot of the times that's you know, as I said, it's an 100%.

SPEAKER_03

And sometimes those acquisitions don't work, right? Like there's a very well-known software business that back in 2020 acquired a marketing automation platform with a view to sort of competing with HubSpot. And that acquisition went terribly because it was more difficult to integrate that acquisition into the CRM than they imagined. And it ended up being a worse experience rather than just using MailChimp along with the CRM, right? And so, yeah, like Kyle says, and NetSuite's done it, and so have a bunch of it, nearly everyone does it. It's like what we're talking about now, right? Zendest Cell. Zendes Cell was base CRM, and I think it started off as pipe jump or whatever it was called back in 15 years ago or something like that, right? And so even, and I think like when you think about it, what we're talking about, and the reason we're here on this podcast today, is because one of those acquisitions, Zendesk acquiring base CRM, renaming it Zendesk Cell, rolling it into the Zendes tech stack, didn't go as smoothly or as nicely as what everyone thought it would. And you end up with a little bit of a Frankenstein monster when it comes to how Zendesk Cell and Zendesk CRM they don't integrate any more smoothly than what Pipedrive and Zendesk helpdesk are going to. And so I think that this even the conversation we're having emphasizes the points that we're making.

SPEAKER_02

100%. I mean, Zendesk decided to go back to their kind of core business and remove the CRM component because they said, well, we don't want to focus on both, we want to do what we do best, which is you know the support and AI support and everything else. We we die digressed a little bit, coming a bit closer to the close. Um, so before we wrap up, a final question we ask every guest on the Moti Playbook. If a Zendesk cell user is listening to this right now and is trying to work out what to do next, what will be the one mindset shift that you would hope they take away from today's conversation? Kyle, let's start with you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think I I I sort of alluded to this earlier, but it's I think really just around documenting what those processes are internally, having a look at what is it that you need to replace, putting, you know, getting that down into writing and going, okay, what have we got either side of that as far as a process that we need to, you know, bring this into so it's not just becoming an isolated or a siloed process off the back of it. And that gives you the from there then the ability to go, okay, what do we need as a solution? What can we look at as a solution? What are the actual problems or gaps that we're trying to fill in or cover there? So I think it's really just about getting to getting to better know your internal processes, what the gaps are, speak to your people and find out from the people that are using it every day, what do you wish we could do that we can't currently do? What do you like about what we're currently doing, and what do you not like that you wish we might be able to replace or get rid of or even automate? And and I think that ties back to what we talked about quickly about AI before. I even talked about AI, but it's really around automating processes. So I think that that ties in very heavily with that. So know your internal processes, what are the gaps, and then from there you can have a better idea of what you can do to try and plug those gaps or those holes in.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. And that point there, Kyle, I think sometimes people confuse AI with automation, right? Like we're like we get asked nearly daily, oh, can you make AI do this for me? It's like, well, we can make it happen for you, but it's not really AI, right? This is just Zapia, which has been available for a long, long time now, or it's just an automation. And so I think people sometimes, when they don't have the depth of understanding of the technology landscape, um, they are at the moment mistaking AI or conflating AI and automation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And Ben, for for you, what would be the mindset shift that you would like the listeners to take away from today's conversation?

SPEAKER_03

For me, I think it's probably see this as an opportunity, right? Like if you're a Zendesk Cell customer, see this as an opportunity and don't be scared of diversity in your tech stack. I know that it might feel like you're going from using only Zendesk with your CRM and help desk to using the help desk and another platform. But as we've just spoken about, Zendesk Cell is just a rebadged-based CRM, which is a rebadged pipe jump, right? There's strength in diversity in tech stacks and there's flexibility for businesses in that diversity. And so look at it as an opportunity and don't be scared of diversity, would be the takeaways that I would hope that listeners might walk away with today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Very good. Look, from my perspective, I think as a business owner, I think the biggest mindset shift I would like people to take away is that, you know, CRM should not be seen as just another software. CRM should be seen as kind of the backbone of a growing business because a good CRM will provide visibility and allow businesses to really take informed decisions on how to grow and where to invest and potentially also where things may fall through the cracks. Kyle, Ben, thank you so much for your time today. To all our listeners, if you would like to learn more about the Zendeskell transition, please head over to our website moti.co slash playbook. Put together a helpful Zendesk Cell migration guide for you to download on that page. And in the final episode, so out of the three series, we'll walk through what a CRM migration uh will look like step by step. And so for this, we'll be joined by Moti's senior implementation specialists. So please make sure you subscribe so you won't miss the last episode. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you in the next one.

SPEAKER_00

That's it for another episode of the Modi Playbook. One shift, one system, one measurable improvement. All information shared in this podcast is general in nature. For tailored advice specific to your business, visit Modi.co slash playbook and book a momentum call with our team. See you next time.