Sales and support teams aren’t meant to be in silos—both have too much important information on the customer to keep them apart. Sales teams provide crucial context into who their customers are and what they want, and support has critical insights into how expectations are being met.

If long-term predictions about artificial intelligence bear out, the way we work will soon be upended in ways not seen since the Industrial Revolution—but in the meantime, AI is already helping humans work better and smarter. And in customer service, AI stands to help support teams emphasize that most human of skills, empathy—a trait that no software program can match (well, at least until the singularity).

You know the value of helpdesk software, but it all comes down to allocating budget for your team. You’ll have to convince your boss to invest in a helpdesk software—or even better, show them how a helpdesk software can enable your support team to achieve more return on investment (ROI). We’ll show you how a helpdesk brings unique value to your support team, with lots of evidence to back it up. Your boss will be wondering why you haven’t invested in a helpdesk already.

The entire reason you created a business in the first place was probably to help a customer meet a need or solve a problem. Chances are, you designed your products and services for the same reason. 2You should operate in the same way. But most brands have lost sight of what’s truly important: the customer. If you don’t put your customer’s needs and issues above all else, you’ll have to deal with the consequences. And they’re not so sweet.

If you’re a sales professional, you’re likely sick and tired of external prospecting. Whether you’re soliciting in person or making outbound calls, it’s one of the most frustrating and time-consuming parts of the process. That’s why, when you receive an inbound call for information from a prospect, it’s a joyous occasion. One common mistake a lot of sales professionals make is assuming that an inbound call is a slam dunk can’t-miss sale. This is not the case.

Customer support can be a challenge. Especially in the B2B (business-to-business) industry, the quick decisions your support team makes can have a profound impact on a customer relationship. Whether or not they make the right decision on the phone can be the difference between calming an upset customer or making them even more angry. One method businesses are utilizing to improve the number of positive customer interactions that happen every day is to leverage customer support systems.

What do we call a “call center” today? Is it really a call center anymore or is it a vital part of the customer journey? Today, more than ever we have more ways to communicate with family, friends, and companies we do business with. Gone are the days of picking up the phone, waiting on hold listening to elevator music (some of it was okay), and being transferred 10 times to get something done. We demanded change as technology afforded us more options to get things done.

We released Zulip Server 2.0.4 today. This is a bug fix release, containing a dozen cherry-picked changes since Zulip 2.0.3.