Zendesk opens Asia head office in Singapore

SINGAPORE — As e-commerce continues to grow in the Asia-Pacific region, so too are the efforts of online merchants. In a bid to gain an edge over the competition, online vendors are providing new ways to connect with their customers in real time through services such as online chats.

Seeking to capitalise on that, United States-based customer service software company Zendesk — which last year acquired Singapore live-chat start-up Zopim for US$29.8 million (S$40.2 million) — yesterday opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters on Commonwealth Drive.

With its new headquarters triple the size of Zopim’s previous office, both Zendesk and Zopim seek to double headcount to 80 by the end of this year, with jobs for engineers, developers and sales and marketing personnel. Zopim’s live chat development and operations will be based at the headquarters.

Live chat services on websites are getting increasingly popular with customers who seek real-time responses to questions about products or about problems with their orders. Big retailers such as Amazon, for instance, use a similar platform.

At the opening yesterday, Zendesk founder and chief executive Mikkel Svane said Zopim has “paved the way” for Zendesk to make Singapore a significant regional headquarters.

“Singapore is the perfect gateway to the entire Asia-Pacific region … It serves as the regional home to so many global companies and a hotbed of emerging local businesses and start-ups.”

Zopim, which offers both free and paid live customer support chat software, was started by four Singaporeans seven years ago while they were still in university. Its software is used by about 120,000 websites in 140 countries as of April last year.

Zendesk and Zopim count big local names among its 6,700 paid customers in the region. These include traditional Chinese medicine firm Eu Yan Sang and online fashion retailer Zalora.

Yesterday, Mr Svane and Zopim co-founder Royston Tay said the company is also looking to target the smaller but numerous online merchants in Singapore and the region.

“We have some very large customers … But there is a very long tail of small businesses, which is a big growth area. We understand the need of small businesses and our pricing will cater to this group,” said Mr Tay.

He said he sees the live chat function evolving to be included in other platforms such as mobile. He added they will aim to make it seamless with other customer engagement channels, such as social media and email.