Zendesk venture into outcome-based pricing

Should AI influence your pricing strategy?

Zendesk certainly think so. Starting now, Zendesk customers only pay for live chat interactions completely solved by their AI (aka no human involved).

This is a fresh take on reaping the benefits of AI and, instead of using AI to get more efficient & sneakily increase margins, siding with the customer to benefit together.

How quaint.

Outcome-based pricing is nothing new. Been around since the 1980s, very common in consulting, SaaS businesses (e.g. HubSpot charge you per leads in your CRM), and, of course, advertising (cost-per-lead).

Here's a fancy chart from Deloitte to prove it.

Did you read that? Neither did I.

So why is Zendesk's decision a big deal? Well, because it's kind of new in the CX industry.

Until now, incentives between CX tools and their customers weren't exactly aligned. Pricing on resolutions wasn't possible. CX tools don't have control over the performance of their customers' agents.

Now, with AI, CX tools can impact the actual process their customers are trying to solve. If Zendesk create an excellent chatbot that solves their customers' problems, boom shakalaka. Money saved. End-goal reached.

We can expect Zendesk's competitors will take a similar approach -- or risk being left behind.

Zendesk is projected to hit $2.65 billion in revenue in 2024.