Next up in our Client Spotlight series is Brad Scruggs, co-founder of Zyra Talk. Five years ago Brad founded Zyra Talk with two partners, and things have been growing nonstop since. It began as an internal tool for a previous company and was so effective at increasing ROI through quality lead generation that they knew they had to pivot. I was excited to sit down with Brad and take a look at what Zyra Talk has to offer small businesses looking to supercharge their customer service and lead acquisition...
Watch the Interview Here...
While the product may have started as a chatbot, it’s not positioned as a mere chatbot due to it going above and beyond. The term “omni-channel” barely covers how extensive the potential integrations are with Zyra Talk! In addition to integration with seamless Facebook Messenger business pages and WhatsApp, it can text and call as well as hook up with other third party integrations via Webhooks or Zapier. The texting functionality is nifty because they can either convert a landline into a text capable VOIP number or, as some larger clients do, use a whole new number just for Zyra Talk
The front end user experience is slick and unobtrusive, and the adaptive, human-guided AI learns continually as the app interacts with customers. It can even directly capture Google (or other) reviews, which is pretty huge for local companies. Not only offering a friction-free way for users to leave reviews, but crucially including a Google compliant way to turn negative reviews into a more positive experience. The benefit of having them use Zyra Talk to leave reviews is there’s at least a chance of making a ‘customer save’ which makes a big difference to the average customer rating over time.
Before we moved on to the back end I wanted to ask Brad one last question about what differentiates Zyra Talk on the front end from its many competitors (Drift, Intercom). Brad appreciated the question and said it ultimately boils down to Zyra Talk being a true omni-channel solution with a laser focus on local companies. Zyra Talk works with thousands of companies in home services, legal, dental, medical, and anything from florists to hot air balloon guides! Intercom and other companies are more tech-and-enterprise focused and it shows in their product experience. Giving the end user an amazing experience helps capture leads more quickly, but what do things look like as far as setup, and on the back end?
As far as initial setup, it’s easy enough to do unassisted, but nonetheless Zyra Talk will guide new customers through the process; they won’t leave you hanging. Brad gave me a tour of the backend interface and I was very impressed with the clear user interface, ease of use, and extensibility. They offer integrations with multiple CRMs (Salesforce, Infusionsoft, SugarCRM), tag managers (Google Tag Manager, UTM tracking, Tag manager), and the one integration to rule them all: Zapier. I love seeing Zapier included on an integration page because I know it means any integration functionality not present in the app can be added with relative ease. A great feature to have!
In the reports section, Brad showed that chat completion rates are a critical KPI that they track-- how many chats that are initiated that actually finish all the way through. Across their customer base, Zyra Talk sees higher than average rates of chat completion compared to live chat, which leads to better lead capture and, ultimately, more conversions [aka sweet, sweet revenue 🤑]. In addition to having a higher rate of completed chats, the interface also offers the ability to filter by incomplete chats, and potentially turn a ‘missed’ lead into an active one by following up. Nice! In addition to the default reports, they also include an “export to CSV” option, which opens up the power and lets you craft whatever reports you might need.
Brad shared his pricing philosophy and the way that Zyra Talk does things is typically per-location rather than per-user, which I love. In some cases (i.e. a single large location) they might use volume pricing, but for the most part the ease of per-location pricing ensures broad adoption and use for a tool that, when used, pours gas on sales and provides massive returns. Brad is proud to have to have many glowing case studies, with one client even seeing a whopping 33.4% increase in online revenue after deploying Zyra Talk!
I wondered how they approach less tech savvy clients (as, let’s face it, not every HVAC tech or florist is a computer wiz) and, of course, Brad had an answer for that. On almost every page in the client dashboard there are videos on how to get going. The overall ease of use combined with relevant help on every page make it an application that is perfect for enhancing productivity in even the least tech-savvy small business.
If you’re interested in giving Zyra Talk a try, check out their webpage and schedule a demo today!