UPDATED 09:42 EST / JANUARY 31 2012

How Analytics is Done in the Cloud Industry: Totango, Zendesk Case Study

Today a startup called Totango launched its analytics service into general availability. The offering, which starts at $600/month, was developed to cater to SaaS companies that want to drive user-engagement, and consequently sales, up by better addressing their users’ demands.  So far the company says they’ve served over one million SaaS providers and end users.

One of their clients is Zendesk, a provider of cloud-based CS that’s used by consumer-facing enterprises such as Sony.   They’ve released a case study that outlines the improvement the help desk service has seen after using Totango, along with some statistics.

“The number of tickets submitted during the trial increased by 100% and the number of people invited to participate in the trial by 35%”, said Zack Urlocker, COO for Zendesk in this video. “If you are a SaaS business you should use Totango because there is no way, short of spending hundreds of hours of programming, that you can get this level of introspection any other way.”

Zendesk found that three quarters of the users who stuck around by day three of their trial run were more likely to become paying customers, and the same goes for 70 percent of those who’ve been contacted by a sales rep.

The report also sheds some light on the connection between usage trends and cancellation rates. Half of Zendesk’s customers used the service less than once each month, and most of the cancelation following long period without any activity.

Both these companies have big plans for the future. While Totango is gaining new customers, Zendesk is reshaping itself to cater to the enterprise. The most recent push was the addition of an organization-wide plan that replaces the per-seat billing model used in others.

Totango Intro Clip from Totango on Vimeo.


Since you’re here …

… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.

If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.