I’ve exploited their idiocy many times before to kill them, but exploiting them to help me?!? Pfft, ridiculous! Nevertheless, I have found some ways to exploit zombies for your benefit;
They break cars for me, giving me free scrap metal when I would otherwise have to lug around a huge sledgehammer or remove the parts which takes hours!
They fight other enemies (I’m looking at you moose) although sometimes the zombies are defeated. Win/win, as long as you remember to pulp them after the bait is killed.
Sometimes they step on traps that I would have otherwise stepped on.
I use them for training weapon skills. I kite them towards a secluded area, let them rise, kill them, let them rise, kill them, etc. At least until my weapon skills are powerful enough to pulp them in combat.
Hypothetically you could make a functional zombie army for yourself. Make a bunch of fast moving Zombie Slaves to act as a buffer between you and the actual hostile zombies, and then lead them to whatever you want killed.
My default strategy for getting rid of giant wasps, mi-goos and other things I don’t want to fight is to run through the middle of a hoard. (my favorite profession is skater girl so they can’t catch up right away and I can weave through the Zs with only a couple attacks sent my way) I do the reverse with zombies too, I lead them into a pack of coyotes or an NPC.