Zendesk Support – Getting Started Quickly

A Modern Solution to Dynamic Customer Service Needs

Keeping up with an influx of calls, emails, chat messages, and web inquiries require your Agents to have resources that allow them to offer exemplary service. The Zendesk family of products, headlined by Zendesk Support, provides them that capability. Customer expectations and needs are changing. You need new tools to meet those demands

What is Zendesk Support?

Support should be a highly refined system that allows your organization to track, prioritize, and solve customer tickets. It only requires a little bit of planning and execution to go from zero to Zendesk in a flash. Then as long as your agents have an internet connection, you’ll be ready to go.

What are your Workflows?

To start with Zendesk, the first thing to consider isn’t anything to do with Zendesk, it’s to figure out what your workflows are. In essence, how do you interact with your customers? Do you take inquiries by email? Are you looking to build a Help Center with chat functionality? Do you have an escalation path for trouble tickets? Do you have specialized agents for different types of inquiries? Once you determine how you want your ticket process to flow, Zendesk can be configured to suit that process. You shouldn’t try to get too granular, you just want to establish general guidelines for how tickets need to be processed.

Channels

Channels are how your customers will interact with Zendesk. The two most basic are email and through a web form on Zendesk Guide (aka, the Help Center). Email to redirect an existing or new service email address can be easily configured, or you can use the free support email address Zendesk provides and be instantly ready to go. The webform in Zendesk Guide will reflect your Support Ticket form and gives you the ability to ensure the customer gives you some pertinent information to aid in serving their request. Guide comes with a default template called Copenhagen, but you can install a pre-designed template relatively quickly to have a more custom feel in the short term if you don’t have the immediate time to do a fully customized design. You can even integrate Support with social media, like Facebook or Twitter. Social Media integration can usually be fully realized in just a few hours.

Groups and Organizations

Groups are how you arrange your agents into teams, and Organizations are how you arrange your customers who have commonalities. Examples of Groups would be Billing, Tier 1 Support, Tier 2 Support, etc. These groups can then be used to route tickets to agents in an expeditious manner, to help ensure your customers get to the right person quickly. It’s easy to arrange groups and to place your agents into one or more, as well as move them between groups. Thinking about what your Groups are will probably take longer than setting them up! Similarly, if you have customers who belong to a large subset, you can create an Organization for them, allowing you to handle the Group’s tickets in a specific manner.

Ticket Fields and Forms

The information you need to keep track of for your customer interactions and how they are presented is reflected in your Ticket Fields and Ticket Forms. You can create a variety of ticket fields (drop-downs, text, date fields, checkboxes, etc.) to ensure you have the information you need in every ticket. Depending on your Zendesk package, there is even an option to create multiple forms to suit different needs. Zendesk comes with a preconfigured ticket form, and a few pertinent Custom Fields can be created and added to it quickly. Additional Forms (if the option is available) are also easy to set up.

Triggers and Automations

Triggers are a business rule that takes action on a ticket based on an event. For example, if a ticket comes into your Zendesk on your Credit and Collection departmental email address, a trigger can then assign that ticket to that Agent Group automatically. Or if an inquiry on a specific topic or Ticket Form always requires the same response, a Trigger can automatically send the information to the Requester and Solve the ticket without any Agent interaction being required. Similarly, Automations can make similar changes, only they are based on a timed event. For example, if a ticket has been in a Pending state waiting for a customer to reply, you can automatically set it to a Solved state after 14 days, so that it doesn’t clog up your workflow needlessly. Just a few Triggers and Automations can help your tickets flow as expeditiously as possible on their own, allowing your agents to focus on the actual interaction with the customer. Even better, you can launch with just a few basic Triggers and Automations, and grow the capability as you go. In fact, it’s possible to just utilize the delivered Triggers at first.

SLAs

Service Level Agreements are a way to utilize Zendesk to escalate delinquent tickets or highlight priority tickets based on time. When used in conjunction with Automations, SLA’s perform simple but vital tasks, such as raising Ticket Priority after a set number of hours. Even though not everyone may need an SLA, just one common SLA can make sure none of your tickets are left behind, with minimal setup.

Ticket Views

Ticket Views allow your agents to see a listing of tickets based on criteria that you configure. This allows them to see prioritized tickets, tickets that are unassigned, tickets assigned to them, etc. Properly thought out Ticket Views are quick to implement, but can greatly increase workflow efficiency by making the right tickets instantly visible at the right time. Agents can even create their own personal Ticket Views if they have unique needs.

Macros

Want to make sure your agents can respond quickly to inquiries? Macros are set responses your agents can utilize to enter pre-configured text and perform actions on a ticket. For example, you can have a macro with password reset instructions that also set the ticket to Solved in one step, allowing your agents to move quickly to the next ticket. You don’t need Macros to launch, but a few good ones can make a world of difference and only take a short time to set up. Even better, Agents can create their own personal Macros as they go.

Future Proof

Is this all that there is to do with Zendesk? Of course not! The beauty of Zendesk is that it’s always growing, just like your needs. But you can launch Zendesk quickly, with minimal extra configuration to get off the ground, and then optimize as you go. Zendesk will do its part to provide you more functionality and features, and we’ll do our part to make sure you can utilize them.