Complete Zendesk Setup and Configuration Process

Setting up Zendesk is a straightforward process that requires some basic configuration. First, create a Zendesk account and choose a plan that suits your business needs.

To get started, you'll need to set up your account's basic information, including your company name, address, and phone number. This information will be visible to your customers, so make sure it's accurate.

Next, you'll need to set up your agents and their roles within the company. This will determine what features and permissions they have access to within the Zendesk interface.

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Before diving into the nitty-gritty of setting up Zendesk, it's essential to define access security and authentication for both staff members and customers. You can configure password security levels and authentication methods, including third-party authentication using Microsoft or Google, or single sign-on using various services.

To enable single sign-on, you'll need to complete tasks such as workflow planning, managing people, branding, user access and security, and other products. This will give you the flexibility to allow multiple authentication methods for each type of user.

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You can also configure social single sign-on, allowing customers to use their Facebook login credentials to access your Zendesk account as an end user. This can be a seamless experience for customers, but it's crucial to have a comprehensive access plan in place that meets your corporate standards.

To configure security settings, you can apply settings to ensure private information is protected. This includes setting password security levels for agents, admins, and end users, as well as configuring single sign-on (SSO) for a seamless login experience or multifactor authentication for extra security.

Some security settings are available on all Zendesk Support plans, including single sign-on solutions using JSON web token (JWT) and Secure Assertion Markup Language (SAML). You can also provide customers with the option to sign in using their Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and X (formerly Twitter) accounts.

To configure user settings, you can control how end users work with Zendesk, update their account profiles, and more. These settings determine how open or restricted your Zendesk account will be. You can make your Zendesk account available to anyone, require users to complete CAPTCHA image verification before submitting a ticket, or allow users to sign up online using a registration form.

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Here are some key user settings to consider:

To configure omnichannel routing, you can assign tickets generated from various channels to the agents most available to work on them. This can be based on agent status and capacity, as well as priority. However, some features, such as priority-based routing and custom agent statuses, are only available on Professional and Enterprise plans.

Before creating SLA policies, you should complete tasks such as workflow planning, managing people, branding, user access and security, and other products. You should also consider skills-based routing, triggers, and automations.

Before activating your help center, you should prepare it for release by planning how you will build and launch it, adjusting the look and feel, testing it, setting the display name, ensuring the default language is properly set, adding content, and setting up support for multiple languages.

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User management is a crucial aspect of setting up Zendesk, and it's essential to define roles and permissions to control what users can and cannot do. Each user can have only one role, and roles define the actions users can take, such as updating tickets or editing user profiles.

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You can create custom roles with unique permissions and visibility, but it's recommended to avoid creating roles for individual users. Instead, you can assign users to predefined roles, which are available on all Zendesk Support plans. For example, in Support Professional, the predefined roles include End users, Agents, and Administrators.

To maintain account control, it's recommended to limit the number of users with Admin permissions to no more than 5. You can also add custom user fields to user profiles to store additional details about your customers, which can be useful for creating triggers, automations, and reporting.

Here are the predefined roles in Support Professional:

Configure User Settings is a crucial step in setting up your Zendesk account. You can make your Zendesk account available to anyone by selecting the "Anybody can submit tickets" setting.

To control user access and sign-in, you can require users to complete CAPTCHA image verification before submitting a ticket. This setting is enabled by default, but you can disable it if you prefer. You can also allow users to sign up online using a registration form for self-serve situations.

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User tagging is another important feature in user settings. You can enable user tagging to add tags to a user's profile, which are then added to the user's tickets. This allows you to control your workflow and escalate specific user tickets.

To manage end user settings, you can configure end user access and sign-in, and make sure you have a comprehensive access plan in place that meets your corporate standards.

Here are some key settings to consider:

By configuring these settings, you can ensure that your Zendesk account is secure and easy to use for both agents and end users.

Tickets are synced into Planhat if they can be mapped to End Users, via their email address (e.g. [email protected]).

To sync tickets to customers, Planhat looks for the End User's email address, which must match the email domain of the Company.

Planhat can automatically create the End User on that Company if it doesn't yet exist, but this setting can be configured per tenant under "Automatic Detection of New Contacts" within "General Settings".

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If the End User already exists in your Planhat tenant, then the ticket will be synced in and mapped to them.

You can view your current setting under "Automatic Detection of New Contacts" within "General Settings"; speak to your CSM if you would like to enable or disable this.

Here's how Planhat maps tickets to customers:

* Specific information displayed only.

Organizations in Zendesk are meaningful collections of end-users, allowing you to group users from the same company or department.

You can use organizations to add important information to tickets for routing or reporting, and to report on which customers are creating the most tickets.

Organizations are typically used to create collections of end-users, whereas Groups are used to create collections of agents.

To create organizations, you should complete workflow planning for your account and agent groups before you start creating organizations.

You can use organizations to separate users by product type or brand, or to route tickets based on user organizations to make sure customers who speak a specific language are served by agents who speak the same language.

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You can be as specific as you need when creating organizations, such as having a separate organization for VIP customers in France who have questions about your telecommunications products.

Some examples of organizations include:

Organizations can also be bulk imported from a CSV file, and you can use apps available in the Zendesk Apps Marketplace to sync your organizations with your CRM to keep them up-to-date.

It's a good idea to complete workflow planning for your account and define user groups before you start creating organizations.

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Customization and integration are key aspects of setting up Zendesk. You can add custom user fields to store additional details about your customers, such as SMS numbers, business license numbers, or driver's license numbers.

Custom user fields can be added early in the launch process to create triggers, automations, macros, and reporting. This feature is available on all Zendesk Support plans, and it's essential to complete workflow planning before creating custom user fields.

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You can also integrate external apps and services, such as Salesforce, JIRA, or Slack, to manage user data and ticket flows across applications. This can save time by presenting agents with ticket tools and features based on specific workflows.

Here are some popular integrations:

You can add custom user fields to store additional details about your customers. Agents can view and edit custom user fields as part of the user’s profile that appears in tickets.

Custom user fields apply to all users, so it's essential to plan carefully before importing them into Support. Examine your existing customer records to determine which fields you need to add.

An airline might include SMS numbers in user profiles to contact customers about flight changes or weather issues. A real estate agency might include business license numbers, and a car rental company might include driver’s license numbers.

Use a custom field to identify your VIP customers and enhance their customer experience. This can be a valuable way to recognize and reward your most loyal customers.

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To add custom user fields, complete workflow planning for your account and define user groups, branding, and support addresses. This will ensure a smooth transition when you start creating custom user fields.

Here are some examples of custom user fields:

Remember to add your custom user fields early in your launch process to create triggers, automations, macros, and reporting based on user fields.

You can customize the email notifications sent to customers to give your account a recognizable corporate identity.

You can edit the HTML template to match your branding by making a few simple style changes, and also edit the information in the text versions of your emails.

There are already some default triggers for email notifications set up in your account, which you can edit to customize the text in a specific email notification.

You need to complete workflow planning, manage people and branding tasks, and set up security and user settings before you start customizing email notifications.

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The email template includes a {{content}} placeholder that displays the email content, which can include ticket comments and user profile photos.

You can change the HTML email template to include your company logo, font type, and font colors.

Keep your customization as simple as possible, as designing HTML emails can be challenging due to the way HTML and CSS are rendered in different web browsers and email clients.

Certain types of formatting can trigger spam filters.

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Adding third-party integrations can be a game-changer for your business, allowing you to connect with customers across multiple channels and platforms.

With Zendesk, you can integrate with popular third-party applications like Salesforce, JIRA, and Slack, enabling you to manage user data and ticket flows across applications.

To get started, you'll need administrator permission in both Zendesk and the third-party application to configure the integration. This feature is available on all Zendesk Support plans.

Some popular integrations include Slack for Zendesk Support, which allows ticket submissions and status changes to appear as notifications in specified Slack channels, and the ZIRA field syncing feature, which enables near real-time syncing of data between Zendesk Support and JIRA.

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Here are some key benefits of integrating third-party applications:

Before adding integrations, make sure you understand how you want to transfer and maintain data between Zendesk and other third-party applications. This will help ensure a seamless integration and minimize any potential issues.

By integrating third-party applications, you can streamline your workflows, improve customer satisfaction, and ultimately drive business growth.

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Automated Responses for Non-Business Hours are a must-have for businesses that don't offer 24/7 support service. You can set business hours for different support channels, such as email messaging, and send automated responses to customers who contact you during non-business hours.

For instance, if a customer drops an email during non-business hours, they can receive a notification saying that an agent will get in touch with them within a few hours. In the meantime, they can check out the self-service portal, where they can find relevant articles and guides.

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You can also use automated triggers to notify customers about their agents' availability status. This can be done through a simple email reply, which can be set up for all channels.

To get started, you'll need to create an automation that sends a response to customers during non-business hours. This can be done using a trigger that fires every time a customer contacts you during non-business hours.

Here are some key things to keep in mind when setting up Automated Responses for Non-Business Hours:

Routing and automation are crucial components of a well-oiled Zendesk setup. To ensure tickets are assigned to the right agents, you can use omnichannel routing, which considers agent availability and capacity. This feature is available on all plans, but some features like priority-based routing are only available on Professional and Enterprise plans.

Omnichannel routing doesn't consider skills, so you can use skills-based routing to pair tickets with the right agents. Skills are characteristics you assign to an agent, such as languages or technical expertise. By defining a set of skills and assigning them to agents, tickets are routed to the right agents based on their set of skills.

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To automate tasks, you can create automations that perform actions based on time elapsed. Automations only run a maximum of once per hour, making it difficult to rely on them for high-priority updates. You can also use triggers to create event-based business rules that fire every time a ticket is created or updated.

Configuring omnichannel routing is a crucial step in managing your support team's workload. This setup allows tickets from various channels, such as email, web form, API, messaging conversations, and calls, to be assigned to the agents most available to work on them.

Omnichannel routing is available on all plans, but some features, like priority-based routing and custom agent statuses, are only available on Professional and Enterprise plans. Agent Workspace must be activated for your account, and live chat must be disabled.

To get started, you'll need to investigate, strategize, and plan how to set up omnichannel routing. This involves figuring out what capacity rules you need, what custom unified agent statuses you need, and how the omnichannel routing configuration replaces existing rules.

You can use Zendesk's default capacity rules and unified agent statuses as a starting point, and then adjust based on your observations.

Here's a summary of the key steps to consider when setting up omnichannel routing:

Before creating SLA policies, make sure to complete the following tasks: workflow planning, managing people, branding, user access and security, and other products. Also, skills-based routing (if applicable), triggers, and automations should be set up.

Automations are a powerful tool in Zendesk Support that allow you to automate repetitive tasks and improve efficiency. They're event-based business rules that can fire every time a ticket is created or updated.

You can create automations that change solved tickets to closed after four days, or automatically send customers a reminder if they haven't replied to a request for feedback after a certain amount of time. This can help streamline your workflow and reduce the workload on your agents.

Automations can also be used to escalate the priority level and notify a manager if a ticket hasn't been answered in a timely manner. They're available on all Zendesk Support plans and can be tested on a small scale before making them live.

To create effective automations, consider using greater than/less than conditions instead of is conditions when creating time-based automations. This eliminates the possibility that a ticket is skipped because your automations didn't run during the hour the ticket qualifies.

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when creating and managing automations:

Your help center is a crucial part of your customer support experience, and it's easy to set up in Zendesk. To enable your help center, click the Zendesk Products icon in the top bar, then select Knowledge.

You can customize the theme and add content while your help center is in setup mode. This gives you a chance to make it look just how you want before you activate it.

In Zendesk, a collection of customer contact points is referred to as a brand. You can have from 5 to 300 different brands, depending on your plan, and use them to provide different support experiences for B2C and B2B customers.

To add support addresses, you can use Zendesk email addresses or connect your existing external email address. Consider the customer experience when configuring support email addresses, as the address alone can communicate the type of service provided.

Zendesk supports various third-party communication channels, including social media, live chat, email, and phone. You can add multiple support channels and invite customers to raise their concerns through any of them.

Here are some of the support channels Zendesk supports:

These tickets are gathered in one place with the support channel mentioned below the ticket title, allowing your agents to view, manage, and track each ticket without switching between different support channels.

You can apply security settings in Zendesk to protect your private information and configure custom sign-in settings for customers. Security settings are available on all Zendesk Support plans.

You can set password security levels for agents, admins, and end users. If desired, you can also configure single sign-on (SSO) for a seamless login experience or multifactor authentication for extra security.

Native Zendesk authentication is sufficient to maintain security, but for advanced security, consider using third-party authentication systems like Microsoft and Google.

You can manage authentication through the Team Member Authentication section and set up authentication for end-users as well. This will require each customer to sign in and verify their profile before they can access your support tools.

Zendesk user authentication is enabled by default, but you can also choose third-party authentication using Microsoft or Google, or single-sign on using a number of different services.

You can define your password security level and authentication method for staff members and customers. For customers, you can also allow them to sign in using their X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook accounts.

Here are some authentication options:

Enterprise single sign-on allows you to bypass Zendesk and let users authenticate externally by signing into a corporate server or a third-party identity provider.

You can integrate external apps and services into your Zendesk account to manage user data and ticket flows across applications. This includes popular services like Salesforce, JIRA, and Slack.

To save time, consider integrating applications that agents usually access in other browser windows. This can help streamline your workflow and improve business processes.

You can add 3rd-party integrations to your Zendesk account, which enables you to manage user data and ticket flows across applications. This feature is available on all Zendesk Support plans.

Here are some examples of integrations available:

Data mapping is also possible, where you can plan out how data will be synced between applications. For example, you can sync conversation data from Zendesk to Planhat, or company and end user data from Planhat to Zendesk.

Data mapping is a crucial step in syncing your Zendesk data with Planhat. It's done through the Planhat model, which maps specific data from Zendesk to Planhat.

Here's a table summarizing the data mapping process:

* Specific information displayed only. This means that not all data from Zendesk is synced to Planhat, but rather specific information that's relevant to your needs.

Tickets are synced into Planhat if they can be mapped to End Users, via their email address. This is done by matching the email domain to an existing Company in your Planhat tenant.

Syncing new and updated tickets is a seamless process with Zendesk's integration features. Tickets created or updated in Zendesk will automatically sync into Planhat in near real-time.

To ensure this happens, it's essential to associate tickets with an End User via their email address. This is described in the data mapping section, where it's mentioned that the "Company and End User *" information is synced from Planhat to Zendesk.

This automatic syncing process saves time and effort for your agents, allowing them to focus on what matters most – resolving customer issues. With Zendesk's integration, you can have all your ticket information in one place, making it easier to manage and track each ticket.

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The syncing process is ongoing, so new and updated tickets will be synced into Planhat as soon as they're created or updated in Zendesk. This ensures that your data is always up-to-date and accurate.

Here's a summary of the syncing process:

By understanding how Zendesk's integration features work, you can streamline your workflow and provide better customer service.

In Zendesk setup, general settings play a crucial role in determining how your account will function. You can make your Zendesk account available to anyone by selecting the Anybody can submit tickets setting.

To ensure security, you can require users to complete CAPTCHA image verification before submitting a ticket. This setting is enabled by default, so you don't need to do anything extra.

You can also configure your account to allow users to sign up online using a registration form, ideal for self-serve situations.

User tagging is another feature you can enable, which allows you to add tags to a user's profile. These tags are then added to the user's tickets, which you can use to control your workflow.

Here are some key aspects of user settings to keep in mind: