Integrations
Zendesk
How your agents open, update and read Zendesk tickets, so work that needs your team arrives in your service desk with the full context.
On this page
When a conversation produces work for your team, the agent opens a ticket in Zendesk with everything it has established: who the customer is, what they asked for, what was checked and what is still outstanding. Your team picks it up in the service desk it already uses, with nothing to re-key. When the customer comes back to ask how things are going, the agent reads the ticket and answers on whichever channel they use.
What the connection lets the agent do
| Action | What it means for you | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Create a ticket with full context | Requests that need your team arrive complete, with the summary, customer details and the conversation attached | A guest reports a broken air conditioner at midnight. The ticket reaches maintenance with the room number and when the fault started |
| Add information to an open ticket | Details from a later conversation join the ticket already open, rather than starting a new one | A buyer sends photos of a cracked tile on WhatsApp the next morning, and they are added to the open ticket |
| Update the ticket status | The ticket reflects what happened in the conversation, where your team has granted this | The agent sets a ticket to pending after asking the customer for a missing document |
| Read the ticket status | Customers hear how their request is progressing without waiting for a person | "Your request was assigned to the maintenance team this morning and is open" |
The agent finds the right ticket by matching the customer to their record and the ticket reference. Ticket details are shared with a customer only after the identity check set for your deployment.
How it connects
The agent connects through Zendesk's standard API (application programming interface: the documented way other software exchanges data with it), using a dedicated integration account that your Zendesk administrators create and control. It authenticates with a method your administrators choose from those Zendesk supports. The credentials are stored encrypted in your deployment, and every call travels over TLS (Transport Layer Security, the standard encryption for data in transit) version 1.2 or higher.
The connection runs from your deployment in your chosen region to your own Zendesk account. Which ticket forms, fields, groups and tags the agent fills in is mapped with your team during implementation, so tickets arrive in the queues your team already works. See How a system gets connected.
Permissions
| Permission | Needed for | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Read tickets | Answering customers about progress | Granted for the ticket forms you choose |
| Create tickets | Passing requests to your team with full context | Granted for the forms and groups you choose |
| Add comments to tickets | Adding information from later conversations | Granted as an internal note, unless you choose otherwise |
| Change ticket status | Keeping status in step with the conversation | Only if you grant it, for the statuses you name |
| Delete tickets | Not needed | Not requested |
The agent can only take actions your team has granted. Anything not granted cannot be invoked. Every ticket the agent reads, creates or changes is logged in the audit trail with the conversation it served. See Permissions.
In practice
Qamar Stays, a hotel group, uses Zendesk for guest services.
- Layla messages the hotel on WhatsApp after checking out: she left a laptop charger in her room.
- The agent confirms her booking and opens a Zendesk ticket for housekeeping with the room number, her stay dates, a description of the item and her preferred contact channel.
- Housekeeping finds the charger, takes it to the front desk and notes this on the ticket.
- The next day, Layla asks where things stand. The agent reads the ticket and tells her the charger is waiting at the front desk, and how to collect it.
What your team controls
- Which requests become a ticket, and which go straight to a person.
- The ticket forms, groups and fields the agent uses.
- Which statuses, if any, the agent can set.
Related
- Service desk and ticketingIntegrations
- How integrations workIntegrations
- PermissionsIntegrations
- Handover to your teamAgents
- Issues and threadingCustomer record
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