🚀 Setting Up Zendesk: A Step-by-Step Guide for Small Teams
Are you a small team looking to set up Zendesk quickly and efficiently? Look no further! In this guide, we'll walk you through the process in just 15 steps. But before we dive in, it's important to note that doing your homework beforehand is crucial. In fact, setting up Zendesk can be divided into two parts: doing your due diligence and the actual setup. So, let's get started!
📝 Part 1: Doing Your Due Diligence
1. Define your business requirements: Think about what you want your company to look like in the next 12 to 24 months. Start outlining why you think you need Zendesk. The number one question you have to start with in mind is why? Why do I need this? And then you start unfolding with the rest of everything else.
2. Define use cases: Think about what processes you want to run through Zendesk. Because it's going to be customer-facing, is this going to be internal? Is that going to help you understand exactly what you need to set up and use on this?
3. Define the department: Who's going to be involved? Give it a name, for example, "New User Account." Who is going to take part in this use case? There's going to be an end-user or your customer. Is it going to be an agent? Is it going to be an admin? Is it going to be a light agent?
4. Define it by channel: The email channel and start defining from the moment it comes in until you get it solved. This will help you break down into features the whole of the Zendesk setup. To find the channel that you're going to offer support for, is it going to be email, chat, phone, social media, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Line, or anything else?
5. Collect the necessary information: You need to be organized. You need to have a summary statement, the project's called goals and objectives, need statements, project requirements, stakeholders, strengths, weaknesses, analysis, and of course, if there are any limitations and a schedule and a deadline.
🛠️ Part 2: The Actual Setup
6. Create a group for each of the teams that are going to be working in Zendesk. Go to the admin center, go to people groups. I have a support default group, and I like that because this is for general support. I'm going to create an order group, order inquiries. I'm going to make Dominic a part of it, then I'm going to create tech support, Dominic, and Gabri in this, and I'm done with my groups.
7. Create a view for each of these teams. You're in the admin center, you go to workspaces, views, add a view, call it order inquiry visibility for any agents. Conditions: ticket status less than solve because this is what I want to see, and then I want to say group is order inquiries. I format what I want to see, and I'm going to add a column card SLA put it right here, save. Now I can see it in my views if I refresh, and it's right here.
8. Create a custom field and call it type of request. All the requests that come into the system have to be flagged of what they are: order, technical, general support, billing inquiry, etc. Go to admin center, objects and rules, fields, add a field. It's going to be a drop-down type request customers can edit as well. Titles show to customers same type of request. Order, tick, billing, general, other. Make sure you create the tags as well, save.
9. Add the company's most frequent request types as values in the type of request field that we just created. It's an admin center, go to type of request, and these are my field values along with tags, which will be added to each ticket whenever this is selected, save.
10. Build a trigger for each type of request that automatically assigns prioritizes and categorizes requests. Go to admin center, objects and rules, triggers, add trigger, give it a name, assign order inquiries to order group, give it a name that is going to be easy to identify for whoever looks at this list of triggers, category notifications, conditions. All of these conditions have to be met: ticket is created, any condition subject line contains at least one of these following words: order and inquiry, comment text contains at least one of the following words: order and inquiry. Now the action is going to be group is going to be order inquiries, priority is going to be high because I want my team to be alert whenever an order inquiry comes in, and then I want to say type of request is order. Quick recap: give it a name which is easy to follow, assign order inquiries to order group, makes sense, all of the conditions that have to be met, ticket is created, that's the only one, if any of these are true, then it's going to be appropriate. Subjects text contains at least one of the words order or inquiry, common text contains at least one of the following order inquiry, subject text contains the following string order inquiry, meaning the whole thing, come text contains the following string order inquiry, same thing if a request contains order inquiry, then it falls under this category. My actions are going to be group order inquiries, priority is high, type of request order, create and repeat for the other types of requests.
11. Set up your schedule to reflect the time when you are in the office. Go to admin center, go to objects and rules, scroll down to schedules, add a schedule. I am going to take Berlin as my default time zone, Central Europe time zone. I am going to have it from nine to five, very good. I'm going to define my holidays at a holiday Christmas start date. It's going to be from Friday until the 26th, confirm, add all your holidays, and you're done, save.
12. Build a trigger for holiday season out of office or just not in the office today. Go to admin center, objects and rules, triggers, add trigger, out of office trigger, give it a category, meet all of these conditions: ticket is created, within business hour is no, current user is end-user, meaning that whoever sends this request to you, make sure that they are an end-user or a customer, privacy ticket is has public comments, on holiday is no. Now actions, email user requester nccs, subject line, we are out of office, email body, high ticket requester first name, thank you for your inquiry, we are out of office, but we will be back when will you be back, go ahead and add that, thank you, great.
13. Create an automation to remind users to reply to pending tickets. Pending status in Zendesk means that you are waiting for a reply from your customers to get back to you with additional information so you can help them solve the request. It is good practice to change them to remind them that they have a support request and you need more information from them. Go to admin center, objects and rules, automations, add automation, give it a very intuitive name, chase customers and pending states. Now meet all of these conditions: hours since pending, calendar hours or business hours if you've set up your schedule, it's definitely business hours, greater than I need it for three days, which means that three days eight hours of working day that means 24 hours, ticket privacy ticket has public comments, and now perform these actions, email user requester nccs, reminder to please get back to us with customer case ticket title, dear ticket requester name, you have a support case open with us, and then ticket ID, and we'd like to know if you still need help, please reply to this email if you still do, kindly, and that's it. In the meantime, set the ticket to solve. If they really need help, they'll go back to you, and you can follow up with them. Otherwise, it might be that sometimes requests actually solve themselves, and customers forget about them. Datis is solved. You have to add a nullifying condition tag is contains none of the following tags Chase three days, and then we add a tag and say add tag Chase three days, create automation.
14. Enable the web widget and add it to your website. Go to admin center, channels, messaging. I have my widget already created. I give it a name, next install it to my website. I need to copy this and install it in the header of my website, copied. You don't need to send this necessarily to a developer. You can do it yourself. Next, customize it with the colors you want, save, paste the code, save it. This is what it looks like. It's actually ready to go. Set it out, very nice.
15. Update global signature for your agents. You want to improve your customer experience by giving it a personal touch. You want your customers to know that they're in touch with a human that actually caters to their needs. Go to admin center, accounts, brands, get started, my brand, close all this up, make sure you have agent signature here with this placeholder, save it. Now go to each agent's profile, go to signature, write their name and their position, tech support specialist, and there you go. Now you go to a ticket, you reply, "Hey there, thanks for getting in touch with this impending." Go to the tickets and see the signature up here automatically.
16. Add companies staff hours to your schedule. You need this in order to set the right expectations for your customers to make sure that they are in the loop to when you will get back to them with their requests. It is very good customer experience best practice to let your customers know when you are available to get in touch with them. Go to admin center, go to objects and rules, scroll below to schedules, add schedule, choose Berlin, give it a name, Central Europe schedule, put all the days when you're available, include the holidays at holiday Christmas time from the 23rd until the 26th, confirm, nine to five, save, and you're done.
17. Build an SLA policy for first reply time and ticket resolution time. SLA or service level agreement is your commitment to your customers that you will get back to them within a certain period of time. This ensures that you get back to your customers in a timely manner and none of the tickets slip through. This will increase your productivity and make sure your tickets are properly categorized and prioritized. Go to admin center, go to objects and rules, then go to service level agreements, add policy, even a name, order inquiries, apply this policy to only the group is order inquiries, first reply time, let's say urgent, we give it two hours, then a high, four hours, normal, eight hours, low, let's say 12 hours, requester wait time, this is the resolution, and then we do four hours, eight hours, 16 hours, and 24 hours. Hours of operation, if we've set up a schedule, then we need to make this business hours, save, and you're done.
18. Enable customer satisfaction survey on all tickets. This ensures that you collect feedback for all the customer service requests that come into the system. You need this in order to make sure that you better your products or your services and you get a very good insight into what exactly you can fix in your company. It is customer experience best practice that you collect customer satisfaction survey or all the customer requests that come into the system. Why is this? It's because it's a direct link into how you can better your product or your services. Go to admin center, go to people, end-users, go to satisfaction, allow your customers to rate tickets, ask for follow-up questions after a bad rating to make sure that you understand why it was a bad rating, leave reasons and use the ones that are default and change them afterwards, save tab, and that's it. Now you go to objects and rules, automations, and the system has created this notification for you which you can activate now. Customer is requested a customer satisfaction rating. This is a system automation created in order to ask your customers what their experience was like. Go in here, change the verb, you save it, and you're done.
🎉 Conclusion
And there you have it! By following these 15 steps, you can set up Zendesk quickly and efficiently. Doing your due diligence beforehand is crucial, but once you have that information, the actual setup is a breeze. Remember to enable the web widget, update your global signature, and enable customer satisfaction surveys on all tickets. By doing so, you'll be well on your way to providing excellent customer service.
🤔 FAQ
Q: What is Zendesk?
A: Zendesk is a customer service software that helps businesses manage customer inquiries and support requests.
Q: Is Zendesk only for large teams?
A: No, Zendesk can be used by small teams as well.
Q: Can I customize Zendesk to fit my business needs?
A: Yes, Zendesk is highly customizable and can be tailored to fit your business needs.
Q: Is Zendesk easy to set up?
A: Yes, with the right guidance, setting up Zendesk can be quick and easy.
Q: Can I integrate Zendesk with other software?
A: Yes, Zendesk can be integrated with other software to streamline your customer service processes.
🌐 Resources
- [Zendesk](https://www.zendesk.com/)
- [Zendesk Onboarding Course](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM1v95K5B1ntVsYvNJIxgRPppngrO_X4s)
- [Zendesk Setup Checklist](https://www.zendesk.com/blog/zendesk-setup-checklist/)
And don't forget to check out [VOC AI's AI Chatbot](https://www.voc.ai/product/ai-chatbot) to reduce large amounts of work on customer services.
