If you’re using Zendesk to manage customer support, you know that it can get pretty busy. With lots of tickets coming in and the clock ticking, it’s important to make sure you optimize Zendesk workflows to save time and keep customer service running smoothly. That way, your agents can respond quickly and efficiently; keeping customers happy with a speedy resolution.

In this blog post, we’ll explore some tips and best practices for optimizing your Zendesk workflows to handle high ticket volumes. We’ll cover everything from assessing your current workflow, setting up triggers and automation on your Zendesk account to introducing Knots and its relation to Zendesk. By following our tips, you’ll be able to handle high ticket volumes with ease and provide better support to your customers.

How to assess your current Zendesk workflows and choose the right automation?

Before you jump into optimizing your Zendesk workflows, assess and analyze your current customer support processes – it’s the perfect opportunity to uncover areas in customer service that need improvements. It will become clearer where you should start, and you will be prepared for the launch of effective changes.

Here are key questions to think about when assessing your current workflows:

• How are tickets in Zendesk being routed to agents? Are they being assigned based on skills, workload, or some other criteria? Could the current ticket routing process be improved for greater efficiency and effectiveness?
• How rapidly are agents responding to tickets? Is there any way we can speed up the response process? What steps can be taken to ensure our responses are fast and efficient?
• Are agents being assigned the right amount of tickets? Are any agents consistently overloaded with their workload? What strategies can be used to even out the ticket distribution?

You can gain better insight into your workflows by answering these questions and discovering the areas in need of improvement.

Continue reading this blog to learn how to optimize your Zendesk workflow using triggers and other automation.

What are Zendesk triggers, and how do they work?

Triggers are a powerful feature in Zendesk that can help you automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks and streamline your support ticket systems. Triggers work by automatically performing specific actions when a ticket meets custom criteria defined by the account manager beforehand.

You can set up triggers to quickly fire into action when certain events happen, for example, when a ticket is freshly created, its status alters, or the ticket priority shifts. You can also place conditions that must be met for the trigger to execute, such as filtering which tickets the trigger applies to based on ticket properties like tags, requester, or custom fields.

Once a trigger is set up and the conditions are met, it will perform specific actions on the ticket, such as assigning it to a specific agent, adding a tag, sending an email notification, updating a custom field, or performing any other automation. Moreover, you can customize the triggers to fit your business needs and prioritize the flow based on the order in which you want the actions to be executed.

It is also essential to give your triggers a test run before activating them to guarantee they’re running optimally. Additionally, you can monitor the performance of your triggers with reporting and analytics tools for improved workflow efficiency. Metrics such as first response time, resolution time, and customer satisfaction can be tracked to see how your team is performing and to identify areas for improvement.

Overall, triggers are a useful tool that can help you automate repetitive tasks and streamline your support processes in Zendesk. Setting up triggers with specific criteria and actions can help you to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your support ticket systems.

Examples of triggers in Zendesk

We already covered the explanation of triggers and how they can perform many different actions based on the conditions set by the account administrator. To illustrate how triggers work, here are some typical examples of triggers on Zendesk:

• You can create a trigger that sends new ticket notifications. By setting up this type of trigger, you can instantly notify specific agents or groups when a new ticket is created. This way, you can guarantee prompt responses and keep customer satisfaction rates high.
• You can create an escalation trigger to ensure urgent tickets receive the attention they deserve. This will help move any high-priority tickets to a specific group or individual after a certain amount of time has passed.
• You can set up a trigger to automatically add a specific tag to tickets that meet certain criteria. For example, you could tag tickets that are related to a certain topic, like “delivery” or that are related to a specific product. Automating this process is guaranteed to save you time and effort.
• Another option is to use the auto-assignment trigger to effortlessly assign tickets to the ideal agents or teams according to their expertise and current workloads – ensuring speedy resolutions for all. This can be an effective approach to distributing workload within a bigger team of customer support agents.
• There is also a follow-up trigger that allows you to automatically send a follow-up email to customers after a certain amount of time has passed since their last interaction with your support team. This type of trigger can help improve customer satisfaction and ensure that no tickets fall through the cracks.
• Lastly, you can create a trigger to automatically alter a ticket’s status when specific conditions have been fulfilled. For example, if the customer hasn’t responded within an allotted amount of time, you could shift the ticket status to “On Hold.”

These are just some ways you can use Zendesk triggers to take your customer support to the next level. Automate many of your workflows and provide speedy, top-notch service with the right triggers in place.

Automating Repetitive Tasks in Zendesk with Triggers

We cannot talk about workflow automation on Zendesk without mentioning Knots — a powerhouse when it comes to optimizing workflows and streamlining cloud software solutions.

Knots is a middleware application that can be used to connect different software applications together, allowing them to communicate and share data. It works by acting as a bridge between different software tools, allowing data to flow between them and enabling them to work together seamlessly.

In the context of Zendesk, Knots can be used to integrate Zendesk with other software applications, such as your CRM or marketing automation platform. Knots add-ons for Zendesk can help streamline your workflows and improve the efficiency of your support ticket systems and other operations.

By integrating Knots into your Zendesk account, you can achieve several benefits. Here are two examples of the advantages of using Knots:

• Improved data accuracy with API data sync by Knots. By automating data transfer between Zendesk and other applications, you can save time and reduce the risk of errors. For example, you could use Knots to automatically create new leads in your CRM when a customer submits a ticket in Zendesk, reducing the need for manual data entry.
• Increased efficiency with Ticket Parser by Knots. By removing tedious tasks from agents like copy & paste. The parser looks for relevant information in the ticket and fills in ticket fields based on some criteria. Look for order IDs, invoice numbers, email addresses, names, or other important data.
• Make data from PDF and scanned documents readable with OCR PDF Reader by Knots. Search for texts inside attachments in Zendesk and interact with the data easily.

Knots can make a world of difference when it comes to streamlining your Zendesk workflows and increasing the effectiveness of your customer service operations. Create smooth user experiences for both the support agent and your customers, ultimately leading to improved results across the board.

Conclusion: optimizing Zendesk workflows for productivity and customer satisfaction

With the right approach and tools in place, your support team can handle high ticket volumes in Zendesk with ease while still delivering exceptional customer support. By continuously monitoring and optimizing your workflows, you can ensure that your support ticket systems are running efficiently and effectively, enabling you to provide your customers with the best possible experience. Ultimately, optimizing your Zendesk workflows is a key step towards building lasting relationships with your customers and creating a strong foundation for your business to grow and succeed.

The customer support process may be automated in a variety of ways thanks to Zendesk’s great built-in automation capabilities. However, with Knot’s Zendesk apps and middleware (for custom procedures that can be tailored to any application), you can revive the Zendesk workflow and streamline operations.

Knots is a CRM-specific toolkit that can help you automate Zendesk like a pro. Unlike anything else on the market, Knots’ middleware solution is delivered as a suite of Zendesk apps that may be used independently or in tandem. Contact us today to see how you can enhance your customer service to meet today’s standards. Our support staff is available to assist you with your specific use case.