Practical Zendesk Administration

Preface

In 2011, a survey was conducted to find out what people really value about the companies and brands that they use. It may surprise you to hear that when considering the product, price or customer service, 55% of people said that they would recommend a company as a result of a outstanding customer service experience.

The example that I often give is this: imagine that your friend bought a pen. Now imagine you wanted to buy a pen for yourself, and you asked your friend whether they like the pen that they own. Statistically speaking, your friend is unlikely to say "it’s a good pen because it writes really well". They also won’t say "I like this pen because I got it for a good price" or "I like it because it doesn’t smudge." No, statistically speaking, your friend is most likely to say "I like this pen because, on the day that it stopped writing and I called the pen company, they made me feel really good about owning this pen".

That is the sort of relationship that Zendesk helps you achieve with your customers. For more details on this statistic, see the full infographic.

The best way to describe this book is the Zendesk Consultant in a Book. The advice, best practices and pitfalls included in this book are the result of working in the trenches, launching Zendesk customer implementations, delivering training sessions, and answering literally thousands of questions from training participants in countries all over the world. Every question from a Zendesk training participant gives me a fresh perspective on new ways to use the product, which I’ve tried to capture and share in this book.

Zendesk is a popular customer service software tool, and the approach of the software has always been to deliver a powerful solution with beautifully simple design. In a blog post on the topic, Zack Urlocker (COO of Zendesk), describes a recent "renaissance in Enterprise software that embraces SaaS and beautifully simple design process to deliver an easy-to-use experience even in areas that have sophisticated functionality". Zendesk’s simple design philosophy should not lead you to believe that the product is not powerful. In fact, the entire purpose of this book is to bring the expansive set of Zendesk features to light, explain their purpose, demystify the best approach to use them, and to help you to get the most out of product.

In explaining the features of the Zendesk product, I’ve focused on best practices instead of the step-by-step configuration tasks carried out by an administrator. If you are completely new to the Zendesk product and you find that you’re having trouble understanding some of the concepts in this book, I do recommend that you take a look at the official Zendesk user guide before reading this book. This will ensure that you have a basic understanding of the features before getting the advice on best practices contained in this book. It may also help to build a solid foundation to the process of making important decisions about your Zendesk instance.

It’s also worth noting that this book focuses specifically on best practices for the Zendesk product without going into depth on the broader techniques to provide outstanding customer service. Zendesk is a tool that can be wielded in any way that works best for your organization.

In his book High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service, author Micah Solomon describes the idea of "touching" customers as the starting point to developing a lasting relationship. It’s impossible to physically touch customers over the internet, but it’s possible to use Zendesk as the tool to reach out to those customers and deliver that touch. This book will get you to the point of using the tool to it’s full potential—all that’s left is for you to use it. As Micah Solomon says, "the goal in all this is to touch customers in a way that builds true customer loyalty."

I hope you enjoy reading this book, and I hope to have the pleasure of hearing your feedback in a future training session.

Chapter Overviews

Chapter 1, Introduction to Zendesk

Before diving into the Zendesk product itself, this chapter explains the most important concepts of the tool. By the end of this chapter, you’ll understand many of the terms used in the product and the benefits of implementing Zendesk as your customer service solution.

Chapter 2, Initial Setup

There are a small set of tasks that every Zendesk administrator should perform on their instance before allowing their users to log in. This chapter explains these initial setup tasks, and focuses on giving your Zendesk environment the same branding as the rest of your organization. It also provides details on setting up your Zendesk instance for an international audience.

Chapter 3, Security

Any website that captures personal information must be secure, and this chapter will help you to make decisions on the various security options in Zendesk.

Chapter 4, User Management

This chapter explains the various types of users that can be created (end-users, agents, and administrators) and the roles of each one, as well as the different permissions you can configure for them.

Chapter 5, Channels

Zendesk is a tool that leverages many different methods of creating tickets, from common systems such as email to the newer social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This chapter explains each of these channels, how to set them up, the benefits of each one, and how to make the most of them.

Chapter 6, Fields and Data Capture

Out of the box, Zendesk has a number of default fields that capture the standard information required by any customer service team. As an administrator you have some control over these fields, as well as the ability to add new fields to your Zendesk instance.

Chapter 7, Agent Support Process

Making a support agent’s life easier is a good idea for everyone involved. This chapter explains some of the techniques you can use to make the support process more efficient, as well as the best ways to manage the decisions that agents make on a daily basis.

Chapter 8, Automated Business Rules

Automating your business process in Zendesk will not only save your team time, it will reduce the risk of mistakes. There are many Zendesk features that you can use—including Triggers and Automations—which are described in this chapter. This chapter also provides examples of common business processes and their associated business rules, which gives you an inside look into how other customer service teams operate.

Chapter 9, Forums

The Zendesk forums feature allows you to provide self-service support to your customers. This chapter will explain how to set up your forums initially, then control access based on rules and permissions associated with the various users in your Zendesk instance. This chapter also includes information on how to measure the use of your forums and constantly improve them.

Zendesk Version

The version of Zendesk covered by this book is the latest public release as at September 12, 2012. Zendesk has a frequent—often weekly—release schedule, with new features and updates to existing features. The release notes are made available to the public in the official What’s New in Zendesk forum. Throughout this book I’ve deliberately described features without giving detailed steps to configure the feature, and I’ve only included screenshots in situations when I believe that the explanation would not be complete without them. The purpose of this book is to focus on the advice and best practices for administering the product, rather than be a step-by-step guide. If you would like or need more detailed instructions with fewer best practices, the User Guide may be a useful accompaniment to this book.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions.

Tip

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Warning

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Acknowledgments

When I think about all the people who were involved in making this book possible, I’m truly humbled.

There are certain people whom, without their contribution, this book would not have been written. I’d like to give a very special thanks to:

Kenny Dembner

For your support every day while I was writing this book, and for having the patience to hear about customer service software over dinner every night.

Rob Castaneda

For seven years of support, and staying with me as my boss, mentor, and friend.

Zack Urlocker

For giving CustomWare the opportunity to become a Zendesk partner, leading to all the great things that we’re now doing 18 months later, and for your support with every aspect of this book.

Peter Vaughan

For inspiring me to excel at all things. 70 Ironman races finished (and counting), you’re a role model for achieving my dreams, and my hero!

This book would have not been possible without the support of the team at O’Reilly, and I’d especially like to thank the following people:

Andy Oram

For patiently and supportively editing every word of this book. Thanks for challenging me to make it the highest possible quality.

Mike Loukides

For helping to set the direction for this book, and giving me the opportunity to become an O’Reilly author.

Christopher Hearse

For working with the tight deadlines to get this book released, and for ensuring the quality of the finished product.

Maria Stallone

For assisting with the editing process.

Sanders Kleinfeld, Rune Skjoldborg Madsen, and Adam Witwer

For your prompt technical support during the process of writing this book.

Many people have been involved in the process of creating the Zendesk customer service platform. I’d like to pay special tribute to the founders of Zendesk, for having the vision of beautifully simple customer service software that could change the world:

Mikkel Svane

For supporting the effort to write this book, and for writing the foreword.

Alexander Aghassipour

For taking the time while I was still getting started with Zendesk, to answer the questions that only a founder would be able to answer.

Morten Primdahl

For your kind words of support while I was writing this book.

I would also like to extend a special thanks to the following people, who have helped and supported me greatly:

Andrea Garfield

For being the best mentor I could have hoped for in the past 12 months. You’ve made such a difference, I don’t even have the words to express my gratitude.

Matt Doar

For diligently helping me with the original book proposal, which was the spark that ignited this whole thing.

Erin Odell

For supporting me at the Zendesk office, enthusiastically, every single time.

My family—Karen, Damien and Matt

For your support every day of my life.

The following people were technical and non-technical reviewers on this book, and helped in the process of fact-checking and providing feedback during the writing process:

Mikkel Svane

Not many technical authors have the privilege of a founder reviewing their work, but I appreciate you taking the time to ensure the accuracy of this book.

Elliot Robinson

Thanks for being the best wingman in the world during the Zendesk European training tours, and for the memes that kept me smiling while I was writing the book.

Max McCal

For your detailed review of all of the topics, which resulted in a surprising amount of feedback, and thanks also for taking the time to discuss some of the topics face-to-face.

Anton de Young

Aside from having written the majority of the official Zendesk user guide yourself, which has always been a huge help, I appreciate your detailed feedback on the topics in the book.

Matthew Latkiewicz

Brutally honest feedback is sometimes the best, and you gave me a wake-up call midway through the process of writing this book, which—I hope—improved the final book overall. Thanks also for helping me so much when I was first learning Zendesk.

Steven Yan

For reading the entire manuscript and using your extensive Zendesk product management experience to provide feedback.

Erin Boyle

Thanks for your ideas on how to best describe a customer service portal, and taking the time to read the manuscript for accuracy.

Mika Rantala

I’ve told you a dozen times that if you ever want a job delivering Zendesk training, there is a place on the team for you. Thanks for your deep technical knowledge of the product as an attendee at the Helsinki and Amsterdam bootcamps, and for providing feedback on the overall positioning of this book.

Last but not least, I’d like to thank every person who has ever taken one of my training classes and asked a question. Without your feedback, curiosity, and enthusiasm for Zendesk, I could not have understood the product sufficiently to write a book.