Turning an email into a Zendesk ticket can be a quick and easy way to log customer service inquiries and requests into your help desk system. This allows you to track the inquiry through resolution, communicate with the customer, and generate reports on ticket volume and types. With just a few clicks, you can convert received emails into Zendesk tickets for streamlined issue tracking.
Why Turn Emails into Tickets?
There are a few key benefits to converting customer emails into Zendesk tickets:
- Centralized tracking – Emails become part of your help desk ticket tracking system, allowing you to see all inquiries and issues in one place.
- Communication history – All back-and-forth communication with the customer on that inquiry remains attached to the ticket record.
- Accountability – Tickets are assigned to agents to ensure issues get addressed in a timely manner.
- Reporting – Ticket reports help you identify trends, common issues, response times, and more.
- Automation – Workflows and triggers can be used to automatically route different ticket types for the fastest resolution.
In summary, turning emails into tickets makes the email visible to your entire support team and part of your overall help desk operations for improved tracking and response.
How to Turn Emails into Tickets in Zendesk
The process for converting emails to Zendesk tickets is simple and requires just a few steps:
- Set up and configure email forwarding to route messages into Zendesk automatically.
- Enable the email-to-ticket function in Zendesk settings.
- Optional: Customize the ticket form and automation rules.
- Received emails will now create new tickets containing the content.
Let’s explore each of these steps in more detail:
1. Forward Email to Zendesk
The first step is to set up email forwarding to route messages to your Zendesk Support instance. You’ll want to forward emails sent to your customer service address or addresses.
In your email service or domain provider settings, create a rule to forward emails to a unique Zendesk email address. This address can be found in your Zendesk Support settings under Channels > Email > Forward Email Address.
Some providers may also allow you to specify conditions, such as only forwarding emails sent to a specific customer service alias. Configure forwarding according to your specific use case.
2. Enable Email-to-Ticket
Next, within your Zendesk Support settings, ensure the email-to-ticket functionality is enabled:
- Navigate to the Settings page in your Zendesk Support instance.
- Click Channels > Email.
- Enable the “Create tickets from emails” setting.
- Choose settings like what group tickets are assigned to, tags, and priority.
- Customize the email subject mapping to map subject lines to ticket fields.
With this enabled, any forwarded email will automatically generate a new ticket containing the email content.
3. Customize the Ticket Form
If desired, you can customize the ticket form layout and fields so that tickets created from emails contain the specific information you need:
- Go to Settings > Ticket Forms.
- Click Add New or Edit on an existing form.
- Add or remove ticket fields as needed.
- Arrange the layout of fields and sections.
- Click Save Ticket Form.
Common ticket fields to include are Requester, Email, Subject, Priority, Product, and Tags.
4. Set Up Automation Rules
You can optionally create automation rules to automatically route tickets based on contents, sender, tags, and other criteria. For example:
- Assign tickets from premium customers to your VIP agent group.
- Apply an “Order Status” tag based on keywords in the subject line.
- Increase priority for emails marked “Urgent.”
Automation rules ensure tickets are handled efficiently and routed to the right agents.
Best Practices
Follow these tips for getting the most out of converting emails into Zendesk tickets:
- Use a concise, focused customer service email alias like [email protected] to avoid personal inboxes getting tickets.
- Include the email address in your automated ticket confirmation to customers so they know where to reply.
- Train customer service agents to check Zendesk for new tickets from emails frequently.
- Add the Zendesk ticket ID to the subject line of agent outbound emails for context.
- Monitor ticket volume from emails to right-size your support team.
- Review a sample of converted tickets to ensure all information is captured correctly.
Troubleshooting Issues
Here are some common issues and fixes when converting emails to Zendesk tickets:
Issue | Possible Cause | Fix |
---|---|---|
Emails not creating tickets | Email forwarding not configured properly | Verify forwarding settings and Zendesk forwarding address |
Email-to-ticket not enabled in Zendesk | Enable the setting in Admin > Channels > Email | |
Tickets missing email content | Truncation due to character limits | Increase character limit on ticket comments |
HTML formatting stripped | Allow rich text formatting on ticket comments | |
Duplicate tickets from one email | Multiple forwarding rules setup | Consolidate rules to a single forward to Zendesk |
Checking these common issues can help troubleshoot and prevent problems with email-to-ticket conversion.
Sample Automation
Here is an example Zendesk automation recipe to automatically prioritize tickets from emails marked “Urgent” in the subject line:
- Create a new automation under Admin > Automations.
- Set rule to Run when ticket is created.
- Add condition Subject contains urgent (case insensitive).
- Add action Set Priority to High.
- Click Create Automation.
This simple automation helps flag important tickets for faster response without agent effort.
Using Apps and Add-Ons
Apps and add-ons can further extend and enhance the email to ticket functionality:
- Notifier – Automatically notify requesters when email tickets are received and updated via Zendesk.
- AMK Convert – Expands conversion formatting options of emails into tickets.
- Formatter – Apply formatting and styling to email ticket contents.
- TextExpander – Insert boilerplate responses and macros into agent replies.
Browse the Zendesk apps marketplace to find tools to customize and optimize your workflow.
Integrating with Other Channels
In addition to email, you can convert inquiries from other channels into Zendesk tickets for unified tracking:
- Social media – Connect social profiles to capture posts as tickets.
- Web forms – Create web-based forms to submit user requests into tickets.
- API – Ingest tickets from external sources like CRM or ecommerce platforms.
- Mobile SDK – Build custom mobile apps to create tickets from user requests.
Think beyond just email for a truly omnichannel help desk experience.
Conclusion
Converting emails to Zendesk tickets provides immense benefits for streamlining customer support operations. Following the steps outlined, you can quickly set up efficient routing of emails into tracked tickets. Customizations and automations can then be layered on to handle different types of requests appropriately. Refer to the troubleshooting tips to resolve any conversion issues. With emails flowing into your help desk system as tickets, you gain complete centralized visibility and management of all customer inquiries in one place.