Question
How can I troubleshoot issues with Zendesk Talk? What are your Talk troubleshooting tips?
Answer
All web-based software can experience performance issues relating to the connections and environment in which it operates. Existing system or connection issues may not be as noticeable during normal ticketing, but these issues can be much more pronounced with the additional demands of a telephony connection such as Zendesk Talk.
To help you deal with such issues, we have compiled a list of common troubleshooting steps to try first.
Problems with voice quality (delays, echoes, dropped calls)
Call quality
- Issues with Talk call quality can sometimes be traced to a disruption of Twilio services, as this is the system handling our Talk connections. To determine the status of Twilio’s servers, visit the Twilio Status Page.
- Review the ports on your network Firewall. Verify that you have the following ports open with your network administrator:
TCP: 80, 443
- Have your affected agents go to Twilio WebRTC Diagnostics and review the resulting information. This page points to incompatibilities with your system setup or browser configuration.
- Have your affected agents try another headset and microphone and review their sound card settings.
- Have your affected agents use another browser. Most browsers use WebRTC for connections with Zendesk Talk. If the issue is with Chrome, ask your agents to test their WebRTC using the WebRTC Troubleshooter.
If you are still unable to determine the cause of your quality issues, contact the Zendesk support team providing the information listed below.
- A screenshot of the information at Support Details from an agent who is experiencing quality issues.
- A ticket example where call quality was an issue.
For more information, see How can I improve the quality of calls using Zendesk Talk?.
Receiving an EC# error
EC# errors are often caused by your network or router configuration. They represent an issue with Zendesk Talk not having an adequate network connection. This can occur anywhere along with the network, but often they are the result of local network limitations, or from a computer that does not meet the minimum requirements to make the connection.
To troubleshoot an EC# error:
- Zendesk recommends you use a browser that supports WebRTC.
- Review the WebRTC Port Requirements:
To use WebRTC, ensure that the following ports are not blocked:
TCP: port 80 and 443
UDP: all ports between 10,000 and 20,000
If you are still experiencing EC# errors, contact the Zendesk support team providing a screenshot of your firewall and router settings showing these open ports.
Zendesk Talk resetting to Offline status
Refreshing your page causes the agent to be set to unavailable for Talk. The agent needs to manually reset themselves to become available. Do not refresh your page in your browser when you wish to be available for calls.
Numbers and billing
Billing a spoke account for Zendesk Talk with multi-brand
With the current multi-branding setup, a credit card cannot be added to a spoke account. Billing is done through the hub account, and the spokes are sponsored. Because our billing system does not allow a credit card on spoke accounts for use with Talk, you need to purchase credits in advance by contacting your account manager in our Sales team.
Your Zendesk Talk number will expire in 7 days
Zendesk Talk reclaims unused phone numbers after 60 days of no activity. If your phone number hasn’t been used within that time, you will receive an email notifying you that your number will expire in 7 days. If you are still using this Talk number, you can prevent the deactivation by simply calling your Zendesk Talk number. Any call activity will prevent the number from being deactivated. However, if you haven’t used the number in 60 days you may want to consider canceling this support channel given the low amount of use.
For more information, see Zendesk Talk billing FAQ.
10 Comments
Here's one...
Call recording and voicemail can't be played.
Please help.
Hi Mark - I see you also submitted a ticket, so thanks for reaching out! If you can provide an update in your ticket with ticket examples having this issue, that will help troubleshoot the problem.
in the suggested troubleshooting link https://apprtc.appspot.com/, there is no right click available. Also that tip is not clear. Are you saying use a browser other than chrome? Or test chrome at the appspot link? What if no sound comes out of the speakers?
Hey Todd,
Happy to help with that! We're going to update that section. In the mean time, go to https://networktest.twilio.com/ and run the two tests on the Twilio Client screen, then click on the network tab and run those two tests. If those all check out fine and you're still having Talk issues, please submit a ticket to support@zendesk.com so that we can jump in and help get Talk working for you!
For one of my agents using chrome, the Call/Answer button doesn't do anything when clicked. No error message or anything, just unresponsive. It does work on firefox (though Chrome is our preferred browser). The odd thing is for some other agents using chrome the buttons do function correctly. Can't figure it out, not a firewall issue.
Hi Mike,
Have your agent try using Chrome in an incognito window. This usually is going to be a good indicator of a defect of your browser or if it is an issue related to caching issue or browser extension.
If it is working in the Chrome incognito window, have your agent clear cache and cookies and try again on his tab. If this issue is still present, have this agent disable all extensions on the browser and try it again switching on extension after extension. This would allow you to see what extension would be conflicting with the Talk experience. If none of those works, there is a more drastic version of this solution which would be to reset your Chrome browser totally, this would factory reset the browser and get rid of anything impeding with Talk: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/3296214?hl=en
I hope this would help. If you are still having issues, please submit a ticket to support@zendesk.com and we can go through more troubleshooting steps together.
Cheers,
My reps and I have Talk set to forward calls to our cell phones. When we answer, we hear the recording asking us to press a button to accept the call (I don't want calls going to personal voicemail). About half the time, the call never connects, even if we press a button or #. How can we resolve this? Rebooting the phone doesn't help. The call does roll to another associate, but that's not a preferred outcome.
Hey Kristin! We've reached out to you on the ticket you created for this, can you share the information the advocate in that ticket asked for? We will be happy to help you troubleshoot this!
~Jon
Same issues as those described above: poor line quality, calls dropping, calls that don't allow us to answer, and a time lag that means we end up talking over customers. I would appreciate any advise on how to resolve all of these!
Hey Victoria,
We will most likely need to take a look at a couple of call examples to determine what the cause is here. I'm going to generate a ticket on your behalf for our Customer Advocacy team to take a look at. You'll receive an email shortly stating your ticket has been created.
Cheers!
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