Question
How can I troubleshoot call issues with Zendesk Talk?
Answer
All web-based software can experience performance issues relating to the connections and environment in which it operates. Existing system or network 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.
- Questions to think about before troubleshooting
- Problems with voice quality (delays, static, echoes, dropped calls)
- Additional Talk problems you may run into
Questions to think about before troubleshooting
- Was Talk working previously and did it just stop working? Double-check if your company's IT team made recent changes to your network or laptop, installed new software or add-ons.
- Is the issue happening to other agents or just to you? If the issue only happens to you, take a look at your local settings and network. If you and others are all having issues, check with your IT team and networking team first, especially if you connect with a company-issued laptop.
Problems with voice quality (delays, static, echoes, dropped calls)
Issues with Talk are usually related to network issues. A very common trend particularly in office connections is the blocking of ports or IP addresses. Have your network team ensuring that all the Talk network requirements are met. For more information, see this article: Talk network requirements.
There are other things to keep in mind:
- Check the Zendesk and Twilio status pages for any outages.
- Check the Agent leg quality issues report in Explore. The report assists you in determining the call quality of your team overall and specific agents. This way you can identify individuals who have Talk issues.
Troubleshooting calls
- Verify with your IT team if your Talk account is running through a VPN. If that is the case, ensure that traffic to Talk is not running through your company network. Your IT department can split-tunnel this or remove the Zendesk IP addresses from the VPN.
Note: Talk doesn't work with MPLS or VPN due to a service that runs in the background called GLL. This service decides on the best network path to run the call through. If you use a VPN or MPLS, the system doesn't give the true location of your agents and as such cannot route the call efficiently, potentially leading to latency and other call quality issues. - Run the Twilio network test to ensure ports are open, speed is adequate, and that you're connecting to the right endpoint. Review the results with the help of this article: How do I use the Twilio network test to troubleshoot Talk agent calls?
- Plugin in a hard-wired ethernet cable to your router. Wi-fi works, but the ethernet connection tends to provide a more stable connection as other wireless devices can interfere with the signal making it unstable.
- Try a different browser to make sure the issue isn't browser-related.
- Plug in your headset to the computer with a 3.5 mm connection instead of using Bluetooth. USB is also better than Bluetooth. Other wireless devices and signals can degrade performance. To eliminate that the headset is the cause of the issue, connect your speakers to the computer, and make a test call.
- If you use gaming headsets, disable their special driver software. Occasionally browsers like Chrome don’t synchronize fast enough.
- Ensure a stable internet connection. If you passed the Twilio network test, but you're still having issues, it's possible that your connection is, in fact, unstable. You might still be dropping some packets or your connection works for a while and slows down. The IT or network team of your company has software that they can run overtime to see how stable your internet connection is. You can also do this yourself if you feel comfortable and your IT department allows it.
1. If you are at home, reboot your router.
2. Run a ping test and verify if your connection is stable and not dropping packets over a 10-15 minute test especially when you have problems. Find below a short example of the test results.
- In addition to zendesk.com, try the Twilio client endpoints as well with a ping test:
chunderw-vpc-gll.twilio.com
chunderw-gll.twilio.com
chunderw-vpc-gll-{region}.twilio.com
Where region is one of the following: au1, br1, de1, ie1, jp1, sg1, us1
Ensure that the ms (milliseconds) ping time is adequate and not jumping all over the place in terms of speed. In most cases, you want ZERO packet loss. If you're even seeing 1% packet loss in 15 min this might be enough to affect your connection. Talk with your IT department or contact your ISP to help.
Additional Talk problems you may run into
Outbound call drops after two minutes.
Check with your administrator as you may be in a trial. Talk trial accounts limit the call to two minutes.
Calls drop every time you call into one of your numbers.
If you have an IVR setup, create a custom greeting otherwise the system hangs up on you. If you have a greeting setup, occasionally a corrupt file can also cause similar behavior. Re-record and upload this file to fix this issue.
Receiving an EC# error
EC# errors are often caused by your network or router configuration. They represent an issue with 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. Review the Talk network requirements. Ensure all ports are open. Also, verify the troubleshooting steps above.
If you are still experiencing EC# errors, contact the Zendesk support team and provide a screenshot of your firewall and router settings showing these open ports.
Zendesk Talk resetting to offline status
Refreshing your page changes the status of your agent to unavailable in 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.
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 information about Talk billing, see the article: 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!
Please sign in to leave a comment.