This article describes how to turn on Zendesk Talk and configure general settings. Before you enable Talk, make sure to read Preparing to use Zendesk Talk to ensure your hardware and network are ready.
This article contains the following topics
Enabling Talk
To enable Zendesk Talk
- In Zendesk Support, click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then click Channels > Talk. - On the Settings tab, set Enable Talk to On.
- Configure general Talk settings as described in the table below.
- When you are finished, click Save.
Talk general settings
Use these settings to configure Talk to your requirements.
| Talk setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Enable Talk | Turn Talk on or off. |
| Maximum queue size | Your call queue size determines how many incoming calls will be kept waiting for an available agent, whether on hold or in the callback queue, before being sent to voicemail (or an overflow number if it's configured and voicemail is off). This setting applies to all numbers in your Talk instance. For example, if one phone number has five calls and another has three, your current queue size is eight.
You can select from a range of queue sizes between 0 and 15. If you use Talk Professional or Enterprise, you can also select additional queue sizes between 20 and 50. |
| Maximum queue wait time |
Callers who wait longer than the time specified in the maximum queue wait time are sent to voicemail. Callers can dial 1 at any time to go straight to voicemail (if enabled). If voicemail is off, the caller will hear a greeting, then the call will end. Maximum queue wait time is ignored after a call is transferred. The maximum queue wait time takes precedence over the Call offering time limit setting. You can select from a range of wait times between 1 and 20 minutes (or 1 and 60 minutes if you are on a Talk Enterprise plan). |
| New live call recordings are public? | Enabling this option allows the requester to see recordings from live calls that are added to tickets. For more information, see Managing call recording options in Talk. |
| Agent confirmation when forwarding? |
When agents forward calls to their phones, this option requires agents to press a key before the call is connected to indicate that a person is answering the call and not an automated voicemail. This prevents calls from forwarding to an agent's personal voicemail if they do not answer. Forwarded calls not answered with a key confirmation are routed to the voicemail system and recorded in a ticket. If your agents forward calls to a phone system where personal voicemail boxes are not an issue, you can disable this option so that agents are immediately connected to callers when they answer. |
38 Comments
Hi,
Is there a way you can put a preference as to which person calls are directed to.
ie. I'd like a situation where calls are automatically always forwarded first to my mobile number. Then if I can't take the call they are forwarded to my colleague.
At present it seems random as to where they go.
Thanks
Hey Conrad!
You can make this work using Agent Groups and adjusting the Routing of your Voice calls in your Voice settings.
The first thing you'll need to do is create a group for yourself, and a different group for your colleague.
Then, go to your Voice settings, and from the Numbers tab, click on Routing. From there you'll be able to choose which groups Voice calls get routed to, and you can set a default group where calls will always be routed first provided agents are available.
This should get you where you want to go. Let me know if you need anything else!
Hi,
Thanks for your previous reply. I've set up two groups:
First Response: Myself and Daniel (my colleague)
Second Response: Adam (Another colleague)
I was wondering whether we were able to develop it slightly.
What we wanted was a situation where myself and Daniel receive the same call, whoever gets to it first can respond. Having tried both of us it then gets passed on to Adam.
Is this possible?
Thanks,
Conrad
Hi Conrad!
I'm afraid it's not. The call will not ring in two locations at the same time. It'll go to the first available agent, then the next if the first agent doesn't answer. You have the option to make yourself unavailable if you're not able to take calls at a point during your day, whereupon the call will automatically be routed to the other agent in your group, provided he's available. You can also set yourself as available and opt not to answer the call, whereupon it'll be routed to the next agent.
Hi Jessie,
Thanks for that.
Question 1
What about if I set up three groups to be the same so:
First Response: Conrad + Daniel
Second Response: Conrad + Daniel
Third Response: Adam
In this instance would it go to Conrad or Daniel, then Daniel or Conrad depending on who it didn't go to in first response, then Adam?
No problem if the groups don't work exactly like that. I'm just trying to understand the functionality as best as possible.
Question 2
Is there a way we can set it up that when someone calls they are prompted to 'press 1' to be forward to a particular department and 'press 2' to be forwarded to another.
Question 3
Is there a way we can call from our Zendesk number from a mobile rather than from the browser.
Thanks again,
Conrad
Hi Conrad,
Here are your answers in order:
1. Voice doesn't prioritize groups in any fashion. So if any of those three groups are being routed calls from a number, each agent within those groups has the potential to get the call first. It depends on who's the "most available," i.e. who has spent the most amount of time online as well as who has taken the fewest calls in the past 24 hours.
2. There's no auto attendant functionality at this time; if you have multiple departments we'd suggest adding additional number(s) and setting the group routing accordingly.
3. There is indeed! Info can be found here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203690836-Receiving-and-placing-calls-in-Zendesk-Talk#ariaid-title4
This article references voicemails automatically becoming tickets that contain the recording and a transcription. Is there a setting that needs to be in place for the transcription to work? Our zendesk is creating tickets off of voicemails, but I don't see the transcription anywhere.
Hi Nicole!
You actually opt into Voice transcription when you subscribe to the service, so you'll find that option under your subscription settings. Bear in mind that only the account owner can manage subscriptions in Zendesk.
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
We would like to route calls from an existing number into Zendesk but roll them immediately to voice mail, and we'd get back to the customer at a later time after gathering information on their issue. Is there a way for calls to roll directly to voice mail?
Right now, the phone number we want to use is routing into my desk phone (which has its own number as well). We want to take that number off my phone and connect it to Zendesk. I'm not sure whether porting the phone number to Twilio or rerouting it to a Zendesk number would be better for us, could you please briefly tell me the pros/cons of each? We need the most cost-effective option, as support is only a part-time role in our company right now. Also, what are the per-minute cost differences between toll-free and local numbers?
Thank you!
Hi.
We just started a voice trial and added an agent with a forwarding number, however we contact the support number we choose the call never arrives at the agent phone even if is available "via:phone". via "browser" it works.
We believe to have made the correct configurations. The response that we get when choose the phone option is that "no support agents are available", despite they are.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thank you.
Hi
I'd really like to use Zendesk for making and receiving calls, but we need to use the caller ID for the company phone. As I understand it the only way we can set out own caller ID is to port our number to Zendesk? This isn't going to happen because we use the same Twilio number for other services such as SMS.
Could you tell me if it's now possible to set our own caller ID, even if it has to be a configuration at your end?
Thank you.
Hello,
I want to add free toll number that I have for my agent, the number is Hungarian. Is there any way I can add it? Please advice any option for connecting it.
Kind regards
Roman
Hi,
My zendesk talk is the trial version, I wonder if I can configure the call forwarding to my personal phone with this zendesk version?
Thanks.
Hi
Is there a way to schedule when to turn your phone on? I come in some mornings and totally forget to turn on my zendesk phone, but would be cool if you could schedule it just when to be on. Obviously just a 'good to have' not a 'need to have'
I'm currently in a trial of ZenDesk Talk, and I want to demo forwarding to an agent phone, but the option is greyed out and it says 'not configured.' I can't find the correct way to configure this setting. Can anyone offer some help with this? Thanks!
If I add Talk to my service, do I have to buy credits to make calls or just purchase the service?
Descending order reply (2017) : Sorry for late reply
@Guilherme Cernohovski Tavares:
You need to buy the service only for using the Talk feature and you get 1$ as a trail so that you can check how Talk works, If you like the service, you need to go for credits as per requirement. As per my views, Talk is awesome !!!
@Laurie Volkman :
You would have an option to forward the call from Talk to your personal number. Please go through link: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/235674008-How-do-I-forward-calls-from-Talk-to-a-personal-phone-
@Ezra Fermanis : As of now I could not find an option to automatically turn on Talk however you can search for browser macro which might help,, which might do the automation. I was wondering (I might be wrong) if you or anyone from your team is not ready, and suddenly call comes, customer may not get appropriate response as she/ he needs to get from your team.
@Fairuz Nandi Damba : Yes you can but rules may change for an international numbers.
@Roman : You can only get the numbers which comes in Zendesk list, I am sure they will add some more countries in future. Good luck !
Thanks and regards
Atul Verma
Hi ZD team,
Is there a way to do conference calling? Having more than One Rep on the phone at a time?
How does the queue limit size? It sounds like it is kicking out the people with the longest wait time but I would like to just stop accepting new calls when we max out.
Also, does that include callbacks in queue?
Hi Emily,
Thanks for your question!
When the queue limit is reached, additional calls will go to voicemail, but callers already in queue will keep their same spot.
This does include callbacks. For max queue limit, a callback request is treated the same as a caller.
Cheers,
Hi Daniel!
That's helpful, thank you! What happens if we have our voicemail turned off? We have callers saying that they are put on hold for a period of time, as long as 6 minutes, and then abruptly disconnected. That doesn't match our max queue time either. Curious as to why this would happen?
In the meantime we've increased our max queue size and it seems to have helped but want to understand how/ why this is happening.
Hi Emily,
Glad it was helpful!
I've created a ticket for this question, as it will require discussing account-specific information. You'll receive an email from me shortly :)
Cheers,
Hi there!
I notice that it says that we can disable the 'agent confirmation when forwarding' setting, but no instructions on how to do so? Please advise.
Also, is it possible to make outbound calls from a personal phone and have it create a ticket in Zendesk?
Thanks so much in advance!
Hi Brittany!
The "agent confirmation when forwarding" setting is hiding in Admin > Channels > Talk under the Settings page — you should see the toggle switch near the bottom of that page.
Right now it's not possible to make outbound calls through Talk from a mobile device; outbound calls still need to be made from the agent interface.
I hope this helps! Happy to help if you have any other questions on this.
Hi there!
Is it possible to set a number to voice mail only (we receive only voicemail, no calls)?
We have few numbers where we want to receive voicemails only.
Thank you in advance!
Hi Mari-Liis,
Welcome to the community!
Whilst it is not possible to natively configure a number to only receive voicemails, I have been able to come up with a workaround for you. Keep in mind that that this workflow is not currently supported by Zendesk, so we might not be able to help you troubleshoot if you have issues with it.
First, you will need to create a new group in Manage>People with no Talk agents in the group (e.g. 'Voicemails'). Then in the Numbers>Routing settings, set up the number to route calls to that voicemail only group. As there are no Talk agents in the group, calls will never be routed to an online agent, and users will always be prompted to leave a voicemail.
Thank you Destiny!
Hi there,
I posted this elsewhere but just wanted to follow up a second time.
I haven't been able to find anything on the Zendesk site about a specific problem:
When working on an email with Zendesk when you answer a call (we have it on Callbar) - how do you avoid Zendesk automatically switching to the call (interrupting your email writing)?
Thanks,
Michael @ Bulb
Is there a way to route calls to specific agents yet? Based on organisation tags or something similar?
Hey Tilly,
Agent specific routing isn't available with Talk. However, a possible alternative would be to set up each agent in their own Group and accomplish something similar using Group Routing.
IVR Routing is also a possible solution where you can upload and IVR greeting stating "Dial 1 for Agent A, Dial 2 for Agent B" and so on. You can then configure your IVR options to either route to a specific Group or another Talk number in your account.
I realize this is a bit of an odd setup but it should get you relatively close to what you're looking for.
Let us know if you have any other questions.
Cheers!
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