Setting up to provide email-only support

What's my plan?

Many Zendesk accounts prefer not requiring their end users to sign in to Zendesk. Removing the sign-in requirement means end users can't view or track their requests on the help center, and they can't follow or vote on help center articles. These tasks require users to sign in. Instead, all communication between agents and end users occurs using channels such as email, Talk, or Chat.

To provide email-only support, you need to understand the impact of this change on your customers, and then work through the three items described in this topic.

This article includes the following topics:

• Understanding how email-only support impacts customers
• Allowing anyone to submit tickets
• Removing links to ticket pages in your email notifications
• Removing sign-in links from your help center

Understanding how email-only support impacts customers

When you enable email-only support, end users can still request support without signing in by using any the following channels:

• Sending email directly to your support email address (for example, [e-mail])
• Submitting a Zendesk Support request using the Web Widget (Classic)
• Chatting with an agent
• Leaving a voicemail
• Sending a request using X (formerly Twitter)

Regardless of the channel by which new requests are submitted, requests become tickets that agents manage using views, creating and applying macros, generating reports, and so on. All communication between agents and end users is captured on those tickets and emails are sent back and forth between both parties.

End users can still access your knowledge base on Zendesk Support to search for answers. The following strategies can help you promote this self-service support option:

• Providing your end users with the link to your knowledge base (for example, http://mycompany.zendesk.com/hc)
• Using the Web Widget (Classic) with knowledge base search enabled

The advantage of using the Web Widget is that your end users get a simple request form coupled with a search of your knowledge base and, optionally, live chat with your Zendesk Support agents. For more information, see Using the Web Widget to embed customer service in your website.

Allowing anyone to submit tickets

To allow requests without requiring end users to sign in to Zendesk Support, you need to modify your end user settings. Only administrators can make these changes to end user settings.

For information on making these modifications, see Enabling anyone to submit tickets in Zendesk Support.

When an unregistered end user submits a request for the first time, they are added to your Zendesk Support as a new end user. They receive the request confirmation email but not the verification request email. They remain unverified in Zendesk Support.

Note: You might be wondering about the Allow users to view and edit their profile data and Allow users to change their password options. You can leave these enabled since your email-only end users will never be able to sign in to do either of these things. Both are still relevant to your administrators and agents.

Removing links to ticket pages from your email notifications

You must sign in to view ticket pages in the help center. Because you don't want to require end users to sign in, you need to remove any links to ticket pages from any email notifications sent to end users. Some of your default triggers create notifications with ticket links. If you signed up with Zendesk before July 12, 2012, the legacy email template also contains a ticket link.

Removing ticket links from your notifications

Remove any links to ticket pages from the default Zendesk triggers that send email notifications to requesters. Here are the Zendesk triggers that need to be modified:

• Notify requester and CCs of received request
• Notify requester and CCs of comment update

You'll also need to modify any similar notification triggers (if any) that you created. Only administrators can edit the triggers.

If CCs are enabled, you may need to modify triggers that send email notifications to requesters and CCs. If followers are enabled, you may need to modify the follower email template. For more information, see Customizing default email notifications for CCs and followers

To remove ticket links from email notification triggers

1. In Admin Center, click Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Business rules > Triggers.
2. Open the trigger for editing.
3. Click the Notify requester and CCs of received request trigger to open it for editing.
4. Remove the {{ticket.id}} and {{ticket.url}} placeholders from the text in the email body. For example, here are before and after versions of the email text in the Notify requester and CCs of received request trigger.

   Before:

   Your request (#{{ticket.id}}) has been received, and is being reviewed by our support staff. 
   
   To review the status of the request and add additional comments, follow the link below:
   http://{{ticket.url}}

   After:

   Your request has been received, and is being reviewed by our support staff. 
   
   We'll contact you as soon as we have an answer for you.

5. Click Save.
6. Repeat for the Notify requester and CCs of comment update trigger.

Removing sign-in links from your help center

In the help center, removing elements that link to the sign-in page involves deleting or hiding template components. You must be signed in as a Guide admin to edit template components.

Note: You must have Guide Professional or Enterprise to customize your help center theme.

Your agents, like your end users, will no longer see a sign-in link for your Zendesk. To access the sign-in page, your agents need to use the following URL: mycompany.zendesk.com/access. This is the sign-in page.

Removing the ability to sign-in means that every visitor to the help center is treated as an anonymous user with limited privileges. Anonymous users can view the public areas of the help center and share links to content. They can't comment on articles or participate in the community. For more information, see Understanding Guide roles.

Because anonymous users can't participate in the community, consider disabling your community, if it's enabled. For instructions, see Disabling your help center community.

To remove the links to the sign-in page

1. In Guide admin, click the Customize design icon () in the sidebar.
2. Hover your mouse over the theme you want to edit, then click View theme.
3. Click Edit code to open the code editor.

   

4. From the list of templates, click header.hbs.
5. From the code, comment out the sign_in fragment, like this:

   {{!--
     {{#link "sign_in" class="sign-in"}}
       {{t 'sign_in'}}
     {{/link}}
   --}}

   If you are using an old theme, you might see a user_info in place of a sign_in fragment. Comment this out instead:

   <!-- {{user_info}} -->

   This component displays a sign-in button on the right side of the header.

6. Select the article_page.hbs template and delete or comment out the following classes:

   <div class="article-comments">
   <div class="article-votes">

   The vote component and the article-comments section prompt users to sign in.

7. Click Publish.