This topic provides an introduction to the tasks shown in the Zendesk trial wizard and gives you guidelines on where to find more information. The trial wizard works for both Zendesk Suite Professional trials and Zendesk Support Professional trials. The wizard tailors your experience to match the type of account you are trialing.
This article describes the Zendesk Suite trial tasks. Zendesk Suite provides a full-service, cross-channel experience for your customers with the ticketing system, the help center, messaging and live chat, and voice all working together.
This article describes the Zendesk Support trial tasks. Zendesk Support provides a foundational, integrated ticketing system to help your agents efficiently manage customer requests.
Your new account features the Zendesk Agent Workspace. This workspace is enabled by default on your account. To learn more, see Documentation resources for the Zendesk Agent Workspace. Your new account also includes the option to create additional ticket statuses.
Follow the instructions on the Welcome page to get started. Topics you will learn about include:
Tell us why you’re taking this trial
As part of signing up for a trial, Zendesk would like to know a little more about you. You’ll see a page with questions about why you decided to take this trial. Zendesk uses this information to make sure you have the best trial experience possible.
- Answer the questions, then click Continue.
If you don't want to answer the questions, click No thanks.
Depending on how you answer the questions we will tailor the tasks in the trial wizard to match your experience level. We’ll also make changes based on how your customers reach you. This helps you to have the best trial experience possible.
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If you answer that you have some experience with customer support solutions or that you're a pro, the trial tasks will include some Take it further links with additional tips about advanced setup topics.
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If you specify how people reach you, we’ll focus on getting your existing customer support channels set up first, then suggest additional channels you can set up.
After you sign up for a trial account, you're ready to jump in and try Zendesk.
Adding sample data to your trial
To help you get a head start on your Zendesk trial, Zendesk includes sample data with interactive tours as part of your trial. This sample data provides you with a better idea of how your Zendesk account works with tickets, views, and macros. We also include a sample help center with articles and images so you can see how self-service options can work for your customers. You can use this data as a starting point to create your own data. You’ll learn more about the sample data as you go through the trial tasks.
To add sample data
- In the trial setup questionnaire, select a business type from the drop-down menu.
The business type you select determines the sample content. If you leave this question unanswered or skip the questionnaire entirely, you’ll see sample Consumer (B2C) data in your account.
At the end of the trial, when you decide to purchase a Zendesk account, you’ll have the option to keep or delete any sample data you added.
Welcome! First steps
After you sign up for a trial account, you'll see a Welcome page.
Use this page to complete some basic trial tasks and learn about Zendesk.
You will see how Zendesk works by learning about your account details, the ticketing system, agent productivity, and more.
Zendesk recommends you complete the trial tasks in order. The wizard tracks your progress as you complete each task.
Your account
In this task, you'll learn some essential details about your account and add a few team members. It should take about three minutes to complete.
First steps: Your customer support channels
Some essential details about your account are already set up for you. You'll learn more about each of these contact points as you work through the trial tasks.
Email: This is your default Support email address where customers can send their support requests.
Any email sent to this address automatically becomes a ticket in your Zendesk account. Zendesk created a default support address for you, but you can change it or add more addresses. After you complete the trial tasks, you can add additional email addresses, set email preferences, or customize your email templates. See A complete guide to understanding email in Zendesk.
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Email: This is your default Support email address where customers can send their support requests.
Any email sent to this address automatically becomes a ticket in your Zendesk account. Zendesk created a default support address for you, but you can change it or add more addresses. After you complete the trial tasks, you can add additional email addresses, set email preferences, or customize your email templates. See A complete guide to understanding email in Zendesk.
Tip: If you've set up a customer solution before, the trial tasks include a Take it further link. Click the link to open the online setup guide and learn about creating custom email addresses. -
Live chat and messaging: One key element of a winning support strategy is to enable customers to connect with your agents over the channel of their choice. You can use messaging and live chat to instantly connect.
We'll provide you with the code you need for customers to connect directly from your website. When customers connect from your website, you can automate your responses with self-serve options and your agents can chat with them directly. You can also set up your account to support popular social messaging applications. See Getting started with social messaging.
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Voice: Your Talk number where customers can call for help.
When customers call this number, Zendesk automatically creates a ticket so you have a record of the call. Zendesk created a default phone number for you, but you can change it later or forward an existing number. Zendesk Talk includes a variety of features you can use to set up your call center, enable call recordings, add voicemail, and so on. See Getting started with Zendesk Talk.
Tip: If you've set up a customer solution before, the trial tasks include a Take it further link. Click the link to open the online setup guide and learn about setting up voice lines. -
Help center: Your help center location where you can post articles and teach your customers to be self-sufficient.
You help center consists of a knowledge base and a customer contact portal. As a Guide admin, you can create and publish FAQs, articles, and videos in the help center and work with your agents to make sure customers have the latest, up-to-date information about your products. The task wizard provides a link where you can set up your help center. See Getting started with Guide.
Send a test ticket
You can start by opening your email application and sending a test email to your new Support account. See example below.
Later, to see the ticket, click the Views icon (
) in the sidebar.
Send a test ticket
One of the fundamental concepts in Zendesk is that when a customer sends an email to your Support address, it creates a ticket. When an agent updates the ticket in Zendesk Support, a notification email is sent back to the customer who sent the original email. Now that you have a Support email address, you can send a test message to see how this works.
To send a test message
- Locate the Email section on the Welcome page.
- Click Send a test ticket.
The link opens your email client and you'll see an example email message addressed to your new Support address.
- Add any additional content you'd like to the message, then send it.
Sending the message to your Zendesk Support address automatically creates a new ticket.
- To see the ticket, click the Views icon () in the sidebar.
From here you can click the ticket to open it, add a reply to the ticket, and so on. See A complete guide to understanding email in Zendesk.
Review the sample tickets
In addition to the test ticket, you’ll see a list of sample tickets in Your unsolved tickets view. You can open the tickets to get a good idea of the information included in a ticket and how tickets are structured.
Add your team
Another key element of a winning support strategy is to assemble a great team of agents and give them the best tools possible to do their jobs. Now that you are familiar with your account details, add some team members to try out the workspace. Team members can be agents or admins. For this task, we recommend only adding a few agents to test-drive your site. Later, after you plan how to arrange agents into groups and organizations, you can add them using a bulk import or through the Zendesk API.
To add your team
- Enter an Email address for each team member you want to add.
- Select a Role for each team member.
Typically, you'll have lots of agents on an account, but only a few admins.
- When you've finished adding team members, click Add team.
Each team member you added will receive an email message with an invitation to join your Zendesk account.
To learn more about users and team members, see Understanding Support user roles. To add agents to Zendesk, see Adding agents and administrators.
Ticketing system
In this task, you'll learn some essential details about the Zendesk ticketing system. It should take about three minutes to complete.
Manage all tickets in one place
The Zendesk Agent Workspace provides a single, unified interface your agents can use to manage customer conversations. In this workspace, conversations with customers can flow across channels as part of a seamless, natural process.
- Click the play icon (
) to watch the video.
This video shows you how interact with your customer on a social messaging channel and use customer context to learn more about your customer. It also shows you how to use side conversations to loop in team members outside the ticketing system.
Learn about tickets
In this section, you'll watch a guided tour that shows you how the Zendesk ticketing system works.
To see how ticketing works
- Click See how ticketing works.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the tour.
To learn more about the ticket interface, see About the Zendesk Agent Workspace.
Agent productivity
This task includes a set of videos and tours that show you how to increase your agents' productivity by helping them efficiently manage customer conversation and solve tickets faster. It should take about 8 minutes to complete.
You can increase agent productivity by:
- Filtering your ticket queue: With views, you can organize tickets by grouping them into lists based on certain criteria. For example, you might have a view for unassigned tickets or tickets that need immediate attention.
- Using prepared responses: Macros enable your agents to perform standard or common actions with just a few clicks. For example, you might have a macro that answers a frequently-asked question or sends a friendly reminder that asks a customer to respond. Macros enable you to standardize your approach to similar tickets.
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Automating repeat actions: Triggers and automations are simple, but powerful tools that perform actions only if certain conditions are met. From simple auto replies to complex escalations and adjustments, triggers and automations are designed to free-up your agents from repetitive tasks so they can focus on more important things.
In this section, you can take a tour to learn how to personalize the automated reply customers receive when they send a request to your support email address.
Follow the videos and tours in this task to learn how Zendesk can increase productivity for your agents.
- In addition to the standard ticket views included in every account, you’ll see sample views showing additional ways to filter your ticket queue. Open the views to see which types of tickets appear in each view.
- In addition to the standard macros that are included in every account, you’ll see some sample macros you can use to apply repeat actions to a ticket. Try applying these macros to tickets in your queue to see how they work.
To learn more, see Creating views to manage ticket workflow, Using macros to update tickets, and Routing and automation options for incoming tickets.
Messaging and live chat
The easier you make it for customers to reach you, the faster you can help them. In this task, you'll learn how your agents can help customers the moment they need it by connecting with messaging and live chat. It should take about 12 minutes to complete.
Connect on web, mobile, and social
In this section, you'll watch a video that shows you how customers can use the Web Widget to connect to directly from your web sites, so your agents and your customers can engage in real-time, ongoing conversations. This section also provides an overview on how to set up the Web Widget.
- Click the play icon () to watch the video.
Add Zendesk to your website
In this section, you'll learn how to customize the Web Widget to match your brand colors and embed it on your website.
To add the Web Widget
- Open the color picker and choose a color for the Web Widget.
The color you pick will appear in the Web Widget interface to match your website branding. When you change colors, you'll see a Preview of the widget on the right side of the page.
- To embed the Web Widget, copy the Web Widget code and add it to your website.
Include the Web Widget code on any web page where you want the widget to appear. This code is specifically designed to work with your Zendesk account. For details, see Working with messaging in the Web Widget.
- If you need help or you don't have permission to make changes to your website, you can Email the code snippet to a team member.
If you don’t have a default mail client configured, the button may not work. In this case, just copy the Web Widget code from the wizard and email it to a team member.
Set up on social channels
In addition to the Web Widget, you can complete your customer connections by adding social messaging channels to your account. When you install and configure social messaging channels in your account, your agents can view social messages that customers send to Zendesk as part of a support request and they can reply to these messages, all from a single, unified interface. You add messaging channels such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, X (formerly Twitter) DM, and LINE in Admin Center.
The wizard shows you how to add a Facebook Messenger channel. You must be a Facebook page admin to add this social messaging channel. Facebook Messenger is a social messaging application from Facebook that you can use for private messaging. Messages your customers send from Facebook Messenger appear as tickets in the Zendesk Agent Workspace.
If you don't have a Facebook Messenger account, you can skip this section.
To add a social messaging channel
- Click Go to Facebook.
- When prompted, log into your Facebook account. Follow the on-screen instructions to authorize Zendesk Support to use your Facebook account.
- Select a Facebook page from the drop-down list.
Select all of your pages, or the integration will not work.
- Click Add Facebook page.
If the integration is successful, you'll see a Channel added confirmation.
To learn more about social messaging, see Getting started with social messaging.
Help center
In this task, you'll learn how you can use your help center to help customers help themselves. It only takes about 10 minutes to complete. As part of this task, the wizard automatically activates your help center for you. The help center includes sample articles and images based on the business type you selected: Business (B2B), Consumer (B2C), Employees (B2E).
Help customers help themselves
Self-service support equips customers with round-the-clock information without having to wait for a response. It is one of the lowest-cost channels for providing excellent customer service and high resolution rates. However, the success of online self-service depends on the quality, quantity, and accessibility of your company’s knowledge-base content.
To learn more about Zendesk Guide, see Welcome to Guide. To set up your help center, see Getting stared with Guide.
Design your help center
You can import a theme or customize your existing theme to match your brand. This section shows you how to start the Zendesk trial wizard tour for customizing your help center design.
To start the tour
- Click the Get started tab in the sidebar, then click Help center > Design your help center.
- Click Design help center, then follow the on-screen instructions to complete the tour.
Create and publish content
You help center consists of a knowledge base and a customer contact portal. As a Guide admin, you can create and publish articles in the help center and work with your agents to make sure customers have the latest, up-to-date information about your products.
This section shows you how to start the Zendesk trial wizard tour for creating and publishing help center content.
To start the tour
- Click the Get started tab in the sidebar, then click Help center > Create and publish content.
- Click Create article, then follow the on-screen instructions to complete the tour.
Reporting and analytics
In this task, you'll learn how you can use reporting and analytics to view account activity and make smarter decisions about where to focus your resources. Companies that harness data see big operational improvements. It only takes about 4 minutes to complete.
You can use reporting and analytics to:
- Reveal insights through data: You can track the many important customer support metrics that reveal how you’re doing providing support to your customers across all channels and also how your staff is handling ticket volume.
- Visualize your data: With customizable, built-in dashboards and charts you can gain an understanding of customer interactions to help you manage team staffing and performance.
To learn more, see Welcome to Explore for reporting and analytics.
Apps and integrations
In this task, you'll learn how you can use apps and integrations to extend your Zendesk capabilities and work seamlessly with your other business tools. It only takes about 4 minutes to complete.
You can use apps and integrations to:
- Connect your business tools: Depending on your work environment, you may wish to integrate your Zendesk account with one or more popular 3rd-party applications such as Salesforce, JIRA, or Slack. Integrations enable you to manage user data and ticket flows across applications, so you can add features and improve business processes.
- Explore the Marketplace: Zendesk includes a Zendesk Marketplace you can use to customize and extend your Zendesk account. In the Marketplace, you'll find hundreds of apps and integrations. The choices include a range of free and paid apps developed by Zendesk, or others.
To learn more, see Extending Zendesk with top apps and Extending Zendesk with top integrations.
Learn more about Zendesk
Congratulations! You have completed the tasks for your trial account.
If you're ready to purchase, click Buy Zendesk to purchase the Zendesk plan you just trialed. Alternatively, to find the best Zendesk plan to meet your needs, click Compare plans to see what's included in each plan type.
Additional ways to explore Zendesk
If you need more information before you buy, some additional ways to explore Zendesk include:
- Watch demo videos to see how it all works. See videos.
- Discover how businesses like yours use Zendesk. Read customer stories.
- Use the free on-demand training courses. Learn about the training programs.
- Check out Getting started with Zendesk Support.
- Click Get plan recommendation to help you discover which plan to buy.
- Watch demo videos to see how it all works. See videos.
- Discover how businesses like yours use Zendesk. Read customer stories.
- Use the free on-demand training courses. Learn about the training programs.
- Check out the evaluation guides. Evaluating your Zendesk Suite trial.
You can also refer to our Launch guide for Zendesk Support. This article describes how to install Zendesk Support in a production environment with a full set of features.
You can also refer to our Launch guide for Zendesk Suite. This article describes how to install Zendesk Suite in a production environment with a full set of features.
Deleting sample data
You have the option to keep or remove the sample data in your trial. Sample data can be useful for training other admins and agents on how to use Zendesk. It can also be useful to further evaluate your trial. Alternatively, you might want to clear out the sample data and start with a clean slate.
To delete sample data, follow these procedures:
Set up and go live
Once you decide to buy Zendesk, you'll see additional in-product setup tasks to get your account set up and ready to go live. Each task includes an online tour to get you started and instructions with setup details. The help panel opens automatically when you first sign in to your account. Also, for the first 30 days, you’ll see a banner on how to access the help panel.
To view the in-product setup tasks
- Click the help icon (?) next to your profile image.
A help panel appears. The panel includes simple setup instructions, plus links to various learning resources, including:
- Step-by-step setup guides with new tutorial videos
- Links to articles, community, and training courses
- Search capability of the entire Zendesk help center
Extending your trial
If your trial expires, but you need more time to evaluate, you may be eligible for a one-time extension. See Extending your Zendesk trial.