English (US)
  1. Zendesk help
  2. Support
  3. Using Support
  4. Channels

Using social messaging channels (Social Messaging add-on)

Amy Malka
  • Edited
Zendesk Documentation Team

Note: You must have a Zendesk Support Team, Professional, Enterprise, or Elite plan in order to purchase the Social Messaging add-on. The Zendesk Support Suite includes the Social Messaging add-on at no additional cost. For more information, see About Zendesk product add-ons.

If the Social Messaging add-on has been installed and setup by your administrator, messages to your company’s social messaging channels such as WhatsApp, LINE, WeChat, Facebook, and Twitter will become tickets in your Support account.

With the add-on, your Support account will include the social messaging notifier and some additional ticket views—both will help you find the social messaging tickets that are assigned to you, or that still need to be assigned to an agent. You can reply to social messaging tickets from the ticket interface just like any other ticket, and can create business rules (triggers, automations, and macros) for social messaging tickets.

This article includes these sections:

Related articles:

How the Social Messaging add-on affects the Support interface

The social messaging notifier includes two tabs—one for tickets that have been assigned to you, and one for tickets that have not been assigned to an agent yet. Icons on the left side indicate the status of the ticket (for example, Open). Icons on the right indicate which social messaging channel is being used. However, you can't sort the tickets that appear in the notifier.

Under each user name in the notifier, the status of the conversation appears. It will be one of these two options:

  • Started a new chat: This is the conversation status for all new social messaging tickets. The end user mentioned in the notifier started a new conversation with your business using a social messaging channel.
  • Replied to the conversation: This is the conversation status for all other social messaging tickets. The end user mentioned in the notifier replied to the social messaging conversation.

Social messaging tickets include a Reply with Social Messaging button in the ticket interface. The reply will be sent from the social message account indicated in the ticket interface.

If your company uses multiple social messaging accounts with Support, you will see different social messaging account numbers in different social messaging tickets.

Other things to note:

Merging user accounts after customers contact you from social messaging channels

The first time an end user reaches out to you using a social messaging channel, a new user account is created for them in Support. If your company has multiple social messaging phone numbers, this happens each time each end user uses the phone number for the first time.

If the end user contacted you before from a different channel (for example, Facebook or Twitter), merge their new user account with their old one, so that their tickets are associated with a single account (see Merging a user’s duplicate account).

End user profiles include a field called Social Messaging User Info, which includes all of the user information pushed to Zendesk from the social messaging channels used by the end user to create tickets.

The end user’s social messaging phone number appears in their profile.

Social messaging tags and fields on tickets

Social messaging tickets include these special tags:

  • A special tag that indicates what social messaging channel was used.
  • A messaging_support tag that indicates that the ticket is a social messaging ticket.

Social messaging tickets also include a field called Social Messaging Channel Info, which includes all of the information that Zendesk has about the social messaging channel that was used by agents to reply to the ticket.

Technically, you can remove the tags from the ticket, just like any other tag, but we strongly advise you to leave them alone. If you remove them, these things happen:

Viewing lists of social messaging tickets from the social messaging notifier

You can use the social messaging notifier in Support to view a list of social messaging tickets that are assigned to you, and that haven’t been assigned to an agent yet.

To view a list of social messaging tickets from the notifier

  1. From Support, click the social messaging icon () in the top bar in upper-right corner.

    The icon includes a red dot when there are new, unassigned social messaging tickets that need your attention.

  2. From the Assigned to you tab, review the WhatsApp tickets that are assigned to you (this tab opens by default).

    The status of these tickets is New or Open. Tickets continue to appear in this list changes to Pending.

  3. Click Unassigned to view WhatsApp tickets that haven’t been assigned to an agent yet.

    From Unassigned, all unassigned social messaging tickets appear in this list, regardless of their status.

  4. If you want to view more social messaging tickets, you can click Load more tickets, if it appears.

    Load more tickets only appears if there are more than 20 tickets.

Using “Load more tickets” and ticket views to find social messaging tickets

When you click Load more tickets from the social messaging notifier, the notifier closes and a view of social messaging tickets opens in the agent interface. The view depends on what tab you are on when you click Load more tickets. For example:

  • From Assigned to you tab: The Your social messaging tickets view opens and displays a list social messaging tickets that are assigned to you, and that have a ticket status of New or Open.

  • From Unassigned tab: The Unassigned social messaging tickets view opens and displays a list of social messaging tickets that are unassigned, regardless of their status.

Ask your administrator whether your company has any shared views for social messaging tickets.

If needed, you can create personal views of social messaging tickets using social messaging conditions (see Adjusting business views and business rules for WhatsApp tickets).

Replying to social messaging tickets from the ticket interface

Before you reply to a social messaging ticket, check with your administrator to find out whether your company uses triggers and automations that affect social messaging tickets.

Also, if you are replying to a WhatsApp ticket, make sure you understand how WhatsApp’s 24-hour rule affects replies. This is something important and specific to WhatsApp tickets.

To open a social messaging ticket from the notifier

  1. Open the social messaging notifier.
  2. Find the ticket in the list, and then click the ticket.

    The pop-up closes and the ticket opens.

To reply to a social messaging ticket from the ticket interface

  1. Open the social messaging ticket.
  2. (Optional) Merge the user’s profile with other existing profiles before you reply (see Merging user accounts after customers contact you from social messaging channels).
  3. Click Reply with Social Messaging and then type your reply into the field.

    The reply will be sent from the social messaging account indicated in the ticket interface.

    If your company uses multiple social messaging accounts with Support, you may see different social messaging account numbers in different social messaging tickets for this reason.

  4. (Optional) Attach a picture or file.
  5. (Optional) Apply any macros you want to use.

    With WhatsApp, macros work as long as WhatsApp’s 24-hour rule is observed.

  6. Submit the ticket with the appropriate status.

    With WhatsApp tickets, the end user receives the reply from WhatsApp, if WhatsApp’s 24-hour rule was observed. If it wasn’t, the reply fails and is not delivered to the end user. Error messages about the failure display in the upper-right portion of the agent interface and in the Events log.

  7. Click Conversations under the active comment area, then select Events.

    Notice there is a new event that states that the comment was sent to the social messaging channel. This means that Support attempted to send the comment to the end user through the social messaging channel.

    With WhatsApp, whether the reply was actually received still depends on if WhatsApp’s 24-hour rule was observed.

    Here’s what the event looks like if there is no failure.

Searching for social messaging users and tickets

You can search for social messaging users and tickets using data from specific fields located in end user profiles and tickets. For example:

  • You can search for end users based on their social messaging phone number, and then see all of the tickets associated with that end user. The search results will include both social messaging tickets and non-social messaging tickets. For more information, see Searching for tickets by WhatsApp number.

    Note: There is no method for running a search that shows only the social messaging tickets associated with a particular social messaging phone number.

  • You can search for end users based on data in the Social Messaging User Info field (see Social messaging tags and fields on tickets).

  • You can search for tickets based on data in the Social Messaging Channel Info field (see Social messaging tags and fields on tickets).

For more information about using Search in general, see the Zendesk Support search reference.

Return to top
Have more questions? Submit a request

0 Comments

Article is closed for comments.

Related articles

Powered by Zendesk