Channels are the ways that you engage with your customers (how they create support requests and how you communicate with them). You choose and configure the channels you want to support. Regardless of the channel by which new support requests are submitted, all requests become tickets that agents manage in Zendesk Support.
Admins are able to add channels using both the admin settings in Support and the Channels page in the Admin Center.
For help using Zendesk Explore to report on ticket channels, see Understanding ticket channels in Explore.
The Zendesk Support email channel enables customers to send email directly to your support email address (for example, support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com). Email you receive for Zendesk Support becomes tickets. Your Zendesk Support account allows for an unlimited number of email addresses within your Zendesk domain. In other words, you can use as many email address variations as you need.
Accepting support requests via external email addresses is also supported. If you already have, or want to support, external email addresses, you can forward email received at those addresses to equivalent addresses in your Zendesk domain.
In addition to receiving support requests at your external email addresses and then forwarding that email to your Zendesk account, you can also configure your email channel to process all outgoing email as if it were coming from your own email domain, rather than your Zendesk account domain. Using your own domain requires a little more set up on your part, and much of it is done outside of Zendesk, maybe requiring help from your domain administrator.
All of your email communication is sent using a template that you can customize. The template is in both HTML and plain text. You can customize the template to match your branding. You can also make some minor modifications to the wording.
You can also set up Zendesk Support business rules to generate automatic email replies at each stage in the workflow, such as updating the ticket, solving the ticket, and so on.
For more information about configuring your email channel, see Setting up your email in Zendesk.
Help center
Your help center, which you create using Zendesk Guide, provides your end users with a complete self-service support solution that includes your knowledge base articles and several options for contacting you for support.
Your help center includes a web form that your end users can use to submit a support request. Agents can also create tickets from the comments that are added to the articles and community posts in your help center. Replies from agents are added as comments.
Your knowledge base articles and a support contact form that also be embedded into any website and also mobile apps. See Web Widget (Classic) and Mobile SDK below.
Your knowledge base articles can also be used by Web and mobile messaging in tandem with Zendesk bots to automatically assist end users to locate the answers they need. Web messaging and the messaging Web Widget also embed your support solution into websites and mobile apps.
For information about enabling Guide and setting up your help center, see Getting started with Guide.
Web and mobile messaging
Messaging allows you to communicate with customers asynchronously across multiple sessions and devices (the web, mobile devices, and social media apps). The full conversation history, across sessions and devices, is retained.
You can also create a customizable messaging bot using bot builder that guide end users to the answers they seek. The messaging bot suggests relevant articles from your knowledge base to address their issues.
You use the Web Widget as a channel to embed messaging and automated conversation flows using bot builder and messaging bot into your websites and your help center.
For more information, see About messaging.
Social messaging
When you add a social messaging channel to your admin settings in Support or in Admin Center, messages sent to your company’s social messaging channels become tickets in Support. You can send and receive social messages as part of the main ticket conversation flow.
The following social messaging channels are available in Zendesk:
- WhatsApp: A popular chat and voice messaging app with more than 1.5 billion users in over 180 countries. See Adding WhatsApp channels to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.
- LINE: An all-in-one communications app for text, voice, and video calls, moments, photo sharing, and games. See Adding LINE channels to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.
- Facebook: A popular social networking site that you can use for public messaging with your customers. See Setting up your Facebook channel.
- Facebook Messenger: A popular social messaging application from Facebook that you can use for private messaging with your customers. See Setting up your Facebook channel and Adding Facebook Messenger channels to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.
- X (formerly Twitter): A popular social networking service that you can use for public messaging with your customers. See Setting up your X (formerly Twitter) channel.
- X DM: A popular X feature that you can use for private messaging with your customers. See Setting up your X (formerly Twitter) channel and Adding X (formerly Twitter) DM channels to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.
- Instagram Direct: Instagram's private messaging service that allows you to communicate directly with other users. See Adding and configuring Instagram Direct.
- WeChat: A popular, China-based mobile text and voice messaging communication service that you can use for public messaging with your customers. See Adding WeChat social messaging channels.
You can also add more messaging channels to Zendesk. For example, you can also add Viber, Telegram, and Apple Messages for Business. Messages sent to these channels become tickets in the Agent Workspace. When an agent responds, the comment appears as a reply in the user's messaging app. See Adding Sunshine Conversations channels.
Voice
The Zendesk Talk channel integrates live telephone (voice) support into your Zendesk account. You select a telephone number for incoming calls and set the call queuing options and recorded greetings. You can also customize call greetings.
Agents make themselves available to receive calls and their conversations with customers are recorded and added to tickets. When agents are unavailable, customers leave voicemail messages that automatically become tickets containing the voicemail recording and a transcription. Agents can answer calls through the web browser or they can forward calls to another number.
For information about setting up your voice channel, see Enabling the Talk channel and configuring general settings. For information about using Talk, see Using Zendesk Talk.
Text
Text enables you to respond to inbound SMS text messages, automate alerts, or send proactive texts to your customers.
Whenever you receive a text, it automatically creates a ticket in Support meaning that you can apply all of the advantages of automated workflows, reporting, and history to your text support.
For information about setting up Text, see Getting started with Text.
Live chat
Zendesk Chat enables customers to initiate live chat with an agent. Chat sessions become tickets that agents can update after the chat session. You can add Zendesk Chat to any website or help center.
In addition to responding to end-user chats, you can review a real-time list of visitors, what page they're on, how they got to your website, and other details. Using this information, agents can provide proactive support by reaching out to targeted visitors, like ones with items in their shopping cart but are taking too long to complete their purchase.
Agents can also chat with other agents, either one-on-one or by pulling them into a conversation with a visitor.
For information about setting up Zendesk Chat, see Setting Up Zendesk Chat.
Web Widget (Classic)
The Web Widget (Classic) enables you to embed Zendesk Support options in your website or help center so your customers can get help without leaving your website or help center. Your customers can get quick access to:
- Search for knowledge base articles
- Live chat with an agent
- Contact form to submit a ticket
The widget appears in the bottom-right corner of your website or help center, and your customers click the widget to access support options.
You configure the components you want in the widget, then add the widget code to your website or help center. After you add the code, you manage changes from your Zendesk. You must be an administrator to set up and manage Web Widget (Classic).
If you are using messaging for a website or help center, Web Widget (Classic) is replaced with the messaging Web Widget.
Mobile SDK
The Mobile SDK enables you to embed Zendesk support options in your native app so your customers can get help directly in your app. Your customers can get quick access to:
- Create tickets using a contact form in your app
- Contact agents for support via messaging or live chat
- View and comment on existing tickets in-app, without switching to email
- Browse and search your help center knowledge base in-app, without being redirected to a browser
- Rate your app in the app store or send you direct feedback
![](https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/mobile_sdk_main.png)
After the SDK is integrated in your app, changes are managed from your Zendesk and automatically reflected in the SDK. Adding the SDK to your app is done outside of Zendesk by your developers using a code snippet generated in Zendesk.
- Embedding customer service in mobile apps with the Support SDK
- SDK developer documentation for iOS or Android.
API
If you're a developer, you can access Zendesk functionality through the Zendesk API. For example, you can create a new ticket using the API instead. See the API documentation.
The Apps and integrations > APIs > Zendesk API page in Admin Center enables you to configure how API requests are authenticated as well as track API activity against your rate limit.
Reports for the Ticket Update Via or Ticket Event Via attribute may return web service, which refers to the API channel. This means that the ticket or ticket update came through API, via an integration or app that you downloaded from the Marketplace (for example, CRM, JIRA, or Slack), or some other workflow that you have set up.
For more information about the API channel, see Managing access to the Zendesk API.
Channel integrations
As well as the channels that are built into Zendesk products, you can also add apps that offer additional channels by connecting to many popular platforms on the web. These apps let your agents respond to messages, reviews and comments just like they do with any other ticket.
Remember, you can also use the Channel framework to create your own channels.
To browse the available channel integrations, see the Channels section in the Zendesk Marketplace.
Computer telephony integration
CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) integrations offer a way to connect Zendesk with a third-party telephony system using the Talk Partner Edition Developer API. Tickets created from a CTI are included in this channel. For more details, see Understanding Talk Partner Edition.
Closed tickets
Customers can create a new ticket by replying to an old ticket that's in the Closed status. When a ticket is closed, it can no longer be changed in any way. This means that if a customer replies to an email notification from that old, closed ticket, the ticket will not be re-opened; a follow-up ticket will be created instead.
When a follow-up ticket is created from a closed ticket, Closed Ticket appears as the channel within the ticket itself. At the top of that ticket, you'll see information about the old ticket that the new one was created from. You can click on the old ticket number to view the original, closed ticket.
For more information, see Creating a follow-up for a closed ticket.
In Explore, follow-up tickets are reported through two different channels, depending on which attribute you're using:
- Closed Ticket: The Update channel attribute in the Updates history dataset uses this channel value.
- Web: The Ticket channel attribute in the Support datasets uses this channel value.
For more information, see Understanding ticket channels in Explore.
16 comments
Gab Guinto
I'm afraid there's no attribute for support addresses so it's not possible to report on this in Explore. A workaround is to use triggers that will tag tickets or set a custom field value based on the received at address, and leverage that in your queries. You can check out this article for more information on this: Can I report on the received at address in Explore?
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José Caldas
Builder and messaging bot into your websites and your help center. Need to be fixed..
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Jennifer Rowe
Oops! Fixed now. Thanks for letting us know, José Caldas!
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Nancy
Hi Jennifer, just noticed that there's a Channel called: Closed Ticket. Could you help provide a bit more info on this? thanks!
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Hiedi Kysther
Hey Nancy,
The channel called Closed Tickets, are for follow-up tickets. This is for when your customer replies to a ticket that is already solved and closed. As we all know, closed tickets cannot be updated anymore, so it'll create a follow-up ticket and the closed ticket will be the ticket's channel.
I hope this helps!
Regards,
Hiedi Kysther
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Nancy
Thank you Hiedi Kysther! I'm wondering how user replies to a closed ticket since we didn't let closed ticket shown on user's end. Or did they just reply via the email? since our mobile SDK tickets will also send an auto email to user's email address just in case user doesn't notice the ticket update. Really appreciate your help!
Best,
Nancy
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Hiedi Kysther
Hi Nancy!
Correct! Closed tickets will be created via email or to any channel actually. So in your case, if the original ticket is already Closed, and the customer responds via email, a follow-up ticket will
be created. This article may be helpful for you: Creating a follow-up for a closed ticket.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Hiedi Kysther
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Vincent Lieffroy
Hello, what about WeChat and Instagram Direct as displayed hereafter ?
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James Yang
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Erin O'Callaghan
Hi James Yang, the Analyzing your Flow Builder activity article describes the prebuilt Explore dashboard that shows information about the number of users who engaged with the bot or were transferred to an agent. And if you’re looking to create your own Explore reports, the Flow Builder dataset includes the relevant metrics and attributes on this topic.
1
Nico Plinke
Hi,
When I create a ticket from a community post, the channel is empty.
How can I set a channel here?
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Anne Ronalter
Community Posts do currently not have a channel.
What I would recommend you to do, is to create a trigger based on a subject line described here:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408889250586-How-do-I-create-a-trigger-based-on-a-ticket-subject-
Community Post tickets do have it written in their headlines, therefore you can create the trigger by subject.
In the Trigger, you can then add a Tag and then again create a view based on Tags.
Here you can read more about working with ticket Tags:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408835059482-Working-with-ticket-tags
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Shift Happens Team
Is it possible to create views based on email channels? As in, creating a filtered view that only shows a single support email address as opposed to all support email addresses?
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Cheeny Aban
Yes, you can create a custom view to show filtered tickets received from specific support email addresses. One example is by using the condition "Ticket received at under meet all condition" -- This will allow you to choose tickets received from a specific support address to show on the said views. More information on how to build your personalized views may be found here: Creating views to build customized lists of tickets
I hope that helps!
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Zendesk Saasten
Is channel integration support omnichannel routing?
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Dainne Kiara Lucena-Laxamana
Hi Zendesk Saasten ,
If the integration creates a ticket via API, then yes Omnichannel should function on that ticket.
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