Using SurveyMonkey and Zapier to pull custom survey data into tickets

Zendesk Support's built-in Customer Satisfaction Survey offers an easy to use and deploy transactional survey that many of our customers use every day. There are some instances where getting more data and feedback could be a good idea. For those instances, our integrations into SurveyMonkey and Zapier combine to give you a clean connection of data into your tickets from custom survey questions.

Requirements

• SurveyMonkey account (Platinum Plan or higher)
• Zapier account (Basic or higher)

Configure SurveyMonkey

1. Your first step is to create your survey. For more information, you can look at the SurveyMonkey help guide .
2. In the Design Survey section, scroll down and add a custom variable. You can name the variable anything, but for simplicity I have named it ticketid . This allows you to add a variable from Zendesk Support that Zapier will use to update the correct ticket.
   
3. Create a weblink for gathering responses.  For more information, see the  you can look at the SurveyMonkey help guide .
   
   The link should include your variable and should look like this:
   https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2W312532?ticketid=[ticketid_value]

Once you have completed this, you will have to set up Zendesk Support to receive the values of the survey into ticket fields.

Configure Zendesk Support

1. You will need to create the same amount of fields in Zendesk Support as you have questions in your survey. In this example, I will be creating 5 fields to match this survey:
   
2. There are several different custom ticket field types that you can use here.  I will explain when to use each here.  For details about custom ticket fields, see Adding and using custom ticket fields .

• For questions 1, 2 and 3, you can use a text field or a multi-line text field. This is because when you push the data from Zapier to Zendesk Support it comes in as a block of text with spaces. I suggest using a single line text field for these questions because users select the option rather than enter free text.
• For question 4, you can use a text field, drop-down, numeric, decimal, and a multi-line text field. These are all possible because the value that will be sent to Zendesk Support is 1-10. That being said, I suggest you use either a drop-down or text field for this option. In this example, I used a drop-down. To make the drop down values unique, I set the tag as "nps_0" through "nps_10". When I map these values later in Zapier, it will make more sense.
• For question 5, you can use a text field or a multi-line text field. Although a text field could work for this, you would have to limit the characters. I suggest using a multi-line text field if it matches a multi-line text field in SurveyMonkey.

Once you create all of the tickets, make sure you capture the values of those fields. To do that, go to edit the ticket field and the ticket field value should be at the top like this:

Finally, create a trigger or automation that features the link to SurveyMonkey for tickets that are solved. For more information on how to create triggers or automations, see Streamlining workflow with ticket updates and triggers or Streamlining workflow with time-based events and automations .

For my specific example, I just took the default Zendesk Support Customer Satisfaction automation and edited the link section. The end result looks like this:

Also note that I changed the link a little to add the {{ticket.id}} placeholder. That will populate ticket ID into the link so when the person clicks it, it adds the survey with that ID.

Once you have completed this, you're ready to set up the Zapier portion of this integration.

Configure Zapier

1. Add the Zendesk Support and SurveyMonkey as Zapier endpoints.  For more information take a look at these links:

• Zapier: How to get started with Zendesk Support
• Zapier: How to get started with SurveyMonkey

Create a Zap that is triggered when there is a New Survey Response in SurveyMonkey to Update Ticket in Zendesk Support.

In Sections 2 and 3, match up the accounts that will be used in this Zap.

In Section 4, you can add a filter that omits any surveys that are created without a ticket ID variable. It would look something like this:

In Section 5, map the values from SurveyMonkey into Zendesk Support.
Note: You need to have a completed survey in SurveyMonkey for there to be values to select from.  If you don't see the "ticketid" variable that you created in SurveyMonkey go back to SurveyMonkey and make sure you have a test ticket fully filled out.

• The first, and most important mapping, is the ticket mapping.  You must select the "ticketid" variable you created earlier like this:
  

• The remaining fields should be mapped accordingly.
• Text or multi-line text:
  
• Dropdowns are a little different.  I added a pretext of "nps_" to all of the tags.  Thus I have to add the pretext to the mapping as well.  It would look something like this:
  Note: If you have required fields in Zendesk Support, you must select a value.  You can do this manually in the Zap or through adding an additional variable that sends that value into the field.

After you have mapped all of your fields, you will be given an option to verify the data being sent.

Click on "See action sample." for the Zendesk sample and you should see something like this.

Verify that your questions are listed, along with having a proper ticket number.

After you have verified, click on "Test Zap with this sample" and verify in Zendesk Support that the data has been updated.

Reporting

Because all the survey results now reside in the ticket, the data is shared with Insights.  For more information, see Reporting on custom fields in Insights .