Zendesk Talk call transcription and summarization FAQ

Available on all Suite plans Available on all Talk plans

In this article, you'll find frequently asked questions and answers about call transcription and summarization in Zendesk Talk.

In the following sections, you'll find frequently asked questions related to Talk call transcription and summarization:

General questions
Troubleshooting questions

General questions

What options are available for call transcription and summarization in Zendesk Talk?
Call transcription and summarization are included as part of the Advanced AI and Zendesk QA add-ons. The underlying service which transcribes and summarizes calls is the same, but what differs is where the resulting transcripts and summaries are viewed and how they are used.
- Advanced AI add-on
  Call transcripts and summaries are added to the conversation log on tickets in the Agent Workspace. Transcripts and summaries provide additional context to voice tickets and reduce the requirement for agents to take notes and summarize calls as part of their wrap-up activities.
- Zendesk QA add-on
  Call transcripts and summaries appear in Zendesk QA where QA-focused users can review and analyze historical call interactions in detail. Voice QA evaluates the call transcript and provides a QA Score just like it does for chat or messaging conversations which can be used to identify the conversations where there’s a churn risk or an agent knowledge gap.
You can select both one or both settings to send transcripts and summaries to tickets and Zendesk QA.
How do I activate call transcription and summarization?
If you have a subscription for either the Advanced AI add-on or the Zendesk QA add-on, you can turn on call transcription and summarization on the Talk settings page in Admin Center. Depending on which add-ons are subscribed to, admins can configure which phone calls get transcribed and summarized and whether the resulting transcripts and summaries appear in tickets in Agent Workspace or in the QA tool.
Is every phone call transcribed and summarized in Zendesk Talk?
No, only calls which are recorded can be transcribed and summarized. On the Talk settings page in Admin Center page, admins can turn on the transcription and summarization functionality for some or all phone lines that have turned on call recording.
How are call transcriptions priced?
Call transcriptions are charged at USD$0.01 per minute of transcribed audio. Transcription charges are rounded up to the nearest whole minute. Transcription charges are processed together with other Talk usage charges (e.g. phone number charges, call charges, recordings charges, etc.) and deducted from an account's Talk credit balance. For more pricing information, see the Talk pricing page.

Note: If calls are transcribed as part of both Advanced AI and Zendesk QA subscriptions, transcription costs will only be processed once for a given phone call. You won't be charged twice.
Where do call transcripts and call summaries appear in the Zendesk Agent Workspace?
After a phone call ends and the call recording audio file becomes available to play in a ticket, the call transcript and summary will get added to the ticket conversation log as internal notes.
Can Talk automatically redact sensitive customer data from transcripts and call summaries?
Yes, if you have the Advanced Data Privacy and Protection add-on, you can configure Zendesk Talk to automatically redact personally identifiable information (PII) and payment card industry (PCI) data from call recording transcriptions and summaries. If you have the Advanced Data Privacy and Protection add-on, you can configure Talk to automatically redact personally identifiable information (PII) and payment card industry (PCI) data from call recording transcriptions and summaries. You can manage the redaction settings for call transcripts and summaries on the Talk settings page in Admin Center.

Important: Zendesk can't redact PII/PCI data from call recording audio files. To ensure this personal information isn't accessible to users thorough the audio player in tickets, you must delete call recording files.
In what language will the call transcript be generated?
Call transcripts are generated in the same language that was spoken in a phone call. If more than one language is used, then the transcript will automatically adapt. Transcription is available for all supported Zendesk languages, except for Arabic and Hebrew (see Zendesk language support by product for the full list).
Are voicemail recordings also transcribed?
Yes, English-language voicemail recordings can also be transcribed into text. No other languages are supported for voicemail transcription at this time. See Configuring voicemail options.
Is the call transcript or call summary shared with or retained by a third party? Is customer data used to train the models?
The transcription and summarization features are powered by Deepgram and OpenAI’s Enterprise service. These services do not use Zendesk customers' inputs to train their models or otherwise improve their services, and Zendesk customer data will not be hosted except briefly for the purpose of providing the service. See Zendesk AI data use information for more information about how your data is protected.
How can customers export their transcription charges?
From the Talk Usage charges page in Admin Center, users can review their transcription charges for a given period and export a CSV file containing a detailed breakdown of charges. See option to Export CSV > Export detailed charges CSV. Users receive an email with a ZIP file attachment, which contains the CSV of charges for the period.
Is the call transcription and summarization functionality available for Talk Partner Edition?
At this time, the Zendesk transcription and summarization feature works for Zendesk Talk customers only. However, several existing Talk Partners already offer transcription services, including adding call transcripts to Zendesk tickets.

Troubleshooting questions

Why do call transcripts sometimes contain errors or inaccuracies?
Today, the best speech-to-text algorithms are around 90% accurate, meaning that for every 100 words processed, only 90 are accurately transcribed. Many factors can influence the accuracy of the transcription, including background noise, speakers talking over each other, poor quality audio connections or network signal, speaker dialects, quiet speech, or words and phrases not being in the training model database.
How can I improve the accuracy of transcriptions?
Use keyword boosting to specify specific words that are expected to occur in your phone conversations. This might include product names or industry-specific terms. Adding keywords in advance helps improve recognition and the accuracy of transcriptions. You can turn on keyword boosting and add keywords on the Talk settings page in Admin Center.
Why is the call transcript or call summary different to what was spoken on the call?
On rare occasions AI can "hallucinate" and provide an inaccurate answer if it is acting on limited data. The primary cause of hallucination lies in the limitations of the training data and neural network algorithms that AI models use to 'learn.' AI models, particularly those based on deep learning, learn patterns and associations from massive datasets. If the training data is biased, incomplete, or contains errors, the AI may develop skewed perceptions, leading to hallucinatory outputs. For example, hallucinations can happen when there are periods of silence or background noise in a Talk phone call, making it challenging for the AI to figure out what was actually said.
How can I prevent the call transcript taking up a lot of space on the ticket conversation log?
For customers with a subscription to Advanced AI, there is an option on the Talk settings page in Admin Center to hide the call transcript on tickets. In the future, agents will be able to expand and collapse the call transcript.
Why is there a delay in creating a ticket from a voicemail when voicemail transcription is turned on?
When a voicemail message contains no speech, the transcription service attempts several times to transcribe the audio file before stopping. This might lead to a delay of up to 30 minutes before the ticket is created.