Each month, we host an AMA-style conversation in the Zendesk Community on hot support topics, where we invite a panel of guest experts to answer user questions and share their specialized knowledge.

Zendesk Customer Advocate Eric Acker is one of our experts for our March 11, 2020 conversation on Support: Troubleshooting your Workflows & Ticket Fields.

Eric: Mind telling everyone a little bit about yourself and what you do here at Zendesk?

My role here at Zendesk is to help our fantastic customers troubleshoot their products. Could be working on ticket fields and workflows like we are today, to API, integrations, or the rest of the ever-growing product line! I’m also a mentor to our newer employees to make sure their transition into Zendesk is as smooth as possible

Eric: For some of our newer users, what would you recommend to those just starting out with Zendesk?

Take some time and play around with the product! For me, I always learn the best by getting my hands dirty and figuring out how the pieces connect with each other

Eric: When you are not crushing it as a star Advocate here at Zendesk what do you enjoy doing in your free time?

You’ll usually find me either out on the disc golf course, relaxing at home with my lovely girlfriend, or out on the family farm!

With workflows and ticket fields, what is the most common mistake you see first-time users make?

Eric: The most common mistakes I’ve seen people make are disabling their Notify Requester triggers and then their customers do not receive their email updates and setting up their email forwarding before making the email address a support address, so a user gets created before it can be added properly!

Are you a dog or cat person and got any cute pet pics we could see?

Eric: Dog person for days! But pet-friendly building so nothing to share :(

Thanks, Eric, for taking the time to chat with us.