[Zendesk Talk] Option to Upload a "Holiday" Outside Schedule Voicemail

Answered

39 Comments

  • Official comment
    Sean Chuang
    Zendesk Product Manager

    Hi Everyone,

    Update: 

    We understand from the community that this is a valuable feature and we are evaluating this request but at this time, it is not on our immediate short term roadmap. 

    In the meantime, for those more adventurous, you can take a look at our available APIs and see if you can leverage our 'phone numbers' and 'greetings' APIs to develop a solution. Please note that while this may work, it is not supported by Zendesk.  

    Thanks

    Sean

  • Joe Wang

    We'd also like to see an option to include greetings in holiday settings so that Talk greetings can be set ahead of time. As of this post, indicating a holiday in the schedule tab has no bearing on what greetings play to callers. 

    Other telephony services have provided the ability to save holiday greetings separately for a few years now. For any modern customer support operating on an omnichannel basis, this gap lags behind Zendesk's otherwise forward-looking features. 

    While we don't operate in multiple countries or conduct support in multiple languages, as a US-based business we also find the current process (change Talk greetings on the day of, then change it again after) limiting and tedious. 

    10
  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Manager

    Thanks for the feedback, Joe!

    -3
  • Josh Deniet

    Has there been any progress on this, Nicole?

    As a new subscriber to Zendesk Talk I am really disappointed such a feature doesn't already exist, I will now be forced to log on during my holidays to change our greetings manually, how archaic!

    5
  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Manager

    Hi Josh - 

    I haven't received any updates from the product team on this request at this point in time, but I'll pass this request along again to see if they have anything to add. 

    -3
  • Francis Engbert

    I'm chiming in to express my support of this request. In my opinion this is the #1 shortcoming of Zendesk Talk.

    4
  • Joseph Markman

    Has any progress been made on this? This is an extremely easy way to make your customers happy, and something that should already be present as all your competitors have this functionality. It should been very easy to implement as well, zendesk already supports custom greetings just add a new type called "holiday" and move on.

    2
  • Brandon Tidd
    User Group Leader Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Humblident Award - 2021

    Currently updating 65 numbers Outside Schedule voicemails manually and up-voting this feature request!

    4
  • Sara Vandermolen

    I would also like to add my vote to this, with a slight addition. In our business, we need to have and on-call rep even on holidays in case of system issues. It would be of immense help to have the option to send calls that come in during pre-set holidays to a holiday-specific IVR. This would allow us to specify a greeting and voicemail appropriate for the holiday, and still allow them to press an option to route to the on-call person if needed.

    To give an idea of our use case, we will need to set up 4 numbers and still manually change greetings to be specific to each holiday. The main number is how people call in and is associated to our regular hours. If the caller was outside of these regular hours, it overflows to a number that checks to see if it was part of our "after hours" times (before we open and after we close). If it didn't come in after hours, it overflows to a number that is associated to our training schedule so they can get a specific message when we're closed for our regular training times. If it's not part of those hours, we are going to try to set up an overflow to yet another number with holiday routing options.

    This kind of flow is complicated and prone to errors. We would like to see something that allows us to set automatic routing to a specific IVR based on a call coming in during a pre-defined holiday. Being able to pre-set a different voicemail for each holiday would be a bonus, but would not be a core function for us.

    4
  • [Basarts]

    I also vote for this option. We need to schedule exceptional closures for training sessions, corporate events ... and to broadcast a specific message during this closing time slot.
    The solutions proposed today are not satisfactory because they are a source of error/forgetting.

    2
  • Jamie Noell

    Zendesk playing a holiday out of office greeting based on the schedule associated with a certain number would be very helpful.

    1
  • Tobias Hermanns

    +1

    1
  • Anna

    To be able to preset the schedule + greeting is absolutely needed. Especially since we are a multi-brand company of 18+. Having to manually set the greetings is a nightmare.

    1
  • Vaughan

    I completely agree with this thread that we need an option to set specific holiday greetings and times for it to run within our schedule and restore to normal greetings after the timeframe.

    This would also be an outstanding feature to include in the HelpDesk to allow scheduling updates to the home_page.hbs. We update our helpdesk to reflect holiday closures and without automation this requires code changes.

     

    Yikes, didn't see this thread is 2+ years old. Not inspiring hope or confidence here. Looking forward to a product specialist to let us know it's on the roadmap for 2020 after these years of asking.

    0
  • Stephanie Cala

    Wanted to post here in support of a holiday scheduling feature for Talk.  Our previous phone provider had a feature that allowed us to schedule our holiday voicemail greetings well in advance so that we wouldn't have to worry about switching between default greetings during a long weekend, and we wouldn't have to worry about switching the default greetings back. (Usually we'd create the audio files for holidays in one big batch early in the year and then set up our entire holiday schedule ahead of time.)

    This feature would also be helpful for when we have our weekly team trainings or monthly company meetings.  Since these happen during normal operating hours, I think the current workaround is to change our schedule in ZenDesk, change the default greeting, and then once the meeting has concluded we have to do the laborious task of switching it all back to normal.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong, or if there's an easier way to do this.). This seems like a tedious workaround, given the frequency of these meetings.

    1
  • Noël Phillips

    Leaving my vote as welll--it is quite surprising that Zendesk does not have the capability to create a holiday temporary voicemail. Even the most basic of services offers that. Please add this to new tech builds!

     

    1
  • Jonas Brenig

    We need this as well! :-)

     

    2
  • Grete Andersson

    Leaving my vote aswell... 

    2
  • Kalle Windefalk

    +1

    2
  • Will Yolen

    +1 This feature would be extremely helpful for us too!

    2
  • Tobias Hermanns

    +1, any news Zendesk?

    1
  • Kate Clasby

    +1.  This is a very crucial feature and I'm actually quite surprised the capability doesn't already exist.  Any large company is put at a huge inconvenience to have to manually manage both IVR and voicemails during holidays. 

    Any update on whether this is on the product roadmap and if so when it might be launched?

    4
  • Liam Kelly

    Can I invoice Zendesk for having to manually change my outgoing message on Sunday?

    This is basic phone system functionality. 

    2
  • Brannan

    +1 on this. It's definitely a shame that as the Zendesk admin I have to spend extra time on and around holidays to do this. Talkdesk had amazing functionality for customizing holiday greetings and voicemail messaging to automatically activate. 

    I'd love to have a Zendesk Product Manager jump in and help us make a case for prioritizing this within their backlog.

    2
  • Carter Helm

    I'm shocked it doesn't have this feature, please add it even the small build up company I worked with before had this option.

    2
  • Janice Brown

    +1 , it appears that this request has been ongoing for 3 yrs now. I'm new to Zendesk Talk and very shocked as well that this basic feature is not available. 

    It's going to interrupt my personal life and holiday schedule just to support this minor task.

    @... when will this recommendation be in the pipeline or at least feedback if we will ever get this feature?  

    2
  • Julie Pluta

    Is there any update on this suggested product feature? 

    3
  • Rina

    Would love to hear an update on this, since it's ongoing from 3 years past!? @... ?

    2
  • Vaughan

    I'll bump this again since it has been over a year since my last comment and no reply from Zendesk. Please update us on the status of this feature request!

    I was encouraged to use this forum by my Customer Success Managers yet we're seeing no results from Zendesk on this end. I will be following up through alternative channels to seek an update on this feature request as this thread appears to be abandoned by Zendesk's Community Team.

    3
  • Beefit Support

    Now that Zendesk seems not to prioritize this (essential) feature, someone thould really try give it a go, creating a something like feature.

    My Go-to solution when we are having a unplanned meeting inside business hours, is right now to manually change our Default greetings, and after the meeting change this back to normal.

    It is really stupid, but I have not found a better way. Maybe an add-on could do these stupid steps automatically.

    Jonas

    3

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