Customize Help Center "Follow section" email notification

71 Comments

  • Laura Horvath

    Totally agree.  Does anyone know if we can edit those email templates at all?  I can't find any articles on it in the KBA but wondering if I am looking under the correct searches.  IF there are any suggestions or tips on ways to edit the emails generated from the 'follow section' capability.

     

     

    3
  • Joris Heuberger

    I ask Zendesk's Support and there is no way to customize this template.

    0
  • Remco de Waard

    Check. Was looking for this feature also. I found this page by by Googling for "follow articles zendesk notification template"  (https://www.google.nl/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=follow+articles+zendesk+notification+template%5C)

    The reason why I am looking for modifying the e-mail template is that our marketing department wants to check (and alter if necessary) all standard outgoing e-mail templates. They would like to check for the tone of voice. At this moment, I am not able to give a proper followup to their request.

    It would be nice if a Zendesk Administrator has the ability to modify the Help Center "Follow section" notifications. I would like to give this notifications the look and feel of our own organization.

    5
  • Russell Duncan

    I am also looking for this feature. We just removed all author names from our articles because it's not important to our users; they'd rather just see the date. But, users still see the name of the author in the email notification on new articles. We'd like a way to remove the author from email notifications. 

    7
  • Leif Brown

    I would also find this feature very useful.  It's been suggested that I disable  notifications entirely because they are unbranded, unattractive, and include information we don't want to share (like author names).

    7
  • Heather Rommel
    Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Product Manager Whisperer - 2021

    +1

    6
  • Pixmeo Support

    +1

    4
  • Paul LaBarbera

    +2

    5
  • Paul LaBarbera

    You're able to modify the template a little by using the standard email template under the Agent > Admin > Email menu.  

     

    This allows you to customize a header or footer, but it doesn't let you modify the body content of the email.  I've even tried targeting the CSS on the page, and nothing happens.

    It's very frustrating to me that the standard emails being sent by ZenDesk convert articles to plain text. The "Huge" and "Large" text options aren't copied to the email. arg.

    1
  • Maya Mandel

    I was actually hoping to use a Slack channel in my company so automatically post updated made to articles, instead of having to instruct people to go through the very tedious process of following each and every section (and also to reduce number of emails).

    Unfortunately the email notification is so dull in information that it's not going to be effective. It doesn't even post the content of the comment itself.

    The too-basic email notifications for followers of help center articles is increasingly becoming a major painpoint for us as we grow.

    3
  • Melanie Bunting

    +1

    1
  • Max Ostapenko

    Hi,

    Inability to customize the way our loyal customers get updates from us is frustrating.

    Please, enable its customization as one of Help Center design tempates.

    Thanks.

    1
  • Lester

    +1.  here too.

     

    1
  • Remco de Waard

    Our issue here is the following; on our portal we place all customer reports. When we place such report, the customer will receive a notification about the new content (great feature, saves us a lot of time). Every time we place content (and a notification has been sent) there are customers that will reply to the e-mail, even though at the bottom of the email it says "Please do not reply to this message. Email replies will not update Help Center content.". It appears that people dont see this. They will also miss that the corresponding address is 'noreply@...'. resulting in an email that is suspended. For now we have put the noreply address on the whitelist (https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203663246-Managing-suspended-tickets-and-spam) see what happens. 

    Ideally we would rather see that we could tailor this notifcations. 

    0
  • Mikaël Janssens

    Hi

     

    Come on, this should have been a feature a long time ago. Now, every time a user replies to that mails, we get a "Re:" ticket in the backend of Zendesk (Agent). That's really, really annoying. For the agents, but also for clients which are trying to respond on (e.g.) a Feature Request. 

    Do something about this please!!!

    1
  • Nathan Polidori

    +1

    1
  • Adrien Le Roy

    +1 

     

    We really need to be able to customize email notifications for people following a community post. Please ZENDESK, update us !

    1
  • Vlad
    Community Moderator
    The Wise One - 2022

    +1, needed for KB and Community

    1
  • Maggie Atkinson

    Our organization needs this feature, too. 

    0
  • Benjamin Keyser

    Thanks very much for the feedback. We've been discussing the possibility of migrating the email templates into our theming center, which would then enable them to be customised.

    As some of you may know, we ran an EAP for customised HC page templates where we're adding more levels and more options for customising themes... including out of the box toggles for adding or removing page components. Once that functionality is released to all, we can get back to thinking about what's next for the theming center... and email templates are back on the radar again thanks to this discussion!

    1
  • Sven Asmus

    +1

    We need a possibility to change the email layout (font-size, font-family) to use this feature for our customers. We have a very strict CI. Font-size 7.5pt for article content in outgoing email is not acceptable. The feature "Follow KB" is important for one of our processes, but I can't use it cause a simple style.

    1
  • Fabien RIC

    Also needed here, in the Pro plan (not Entreprise) please :)

    0
  • Cedric Lemaire

    I have more or less the same question: it would be nice we could change the email notification that is sent when people follow an article. I know you can change the default HTML template, but where can I find the text/code that is specifically sent when a comment was added?
    More specifically, in our case, I'd like to remove the "View comment" part in the notification email. Our custom CSS makes the article act weird when people click this link.

    0
  • chris.heap

    +1.

    Good to see Benjamin's note that this is back on the agenda. 

    The content itself isn't a main issue for us it's the inability to change the icon\avatar that is applied to the email. Having gone to a lot of effort to create multiple brands to not be able to specify our own branding should people follow our articles is a major downer.

    Everything going out with the Zendesk logo, if there is a trick to avoiding this in the meantime then please advise.

    0
  • Stephen

    This is a shame.

    Having a copy of the post/comment text in the email's body is almost like telling someone you don't need to visit our Community about this - just read the update here.

    It's a barrier for engagement, please update.

    0
  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Manager

    Hey Stephen -

    Most of the requests in this thread are about customizing the notification users receive when they follow an article in the knowledge base, but it sounds like you're looking to customize the notifications that they receive when someone adds a comment to a post they're following in your community, am I reading that correctly?

    Part of the idea of including the copy of the comment in the email is to reduce the barrier to a user getting an answer to their question. It's a tradeoff of customer effort vs. driving traffic to the community. Is the preference for them to get the information they're looking for quickly and easily, or is it to drive traffic to the community, even if it means more work for your user?

    0
  • Stephen

    1.Yes, it's about notification emails for Community.

    2. Hmmm, I get that and it's a good point, but it's a Community after all. They should be encouraged to go upvote (mark as answered) the answer so others know it helped and is correct. We can't even tell if it did help because they don't need to come back and tell us or the other member.

    If we could change the email to even say something like "Did this help? Let the Community know by upvoting this answer"

    You must experience the same here in this community? How do you mark things as answered if no-one comes back? Especially best practices, not yes/no support questions.

    1
  • Oscar Junker

    Hey Stephen!

    Good hearing from you and I totally understand this. Since the notification email is such a key part of the end-user experience it should also be customizable like the rest of the end-user experience. 

    This is something we are looking at doing - but to be completely transparent with you email customization is really tricky. I will keep this thread updated with progress. 

    Thanks!

    1
  • Stephen

    Cool, thanks Oscar!

    0
  • Dylan Cao

    7 months past after the official comment, is there any further information?

    The customization of the automatic notification mail is also important to us.

    • There is no greeting in the content. (Like dear partner), which is impolite to our customers and feels cold.
    • The e-mail address is noreply@xxx.zendesk.com, which is not good for our branding, and may make the mail come to customers' trash or spam box. We want to change it as our official e-mail address.

    Hope you can take our suggestions into consideration.

    6

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