Zendesk is currently one of the most popular support platforms. Over 1,55,185 companies use Zendesk. Slack on the other hand is the preferred platform for real-time communication and collaboration for more than 100,000 businesses. Employees and customers today increasingly prefer to collaborate on Slack - even while using tools like Zendesk to maintain a record of support issues. This has made it increasingly important for businesses to integrate Slack and Zendesk. In this topic we discuss some of the top considerations while integrating these two popular software platforms and some of the best software available in the market to do so.

Does Slack Integrate with Zendesk?

Yes - Zendesk provides a Slack app that provides a close integration between Slack and itself. Users have to simply install the app into their Slack workspace and to specific channels from which they want to interact with Zendesk - and then they can create tickets, leave internal comments and get notifications on new tickets or important changes to Zendesk tickets - all within Slack. The Zendesk app comes complimentary to any of the subscriptions of Zendesk.

Users can also use more advanced integrations - like ClearFeed, Halp (now called Atlassian Assist) or Unito to integrate Slack and Zendesk. These integrations offer advanced features like two-way syncing between Slack and Zendesk, advanced forms based interfaces to Zendesk and support for a hybrid support model where a first level triage can be tracked and finished in Slack - and only filing important issues in Zendesk.

How to integrate Slack channels to Zendesk?

The easiest way to integrate Slack to Zendesk is to use the free Zendesk Slack App. The Zendesk Slack app must be installed to the Slack workspace from where the user wants to create tickets. To create tickets from any channel - the Zendesk app must be invited to that channel. Once this is done, tickets can be created in the following manner:

Method 1: Using commands

A slash command /zendesk create_ticket allows you to create a ticket without selecting a specific Slack message. Once the slash command is run - a dialog opens up and all ticket details - like Subject, Description etc can be entered and a ticket created.

Method 2: Using Slack Actions on an existing message

Step 1: Click on the three dots/More Actions icon beside the message.

Step 2: Pick the Create a ticket option provided by the Zendesk app from the dropdown

Step 3: Fill in the ticket details and click Submit. The ticket description is populated from the message.

Method 3: By tagging the Zendesk bot in a Slack message

The previous two methods cannot be used by customers in a Slack Connect channel since they do not have access to the Zendesk application commands and menu actions (those are only accessible to the organization that installed the Zendesk app - and hence only available to the agents). Both agents and customers can file tickets by tagging the Zendesk bot.

Step 1: Post a Slack message on the channel which contains @zendesk

Step 2: Click on the Create ticket button on the message posted back by the Zendesk bot

Step 3: Fill in the ticket details in the dialog box that will now open up and hit the Submit button.

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What are the benefits of connecting Slack to Zendesk?

Connecting Slack channels to Zendesk helps your internal team and your customers. There are four major advantages. We have listed them below.

Convenience: Your customers and employees can file support tickets from within Slack. They don’t have to switch to email or any other platform. Conversations often begin on Slack - and being able to convert them to Tickets easily, when required, makes both Slack and the Ticketing system more useful.

Documentation: Every discussion on Slack can be converted into a ticket. Every discussion can be documented as tickets from the initial conversation to the end resolution. Because tickets are often used for future reference and as an internal knowledge base - this is a good practice.

Follow-up: If your customer raises a ticket through your ticketing system and then wants to follow up on the progress of their complaint’s resolution via Slack, they can do it easily. Your customer success personnel can easily and quickly share the details on the working of the issue on Slack. Any additional conversations in Slack, around the ticket, can be added to the ticket so agents have access to the entire discussion.

Ease of use for support teams: Your customer support teams can check open tickets within Slack, post internal comments on them, get notified of important updates. It enables ease of use and saves time in providing support.

‍What Are the Most Important Features for a Slack Zendesk integration?

A great Slack Zendesk integration should not only provide essential functions like creating tickets from Slack, but also enable important functionality like Zendesk forms and fields within Slack, while providing a seamless conversational way of interacting with Zendesk - that is natural to Slack users. Here are some of the top features users should look for when integrating these two tools:

Make it possible to easily create tickets from Slack channels.

Allows conversion of existing Slack threads to tickets.

Allows linking Slack conversations to existing tickets bringing ticket status updates back to Slack conversations.

Allows live synchronization of Slack threads and Zendesk tickets.

Allows users to perform actions like close/re-open/escalate tickets from within Slack.

Makes it possible to configure forms and fields for opening/closing/editing tickets from within Slack.

Provide an option to detect customer requests and convert them into tickets automatically.

Allows external users on Slack connect channels to also be able to create tickets and perform other ticket actions.

Allows agents to post internal comments on tickets from within Slack.

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What are the best tools to integrate Slack with Zendesk?

There are a many tools in the market for connecting Slack and Zendesk. Three top tools that businesses can use to connect Slack to Zendesk are

ClearFeed

Halp

Zendesk

within honorable mentions to Unito and Zapier. We explore these tools in the following sections. Since the Zendesk app for Slack is free - advanced integrations like ClearFeed and Halp are also complimentary to it.

ClearFeed

ClearFeed is one of the top 3 ways to connect Slack channels to Zendesk in 2023. Customer support, IT, and engineering teams can make the most of ClearFeed for tracking, prioritizing, and resolving customer requests received over Slack. Your teams can work from your ticketing system or Slack to communicate with the customer.

Features

Convert an existing thread on Slack into a ticket: This creates a ticket title using AI, uploads all messages in the thread - including any image attached to the thread - to the ticket.

Setup bi-directional sync between a Slack thread and a ticket. New replies posted on the Slack thread and public comments posted on the created tickets are automatically replicated to the ticket and the Slack thread respectively. As a result - customers on Slack can chat with customer support agents on Zendesk effortlessly.

Auto-ticketing: ClearFeed’s software monitors Slack rooms, understands who the customers are - and can convert each new customer request into tickets. It automatically combines related/consecutive messages into the same ticket and bi-directionally synchronizes the Slack thread with the created ticket.

Customers can escalate, edit or close the ticket from within Slack.

Allows configuration of fields for the creation and closing tickets and specifies default values of mandatory fields.

Gaps

There is no way to leave internal comments on tickets from Slack using ClearFeed.

There is no way to create a ticket without using an existing Slack message as a starting point.

How to integrate Slack channels to Zendesk using ClearFeed?

Users need to signup for ClearFeed and then install the ClearFeed app on their Slack workspace, as well as authorize it to connect to Zendesk. ClearFeed app must also be invited to every channel from where tickets need to be filed. Once setup - tickets can be created in the following two simple ways:

Read more : https://clearfeed.ai/blogs/3-best-ways-to-connect-slack-channels-to-zendesk-in-2023