Workflow recipe: Using triggers to manage requests from important customers (custom org field)

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This
workflow example shows how you can leverage features in Zendesk Support to
provide valuable services for your important customers. You can use this
example as a starting point for managing workflows in your own account.
This recipe uses custom organization fields and ticket tags to manage the
workflow. Alternatively, if your account allows it, you can use multiple
organizations to manage a similar workflow. For more information, see Workflow recipe: Using triggers to
manage requests from important customers (multiple
organizations).
The example includes:

Workflow goal
Creating a special group of agents to handle VIP customers
Identifying your important customers
Adding triggers to respond instantly
Creating a view to monitor VIP ticket status
Automating to ensure ticket follow up



Workflow goal

Your company has important customers who provide over 40% of your
business. You can use Zendesk to help you expedite and prioritize
support requests from these customers to make sure they stay
happy.



Creating a special group of agents to handle VIP customers

Groups collect
agents together, allowing admins to manage agent ticket assignments
based on an agent’s special skills. For VIP customers, it’s good to
identify senior agents on your team who are best-suited to help
these customers.
To create the group

In Admin Center, click

People in the sidebar, then select Team > Groups.
Click Add group.
Enter a group name. In this case, name the group
VIP Triage.
Select the agents you want to add to the group. Pick
the senior agents who are best suited to handle important
customers.
Click Create group.

When you're finished, click Save.




Identifying your important customers

Organizations
are meaningful collections of your end users. You can use
organizations to group users from the same company or department and
identify which organizations you consider to be VIP customers.
Steps to do this include:

Creating a custom organization field
Identifying your VIP organizations



Creating a custom organization field

To provide special treatment for your VIP customers,
create a custom organization field to help you identify
which organizations are VIP customers. When you use the
custom org field to identify VIP customers, tickets
submitted by them are automatically tagged as important.
To create a custom organization field


In Admin Center, click

People in the sidebar, then select Configuration > Organization
fields. In this case, you’ll add a simple checkbox to
enable you to flag VIP customers.

Click Add field.
From the list of available fields, click
Checkbox.
Add the following information to the
checkbox.

Field title: VIP
Customer?

Field key: vip_customer_

Description: Select this
checkbox if the organization is considered a VIP
customer.

Tag: vip_customer


Click Save. After you create the custom field,
you can choose which organizations qualify as
VIP Customers.





Identifying your VIP organizations

For each organization on your site, click the VIP
customer? checkbox for any organization you
consider to be a VIP customer. You can do this when you add
a new organization (or edit your existing organizations).
To add a VIP new organization

In Support, click the
Organizations icon ( ) in the sidebar.
Click Add organization.
Enter the organization's name in the
Name field. In this case, name the
organization Writers Plus.
Enter the Email domains (separated by a
space) of your VIP customer. Users from these
email domains will be automatically added to this
organization when they submit a request for the
first time or register.
If you add the same
domain to multiple organizations, users are
automatically mapped only to the first
organization sorted alphabetically by name. For
details, see Automatically
adding users to organizations based on their email
domain.

Click Add. The new organization is added and
the organization details appear.

Select the VIP customer? checkbox to show that
members of the Writers Plus organization are VIPs.



When you select the VIP Customer? checkbox, the
vip_customer tag associated with this
checkbox appears in the organization’s Tags field,
and any tickets sent from users with a
writersplus.com or writersplus.net
email address will be tagged with vip_customer.
Now you can use this tag to trigger a special workflow
for tickets sent from Writers Plus and your other VIP
customers.




Adding triggers to respond instantly

Triggers are business rules you define to run immediately after
tickets are created or updated. Once you have set up your VIP agent
group and identified your VIP organizations, create a trigger
that:

Instantly replies to your VIP customers as soon as
they submit a ticket
Gives the ticket a high priority.

To add the trigger

In Admin Center, click

Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Business rules >
Triggers.
Click Add trigger.
Enter the following information for the trigger. For the trigger Name and
Description:

For the
trigger Conditions:

For the
trigger Actions:


When you’ve finished adding the trigger name, description,
conditions, and actions, click Create.

With this trigger, when these conditions are met:

The ticket is sent from a customer in a VIP
organization.
A new ticket is created.
The ticket hasn’t been solved, yet.

The following actions are performed:

An email notification is sent to the ticket requester.
See example below.
The ticket priority is set to High.
The ticket is assigned to the VIP Triage
group.

The following is an example of an email notification sent to a VIP
customer who submits a ticket. The ticket has been assigned to the
VIP Triage group and the ticket priority is
High.




Creating a view to monitor VIP ticket status

Views
dynamically organize tickets based on specific criteria that you
define. Using views can help you determine what tickets need
attention from you or your team and plan accordingly. To keep an eye
on how our VIP tickets are progressing, create a shared view that
you and other members of your team can use to monitor ticket status.
To create the view

In Admin Center, click

Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Views.
Click Add view.
Enter the following information for the view. This
VIP Triage view will show any unsolved
tickets that are tagged vip_customer.

To test your view conditions, click Preview match for the
conditions above to see which tickets will
appear in the view.

Scroll down to the Formatting options section to
customize the table columns that appear in the view.
Because it’s important for you to quickly see when a ticket was
last updated for VIP customers, drag the Last update
column from the Columns not included in table list to
the Columns included in table list.

Make sure the view is Available for All
agents.
Click Save.

Once you create the view, you can click the Views icon ( ) in the sidebar, then select VIP
Triage to view your VIP ticket status. This view
includes when the tickets were last Updated.




Automating to ensure ticket follow up

To help manage your ticket workflow, you can automatically
remind agents if an important ticket hasn’t been assigned in a
timely manner. In these cases, use an automation,
instead of a trigger to send the reminder.
Triggers are event-based business rules that can fire every
time a ticket is created or updated. Automations are time-based
business rules that perform an action in your account based on time
elapsed.
To add the automation

In Admin Center, click

Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Business rules >
Automations.
Click Add automation.
Enter the following information for the
automation. For the Automation title and
Conditions:

For the
automation Actions:


When you’ve finished adding the automation title, conditions,
and actions, click Create automation.

With this automation, when these conditions are met:

The ticket was sent to the VIP Group.
The ticket priority is High.
The ticket was created more than 2 business
hours ago.
The ticket does not have an agent assigned, yet.

The following actions are performed:

An email notification is sent to all members of the
VIP Triage group. See example below.
The ticket priority is changed from High to
Urgent.

The following is an example of an email notification sent to
members of the VIP Triage group when the automation
conditions are met. The ticket priority has changed to
Urgent.

Other useful automations include reminding agents if a ticket
hasn’t been solved after a certain period of time, gently reminding
customers who haven’t replied to an agent request for more
information, and so on. To learn more about automations, check out
the default Zendesk automations available in see About automations and how
they work.


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