Recipe: Setting up Zendesk Support for gaming

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">At Zendesk we have a lot of customers who use Zendesk for gamer support, and we work closely with many of them to understand how they support their customers and how to best set up Zendesk Support for gaming.</p>
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<p class="p">At Zendesk we have a lot of customers who use Zendesk for gamer support, and we work closely
with many of them to understand how they support their customers and how to best set up
Zendesk Support for gaming. </p>
<p class="p">Based on many Zendesk gaming instances, conversations with our gaming customers, and the
experience of our customer success and support teams who work with gaming companies, we've put
together a recipe of best practices to help you set up Zendesk Support for gaming. </p>
<p class="p">This recipe is not exhaustive, but meant as a starting point. And there are many ways to set
up Zendesk Support, and many variables to consider, but hopefully this will inspire you and get
you going in the right direction. </p>
<p class="p">This article covers the following topics:</p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_lfq_vbp_w4">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_kxj_zck_qn">Setting up channels where players submit
support</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_fd1_1dk_qn">Adding ticket fields and ticket forms to
collect information about issues</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_3hx_spz_v4">Adding custom user fields to collect player
data</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_qsb_yck_qn">Setting up workflows for ticket
management</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_ggl_tdk_qn">Building community in your help center</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_bkg_42k_qn">Extending Zendesk Support with
apps</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">
</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_kxj_zck_qn">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Setting up channels where players submit support requests</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Channels are the ways that your customers contact you for support. Players don't like
being interrupted in the middle of a game, and you want to get them get back to playing as
quickly as possible. So you can give players multiple ways to contact you for support.</p>
<p class="p">Gamers tend to prefer interactive, immediate help that comes through social media and
community. These channels are especially useful for issues that affect many users or a
particular game. For more specific, individual issues, the bulk of tickets for gaming
companies come in via email or a web support form. </p>
<div class="p">Channels:<ul class="ul" id="topic_kxj_zck_qn__ul_zk3_q3z_qn">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Email</strong> is a popular channel for gaming companies. As a best practice, however,
you might consider pointing users to a web form with custom fields, as opposed to a
free-form email, so that you get all the info you need up front. <p class="p">You can set up
specific support addresses for different issues. Consider support addresses that
correspond to your groups. For example, Support@<em class="ph i">yoursubdomain</em>.zendesk.com,
Refunds@<em class="ph i">yoursubdomain</em>.zendesk.com, and
Abuse@<em class="ph i">yoursubdomain</em>.zendesk.com. For information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842868506" target="_blank">Adding support addresses for users to submit
tickets</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Web form</strong> is also a very popular channel for gaming companies. According to a report that
includes all Zendesk gaming companies, almost half
of tickets come in via a web form. Your support team
will typically need specific information from a
user, such as game title, platform, and version, to
help them with their issues. To avoid going
back-and-forth, point users to a web form with
custom fields.<p class="p">Consider setting up different
ticket forms for different games or for specific
issues, such as an online store issue, (this
feature requires the productivity pack Add-on or
Enterprise). For information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846520858" target="_blank">Creating ticket forms to support
multiple request types</a>. </p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">X</strong> (formerly Twitter) is an active channel for gamers, although most Zendesk gaming
companies don't set it up as an official ticket
channel in Zendesk Support. Many gaming companies
have loyal fans who are super active on social and
manage the conversations that happen there. <p class="p">If
you want to monitor X and create tickets from
tweets, you can add X as a channel in Zendesk
Support. Then, set up a saved X search for each of
your games. For information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883122714" target="_blank">Setting up your X (formerly
Twitter) channel</a>. </p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Community</strong> is huge for gamers. Zendesk gaming companies put a lot of effort into
supporting strong communities in their help center.
A vibrant, self-serving community is important for
creating a player-centric culture and for deflecting
tickets. For information, see <a class="xref" href="#topic_ggl_tdk_qn">Building community in
your help center</a>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_fd1_1dk_qn">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Adding ticket fields and ticket forms to collect information about issues</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">As a gaming company, it's important to get as much context for issues as
possible up front, especially if you are supporting multiple games
and platforms. </p>
<p class="p">For example, if a ticket subject is "my game is freezing," it's
impossible to move forward until the player provides more specifics.
Why not capture as much information as possible up front. To get the
information you need in the ticket, and save time, you can set up
custom ticket fields and make them required. </p>
<div class="p">
<strong class="ph b">Custom ticket fields</strong><ul class="ul" id="topic_fd1_1dk_qn__ul_fyy_44l_qn">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Game</strong> (drop-down field) is a list of all your
games.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Platform</strong> (drop-down field) is a list of possible
platforms.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Issue type</strong> (drop-down filed) is list of general
issue categories, such as online store, unable to
play, bug, and so on.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Offending / abusing player alias</strong> (text field) is
where agents can enter the player alias.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Abuse reason</strong> (multi-line text field) is where
agents can enter the reason for tickets that report
abuse.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="p">
<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span>
<p class="p">As a best practice, include a link to your community in
your ticket received notification. That way
customers can visit the community and, potentially,
get help from other players who might have the same
issue. Simply modify the default trigger "Notify
requester of received request" with a link to your
community.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="p">For information about adding custom ticket fields, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883152794" target="_blank">Adding and using custom ticket
fields</a>.</p>
<p class="p">You can set up ticket forms with predefined ticket fields for different
request types, (this feature requires the productivity pack Add-on
or Enterprise). This enables you to present multiple support forms
so players can choose the appropriate form for their issue.</p>
<div class="p">
<strong class="ph b">Ticket forms</strong><ul class="ul" id="topic_fd1_1dk_qn__ul_3c4_zzz_v4">
<li class="li">General Questions</li>
<li class="li">Report a Player</li>
<li class="li">Refund Request</li>
<li class="li">Purchasing Problem</li>
<li class="li">Performance Issue</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="p">
<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> You can set up triggers to automatically assign tickets from
specific ticket forms to the right group, see <a class="xref" href="#topic_nbf_rfb_w4">Automatically
routing tickets with triggers</a>.</div>
</div>
<p class="p">For information about creating ticket forms, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846520858" target="_blank">Creating ticket forms to handle multiple
request types</a>.</p>
<p class="p">
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_3hx_spz_v4">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Adding custom user fields to collect player data</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">As a gaming company, you'll likely want to track specific information about your players,
including their spending history and gaming history. You can create custom fields to add
this information to the player's profile.</p>
<div class="p">
<strong class="ph b">Custom user fields</strong><ul class="ul" id="topic_3hx_spz_v4__ul_ngg_cnl_qn">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Customer type</strong> (drop-down field) options might include Superfan or Disgruntled
as types. </li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">High purchase history</strong> (checkbox field) indicates your big spenders. If you want
to give it a more interesting name, you might call it "Whale."</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Lifetime spend</strong> (numeric field) is useful for seeing a player's lifetime spend
amount in their profile. You might consider applying special support treatment when they
hit a threshold.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Banned</strong> (checkbox field) indicates whether player has been banned.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Banned reason</strong> (multi-line text field) gives agents a place to enter the reason
if a player is banned.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="p">
<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> If you are storing player data in another system, you can build an app to pull this
data into Zendesk Support. You can make this player data available for your agents in
tickets. See <a class="xref" href="#topic_hkk_h43_54">Creating custom
apps</a>.</div>
</div>
<p class="p">For information about adding custom user fields, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822051866" target="_blank">Adding custom fields to users</a>.</p>
<p class="p">
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_qsb_yck_qn">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Setting up workflows for ticket management</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can set up groups to organize your agents and facilitate ticket handling. Based on your
groups, you can set up business rules to automatically route tickets and views to manage
each group's ticket queue.</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested2" id="topic_fqq_2gb_w4">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title6">Creating groups to handle tickets</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You should be able to take a simple approach to groups, and set up a limited number.
You'll probably need some specialized groups to deal with specific issues around refunds
and credits and abuse and banned players. </p>
<div class="p">
<strong class="ph b">Groups</strong><ul class="ul" id="topic_fqq_2gb_w4__ul_s5s_nhk_qn">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">General support</strong> and <strong class="ph b">Advanced support</strong> gives you a two-tiered approach
to support. You'll probably get a lot of tickets about common game issues that can be
handled by your first line support agents. More advanced issues that fewer players
encounter can go to your second level agents. Of course you can give these groups more
interesting names, if you want. Depending on your team and the games you support, one
support group might work for you, instead of a tiered approach.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Store</strong> can handle all your purchasing and download issues, if you have an
online store.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Refunds</strong> can handle refunds and credits.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Fair play</strong> is for issues around fair play, terms of use, and reports of
abuse.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Dev</strong> is for bug escalations. Alternatively, you could just call this group
"Bugs."</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">For information about setting up groups, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408894175130" target="_blank">Creating groups</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title7" class="topic nested2" id="topic_nbf_rfb_w4">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title7">Automatically routing tickets with triggers</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can create triggers to automatically route and assign tickets to your groups. For
example, if a ticket is asking for a refund, it can be assigned to the Refund group.
Consider setting up triggers for tickets that come in through email and your web form, as
the bulk of your tickets will probably come in through these channels. </p>
<p class="p">For email, set up a trigger for each support address or based on keywords in the email
body. For your web form, if you are using ticket forms, set up a trigger based on the
selected ticket form. Otherwise, you can use keywords in the ticket comment to assign the
ticket to the right group.</p>
<p class="p">
</p>
<div class="p">Triggers to route tickets to a specific group based on a support address:<ul class="ul" id="topic_nbf_rfb_w4__ul_bwp_jtb_w4">
<li class="li">Conditions <strong class="ph b">Ticket is created</strong> and <strong class="ph b">Ticket is received at<em class="ph i">
&lt;supportaddress&gt;</em></strong>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p">Action <strong class="ph b">Ticket group &lt;<em class="ph i">groupname</em>&gt;</strong></p>
<p class="p">For example, you can assign tickets sent to
refunds@&lt;<em class="ph i">yoursubdomain</em>&gt;.zendesk.com to the Refunds group.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Triggers to route tickets to a specific group based on keywords:<ul class="ul" id="topic_nbf_rfb_w4__ul_rzy_2n1_w4">
<li class="li">Conditions <strong class="ph b">Ticket is created</strong> and <strong class="ph b">Ticket comment text contains at least one
of the following words &lt;<em class="ph i">keyword</em>&gt;</strong>
</li>
<li class="li">Action <strong class="ph b">Ticket group &lt;<em class="ph i">groupname</em>&gt;</strong><p class="p">For example, you can assign
tickets that contain the word "refund" to the Refunds group.</p>
</li>
</ul>
Triggers to route tickets to a specific group based on the ticket form:<ul class="ul" id="topic_nbf_rfb_w4__ul_vs4_3l1_w4">
<li class="li">Conditions <strong class="ph b">Ticket is created</strong> and <strong class="ph b">Ticket form is &lt;<em class="ph i">name of ticket
form</em>&gt;</strong>
</li>
<li class="li">Action <strong class="ph b">Ticket group &lt;<em class="ph i">groupname</em>&gt;</strong><p class="p">For example, you can assign
tickets from the Refund Request ticket form to the Refunds group.</p>
</li>
</ul>
For more information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886797466" target="_blank">Streamlining workflow with ticket updates and
triggers</a>.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title8" class="topic nested2" id="topic_j3z_tfb_w4">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title8">Creating views to organize your tickets</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Views define a collection of tickets based on a set of criteria. You'll probably want to
set up some global views for each of your groups, so that agents can easily see all the
tickets in their group. </p>
<p class="p">There are many other ways you might consider organizing your tickets into views,
including by game title, common issue, or language. </p>
<div class="p">Views for tickets based on group:<ul class="ul" id="topic_j3z_tfb_w4__ul_mtn_xq1_w4">
<li class="li">Conditions <strong class="ph b">Ticket group is &lt;<em class="ph i">name of group</em>&gt;</strong> and <strong class="ph b">Ticket status
less than closed</strong>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">For information about setting up views, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408888828570" target="_blank">Using views to manage ticket workflow</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title9" class="topic nested1" id="topic_ggl_tdk_qn">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title9">Building community in your help center</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Community is huge for gamers. Most Zendesk gaming companies put a lot of effort into their help
center and consider it a big part of the player support experience.
Your help center provides a great way for players to self-serve and
to help one another.</p>
<p class="p">You can customize your help center by adding icons and imagery from your games so that players
feel right at home. And to organize your content and community,
you'll probably want to create different categories for different
games. </p>
<p class="p">Building your community gives players a place to share tips about games or to get help with
problems and outages. Players can usually get quick answers in the community, instead of
filing tickets and waiting for support. Players can also share their gaming experiences with
other players who play the same game.</p>
<p class="p">For some tips for driving traffic to your community, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828362522" target="_blank">Best practices for driving traffic to your knowledge base
and community</a>.</p>
<p class="p">As a gaming company, you probably have a large number of loyal fans. You can leverage their
passion in the community by creating a moderator program for your most experienced and
helpful players. These players volunteer time in the community to share tips and help other
players. You can reward these players by giving them special avatars, swag, and a direct
line of communication with team members, among other things. </p>
<p class="p">
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title10" class="topic nested1" id="topic_bkg_42k_qn">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title10">Extending Zendesk Support with apps </h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Apps can help streamline your support workflows and bring valuable information into
Zendesk Support. </p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title11" class="topic nested2" id="topic_xcc_343_54">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title11">Using Zendesk Support apps</h3>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">There are many Zendesk Support apps that gaming companies might
find helpful. Specifically, consider using these apps:<ul class="ul" id="topic_xcc_343_54__ul_5dt_glw_yn">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">User Data</strong> displays user and organization
details in a ticket, such as tags, ticket
activity, and contact info.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Show Related Tickets</strong> analyzes your ticket
subject and searches against all other tickets to
return any tickets with matching terms.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Answer Suggestion</strong> searches your knowledge
base content to suggest articles relevant to the
ticket you're working on, based on ticket's
subject.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Text</strong> enables you to put any text you want
on a ticket page. You can use this as a cheat
sheet for your agents to display reference
information, such as player tiers or gaming
levels. You might also use this app to alert
agents about outages, upcoming maintenance, or
common issues.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">﻿You can browse through all available apps in the <a class="xref" href="http://www.zendesk.com/apps" target="_blank">Zendesk Marketplace</a>. </p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title12" class="topic nested2" id="topic_hkk_h43_54">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title12">Building a custom app to show player data in a ticket</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Most likely you have a separate system for storing your player profiles, and this
information is important to your support team to better serve customers. Many Zendesk
gaming companies have developed custom apps to retrieve this customer information from
their own systems and display it in tickets.</p>
<p class="p">You can use data from Zendesk via the API to generate events based on user profile data.
For example, if a player has reached a certain threshold of spending in your game, you can
automatically tag their profile in Zendesk and set up workflows to give them special
privileges or send them promotions based off their achievements. </p>
<div class="p">In addition to pulling player data, you can build functionality into the app to run
actions on behalf of players. Actions might include:<ul class="ul" id="topic_hkk_h43_54__ul_b31_br3_54">
<li class="li">Resetting passwords</li>
<li class="li">Banning players</li>
<li class="li">Recovering accounts after outages</li>
<li class="li">Issuing refunds</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">For information about building your own custom app, see this app tutorial series <a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/documentation/apps/build-an-app/build-your-first-support-app/part-1-laying-the-groundwork/" target="_blank">Building your first Zendesk app</a>. </p>
<div class="p">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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