How does Zendesk send email notifications?

Question

How do I send an email? Are emails sent as soon as I submit a ticket?

Answer

Before Zendesk sends an email notification, you must meet the delivery prerequisites. You must have at least one verified email address. You must verify DNS records. The recipient must have an active email address.

Email notifications use a multi-layered system. Business rules, such as triggers and automations, determine when notifications are sent.

Triggers fire immediately when conditions are met. Triggers execute in real time.

By default, the system includes triggers to send notifications to customers for these events:

When their new request is received

When an agent submits a public comment

The default triggers also notify agents of these events:

When a new request is received

When the agent is assigned a ticket

When a request is assigned to the group of an agent

When an end user submits a comment to an assigned ticket

Automations can also notify customers. Apart from the Request customer satisfaction rating (system automation), no other default automation sends emails to customers. Automations run once per hour and check time-based conditions.

Each trigger or automation references an email template:

Templates define content and appearance

Templates use placeholders: {{ticket.title}}, {{ticket.description}}

You can customize templates in Admin Center > Channels > Email > Templates

Alternatively, if the plan has access to Advanced AI Agents, an AI agent for email can configure a generative reply in an email from a messaging conversation instead. For more information, see About the Generative replies block in conversation flows for advanced AI agents.

To check which which action sent the notification email on a ticket based on your setup, check the Events view of the ticket for any Email notification event.

Note: Email conversation flows are available by default for any new email in advanced AI agents.