Intelligent triage use cases and workflows

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">Intelligent triage uses AI to automatically classify new customer support tickets by topic, sentiment, language, and entities, such as product names. By incorporating these AI classifications into your workflows, you can automate repeatable requests, eliminate manual triage, guide agents in real time, and act quickly on high-risk tickets.</p>
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<p id="docs-ai-summary-content">Intelligent triage uses AI to classify tickets by topic, sentiment, language, and entities so you can route requests, deflect repeat questions, escalate urgent issues, and auto-populate fields. The article shows common workflows for billing, language queues, missing details, external handoffs, and product-based routing, plus tips for using triggers, SLA policies, and views.</p>
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<div class="note attention">
<span class="attentiontitle"></span> Intelligent triage classifications are available on Suite and Support Professional plans and above. Using them in workflows requires the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5524125586330" target="_blank">Copilot add-on</a>.</div>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">Intelligent triage uses AI to automatically classify new customer support
tickets by topic, sentiment, language, and entities, such as product names. By
incorporating these AI classifications into your workflows, you can automate repeatable
requests, eliminate manual triage, guide agents in real time, and act quickly on
high-risk tickets.</p>
<p class="p">This article provides an overview of intelligent triage workflow examples and includes
step-by-step guidance for common use cases. As you read through them, remember that you
can always modify or expand on them to better support your specific needs.</p>
<p class="p">This article contains the following topics:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="zug_automated_triage_use_cases__ul_slg_k2x_tvb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_understanding_workflows">Understanding intelligent triage workflows</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_workflow_examples">Intelligent triage workflow examples</a></li>
</ul>
<p class="p">Related articles:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="zug_automated_triage_use_cases__ul_lsk_t3x_mzb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4550640560538" target="_blank">Automatically classifying tickets with
intelligent triage</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5201262314266" target="_blank">Analyzing intelligent triage
classifications</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6353620565530" target="_blank">Using intelligent triage to identify and act on
ticket escalations</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4662504732954" target="_blank">Creating views for automatically triaged
tickets</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_understanding_workflows">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Understanding intelligent triage workflows</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Intelligent triage classifications — topic, sentiment, language, and entities — can
be leveraged to optimize your service operations by:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_understanding_workflows__ul_classification_overview">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Understanding your operations</strong>: Identify exactly why your users are
reaching out and how they're feeling about it. For example, track against your
KPIs.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Automating top recurring requests</strong>: Allow customers to self-serve based
on topics. For example, send an auto-reply to high confidence topics.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Eliminating manual triage</strong>: Display incoming requests to specific agents
or groups. For example, assign incoming requests to the right agent or group
automatically.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Streamlining operations</strong>: Discover escalations early on. For example,
customize SLA rules based on topic and sentiment.</li>
</ul>
<div class="tablenoborder">
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="table" frame="border" id="topic_understanding_workflows__table_workflows_overview" rules="all" summary="">
<colgroup>
<col>
<col>
</colgroup>
<thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;">
<tr class="row">
<th class="entry nocellnorowborder" id="d52e124">Workflow</th>
<th class="entry cell-norowborder" id="d52e127">Example</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d52e124">Route tickets</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d52e127">Use a trigger to route tickets with a billing topic to the
billing team</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d52e124">Deflect tickets</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d52e127">Use a trigger to send a link to your refund policy when a refund
topic is classified</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d52e124">Escalate tickets</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d52e127">Use an SLA policy to escalate tickets when very negative
sentiment is classified</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d52e124">Adjust automated responses</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d52e127">Use a trigger to send an empathetic auto-reply when negative
sentiment is classified</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d52e124">Route to language-specific teams</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d52e127">Use omnichannel routing to route tickets to a Spanish-speaking
team when Spanish is classified</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d52e124">Send localized auto-replies</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d52e127">Use a trigger to respond in the customer's classified
language</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d52e124">Auto-populate ticket fields</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d52e127">Configure entity extraction rules to automatically fill a product
field when a product name is classified</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry row-nocellborder" headers="d52e124">Route by product or service</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d52e127">Use a trigger to route tickets to the relevant team when a
specific product entity is classified</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<p class="p">You can build these workflows manually using the examples in this article, or use
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9598690362010" target="_blank">AI-powered recommendations</a> to have Zendesk
suggest workflows based on your account's ticket data.</p>
<p class="p">When creating triggers, views, or reports in Admin Center or Explore, intelligent
triage values are available only in English. However, intelligent triage is capable
of classifying content in the languages listed in this <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821324826#h_01GYJ1PBVKD26QN3E8JNS3X3TX" target="_blank">article</a>.</p>
<div class="note note" id="topic_understanding_workflows__note_skc_snv_lbc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> (Suite and Support plans only) If you previously used
intelligent triage through either a Copilot trial or a Copilot add-on that was later
removed, you may still see intelligent triage fields on historical tickets. Any
workflows built using those fields won't run and must be removed from the workflow.
If you try to edit or create a workflow with an intelligent triage field, you’ll see
an error message.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_workflow_examples">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Intelligent triage workflow examples</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">For detailed examples, see the following step-by-step workflows:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_workflow_examples__ul_workflow_minitoc">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_ojz_rdx_tvb">Deflect: Redirect customers to self-serve or correct destination</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_r4m_tdx_tvb">Route: Send tickets to a specific language queue from a general queue</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_fjq_5dx_tvb">Reduce: Proactively request more information</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_rcb_wdx_tvb">Forward: Use webhooks to pass information to external resources</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_sentiment_escalate">Escalate: Prioritize tickets based on customer sentiment</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_entity_enrich">Enrich: Auto-populate and route tickets using entities</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested2" id="topic_ojz_rdx_tvb">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title4">Deflect: Redirect customers to self-serve or correct destination</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Scenario</strong>: An end user is contacting you about a process where submitting
a ticket or contacting support is not the best course of action. Instead, the
required information is provided on your website or some other source, meaning
the user can self-serve by following a process or other documentation that's
readily available.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Examples</strong>:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_ojz_rdx_tvb__ul_spf_ggx_tvb">
<li class="li">Subscription cancellations</li>
<li class="li">User profile update requests</li>
<li class="li">Refund, return policy, and warranty questions</li>
<li class="li">Job applications</li>
</ul>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Solution</strong>:</p>
<ol class="ol" id="topic_ojz_rdx_tvb__ol_cjf_pgx_tvb">
<li class="li">Identify any topics that are frequently applied to the tickets submitted in
the scenario described above (for example, "Cancel subscription"). If
helpful, you can group multiple related topics together (such as "Refund
request" and "Refund via specific channel").</li>
<li class="li">Determine the necessary confidence level that the topic must have for you to
be comfortable taking automatic action on it. In other words, are false
positives acceptable, where the end user can reply if they still need
help?</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4766535251610#topic_k43_4hs_25b" target="_blank">Create a trigger</a> that sends an
automated reply to the end user. Include instructions on how they can
complete the task, a link to where they need to go in their account or app
to complete the task, or a link to an existing document that answers their
question.</li>
<li class="li">Leave the conversation open-ended in case the topic was accidentally
mismatched, but set the ticket to a Solved status.</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested2" id="topic_r4m_tdx_tvb">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title5">Route: Send tickets to a specific language queue from a general queue</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Scenario</strong>: All or most end users submit tickets to a common queue, with
tickets from different languages ending up in the same queue.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Examples</strong>:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_r4m_tdx_tvb__ul_mnk_ygx_tvb">
<li class="li">All end users use the same contact form or email address, regardless of
language</li>
<li class="li">End users use the source platform in one language, but their preferred
language is different from the current language of the platform or
browser</li>
</ul>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Solution</strong>:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_r4m_tdx_tvb__ul_options_language">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Option 1</strong>: <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4766535251610#topic_pxc_rhs_25b" target="_blank">Create a trigger</a> (leaving out any
topic conditions) that routes tickets to the appropriate agents or group
based on language (and potentially language confidence, if
necessary).</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Option 2</strong>: Use other integrations to reference the ticket's language
value and take an action based on that value. For example, if you currently
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4776777747866" target="_blank">translate macros using dynamic
content</a>, you could instead <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883291290" target="_blank">use Liquid markup</a> to determine
which language the macro should use based on the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4550640560538#topic_ebn_l4g_htb" target="_blank">intelligent triage Language field</a>.
This approach is useful if the requester's language isn't already set in
their profile (for example, if they're contacting support from an
unregistered email, or in a different language than the one they have set in
their profile).</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested2" id="topic_fjq_5dx_tvb">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title6">Reduce: Proactively request more information</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Scenario</strong>: Customers contact support, but don't include the details
required to resolve the request. Agents have to reply asking for the necessary
information rather than being able to solve the request during the first
touch.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Examples</strong>:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_fjq_5dx_tvb__ul_vyp_nhx_tvb">
<li class="li">Return/replacement requests where the customer needs to provide an
address</li>
<li class="li">Processes where the customer must include a purchase order or invoice
number</li>
</ul>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Solution</strong>:</p>
<ol class="ol" id="topic_fjq_5dx_tvb__ol_ytm_phx_tvb">
<li class="li">Identify any topics that are frequently applied to the tickets submitted in
the scenario described above (for example, "Return order"). If helpful, you
can group multiple related topics together.</li>
<li class="li">Determine the necessary confidence level that the topic must have for you to
be comfortable taking automatic action on it.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4766535251610#topic_k43_4hs_25b" target="_blank">Create a trigger</a> that sends an
automated reply to the end user, prompting them for the required details if
they haven't already included them. This gives the customer the opportunity
to reply before the agent sees the ticket, and makes it more likely that the
agent can solve the ticket in a single touch.</li>
</ol>
<p class="p">Watch the video below for an example of how to set up intelligent triage to
address this scenario.</p>
<iframe allowfullscreen="true" controls="controls" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DRweQry8s6g" width="640"></iframe>
<p class="p">Intelligent triage: How to proactively request more information from your users
in tickets (3:10)</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title7" class="topic nested2" id="topic_rcb_wdx_tvb">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title7">Forward: Use webhooks to pass information to external resources</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Scenario</strong>: Customers contact support for a request that requires
involvement from an external team or system. Agents must manually forward these
requests to the appropriate destinations.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Examples</strong>:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_rcb_wdx_tvb__ul_qqc_5hx_tvb">
<li class="li">End users reach out to customer support to change their email address or
other contact details, but that's owned by a team outside of Zendesk</li>
<li class="li">Certain requests require compliance or other processes to be followed
outside of Zendesk</li>
</ul>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Solution</strong>:</p>
<ol class="ol" id="topic_rcb_wdx_tvb__ol_fpm_lt4_vvb">
<li class="li">Identify any topics that are frequently applied to the tickets submitted in
the scenario described above (for example, "Change email address"). If
helpful, you can group multiple related topics together.</li>
<li class="li">Determine the necessary confidence level that the topic must have for you to
be comfortable taking automatic action on it.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4766535251610#topic_k43_4hs_25b" target="_blank">Create a trigger</a> that sends an
automated reply that does both of the following:<ol class="ol" id="topic_rcb_wdx_tvb__ol_cyh_s54_vvb" type="a">
<li class="li">Informs the requester that their ticket has been received.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408839108378" target="_blank">Uses a webhook</a>, <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883282458" target="_blank">email target</a>, or other
means from within the product to forward the relevant details from
the customer's request to the appropriate external team. For
example, you might send an email to an external team that includes
the requester's name, email address, subject, and original message.
The external team can then process the customer's request in their
system.</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title8" class="topic nested2" id="topic_sentiment_escalate">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title8">Escalate: Prioritize tickets based on customer sentiment</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Scenario</strong>: Customers contact support with a negative or very negative
sentiment, indicating frustration or urgency that requires priority handling
before the situation worsens.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Examples</strong>:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_sentiment_escalate__ul_sentiment_examples">
<li class="li">Customers expressing strong dissatisfaction about a billing or account
issue</li>
<li class="li">Customers threatening to cancel a subscription</li>
<li class="li">Customers who have had multiple negative interactions with support</li>
</ul>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Solution</strong>:</p>
<ol class="ol" id="topic_sentiment_escalate__ol_sentiment_solution">
<li class="li">Identify the sentiment values that indicate a ticket requires priority
handling (for example, "Very Negative" or "Negative").</li>
<li class="li">Determine whether you want to act on sentiment alone, or combine it with a
topic condition for more targeted escalations (for example, escalate tickets
with a billing topic and very negative sentiment).</li>
<li class="li">Take one of the following actions:<ul class="ul" id="topic_sentiment_escalate__ul_sentiment_options">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4766535251610#topic_k43_4hs_25b" target="_blank">Create a trigger</a> to
automatically assign the ticket to a senior agent or priority group,
or to send an internal notification to a manager.</li>
<li class="li">Create an <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6353620565530" target="_blank">SLA policy</a> to reduce the
first reply time for tickets with a very negative sentiment,
ensuring they are handled before lower-priority tickets.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title9" class="topic nested2" id="topic_entity_enrich">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title9">Enrich: Auto-populate and route tickets using entities</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Scenario</strong>: Customers mention specific products, services, or key details
in their tickets, but agents must manually identify this information to route or
prioritize the ticket correctly.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Examples</strong>:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_entity_enrich__ul_entity_examples">
<li class="li">Product-specific support requests where a product name appears in the
ticket</li>
<li class="li">Order-related issues where an order number or invoice number is
mentioned</li>
<li class="li">Location-based requests where a branch or region is referenced</li>
</ul>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Solution</strong>:</p>
<ol class="ol" id="topic_entity_enrich__ol_entity_solution">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6711181959194" target="_blank">Create an entity</a> associated with
a custom ticket field that represents the information you want to capture
(for example, a drop-down field for product names).</li>
<li class="li">Configure the entity's extraction rules to automatically populate the ticket
field when the entity is classified in an incoming ticket.</li>
<li class="li">Take one of the following actions:<ul class="ul" id="topic_entity_enrich__ul_entity_options">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4766535251610#topic_k43_4hs_25b" target="_blank">Create a trigger</a> to route
tickets to the appropriate agent group when a specific product
entity is classified. For example, route tickets to the Camera team
when the "Camera Model A" entity is classified.</li>
<li class="li">Create a <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4662504732954" target="_blank">view</a> that surfaces
tickets based on the populated entity field, so agents can quickly
identify and act on tickets for a specific product or
service.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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