Getting started with Zendesk Suite - Part 6: Routing incoming support requests

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<p class="sidenav-heading">Articles in the series</p>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408881937306">Introduction: Getting started with Zendesk
Suite</a>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944856070426">Part 1: Accessing Zendesk Suite admin
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944849237658">Part 2: Adding team members</a>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944925937818">Part 3: Understanding how end user accounts are
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944919944730">Part 4: Managing user access security and
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944930820506">Part 5: Adding support channels</a>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944922385050">Part 6: Routing incoming support requests</a>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4945055494170">Part 7: Managing support requests during
non-business hours</a>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944993140762">Part 8: Guaranteeing customer support
expectations with service level agreements</a>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944968790426">Part 9: Reporting on support activity</a>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944994159130">Part 10: Enabling customer satisfaction
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6501074649242">Part 11: Leveraging AI features with Zendesk</a>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944970330138">Part 12: Using the Zendesk developer platform to
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4944970747418">Part 13: Rolling out your Zendesk Suite support
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<li class="li"><a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6579939982746">Part 14: Additional features</a></li>
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<p class="p">Live channels (voice and messaging) are directly routed to the pool of agents who have
been assigned to provide support to those channels. If no agents are available or during
off hours, requests from those live channels can be followed up on.</p>
<p class="p">Incoming support requests from most channels can be routed directly to agents by <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409149119514" target="_blank">omnichannel routing</a>, or you can use business rules such as
ticket triggers and automations to direct tickets from any channel to specific agents or groups and organized into views.</p>
<p class="p">Omnichannel routing is the default routing experience and sends work directly to
the agents most available and suited to handle them. Calls are always offered to agents,
messaging conversations can be offered or auto-accepted, and email tickets are always
assigned to agents. Within omnichannel routing, you can prioritize tickets based on
ticket priority or time to SLA breach, uses queues to route tickets to multiple groups
of agents to increase the odds of a quick response, and use many other settings to
tailor your routing configuration to your needs. All other business rules involved in
routing tickets provide a <em class="ph i">pull</em> routing model, where tickets are assigned to
groups and then agents manually assign tickets to themselves from the pool of tickets
assigned to the groups they are members of.</p>
<p class="p">If you turn off omnichannel routing, you can use ticket triggers and automations to
assign incoming tickets to groups. After a group is assigned, calls and messaging
conversations are offered to agents within the group, and tickets created through email
channels are visible in views and agents can self-assign tickets. Some examples of how
you might use standalone business rules to route tickets include assigning voice calls
to specific groups so that only agents in those groups can see and respond to the calls,
automatically assigning tickets sent to a specific email address to a specific group,
and using skills-based routing to send email tickets or live chats to agents with the
matching skills. All of these examples can also be accomplished with omnichannel
routing.</p>
<p class="p">You set up and manage ticket routing in Admin Center.</p>
<p class="p">To automatically route your tickets with omnichannel routing, you either need to create
custom queues (recommended) or configure ticket triggers that assign groups to all
incoming tickets and add the auto-routing tag to email tickets. Queue-based routing
provides the most sophisticated routing features, while group-based routing within
omnichannel routing works automatically for calls and messaging conversations and
provides a routing experience similar to the standalone business rule routing
options.</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image" id="zs_getting_started_suite_7__image_cpl_xmm_pdc" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ocrdiag22.png" width="600"></p>
<p class="p">Business rules, such as ticket triggers and automations, can be used with omnichannel
routing or on their own. They evaluate ticket data and then take action on tickets that
meet the specified criteria. For example, incoming support requests from a specific
channel are assigned to a specific group, as in the example above. You can also modify
the other ticket data, such as setting the ticket’s priority based on who sent you the
support request. Whether you use omnichannel routing or not, ticket triggers and
automations are still the primary mechanism that sends notifications to end users.</p>
<p class="p"><img alt="How triggers work" class="image img-screenshot" id="zs_getting_started_suite_7__image_lk5_vw5_34b" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/routing_workflow1.png" width="600"></p>
<p class="p">It is also possible to handle ticket routing manually. As an example, if you want to
triage all incoming tickets before assigning them to agents, you can assign someone the
role of triage agent who evaluates the incoming tickets in a view that’s been created
for that task and then manually assigns the tickets to the appropriate agent or group.
However, this approach is only viable with relatively low ticket volumes.</p>
<p class="p">For a detailed explanation of ticket routing and links to articles that provide setup
instructions, read <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408831658650" target="_blank">Routing options for incoming tickets</a>. </p>
<p class="p"></p>
<p class="p">Continue to <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4945055494170-Getting-started-with-Zendesk-Suite-Part-8-Managing-support-requests-during-non-business-hours" target="_blank">Part 7: Managing support requests during non-business
hours</a>.</p>
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