Using Zendesk Chat to improve your sales pipeline

What's my plan?

You must have Sell and Chat to use this integration.

After you integrate Zendesk Chat with Sell, you can view and respond to Chat conversations directly from Sell, and see Sell data in your Chat interface. If the email address matches a lead or contact in Sell, you'll see the Chat history in the Sell Activity Feed for that lead or contact. You'll also be able to capture new leads from Chat conversations.

See Setting up the Sell-Chat integration to connect Sell and Chat.

Note: All chats that match the email address of a Sell lead or contact will be displayed on cards connected with that email address in Sell. Additionally, all data that appears in the Sell app for Chat is visible to all Chat agents in your organization, regardless of data access settings.

This article covers the following topics:

Working with Chat in Sell

Setting Chat status in Sell

Answering chats in Sell

Viewing Chat history in the Sell Activity Feed

Working with Sell data in Chat

Creating a new lead from a Chat conversation

Adding a note for a Sell rep from a Chat conversation

Viewing Sell data in your active chat window

Customizing the layout and display of Sell fields in your active chat window

Viewing Chat history from the Sell mobile app

Note: The Zendesk Sell-Zendesk Chat integration does not currently work with Zendesk messaging. Agents can, however, continue to create Leads in Sell from the Support interface.

Working with Chat in Sell

In Sell, you'll see a Chat icon on the toolbar indicating that Chat is installed:

All your Chat interactions take place from the Chat icon.

Setting Chat status in Sell

When you sign in to Sell, you are automatically signed in to Chat. Click the Chat icon to check or set your Chat availability status directly from Sell.

To set your Chat status

On the top toolbar, click the Chat icon ().

Set or check your Chat status under your profile picture (see Setting your availability status).

Click the Chat icon again to minimise the Chat window.

Answering chats in Sell

As a sales rep in Sell you might also be responsible for handling chat communication regarding customer sales questions. You can use the Chat icon to handle all incoming chats directly from Sell, without having to switch to your Chat window.

When a customer starts a chat on the company website, if your Chat availability status is online, you'll hear a sound for you to look to the Chat icon on the top toolbar.

To answer a chat from Sell

Click the Chat () icon. The Chat window opens in Sell.

Click Serve 1 request to open the chat.If the email address matches the email of a Sell customer, you'll see any relevant Sell information about the customer in the Zendesk Sell widget next to the conversation (this feature is part of the Sell app for Chat). You can also add notes about the customer (see Working with Sell data in Chat).

If the customer is not already registered in Sell, you can add the customer as a new Sell lead (see Creating a new lead from a Chat conversation).

When you have finished chatting, click End chat from the top toolbar, and End chat.
The chat transcript is saved. If the chat is with an existing Sell lead or contact, it is copied to the Activity Feed for that lead or contact (see Viewing Chat history in the Sell Activity Feed).

Viewing Chat history in the Sell Activity Feed

When there is Chat activity for an existing lead, contact (person or company), or deal, the history of that chat is displayed in the Activity Feed for that record. Chat conversations are identified with a conversation icon (). For example, you might see the following chat information on a lead card:

You'll see the following information about the chat:

Chat start date and time

The Chat agent name and the lead or contact name

The start of the Chat

A link to open the Chat transcript.
When you open the transcript you'll see the full conversation and start and end times of the chat. Click Go to transcript in Chat to view the conversation in Chat.

You can filter in the Activity Feed by chats, as you would for any other activity type.

Working with Sell data in Chat

As a Chat agent, you can work with Sell directly from Chat.

If you are a Chat agent without a Sell seat, you can:

Create a new lead if there is no matching customer in Sell

Leave a note for Sales (the note will be sent to the allocated owner of the new lead)

If you have seats in both Chat and Sell, you can:

Create a new lead if there is no matching customer in Sell (you'll see who the lead is being allocated to)

Leave a note regarding the lead or contact (this note will be recorded in your Sell account)

Add or edit the phone number for the lead (the Sell lead information is updated)

Customize the layout and display of Sell fields in Chat

Creating a new lead from a Chat conversation

When you respond to a chat request from a customer, if their email address does not match a customer registered in Sell, you can create them as a new lead. The lead is allocated to a Sell rep to follow up. You can specify the assignment of the lead in Sell (see Assigning leads to a specific owner or distribution pool).

To create a lead from a Chat conversation

In the Sell widget, click Create Lead:

Note: As a Sell admin, you can choose which user or distribution pool a lead is allocated to (see Assigning Chat leads to a user or distribution pool).

If you can't see the Create Lead button, it means that the customer you are chatting to is already a Sell customer, or the email address was not provided during the chat. You can send a note to the Sell rep instead.

Optionally add a note while you are creating the lead:

Click Create.

The lead is allocated to a Sell rep. Click OK to return to your chat window.

In Sell, the lead is added and the lead card displays information that the lead was added from Chat:

Adding a note for a Sell rep from a Chat conversation

When you respond to a chat request from a customer, if the customer is already a lead or contact in Sell, you can send a note to Sales directly from the chat.

To add a note to a Sell rep in Chat

In the Sell widget, click Notify Sales.

If you can't see this button, it means that the customer you are chatting to not a Sell customer. You can create them as a new lead instead.

Add your note and click Notify:

The note is added to the contact or lead card and the owning Sell rep is notified. Click OK to exit.

Viewing Sell data in your active chat window

If you are a Chat agent (with or without a seat in Sell), you'll see a Sell widget in your Chat window that shows information about the customer you are chatting to, if they are already entered as a known lead or contact in Sell.

If you have seats in both Chat and Sell, you can click the name of the lead or contact in the Sell widget and their card in Sell opens in a new window.

Customizing the layout and display of Sell fields in your active chat window

If you are a Chat agent (with or without a seat in Sell), you'll see a Sell widget in your Chat window that shows information about the customer you are chatting to, if they are already entered as a known lead or contact in Sell.

As a Zendesk Sell admin, you can configure additional standard and custom Sell fields to your Chat agents, or change the layout of the Sell fields that are displayed. There are three individual widgets you can configure, for Leads, People (Contacts), and Company (Contacts), to show more relevant sales information depending on the type of interaction.

After the Sell admin has configured the fields, all agents will see relevant information immediately.

From the Sell widget, click the cogwheel icon () and click Sell Settings to customize the field configuration in Settings > Tools > Integrations in Sell.

See Setting up the Sell-Chat integration for more information about customizing Sell field settings in Chat.

Viewing Chat history from the Sell mobile app

When you use the mobile app, you can view Chat history in the Activity tab, in the same way as you can from the web.

Sometimes there might be technical restrictions that limit the number of chats that can be displayed. In these cases, you'll see a warning explaining why.

Viewing Chat history in the Activity tab

When you view activity on a lead or contact page, if there is associated Chat activity, you'll see information including:

Chat start date and time

Who served the chat (the agent's name)

Chat transcript

Chat finish date and time

You'll be able to filter by chats, and see chats when you filter by users, teams, or groups.

For the iOS app, chats are identified with the Chat icon ().

Click the chat summary to read the details.

For the Android app, chats are identified with the Chat icon ().

Click the chat summary to read the details.