A complete guide to understanding email in Zendesk - Part 1: How the email channel works

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<div class="note fastpath" style="margin-right: 0px;">
<span class="fastpathtitle">Location: </span> <span class="ph">Admin Center &gt; Channels &gt; Talk and email &gt; Email</span>
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<p class="sidenav-heading">Articles in the series</p>
<ul class="nav nav-underline flex-column">
<li class="li">
<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4887918604058">Introduction: A complete guide to understanding email in Zendesk</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408888639258">Part 1: How the email channel works</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887388058">Part 2: Incoming email requests and notifications</a>
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<li class="li">
<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408893474202">Part 3: Outgoing email notifications</a>
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<a class="nav-link" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887479834">Part 4: Common email channel problems</a>
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<div class="body">
<div class="p">In part 1, we cover the essentials of how the email channel works, how email notifications
are generated, and how to ensure that changes you make to the email channel workflow don’t
cause interruptions in the communications you have with your customers.<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_23r_12p_vcb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_ubj_qry_cfb">About the email channel</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_v3b_zfd_v3">Two types of email notifications: incoming
and outgoing</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_r1f_4gd_v3">How triggers and automations generate email
notifications</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_uv2_331_53">Is it okay to modify or deactivate the
default email notification triggers?</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_ubj_qry_cfb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">About the email channel</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Although there are many ways for customers to contact you for support using the Zendesk
products (email, chat, messaging, phone, and so on), for both customers and agents email
notifications and email-based conversations are at the core of the customer service
interaction.</p>
<div class="p">Starting with one of the most common ways that customers reach out for support — using a
support email address — here’s what happens when a customer contacts you with a support
request and how Zendesk Support uses the email channel:<ol class="ol" id="topic_ubj_qry_cfb__ol_xm5_ndp_vcb">
<li class="li">When a customer sends an email to your support email address, a ticket is created in
Zendesk Support.</li>
<li class="li">The customer immediately receives an automated email notification to let them know
that their support request has been received. The email reply is sent from the support
address where the customer sent the email.</li>
<li class="li">The new support request creates a new ticket in Zendesk Support, is then added to the
ticket queue, and based on how your ticket routing business rules are set up, the ticket
is either assigned to an agent group, a specific agent, or it sits in the queue waiting
to be picked up by an agent.</li>
<li class="li">The new support request also automatically generates an email notification to the
support staff when a new ticket is created, when a group or agent has been assigned to
it, and then as various events occur during the course of the support conversation and
resolving the ticket (for example, a reply from the customer).</li>
<li class="li">For the customer, the back and forth between an agent comes in the form of email
replies in a threaded email conversation.<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> If you set up a self-service Help Center
using Zendesk Guide, your users can also view their support requests and communicate
with agents there also in a similar threaded conversation format, bypassing their
email application. However, email notifications will still be generated by the usual
ticket events, such as adding a new comment to the ticket.</div>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<p class="p">Even when you’re using a different communication channel with your customers, such as
Zendesk Talk, email is important there as well. This is because a phone conversation also
creates a ticket in Zendesk Support, and follow-on steps in your conversation with the
customer can happen in email (for example, taking the support request offline because you
need time to gather additional information, or when the customer is asked to rate their
support experience after their issue has been resolved).</p>
<p class="p">The most common and useful customer interaction workflows, based on customer service best
practices, are provided automatically for you in Zendesk Support. This means that you don’t
have to sort out all this email notification and routing logic yourself, but you can
customize these things to your specific needs, and this is where the role that email plays
in Zendesk Support can sometimes cause confusion. What exactly is generating the email
notifications that are being sent to customers and support staff? Can I turn them off or
modify them? Can I control the look, wording, and timing of these email notifications?</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_v3b_zfd_v3">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Two types of email notifications: incoming and outgoing</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">It’s helpful to begin understanding how email works in Zendesk Support by focusing on email
notifications because they communicate the information and provoke the actions involved in a
customer service interaction. They are essential for communicating with your customers and
you therefore need to understand how they work and why you should not disable them in
Zendesk Support.</p>
<p class="p">Think of email notifications in two groups: incoming email notifications (that your support
staff see) and outgoing email notifications (that your customers see).</p>
<p class="p">Zendesk Support is set up to handle the essential steps in a customer service interaction,
meaning that you don’t need to necessarily set this up yourself — although you’re free to do
all the workflow customization that you’d like.</p>
<p class="p">Here’s what happens with email notifications by default, without you having to set up
anything yourself.</p>
<div class="p">Default incoming email notifications (seen only by your support staff) include:<ul class="ul" id="topic_v3b_zfd_v3__ul_hgn_w2p_vcb">
<li class="li">A new support request from a customer was received</li>
<li class="li">Agent group was assigned to the new ticket</li>
<li class="li">A specific agent was assigned to the new ticket</li>
<li class="li">The customer has added a new comment to the ticket/email thread</li>
<li class="li">The customer has reopened the ticket after it was marked as solved</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="p">Default outgoing email notifications (seen by your customers) include:<ul class="ul" id="topic_v3b_zfd_v3__ul_tgv_dfp_vcb">
<li class="li">An automated notification to the customer that their support request was received</li>
<li class="li">An agent added a reply (a public comment) to the customer</li>
<li class="li">The agent set the ticket status to solved</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Those email notifications are set up by default in Zendesk Support, but you can add many
more email notifications — both incoming and outgoing. For example, if you enable Customer
Satisfaction Ratings in Zendesk Support, your customers will receive an email notification
after their ticket has been solved asking them to rate their support experience. Or, if the
agent is waiting for more information from the customer, you can create an email
notification to remind the customer.</p>
<p class="p">Incoming email notifications can be set up and customized in many ways. For example,
incoming support requests can be routed directly to a group or specific agent based on who
the customer is, the company they work for, the category of customers you’ve included them
in, the time of day the support request was received, and so on.</p>
<p class="p">Both incoming and outgoing email notifications are defined and generated by triggers,
automations, and targets in Zendesk Support. These define the business rules, the support
workflow, that automates and streamlines the support you provide to your customers.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_r1f_4gd_v3">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">How triggers and automations generate email notifications</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">We’re assuming that you have a basic understanding of what triggers and automations are and
what they do in Zendesk Support. If you don’t, take a few minutes and read these two
articles: <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822236058-About-triggers-and-how-they-work" target="_blank">About triggers and how they work</a> and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832701850-About-automations-and-how-they-work" target="_blank">About automations and how they work</a>. Come back when
you’re done.</p>
<p class="p">Having read those articles, you understand that both triggers and automations take actions
based on conditions. Triggers define actions that happen when a ticket is created or
updated, such as sending an email notification to the customer when a new support request
generates a ticket. Automations take action based on time, notifying an agent, for example
that a high-priority ticket remains unsolved after x numbers of hours.</p>
<p class="p">To take a look at the triggers that generate the default incoming and outgoing email
notifications we listed above, sign in to Zendesk Support as an administrator and select
<strong class="ph b">Triggers</strong> from the <strong class="ph b">Business Rules</strong> category. Open the trigger called <strong class="ph b">Notify
requester of received request</strong>. In the <strong class="ph b">Actions</strong> section, you can see how email
notifications are defined.</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" id="topic_r1f_4gd_v3__image_okz_ccx_vcb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/defaulttrig1.png" width="850"></p>
<p class="p">This is the first automated email notification that a customer receives when they send you
a support request. As you’re defining the customer experience using Zendesk Support, the
message contained in this trigger may be one of the first things you want to customize (much
more detail about these default triggers can be found in <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828984346" target="_blank">About the standard Support triggers</a>).</p>
<p class="p">An important element in email notifications are placeholders. These are the elements in the
graphic above that are contained within double curly brackets. They are references to ticket
and user data that are inserted into email notifications when they are sent to customers
(see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887218330-Using-placeholders" target="_blank">Using placeholders</a>).</p>
<p class="p">As you’ll see later in this guide, you have lots of control over the wording and the look
of your overall customers’ email support experience. You also have control of the triggers
and automations that generate email notifications, but modifying those should be done
cautiously.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_uv2_331_53">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Is it okay to modify or deactivate the default email notification triggers?</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">It’s possible to both modify and deactivate these default triggers, but you should first
ask yourself why you’re thinking of doing either. What are you trying to achieve?</p>
<p class="p">Deactivating these default triggers breaks the communication you have with your customers
because email notifications will no longer be sent. The support conversation will end and
this will confuse both your customers and you.</p>
<p class="p">Modifying the messages contained within the default email notification triggers is easy to
do, as long you’re aware of the placeholders that automatically populate the data needed to
be expressed in those messages and not accidentally remove them. Modify those messages all
you want. However, deactivating the default email notification triggers rarely makes
sense.</p>
<p class="p">Unless you have a very small support team, we recommend deactivating the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828984346#topic_k54_r3s_5t" target="_blank">Notify all agents of received request</a> trigger
because not all of your agents need or want an email notification every time a new ticket is
created. With that exception, <em class="ph i">we recommend that you do not deactivate the standard email
notification triggers</em>.</p>
<p class="p">If you experience issues with customers or agents either not receiving email notifications,
or receiving email notifications that they shouldn’t be receiving, the problem most likely
lies elsewhere (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887479834" target="_blank">Part 4: Understanding and troubleshooting common email
channel problems</a>).</p>
<p class="p">Having a very good understanding and working knowledge of triggers and automations usually
prevents any mishaps with email notifications, so here’s another recommendation to read
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822236058-About-triggers-and-how-they-work" target="_blank">About triggers and how they work</a> and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832701850-About-automations-and-how-they-work" target="_blank">About automations and how they work</a> before you
modify existing triggers and automations or create new ones.</p>
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