Zendesk

Connect Zendesk to automate ticket handling with AI

Connect Zendesk to train your agent on your help center, past tickets, and macros — then automate ticket responses, triage, and more.

What you can do

• Train your agent on your Zendesk Help Center articles, macros, and past tickets

• Automatically reply to customer tickets or draft responses for your team

• Tag, assign, close, and update tickets

• Look up customer and organization information

• Connect Zendesk Messenger for live chat

Connecting Zendesk

You have two connection options:

OAuth (recommended)

Connect your full Zendesk account for access to tickets, macros, and all actions.

1. Go to Integrations > Zendesk

2. Select OAuth

3. Click Connect and authorize eesel AI in your Zendesk account

4. Grant the requested permissions

Quick Start

Enter your Zendesk Help Center URL and your agent starts learning from your published articles. No authentication needed — but you won't have access to tickets, macros, or actions.

1. Go to Integrations > Zendesk

2. Select Quick Start

3. Enter your help center URL (e.g., https://yourcompany.zendesk.com/hc)

4. Click Connect

Training your agent

Available knowledge sources

Source	Description	Requires
Help Center	Your published support articles	Quick Start or OAuth
Macros	Shared and personal macros — filter by group	OAuth
Tickets	Past resolved tickets — filter by status and date	OAuth

Tips for training

• Start with your Help Center — it's the quickest win and covers most common questions

• Add past tickets to teach your agent your team's voice and handling style

• Filter tickets by status — focus on "Solved" and "Closed" tickets for the best training data

• Import macros if your team relies on canned responses for consistency

Triggers

Trigger	Description	Best for
Any Customer Message	Fires on any new or updated ticket	Full AI Agent automation
First Customer Message	Fires only on the first message, before any agent reply	AI Triage
Support Request Closed/Resolved	Fires when a ticket is marked closed or resolved	Post-resolution follow-up
Agent Requests AI Help	Fires when @eesel is mentioned in an internal note	On-demand AI Copilot

Actions

Responding to customers

Action	Description
Leave Public Reply	Send a customer-visible reply. Supports Human in the Loop.
Leave Draft Reply	Create a draft for your team to review — never sends automatically
Leave Internal Note	Add a note only your team can see

Ticket management

Action	Description
Tag Ticket	Add tags for categorization
Create Ticket	Create a new ticket
Assign Ticket	Assign to a specific agent
Assign to Group	Route to a team queue (e.g., "Billing Team")
Close Ticket	Mark ticket as resolved
Update Ticket	Change status, priority, or custom fields

Information lookup

Action	Description
Read Ticket	Read the full ticket with conversation history
Search Tickets	Search using Zendesk query syntax
List Tickets	List tickets with optional filters
Get User by Email	Look up a Zendesk user by their email
Get Organization for Email	Retrieve organization context for a user
Get Ticket Fields	Read the values of ticket custom fields

Zendesk Messenger

For Zendesk Messaging Widget actions, see the Zendesk Messenger integration guide.

Tips and best practices

Start with draft replies. Configure "Leave Draft Reply" as your first action. Review responses for a few days before switching to "Leave Public Reply."

Use the triage trigger for routing. Set up a separate triage agent using the "First Customer Message" trigger with Tag and Assign actions to organize your queue.

Connect past tickets for better quality. Agents trained on past tickets sound significantly more natural and consistent with your team's style.

Set up escalation. Configure "Assign Ticket" or "Assign to Group" actions and write clear escalation rules in your instructions.

Troubleshooting

Help Center not syncing?

• Make sure your Help Center URL is correct and publicly accessible

• Check that articles are published, not drafts

OAuth connection failing?

• Ensure you have admin permissions in Zendesk

• Try disconnecting and reconnecting

Agent not responding to tickets?

• Verify the trigger is enabled in Settings > Triggers

• Check that the trigger type matches your use case

FAQ

Can my agent reply and leave an internal note at the same time?

Yes. Configure both "Leave Public Reply" and "Leave Internal Note" as actions. In your instructions, tell the agent when to use each one. For example: "Always reply to the customer and leave an internal note summarizing the resolution."

Can I control which tickets the agent responds to?

Yes. You can configure trigger conditions to filter tickets, or use AI Triage to tag tickets first and have the agent only respond to specific tags.

Does it work with Zendesk Messaging?

Yes. See the Zendesk Messenger guide for setup instructions.