Integrating Zoho Desk with Zoho SalesIQ

Integrating Zoho Desk with Zoho SalesIQ

Overview

What is Zoho Desk?

Zoho Desk is a customer service software that uses the power of customer context to improve agent productivity, promote self-service, manage cross-functional service processes, and increase customer happiness.

Zoho Desk in SalesIQ

  1. Step up your customer-support game and add the power of live chat to full-fledged help desk software, to create the ultimate, unified customer Desk suite. By combining the on-demand supporting power of Zoho SalesIQ with Zoho Desk, a complete help desk solution for small and medium businesses, you can take your customer service and support to new heights. 
  2. Together Zoho Desk and Zoho SalesIQ deliver a complete view of all your support interactions logged in one, organized database. Working together they deliver the added ability to connect, chat, engage and support in real-time within the context of their existing support relationship. Your customer support operation is built upon the strong foundation Zoho Desk establishes and strengthened with Zoho SalesIQ's ability to leverage the power of your customer data into superb support in real-time.

How to integrate your Zoho Desk account with your SalesIQ account?

  1. Before you can embrace the power of customer support completely-unified, and start utilizing the valuable data in your customer-support database to improve your on-demand chat support, you need to link your Zoho SalesIQ with your Zoho Desk account.
  2. If you don’t have a Zoho SalesIQ account yet, you can learn how to create a new one here. If you already have a Zoho SalesIQ, but don’t have a Zoho Desk account, learn more about how Zoho Desk can better organize all your customer support interactions and discover how to setup a new Zoho Desk account.
  3. If you have active accounts for both Zoho Desk and Zoho SalesIQ, you can continue with the instructions below to link up your Zoho SalesIQ to your Support account.
Note:
To use Zoho SalesIQ integrated with Zoho Desk, you will need to be a customer of either the Enterprise/Professional/Basic or free plan of Zoho SalesIQ and have a Zoho Desk account.

Connecting your Zoho SalesIQ account to a Zoho Desk account

Before we can start exploring how the Zoho Desk integration with your Zoho SalesIQ can improve your entire customer-support operation, we need to set up your Zoho SalesIQ to work together with your customer Desk database inside Zoho Desk.
  1. Login to Zoho SalesIQ.
  2. Navigate to Settings > Developers > Integrations  > Zoho Desk.
  3. Then, click the Enable button. This will automatically link up the Zoho SalesIQ account to the Zoho Desk account. All the privileges, access and permissions you hold in your Desk account will be replicated in the SalesIQ account as well. 

  1. Once you have integrated successfully, you can view the name of the person who integrated the Zoho Desk with SalesIQ in the Zoho Desk Administrator section and the integrated portal name in the Connect with Zoho Desk Account section.

  1. If you do not have an account in Zoho Desk, then the auto-sync option will fail. You can create a Desk account and then try to sync. 
Note:
To integrate,
  1. You should hold an account in Zoho Desk. The privileges, access and permissions you hold in your desk account will be replicated in Zoho SalesIQ.
  2. The account email used in Zoho SalesIQ and Zoho Desk should be same, you cannot integrate other's desk account with your SalesIQ account. 
  3. After integrating, if the Zoho Desk account or the user is deleted/disabled, then SalesIQ will prompt you to integrate another account. 
  4. With the successful pairing of your Zoho Desk account to your Zoho SalesIQ you can start configuring the other aspects of your integration.

Changing the synced Zoho Desk portal name

  1. Navigate to Settings > Developers > Integrations and click Zoho Desk.
  2. Click Change.
  3. A pop-up will appear, choose the new Portal Name. Remember that you can enter choose a portal you are a part of.
  4. Click Continue to make the changes.


Enable/Disable Desk integration

If needed, you can disable your Zoho SalesIQ’s integration with Zoho Desk account at any time.

To disable integration with Zoho Desk:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Developers > Integrations and click Zoho Desk.
  2. Click the Disable button on the top right.

To re-enable Integration

  1. Navigate to Settings > Developers > Integrations and click Zoho Desk.
  2. Click the Enable button on the top right.


Desk Integration Configurations

Now that Zoho SalesIQ is integrated with your Zoho Desk account, it is time to configure the integration to fit your team’s specific needs. Read below to explore the options you have for configuring the integration.

Which Chats to Automatically Create Requests For

The first configuration you can set is deciding which chats from Zoho SalesIQ you want to be automatically created as requests inside Zoho Desk. You can choose from the following options - All Chats, Operator Attended Chats, Missed Chats, or None. Whichever you choose, the system will create requests inside Zoho Desk for all chats that fit your defined configuration.



To configure visitors chats as automated requests inside Zoho Desk

  1. Navigate to Settings > Developers > Integrations and click Zoho Desk.
  2. Select the type of chat which you would like to automate -All Chats, Operator Attended Chats, Missed Chats, or None.
                   1. All Chats– Converts chats with all the visitors into Desk request.
                   2. Operator Attended Chats– Converts only those chats attended inside Zoho SalesIQ to Desk requests.
                   3. Missed Chats – Converts only missed chats to requests.
                   4. None– Automatically converts no chats to Desk requests. Instead, your agents can manually convert chats to Zoho Desk requests based on their personal judgement.
  1. You can choose when to convert the chats as tickets.
                   1. While Answering Chat– Chats are automatically converted as tickets when they are answered.
                   2. While Ending Chat– Chats are automatically converted as tickets when they are ended.
  1. Then, you can configure the request status of the chat - Open or Closed.


Sync Zoho Desk Knowledgebase to Zoho SalesIQ

If you have a maintained Zoho Desk knowledge base, you can now sync it with SalesIQ's Articles section. You do not have to create your Desk articles in SalesIQ again to make it visible in the chat window. You can simply sync the Zoho Desk Knowledge base to SalesIQ's articles section.You can map a Desk category to only one department. 

To sync articles from Zoho Desk to Zoho SalesIQ:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Developers > Integrations and click Zoho Desk.
  2. Enable the Sync Zoho Desk Knowledgebase with Zoho SalesIQ Articles toggle button.
  3. A list of all the departments inside Zoho SalesIQ will be listed. Choose the article categories inside Zoho Desk that you want to map to each department.

  1. Choose the type of articles that have to be synced - All Users, Registered Users or Both.

  1. Choose the status in which you want the articles to be synced - Keep as published or Keep as draft

  1. Choose the time frame after which the articles have to be auto-synced. This can either be: Daily, Weekly or Monthly.
Note:
If the articles sync frequency is set to:
  1. Daily - Sync will take place in the early morning hours of every day
  2. Weekly - Sync will take place on the same day of the week on which you had synced the articles first. (For example, if you had synced the articles on Monday, auto-sync happens on the Monday of every week)
  3. Monthly - Sync will take place on the same day of the month on which you had synced the articles first. (For example, if you had synced the articles on the 1st of January, auto-sync happens on the 1st of every month).

  1. Then, click Sync Now and all the articles will be synced right away.
  2. You can view all the synced articles inside the Resources > Articles.
  3. The Articles that are synced from Zoho Desk will always be saved as drafts and have to be published from the Articles section. 

  1. The articles will have a distinct tag which will reflect that they had been synced from Zoho Desk.


Note:
  1. You can preview the articles inside Zoho SalesIQ but editing cannot be done.
  2. These articles can be synced only by Administrators.
  3. If you are not able to view the articles, it might be because they might not have been properly synced, they've been saved as drafts or the integration was disabled.
  4. When sync is turned off, article syncing stops but the existing articles remain unchanged.
  5. The articles will be synced at early hours in the morning once the frequencies are set (Daily, Weekly or Monthly). In case you edit the articles inside Zoho Desk, you need to click Sync Now for the changes to immediately reflect inside SalesIQ. Otherwise the changes will be reflected only during the sync cycle that you have set.
  6. The display permission for Desk articles must be set to "All users" in order to sync and view the articles.

Department based configurations

You can also configure your departments in both Zoho Desk and Zoho SalesIQ to ensure the right Desk agents are connecting and chatting with the right customers--and ensuring requests from Zoho SalesIQ are being logged to the right department inside Zoho Desk.

Under the Department mapping section, you will see your existing Zoho SalesIQ departments. Each department will be listed on the left edge, with a drop-down menu on the right where you can configure which Zoho Desk department you wish to pair this Zoho SalesIQ department with. You can also configure a department to have no integration, be read-only, or give your agents the ability to choose the intended Zoho Desk department on demand.



The Department Linking Settings

As mentioned, if you don't pair a Zoho SalesIQ department with a specific Zoho Desk department you can choose one of three general settings: No Integration, Read only and Choose on demand. These predefined settings give you added flexibility for deciding where to create or send Zoho SalesIQ chats to inside Zoho Desk. These predefined settings can be chosen for all the departments in your Zoho SalesIQ.

 No Integration
If you choose the No Integration setting for a particular Zoho SalesIQ department, you cannot create or view any Desk requests while conducting chats in that department, and no requests will be automatically created from chats in that Zoho SalesIQ Department. These departments become effectively un-integrated with your Zoho Desk account. If you have a Zoho SalesIQ department that doesn't handle customer Desk issues, this setting works great as you won't pollute your Zoho Desk database with non-Desk related chats.

 Read Only
If you configure a department to the "Read Only" setting, your agents can view the existing Desk requests from that customer's account, but they cannot create new Desk tickets, or edit the status of existing tickets.

 Choose on Demand
By selecting the "Choose on Demand" setting for a department, your agents can view existing tickets and convert chats from this department in Zoho SalesIQ to a request in Zoho Desk for whichever department it needs to be in.

When chatting with a customer in a Zoho SalesIQ department configured this way, the agent will see a button to the right of the chat window in the visitor information sidebar. By clicking this button, Convert Chat as request," the agent will be able to choose the priority, status, classification and department of the request he is creating inside Zoho Desk. You can learn more about the configurations an agent can choose on demand below.
  1.  Priority– An agent can set the priority for the request as High, Medium or Low based on the chat with the customer and their specific needs.
  2.  Status– The agent can also choose the status of the request to be created, with the choices being: Open, On Hold, Escalated, and Closed.
  3.  Classification– Desk agents can classify the chats as a Question, Problems, Features and others depending on how your classifications are configured inside the Zoho Desk account your Zoho SalesIQ is linked to.
  4.  Department– Lastly, the agent can direct the request to specific department inside Zoho Desk, to ensure the request he is creating from Zoho SalesIQ ends up where it needs to be inside your help desk.


Department Intelligence

Upon integration, the system will check to see if your Zoho Desk account and Zoho SalesIQ have matching department names. If there are matches, your Zoho SalesIQ will automatically route those departments together as your default department based configurations. Regardless of how many matches you have, be it one department or 20, your Zoho SalesIQ will automatically route those departments together by default.

Adding a new Department In Zoho SalesIQ and Integrating with Zoho Desk
  1. You can add departments to Zoho SalesIQ at any time and Zoho SalesIQ will automatically map the department to a matching Zoho Desk department. If you create a new Zoho SalesIQ department and their is no matching department in your Zoho Desk account, the system will by default configure this Zoho SalesIQ department to "On Demand."
  2. When your Zoho SalesIQ automatically integrates a new department with a matching department in Zoho Desk, you will see this message: Auto association triggered! Zoho SalesIQ finds a match in the integrated Zoho Desk. Hence it associates automatically. To de-link click here
  3. Click “De-link” to undo the auto-associated match, and configure the Zoho SalesIQ department to "Choose on demand".

Desk requests in Zoho SalesIQ

You can filter the “recent Desk requests” and the “search results” from Zoho Desk, or you can fetch from all the Zoho Desk departments. You will get two options here.
  1. All Departments – This will show the recent requests, search results from all departments of Zoho Desk in your agent Operator console.
  2. Mapped Departments – This will show the recent requests and search results only from the mapped Zoho Desk department.



Note : For Read-Only and Choose on Demand departments. Recent request and search will show the request form all the departments.

Merging Desk Requests

  1. When a customer starts a chat with you and it becomes clear that the question was previously asked during a conversation in the past, you have the ability to merge the new request with the existing.
  2. While chatting, you can click on any of the customer's existing requests on the right-hand sidebar. A click on the existing request will display the information about the request, along with a chat transcript if it was from a past chat. Below this you will see a button, "Associate Chat" that you can click to associate your current chat with that existing request, effectively merging the two requests.
  3. You can select associate now and the existing request will be merged with a new request.




Desk Information in Chat Window

With your Zoho SalesIQ integrated with Zoho Desk, your agents will be able to view a customer or visitor's corresponding information from customer Desk database in the visitor information sidebar in your chat window. The information your agents can view while chatting from Zoho Desk includes:
  1. Account name
  2. SLA Name
  3. Contract Name  
  4. Contact Owner 
  5. Total Number of Tickets
  6. Overdue Tickets




Using the integrated information

When you know how to use the instantly available information from Zoho Desk, you get the most value from your integrating live chat support with your existing customer support database.

How to view the Recent Chat Transcript of a Visitor? 

When an agent receives a chat from a visitor the recent requests inside Zoho Desk from that visitor will be displayed below the visitor info on the right sidebar. By clicking a request an agent can view more information about the request, including a complete chat transcript if there is one.



Quick, Direct Access to Zoho Desk 

If your Zoho SalesIQ agent also has access to the Zoho Desk account, a simple click on the "Read More" icon in the recent request, and they will automatically get a complete view of that specific request inside Zoho Desk. With instant access to a past, or related requests, your agents can quickly get a better view of how they can help the customer they are currently chatting with.



Convert Chats to Request without the Visitor Email Address

  1. If you are chatting with a visitor, and their email address wasn't provided automatically from the chat embed, you will be unable to automatically create a chat request inside Zoho Desk.
  2. However, chats can still be converted to requests by manually adding the visitors email address from the sidebar in Zoho SalesIQ, after receiving the correct information from the visitor in the chat.
  3. In the sidebar of the chat window, find the edit icon (the yellow pencil) beside the visitor's name, and Click it to edit the visitor's information. 
  4. After clicking the edit icon, you will find fields for Visitor Name, Email Address and Contact Number.
  5. After you have inputted the necessary fields, click "Save" to sync those details with the visitor.
  6. Then click the "Convert Chat as Request" button to now convert the chat to a request in Zoho Desk.

Searching for previous tickets of the visitor in the chat window

During a chat, your agents can also search for tickets from Zoho Desk by visitor name, ticket number, a visitors email address, or even by a requests subject. To search for requests, you can type the name of the request or the ID or keywords in the search bar. 



Change Request Status

Also while chatting, your agents can open or close related Zoho Desk requests from Zoho SalesIQ. Lets say you are chatting with a customer and learn from chatting that his password has not actually been reset. So instead of creating another request, you can re-open the associated request you see in the sidebar and ensure the task gets taken care of without the mess of redundant requests.

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