Introduction
Thanks to the promptness and directness it offers, social media is today one of the most prominent channels for delivering customer support. A strong presence in social media combined with high responsiveness in terms of customer support work wonders for businesses, irrespective of their size. We, at Zoho Desk, realize the value of this channel. And to make sure that you have the right tools to effectively manage social media interactions, we have revamped the Social module in Zoho Desk.
This revamped Social module adheres to Zoho Social's model of structuring social media accounts. According to this model, social media accounts--Facebook pages, Instagram pages and Twitter handles, in the case of Zoho Desk--are organized into units called brands. In the previous version of the Social module, multiple social media accounts could be added, but accounts representing the same brand/organization could not be managed together. This challenge is addressed in the revamped module, taking you a step closer to efficient social media management.
In this article, we will look at how you can make the best out of the revamped Social module.
Before that, if you need instructions on how to set up the revamped Social module, refer to
this article.
After you connect your social media accounts to a brand in the Social module, the posts, @mentions, and private messages posted or received by the accounts are automatically populated in the respective Facebook/Twitter feeds. From these feeds, you can perform all basic actions, such as commenting on a post, liking/unliking a post, replying to a tweet, and retweeting/liking a tweet. You can also manually or automatically convert posts into tickets in your help desk portal.
Facebook Feed
Facebook Feed displays three different types of posts:
- Page Posts: Posts that you publish on your page
- Tagged Posts: Posts in which your page is tagged
- Visitor Posts: Posts made on your page by your customers/other users
On this feed, you can perform actions, such as converting a post into a ticket, liking/unliking a post, commenting on a post, replying to other users' comments, and deleting a post. Clicking a post or the comment button in a post opens the post window on the right side. On this window, you can view the comments recorded on the post and also access the profile of the user. If the user is already a contact in your help desk portal, you can view their details on the Profile tab. If the user is not a contact, you can add them to your contacts list.
Further, you can choose to view all posts or filter only those converted into tickets or only those not converted into tickets. These filters help in performing bulk-update actions, such as deleting tickets or marking tickets as spam.
You can also publish new posts from this feed by clicking the New Post button.
Private Messages
The Private Messages feed is where messages sent privately by end-users are displayed. Just like posts, private messages can also be converted into tickets. You also have the option of viewing all messages or filtering those converted into tickets and those not converted into tickets.
Clicking a message opens the private message window on the right side. Messages are immediately updated after receipt in this message window. So, as a result, if the user is online when you respond to their message and they also reply immediately, the private message window acts more or less like a chat box. From this window, you can also access the profile of the user and add them to your contacts, if required. Further, you can view the user's past interactions with your page under the Interactions tab.
Twitter Feed displays two types of posts made on Twitter:
- Tweets: Tweets that you make from the handle connected to your brand
- Mentions: Tweets that your customers/other users send to the Twitter handle connected to your brand
On this feed, you can perform actions, such as replying to a tweet, retweeting/liking a tweet, or deleting a tweet. Clicking a tweet or the reply button in a tweet opens the tweet window on the right side. On this window, you can view the replies sent to the tweet, access the profile of the user, and follow/unfollow the user from the brand handle. If the user is already a contact in your help desk portal, you can view their details on the Profile tab. If the user is not a contact, you can add them to your contacts list.
Further, you can choose to view all tweets or only those converted into tickets or only those not converted into tickets. These filters help in performing bulk-update actions, such as deleting tickets or marking tickets as spam.
You can also publish new tweets from this feed by clicking the Post Tweet button.
Additionally, this feed contains the Twitter search field, using which you can search for public tweets across the entire Twitter database. This search field supports all
advanced search options natively supported in Twitter.
Direct Messages
The Direct Messages feed is where messages sent privately by end-users are displayed. Just like posts, Twitter direct messages can also be converted into tickets. You also have the option of viewing all messages or filtering those converted into tickets and those not converted into tickets.
Clicking a message opens the direct message window on the right side. Messages are immediately updated after receipt in this message window. So, as a result, if the user is online when you respond to their message and they also reply immediately, the direct message window acts more or less like a chat box. From this window, you can also access the profile of the user, follow/unfollow the user, and add them to your contacts, if required. Further, you can view the user's past interactions with your handle, under the Interactions tab.
Instagram Feed
The Instagram feed is posts that you publish on your page. On this feed, you can perform actions, such as converting a post into a ticket, commenting on a post, replying to other users' comments, and deleting a post. Clicking a post or the comment button in a post opens the post window on the right side. On this window, you can view the comments recorded on the post.
You can choose to view all posts or filter only those converted into tickets or only those not converted into tickets. These filters help in performing bulk-update actions, such as deleting tickets or marking tickets as spam.
Manually Converting Posts into Tickets
To convert a social media post or message into a ticket, click the Convert into Ticket icon at the upper-right portion of the post. The post is immediately converted into a ticket and the icon is replaced with the ticket number with a pop-up menu appearing below. From this pop-up menu, you can assign the ticket to an agent or a team.
Further, clicking the ticket number opens the Ticket Peek view, depending on your access permissions. In this view, you can find more details about the ticket and perform ticket actions.
Automatically Converting Posts into Tickets
The Auto-Conversion Settings page is where you configure automatic conversion of posts, tweets, @mentions, and private messages into tickets. This provision reduces the need to manually convert posts/messages into tickets. You can easily configure the type of social media posts that must automatically be captured as tickets in your help desk portal.
To configure auto-conversion, perform the following steps:
- On the upper-right side of your Zoho Desk window, click the Setup icon.
- On the Setup landing page, under Channels, click Social.
The brands listing page appears.
- Hover over the Facebook page/Twitter handle for which you want to configure auto-conversion.
The Settings and Delete icons appear.
- Click the Settings icon.
The Auto-Conversion Settings screen for the Facebook page/Twitter handle appears. In case of a Facebook page, these options appear: Page Posts (if selected, page posts are automatically converted into tickets only if a comment is received), Tagged Posts, Visitor Posts, and Messages. In case of a Twitter handle, these options appear: @mentions and Messages.
- Select the option(s) required. When you select an option, the two corresponding sub-options are enabled. The sub-options, which are common for all post/message options in both Facebook and Twitter, are as follows:
- All Posts/Messages: If you select this sub-option, all posts/messages of the type defined in the option are automatically converted into tickets.
- Posts/Messages with specific keywords: If you select this sub-option, only those posts/messages that contain the keyword you specify are automatically converted into tickets.
- After selecting the sub-option required, select the department in which the converted tickets must be saved. If you select the All Posts/Messages sub-option, you can select only a single department. If you select the Posts/Messages with specific keywords sub-option, you can select a different department for each keyword set. For instance, you can configure posts/messages containing the term "zPad" to be sent to the zPad department, "zPhone" to the zPhone department, "zWatch" to the zWatch department, and so on.
- After configuring auto-conversion settings as required, click Save.
The auto-conversion settings are saved successfully.
Private/Direct messages come with an additional setting called Append Interval. This setting refers to the period until which replies sent by a user are appended to a single ticket. If a reply is received after this period, the message can only be converted into a new ticket.