In the digital age, where customer expectations constantly evolve, Slack and Zendesk integration has become a strategic necessity for many customer-centric organizations. Slack, as a hub for conversational support and team collaboration, excels in real-time communication but lacks advanced customer service functionalities. ‍

Conversely, Zendesk is a powerhouse in managing customer interactions but can be isolated from the immediacy of team communication. Zendesk's native Slack integration faces limitations, particularly ease of use for internal teams and customers. The integration necessitates interrupting the natural flow of conversation by using shortcuts to create tickets. Also, its one-directional information flow often shifts discussions from Slack to email, breaking the continuity of customer conversations and undermining the purpose of Slack-centric support.

Integrating Slack with Zendesk brings together the immediacy of Slack's communication capabilities with the robust ticketing system of Zendesk. When assessing platforms for integration, it's essential to focus on functionalities that bridge the gap between these tools and enhance the customer support process. This article will highlight key Zendesk Slack-based support features businesses should prioritize when selecting a vendor for Slack-Zendesk integration.

8 Important Features To Look For in a Slack Zendesk Integration

When integrating Slack and Zendesk, the following 8 features are important:

1. Easy Ticket Creation from Slack
2. Bi-directional Sync between Slack and Zendesk 
3. Ticket Management from Slack
4. Use Zendesk Forms from Slack
5. Connect to multiple Zendesk domains from single Slack workspace
6. Collaborate with Internal Teams in Slack on Zendesk Tickets 
7. Automated Answers to tackle repeat queries in Slack
8. In-depth Tracking and Reporting

Let's look at these features in greater detail below:

1. Easy Ticket Creation From Slack

Users and Admins will want different ways to create tickets from Slack. As we described in detail on our blog on Ticket Creation in Slack, these methods include:

• Manual Ticket creation from channels using Emojis or tagging
• Automatic Ticket creation from channels - including using Workflow Actions
• Private Ticket creation using Slack shortcuts & private actions
• Conversion of private direct messages to Tickets using Message Actions in Slack

2. Bi-Directional Sync Between Slack and Zendesk 

Bi-directional synchronization ensures that any action taken in Zendesk (like ticket updates, comments, attachments, status changes, or new ticket creation) is automatically and instantly reflected in Slack and vice versa. 

For instance, if a ticket is resolved in Zendesk, the Slack thread linked to that ticket is updated in real time, keeping all stakeholders informed. This feature eliminates redundant tasks, reduces the chances of oversight, and ensures a unified view of customer interactions.

Furthermore, it allows team members to work from their platform of choice confidently. Support team members who prefer using Zendesk can stay on that platform, while internal teams like Engineering, Product Support, and others can operate from Slack.  

3. Comprehensive Ticket Management fFrom Slack

Look for the ability to manage Zendesk tickets within Slack. This allows agents to perform various ticket management tasks within Slack - creating new tickets from Slack messages, updating existing tickets, setting priorities, and closing tickets. 

The integration can also enable notifications in Slack for ticket updates, ensuring that agents stay informed about ticket progress without needing to check Zendesk constantly. This functionality streamlines the support process, significantly reducing response times and improving overall customer satisfaction.

4. Import and Use Forms From Zendesk to Slack 

The integration should allow for the import and usage of Zendesk forms within Slack. This allows support agents to access and populate Zendesk forms without leaving Slack, ensuring that all necessary customer information is captured accurately and efficiently. Furthermore, users should be able to modify ticketing forms to include both standard and custom Zendesk fields, ensuring a streamlined ticketing process aligned with your requirements.

For example, when a customer initiates a support request in Slack, the ticketing filing flow can immediately pull up a relevant Zendesk form, as the user to fill it out in real-time, and submit it without switching between apps. This seamless process saves time and ensures detailed customer information is directly funneled into Zendesk for comprehensive ticket management.

5. Create Tickets From Multiple Zendesk Domains With a Single Slack Workspace

For businesses with multiple Zendesk domains, the integration should enable ticket management from these domains within a single Slack workspace, centralizing support across various departments.

It simplifies customer support management across different departments or product lines, ensuring a cohesive and efficient support process. This multi-domain connectivity is particularly beneficial for larger organizations or those with diverse customer support needs, as it centralizes ticket management in a familiar Slack environment.

6. Collaborate With Internal Teams on Tickets 

The integration between Slack and Zendesk should enable collaboration (including private collaboration) in Slack with internal teams on tickets. This feature allows different team members to rapidly come together to discuss customer issues in and is crucial for fostering a secure and focused environment where teams can discuss sensitive information, strategize on complex issues, or provide specialized input without the conversation being visible in the public customer support channels.

7. Automated Answers in Slack

One of the challenges with Slack based helpdesks is getting a lot of repeat queries - simply because it's so easy to raise queries. AI-powered virtual assistance can suggest responses based on existing Zendesk knowledge base, historical ticket data or other documentation, enabling customer-facing teams to respond more quickly and accurately from Slack.

8. In-Depth Tracking and Reporting

Zendesk, while robust in traditional customer support metrics, falls short in providing insights specifically tailored for Slack-based interactions. That means tracking and reporting within Slack and not just those captured in Zendesk. This in turn depends on identifying customers and agents accurately in Slack and maintaining response times and other metrics accurately in accordance. When customer interactions happen in Slack, CSAT surveys and other ways of getting customer feedback should also happen in Slack and in a manner that suits the chat interface.

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How Does Zendesk Evaluate for Slack-Based Support?

Over the years, Zendesk has released a lot of features for supporting customers and employees on Slack. And it does well on some of the critical feature requirements for a Slack based Support system. But in many other cases it is lacking. Here's a quick synopsis of it's currentl capabilities and weaknesses:

Pros:

1. Supports a variety ofways of creating tickets - via shortcuts in Slack, private "Create Ticket" actions, converting direct messages to tickets via "More Actions" in Slack and and by tagging @zendesk app.
2. Supports Bi-Directionally synced conversations between Slack and Zendesk using Side Conversations.
3. Provides a highly configurable system for sending notifications to Slack based on various triggers in Slack.
4. Provides support for basic Form fields like Subject, Description and Requester.

Cons:

1. Cannot create tickets automatically from each Slack message. Also doesn't support Emoji-based Ticket creation.
2. Tickets created from Slack are not bi-directionally synced to Zendesk.
3. Limited Forms Support - custom Fields and even Form type selection isnot supported.
4. No support for AI-deflection in Slack prior to ticket creation.
5. Side conversation does not allow syncing of customer messages or replying directly to customers from Slack.

In addition, managing a large number of customer Slack channels presents an additional set of challenges that are completely beyond the scope of Zendesk's Slack Integration. Users looking for a more fully functional solution to provide ticketing and support in Slack while using Zendesk as a ticketing system should look at third party solutions like ClearFeed to fill this gap.

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How To Use ClearFeed To Enhance Slack-Zendesk Integration for Slack-Based Support?

At ClearFeed we specialize in helping companies run Slack based Helpdesks. While you can use ClearFeed to run a full omni-channel helpdesk out of Slack - we have also built a robust and comprehensive Slack Zendesk integration, addressing all the key functionalities that bring the utility and power of Zendesk ticketing to your Slack workspace. Here's how this works:

• Single-click Zendesk ticket creation: Easily create tickets by adding a ticket emoji. Convert long Slack threads with multiple attachments into tickets with a click. Users can also configure automatic ticket creation from every message in Slack. The entire Slack thread is summarized and all messages and attachments from the thread are uploaded to the created ticket.

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• Bi-directional syncing of status & comments: Replies on Slack are synced to Zendesk, and comments (including internal comments) and status on Zendesk are synced to Slack threads in real-time. Attachments posted on one tool are also uploaded to the other.

• ‍Respond to customers from both Slack and Zendesk simultaneously: Internal teams can continue to respond to customers from Slack and have private discussions therein - while at the same time, Support agents can communicate with them from Zendesk.

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• Ticket management from Slack: Track, modify, and close your ticket across your integrations from the Slack triage channel.

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• ‍Auto-assignment of ticket on Zendesk: If a request is auto-assigned to an agent on Slack, its corresponding ticket will be assigned to the same agent on Zendesk.

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• ‍Import existing Zendesk forms to Slack: Effortlessly import Zendesk forms, including default and custom fields, into ClearFeed. This feature enables users to create and edit Zendesk tickets directly in Slack while maintaining the form's original structure.

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• ‍GPT-Powered Automated Answers: You can use Gen AI to index your private Zendesk knowledge sources to generate answers automatically.

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• Multiple Zendesk domains: Connect multiple Zendesk domains to a single ClearFeed account and create tickets seamlessly from a Slack workspace. 
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‍Check out how Chronosphere Streamlined Support with ClearFeed’s Slack-Zendesk Integration

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Wrapping Up 

ClearFeed simplifies the integration of Slack and Zendesk, offering a straightforward integration process to help you get started quickly. Check out this step-by-step guide to seamlessly integrate Slack and Zendesk using ClearFeed. If you are interested in learning more about how to leverage ClearFeed’s Zendesk-Slack integration and provide Slack based Support for your business, you can reach out to us at support@clearfeed.ai or book a free demo with our support specialists.