Zendesk has introduced a new program to help customers upgrade to theZendesk Agent Workspace.
The Zendesk Agent Workspace maximizes productivity for your teams by bringing you all the tools, context, and capabilities they need to deliver exceptional customer experiences, all from a single, unified interface. This includes:
- Delivering the conversational service your customers want
- Working smarter with powerful tools and built-in intelligence
- Boosting agent well-being for a better customer experience
This article includes the following topics:
- What's happening?
- Why is Zendesk making this change?
- What do I need to do?
- We're listening
- What new features are available after upgrading?
What's happening?
If your account admin received the email, your Zendesk account has been selected to be automatically upgraded to the Agent Workspace. We are helping customers automatically upgrade because Agent Workspace is the interface of choice for Zendesk going forward. It includes all the latest features and enhancements Zendesk has made to support agent productivity across channels.
Why is Zendesk making this change?
亚博built this new interface to help your agents provide fast and personalized support for customers and ensure they have all the tools and context they need to manage customer requests efficiently.
We want you to take advantage of our latest innovations and join our customers who have already made the switch. On average, accounts on Agent Workspace experience 17% faster replies to customers and 20% faster resolutions to customer requests by moving to our unified Agent Workspace.
What do I need to do?
亚博Zendesk会自动激活代理工作space on your account during the timeframe Zendesk provided in the email we sent you. For the first phase of the rollout, selected Support-only accounts will be upgraded. No accounts with Support and Chat are impacted in this phase.
However, instead of waiting for an automatic upgrade, we strongly encourage you to start the upgrade now. This gives you and your agents time to prepare for the change.
Zendesk recommends that you:
- 升级现在在你自己的术语。最好的版本e at the time of day when your account activity is the lowest.
- From now until the automatic upgrade date, you will be able to temporarily deactivate the Agent Workspace.
We recommend turning iton and offto get yourself and your agents acquainted with the key differences in the interface. This gives you time to generate any necessary training materials for your team. - If you are wary of upgrading your production account, you can always create a freeZendesk trialaccount to try out the workspace. All trials have the Agent Workspace activated.
To help you in the transition, we have created a resources page with more information. SeeResources for upgrading to the Zendesk Agent Workspace. Also, for a brief summary of the main interface changes, see ourQuick Reference.
We're listening
We appreciate all the comments you have made about automatically upgrading to the Agent Workspace. Your feedback is important to us and we have taken this into account. For details, seethis statementfrom Jonathan Aniano, Sr. VP of Product.
What new features are available after upgrading?
In addition to aunified conversation interfacebased on the latest technology, the following is a list of new features Zendesk introduced that are available only in the Agent Workspace. Going forward, as you enhance and modernize your customer support offerings, these are valuable tools.
- Native ticket redaction
You can natively redact, or remove, sensitive information found in ticket comments and attachments so that your account stays secure and compliant. You don’t need to install a separate app. SeeRedacting ticket content. - Ticket translation
Agents can communicate with end users and other agents, even if they are using different languages, using the native translation feature in the Agent Workspace. SeeTranslating conversations. - Context panel
When you’re working on a ticket, it’s often useful to have contextual information that falls outside the basic ticket content. For example, you might want to know more about the customer who requested the ticket. In addition, you may need to open Zendesk apps that can help you solve the ticket or search for articles in your help center that are relevant to the ticket. SeeUsing the context panel. - Knowledge in the context panel
Directly from the ticket interface,you can quickly search for content in your help center that might help your customers solve issues, view suggestions for content based on ticket content, or add feedback to flag existing articles. SeeSearching, linking, and quoting content in ticketsandFlagging articles in Knowledge. - Context panel resizing
You can change the width of the context panel to give you a better view of customer context, sidebar apps, or Knowledge articles. SeeResizing the context panel. - Ticket properties panel resizing
You can change the width of the ticket properties panel to give you a better view of ticket fields. This feature is particularly useful if you’re working on tickets with a lot of fields. SeeResizing the ticket properties panel. - Channel switching in the composer
You can easily switch between communications channels, all within the same ticket interface. You don’t have to maintain separate tickets or use separate dashboards for each ticket type. SeeSwitching channels in the composer. - Composer resizing
You can resize the ticket composer window as needed to meet your requirements. For example, you can use a smaller window for chats and messages, but you might want to use a larger window for long email messages. SeeResizing the composer window. - Color text in the composer
You can use formatting option改变文本颜色和背景的文本color in ticket comments. This feature is useful for drawing attention to important items in your comments.SeeChanging text color. - Fixed composer(doesn’t disappear when scrolling)
You can also use the scroll bar on the right side of the ticket to scroll up or down through previous responses without losing sight of the reply you're composing. Separated scrolling is useful if you're working on a long ticket with a lot of details. SeeScrolling through a conversation. - Contextual tabs
Agents may have to manage multiple tickets at the same time. You can use tabs at the top of the interface to help you move easily between many types of conversations (email. chats, phone, and messages). Tabs provide important information and help you see which tickets are the most critical to address. SeeUsing ticket tabs to manage conversations. - Zendesk messaging
Messaging lets you have rich conversations with your customers that are persistent, with full context and history. When you enable messaging, you can connect it to your website or help center, mobile apps, and social channels, making it easy for your customers to self- serve or connect with your agents. SeeAbout messaging. - Flow builder
You can use Flow Builder to create answers for your conversation bots, giving your customers the opportunity to self-serve their support issues before connecting with agents. SeeAbout flow builder. - Easier process to add social messaging channels
You can send and receive social messages in the Zendesk Agent Workspace as part of the main conversation flow. Messages sent from these channels become tickets in the Zendesk Agent Workspace. SeeAbout messaging channels. - Omnichannel routing and unified agent statuses
The omnichannel routing enables you to direct tickets from email, messaging, web form, and API to team members based on their availability, capacity, and the ticket priority. Using omnichannel routing means that the highest priority tickets are assigned to the agents who are most available to work on them. SeeAbout omnichannel routingandConfiguring agent statuses - Custom ticket statuses
Zendesk supports a set of system ticket statuses which are used to help you manage your ticket workflows. Custom ticket statuses enable you to create additional, more-specific ticket statuses.Custom ticket statuses can help manage your ticket workflows, as well as indicate a more meaningful ticket status to your business and end users. SeeActivating custom ticket statuses. - Draft mode
代理可以构成公共回复草稿,before updating a ticket. This enables agents to make sure everything is correct before replying to a customer. SeeWriting drafts of public replies in tickets. - Custom ticket layouts(EAP)
Admins can create custom ticket layouts to support different ticket workflows for agents. Custom layouts allow you to specify which components are included in a ticket and control the location of where the components appear. Components include ticket conversations, ticket properties (fields), customer context, third party apps, and more. SeeAbout custom layouts. - Using AI to summarize and enhance ticket comments
Zendesk offers several AI-powered features that help agents be more productive while still providing a high level of customer service. SeeUsing AI to summarize and enhance ticket comments.
Features that harness generative AI powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT include:- Summarizing ticket comments to help agents get up to speed and quickly respond to customers.
- Enhancing agent comments by adding additional content, making the content more friendly, or making the content more formal.
Essentials card configuration
The essentials card appears in the context panel in the Agent Workspace and displays information about the ticket requester. You can configure the card by adding, removing, and reordering standard and custom user fields so that agents can access the most relevant information. SeeConfiguring the essentials card.- Custom objects
管理员可以定义自定义对象,构建了他们schema with custom fields, specify object-level permissions for agents, and add lookup relationship fields to tickets to surface your custom data in tickets. Agents can add and manage custom object records and preview related records within tickets. Then, you can use your custom objects and records in triggers and analytics. SeeUnderstanding custom objects. - App shortcuts
Agents can create shortcuts for their favorite apps and pin them to the context panel sidebar.App shortcuts enable agents to quickly open apps without searching through the full list of apps in the Apps panel. Each agent can add their own personal set of shortcuts. SeeManaging app shortcuts.
128 Comments
Normally, our Product Managers will provide an update directly regarding such information. I'm hoping for everyone's patience regarding this and always keep an eye on ourZendesk update page.
Unfortunately it is not rightDane.
Actually, if I put my CustomFieldon top of all field (even standars one), on Standard Interface left panel I can have :
2.CCs [Standard]
3.Tags [Standard]
4.MyCustomField
5.Type [Standard]
6.Priority [Standard]
Would someone from Zendesk be able to confirm whether or not this intended change to reverse the flow of conversation is forcibly going ahead or is at the very least being put behind configuration setting? Our company works entirely via email and this change if it goes through is going to render Zendesk useless to us...
No response from Zendesk Product Managers on this one which is a bit frustrating when the user feedback seems to be negative and with the same issues being mentioned but not addressed.
After using the interface for a bit here is a list of specific issues we have seen so far -https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/5460204876698-Agent-Workspace-Various-Issues
This is obscenely frustrating. Our company does not use chat or any other kind of support. We just use email, and for email purposes the standalone support view is so much better. There are also minor quality of life issues, like (as others have pointed out) the sort order of the thread being oldest to newest, and the fact that the fields are more spaced out in the context view, wasting a bunch of space.
Any thread of loyalty I had to Zendesk has been lost at this point. I'd like to say it explicitly: I am going to do everything I can to switch our team away from Zendesk and towards a company that actually serves their customers.
Thank you for sharing Matthew - your words capture our situation perfectly. It is plain sad to see that legitimate customer requirements are flat-out ignored and trampled on.
Does anyone know some Zendesk alternatives that are better suited for email support?
HeyOlivier MAS!
Placing custom field(s) in a form above the type/priority fields should keep them there (also just double-confirmed this in my demo account), this looks like an issue/regression you’re experiencing, could you file a ticket to our support team so that they could help you troubleshoot?https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843597850-Contacting-Zendesk-Customer-Support
Cheers,
JJ
And hey y'all!
We hear you, in Agent Workspace the position of the conversation log is now at the top and the composer is at the bottom, and the order of messages in the conversation log is now oldest-to-newest, top-to-bottom.
We’ve found that the majority of the tens of thousands of customers who are on Agent Workspace are more productive in terms of ticket resolution time (TTR) and first resolution time (FRT), so we would encourage you to try Agent Workspace for a little bit as your agents may quickly acclimate to the changes. Though, not all customers experience productivity gains, so our PMs plan to explore different ways to improve the current experience so that everyone could benefit.
If you would like to be opted-out of this round of activations or if you've been migrated and you wish to roll back, our Advocacy team would be able to help you out. This article guide you on how to reach out to them:https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843597850-Contacting-Zendesk-Customer-Support
Cheers,
JJ
Hello JJ Miclat,
what does the following mean?
For all of us that support exclusively via email, does it mean that we now do have the option to put the composer at the top and to see the newest messages at the top in Agent Workspace?
And also, why don't you provide ALL customers with an Agent Workspace sandbox? This would help alleviate fears, allow teams to be prepared for the migration, and gives everyone the chance to give relevant feedback before being thrown in the deep end with an interface that makes their work harder.
Regarding the improvements in TTR and FRT, could it be that accounts that rely on messaging etc. did see an improvement, while accounts that handle more complex issues via email have hesitated with the switch?
HeyGábor Körtvélyessy!
In AW, the composer is at the bottom instead of the top. Our product team is considering / assessing functionality to make composer/log positioning interchangeable.
Believe me, we would if we could. Sandboxes are only available to accounts on the Enterprise plan, as they would pose significant cost overhead to the business if they were available to all accounts, unfortunately. That being said, customers in the past have spun up Zendesk trial accounts to successfully test out Agent Workspace before enabling it in their accounts.
Our data science team took a look at TTR / FRT across all accounts in aggregate that have turned on AW, so the improvement was a conflation between messaging-centric accounts and email-centric accounts.
We were just forced to the new Agent Workspace, this is extremely frustrating. We do not utilize chat and socials. The entire design is upside down which is hard to learn when you are taking live calls back to back, and the action box where we write our external reply's to our clients in support tickets used to default back to internal once sent. Now when you send an external email it stays external, maximizing the risk of an Agent sending the following internal documentation note out to a client. Also, when we are drafting our emails in internal and we flip to external to send, now everything deletes.NOT A FAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HiCassandra,
I'm sorry you're not happy with the experience. Here are a couple tips that may help.
Are you still intending to forcefully move everyone to workspace? I can see this entry has been updated lately. We were put back on the "legacy" and i sincerly hope we stay there. Your insistence on forcing an irrelevant UI towards customers that use Zendesk for b2b mail based support is quite frankly worrying.
I cant use "we are listening" for anything, unless you act on it. If you force us to workflow without addressing the need for oldest first and composer on top and the other major concerns we are going to actively start looking for a replacement, its that simple
Lisa KellyWhen we are drafting our email in the internal setting, and then click external to send the email, the information disappears. It remains saved back on the internal setting. This is a nuances and causes extra steps. Further, the did locate the Draft mode for the external setting since now it stays in that mode, but again this create extra steps. We are a very high volume support center. The interface moving the most recent message to the bottom of the screen is not user friendly at all. Our team is 100% unhappy with the forced change. What steps do we need to take to be moved back to the old interface?
HiCassandra,
Please refer to this previous post for rollback information
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4484160121498/comments/5532403680026
Dear Zendesk Support Team,
We are using Zendesk for almost 13 years.
I am writing to request your assistance with the new interface. We have to switch to the new Workspace interface, but it is not adapted to the way we are working. We are working in email only mode. We are experiencing difficulties with the new interface and would like to request your help in resolving these issues. The new interface doesn't seem to suit the way we work today.
Could you please provide us with some guidance on how we can adapt to the new interface? We would appreciate any assistance you can provide.
Thank you for your time and attention.
我管理,只是这个“upgr的通知ade" today via a banner in Zendesk this morning/ We have until July 18 to get all our people trained during quarter end and fiscal year end!?... Perhaps if we did not have 5 different Zendesk account reps assigned to our account in the past 2 years. Someone from Zendesk could properly facilitate these types of changes. Just one month after we were notified of a 20% increase in price.
I have gone through all the comments on this string plus the ones on Agent Workspace - various issues.
It gives me no confidence in moving to this new Agent Workspace! We are primarily an email support team - we dont use chat bots or direct chat channels to talk to our clients. We do NOT need these "extra's". All that I have read shows that this part of their "Agent Workspace" has been downgraded/less efficient.
Can we at least get an update on where email support stands on this new "agent workforce agent'? What are the differences between legacy and the new interface?
HiCarla,
Here's aQuick referencearticle that describes some of the basic differences between the Zendesk Agent Workspace and the standard agent interface. Also, to help you minimize clicks, you might consider usingDraft mode. If you have issues with your migration, contactZendesk Custom Support.
The Zendesk Customer Support link just posted...
oops
The page you were looking for doesn't exist
HiShiomo,
There are several articles to help you with your migration. I recommend starting with this one:Resources for upgrading to the Zendesk Agent Workspace.You can also use thiscurated searchfor Agent Workspace on our Zendesk Support website. If you still need help, contact,Zendesk Customer Support.
Thecontact Zendesk Customer Supportlink is fixed. Thanks,Will.
With all this talk of switching channels, are we FINALLY able to easily swap our sending email address? We are currently using that barely-functional Select An Address app that Zendesk made, but that app really isn't a proper solution.
We exclusively use email, so this forced upgrade is already looking to be very obnoxious.
I thought I was alone at hating the new layout. Having the typing box right at the top is a super useful location, switching to any other way can only be seen as a downgrade, and I'm clearly not alone here. We've tried switching our team to the agent workspace on more than one instance, and switched it back because everything was less functional and useful than on the regular layout, and agents complained that their work was made harder and now involved more steps.
This isn't an upgrade, and it's quite curious that you're forcing a downgraded mechanism to users who clearly don't appreciate it. Is this setup cheaper for you guys, or something?
99% of the tickets in my company come from API. This change is, somehow affecting it. We will be better off without the change if you can do that for us please. Otherwise, you're getting us in big, big trouble.
DianaandVictor,
If you want to discuss these issues,contact Zendesk Customer Support.
As others have mentioned, we do not desire the automatic upgrade as we are an email-only support team and the agent workspace workflow is a direct downgrade from what we're currently using.
I can't believe Zendesk is so adamant about refusing to listen to their customers on such a terrible UI change.
Guys, I've realized, this probably is a money thing for them. They worked really hard to make this new layout, but now their support team has to be well versed on two different versions of the system. They probably got tired of having to be trained on both and just decided to keep the one they liked better.
What software review websites is Zendesk on?
Hi all,
As an admin in our ZD Support instance at our company, I too want to voice my concerns with being forced to upgrade to an experience that will not benefit us, but rather seem to only introduce frustration and be more of a disruption. We are setup to only serve our company employees (internal support from IT) and we only need the Support experience as we only have the email channel enabled (we support via the web portal and emails). We have no need or use for any other chat or messaging channels. I can appreciate the new interface for those companies that utilize some or all of these features, as this new experience combines all these channels and features into one global UI and UX. However, we have no need for this, and unfortunately now I need to pivot and learn about agent workspace, confirm it will not break any of our configs or integrations, and prepare all my other admins and agents for this forced upgrade and new experience in a week, when I don't have the bandwidth.
Please reconsider forcing this experience upgrade on your customers. I don't know how Zendesk picks which customers will be forced into this experience, but you should reconsider how you make this determination and factor your customers' experiences and opinions into it.
Pleasesign into leave a comment.