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Integrate Customer Feedback Surveys into ZenDesk Solved Requests

Posted by 8 Responses Filed in: API/Widgets/Plug-ins, Developer Garage, How-to articles, Stuff We Like

Overview

We use ZenDesk for our support ticket system here at SurveyGizmo, and in the process we have integrated our customer feedback survey directly into the system. The only requirements for this integration are a ZenDesk account and any SurveyGizmo account (though for some additional link branding, we recommend the Pro or Enterprise plans).

The goal is to get feedback from the customer once a support issue has been resolved, so we can better get feedback about how well our customer service team is doing. You could setup many types of surveys and trigger them at different times within ZenDesk. Maybe a welcome email that collects additional information about an email sent to a specific department (such as billing). The options are completely up to you. The following example assumes you are getting customer feedback when a request is solved. You might also like to attach a survey link to the email footer of ALL emails. This is helpful in case a customer want s to provide feedback on the length of time it’s taking to resolve an issue.

In ZenDesk

  • Select Manage from the ZenDesk menu and choose Triggers and email notifications
  • If you already have a trigger for a Solved ticket, you can edit the existing trigger. This example assumes you are creating a new one, so click Add Trigger
  • Setup the following recommended conditions:
    • Status | Changed to | Solved
    • Comment is... | Public

    This ensures that the email is sent only when an issue is deemed resolved and a comment was added (this last condition is optional).

  • The next step is the ‘Perform These Actions’ section:
    • Notify User | (requester)
    • Email Subject:
      [{{ticket.account}}] Re: {{ticket.title}}
    • Email body (adjust wording as needed):
      Your request (#{{ticket.id}}) has been deemed solved.  Let us know how we did!
      http://YOUR-SURVEYGIZMO-LINK/?rep={{ticket.assignee.first_name}}+{{ticket.assignee.last_name}}
       
      To review, comment and reopen the request, follow the link below:
      http://{{ticket.url}}
       
      {{ticket.public_comments_formatted}}

This is an example of what we use, but the key area for you is the survey link. You will want to replace http://YOUR-SURVEYGIZMO-LINK/ with your survey link (Get this using the instructions below). The second portion, starting with the question mark ( ? ), is a query string. This information is automatically collected by SurveyGizmo (more on using this later). It allows you to automatically associate the ticket’s assignee to that feedback. We’ve used the variable name ‘rep’ in this case. For consistency, later instructions will assume you are also using ‘rep’. You could also pass in any ticket information like ticket ID, type, external ID, customer or organization name, etc.

In SurveyGizmo

You can create a customer feedback survey from scratch or use one of the pre-made templates we provide when you are creating a new survey (our example). Once the survey is created, you can Launch that survey, presenting you with a selection of links on the Publish tab. Here are a few examples:

All plan levels:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/34173/support-survey/

Professional and above (Branded Subdomains):

http://surveygizmo.support.sgizmo.com/

Enterprise level plans:

http://surveys.yourdomain.com/support/

Replace the link in the Email body example above with your survey’s link.

Pro Tip: For Internet Explorer 6 compatibility, make sure the links ends with a forward slash ( / ).

What else do I setup in the survey itself?

When your respondents click on that link, they will be presented with your survey, automatically passing to the survey the assignee’s full name. Within your survey, your very first question may be an open textfield question asking the respondent to enter their support representative’s name. Within SurveyGizmo, you can set the Default Value of this question as the following:

[%%GET_rep]

This special merge code is getting the representative’s name that was passed in when they clicked the link, placing that in the box automatically. This saves your respondents time while still allowing them to change the name if they wish. Be advised, if you changed ‘rep’ in the Solved email link above, you need to change it within that merge code as well.

Congratulations, you’ve now setup a very simple and elegant integration between SurveyGizmo and ZenDesk for your customer feedback survey! If you need help setting up your survey to accept your Zendesk info grap a SurveyGizmo account, build your survey and then drop our customer support a note!

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About the Author

Mario Lurig
Technical Training Manager at SurveyGizmo. Mario hails from Reunion, France off the coast of Madagascar in the middle of the Indian Ocean… no, really… then Kenya, United Arab Emirates, and Florida till 2004. He is an author of two books: an ebook of conversation starters and a PHP book. He is also an avid cyclist and tennis player, and is 1-0 in knife fights. His most recent project benefits authors tracking amazon sales rank.


Responses
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  1. 1

    Pingback

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by SurveyGizmo, Michael F. Hansen. Michael F. Hansen said: Do you use @Zendesk? Check how you can send customer support feedback surveys using @SurveyGizmo & @Zendesk http://bit.ly/6csAx8 [...]

  2. 2

    Hey Mario. Nice implementation. Can your survey do a call back and store the survey result on the ticket via the REST API?

    Mikkel on Tue, Dec 22 ’09 at 1:42 am #
  3. 3

    Your API requires sending XML data and has no capacity to capture GET or POST data. Thus it would require an actual developer integration within SurveyGizmo to construct the push-back into the ZenDesk ticketing system. If there is enough uptake we may develop this, though if the API accepted POST data we could get something developed a lot sooner.

    Mario Lurig on Tue, Dec 22 ’09 at 12:46 pm #
  4. 4

    Sounds familiar. I posted the following article 9 days earlier. See https://support.zendesk.com/forums/1847/entries/88522

    Kai Hilton-Jones on Fri, Jan 08 ’10 at 1:12 pm #
  5. 5

    Kai,
    Great minds think alike! We’ve been using it since we started with ZenDesk, and after a conversation with one of the ZenDesk team letting us know that this has been a topic of interest for their customers, we put together this full tutorial and started the ball rolling on even more advanced widget integration. This is the first time I’ve seen your post, so it’s fantastic that you took the initiative on putting this together.

    Mario Lurig on Fri, Jan 08 ’10 at 1:58 pm #
  6. 6

    Pingback

    [...] every solved Zendesk ticket. Don’t worry, the video isn’t all about reading through the Zendesk integration tutorial, but rather an explanation of why to get customer feedback, what to do with the feedback you [...]

  7. 7

    I love the idea of integration in ZenDesk. I would like to be able to post a survey on ZenDesk so that I can automatically associate survey responses with their Zen Desk user id. Is there a way to do this?

    Karen on Wed, Nov 23 ’11 at 1:03 pm #
  8. 8

    Hey, Karen!

    There is, in fact, a way to do this – coincidentally, we just figured out how to do it over the past month for an internal survey we’re using!

    We’re in the process of putting together a tutorial for the project – but if you’ll drop us a note at http://support.surveygizmo.com, we’ll be happy to take a look at what you’re doing and help you make it work. Thanks!

    Kipp Chambers on Tue, Nov 29 ’11 at 11:46 am #

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