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Generative email replies with AI Agent Essentials in Zendesk
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Internal NoteThomas Verschoren “It all starts with configuring your AI Agents' persona. You describe your company, you give your agent a name and avatar and you decide it's tone of voice.” By default your AI Agent will pull from all public Help Center articles to reply to your customers. If your user belongs to a segment that has access to restricted articles, the AI Agent will also pull from these articles.
Internal NoteThomas Verschoren “These will define how your AI Agent reacts and will influence the way it phrases responses.” By default your AI Agent will pull from all public Help Center articles to reply to your customers. If your user belongs to a segment that has access to restricted articles, the AI Agent will also pull from these articles.
“Nobody likes waiting for a resolution and even though most people can understand that some questions take time to figure out and resolve, the reality is that most of those questions can be resolved with a bit of prewritten and reusable information.” Zendesk's platform is designed for this purpose. If customers email your team, submit a form, or contact you via social channels, the platform ensures that interactions are captured and routed to the right agent. This agent can either be human or AI-powered.
“The goal of any customer (or employee) service team is to make sure users get a correct answer to their question quickly.” Zendesk's platform is designed for this purpose. If customers email your team, submit a form, or contact you via social channels, the platform ensures that interactions are captured and routed to the right agent. This agent can either be human or AI-powered.
Enter Generative Replies. Powered by LLMs these new capabilities in the Zendesk platform shift away from lists of relevant articles towards generated replies personalized for each customer. “The system reads every conversation and assigns an Intent (why is the customer contacting us) to each conversation.” You can these generative responses in action across the platform. Help Center offers Quick Answers that augment search results. The classic Answer Bot got replace with a generative AI Agent (Essentials) and Agents see Quick Answers right in the Knowledge Panel next to tickets.
Enter Generative Replies. Powered by LLMs these new capabilities in the Zendesk platform shift away from lists of relevant articles towards generated replies personalized for each customer. “It combines that intent together with an actual understanding of the message to find a matching piece of text in your articles.” You can these generative responses in action across the platform. Help Center offers Quick Answers that augment search results. The classic Answer Bot got replace with a generative AI Agent (Essentials) and Agents see Quick Answers right in the Knowledge Panel next to tickets.
Enter Generative Replies. Powered by LLMs these new capabilities in the Zendesk platform shift away from lists of relevant articles towards generated replies personalized for each customer. “It takes those paragraphs of text and turns it into a response for the customer.” You can these generative responses in action across the platform. Help Center offers Quick Answers that augment search results. The classic Answer Bot got replace with a generative AI Agent (Essentials) and Agents see Quick Answers right in the Knowledge Panel next to tickets.
This article wouldn't exist if that hadn't changed. Announced last month and now available to all customers is the new generative replies for email, part of AI Agent Essential. It removes the old "email with links" and replaces it with personal responses to customer emails. These responses are based on your Help Center content and offer customers answers to their questions in a personal and custom tone. “Instead of the customer needing to read an article, they now get a response that explains how they can resolve their inquiry, right from the email.” If they do reply with additional feedback or requests, the ticket will arrive in your agents' inbox and they can take over this ticket. But for most single touch tickets, AI Agent Essential over email should suffice. Naturally, any knowledge gaps the system detect should be filled by your team over time to further improve its' efficiency.
Instead of the customer needing to read an article, they now get a response that explains how they can resolve their inquiry, right from the email. If the solution helps they can either ignore the email and move along with their life. This will trigger an automatic closure via automations, followed with a satisfaction survey. “If they do reply with additional feedback or requests, the ticket will arrive in your agents' inbox and they can take over this ticket.” 💡
Customers that Google for a question, or open your Help Center via a link on your website can search for a topic, and they got a list of articles that might contain an answer to their question. Similarly, AnswerBot was Zendesk's solution for customers that reach out over email or social channels. If customers interacted with your chatbot, the bot replied with a list of applicable articles. And if they emailed your support team you could replace the default "we got your message" email, with a more powerful response that contained a list of applicable articles. The customer could then read the article, and if it helped, close their ticket. “And if it didn't, well, at least the agent didn't loose time sending those links, and maybe the customer might even reply with additional context on why the support article didn't resolve their inquiry.” This strategy works, but it does create a few issues. For one, the customer needs to do all the work. They need to read a few articles and look for the relevant section that answers their question. (As always, it's better to write 3 short on topic articles, than one longer article that handles all three).
Instead of the customer needing to read an article, they now get a response that explains how they can resolve their inquiry, right from the email. If the solution helps they can either ignore the email and move along with their life. This will trigger an automatic closure via automations, followed with a satisfaction survey. “Naturally, any knowledge gaps the system detect should be filled by your team over time to further improve its' efficiency.” 💡
And if it didn't, well, at least the agent didn't loose time sending those links, and maybe the customer might even reply with additional context on why the support article didn't resolve their inquiry. “This strategy works, but it does create a few issues. For one, the customer needs to do all the work.” Second, even though they get suggested solutions, the static format of those emails and the links to your help center make those emails feel like automations in response to their email, instead of personal answers to their inquiry. It's a small nuance, but if you read further in this article, you'll see what I mean.
Second, even though they get suggested solutions, the static format of those emails and the links to your help center make those emails feel like automations in response to their email, instead of personal answers to their inquiry. It's a small nuance, but if you read further in this article, you'll see what I mean. “And thirdly, Answer Bot replied based on semantic search and replied with articles that contain some version of the keywords used in the customers' email. So your success rate highly depends on how good the customer phrased their email.” Now, how can we improve this experience and provide a better automation resolution for your customers?
This strategy works, but it does create a few issues. For one, the customer needs to do all the work. They need to read a few articles and look for the relevant section that answers their question. (As always, it's better to write 3 short on topic articles, than one longer article that handles all three). “Second, even though they get suggested solutions, the static format of those emails and the links to your help center make those emails feel like automations in response to their email, instead of personal answers to their inquiry.” And thirdly, Answer Bot replied based on semantic search and replied with articles that contain some version of the keywords used in the customers' email. So your success rate highly depends on how good the customer phrased their email.
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