Zingtree is a powerful tool to help your customers discover answers themselves. Whether the customer is looking for a product recommendation, or the answer to a complex frequently asked question, there may be several different ways to end up at the same response. But when you’re building a decision tree that incorporates many different factors and solutions, the tree can soon become big, bloated and inefficient.

Here’s an example of one of the trees in our demo gallery. This tree was designed to help a customer choose the right bicycle for them from a catalog of 19 different styles, ranging from mountain to folding bikes. It asks a few quick questions; where you plan to use the bike, how old you are, and what your personality type is. But with all these different potential combinations, the tree quickly grew to a whopping 50+ nodes. Phew!

However, with only 19 different bikes on offer and just 3 questions that would direct the customer to their dream bike, this tree could have been built much more efficiently. In big trees like this, you can use logic nodes in order to reduce the number of nodes and send users straight to the solution in a streamlined tree. 

Here’s how you can add logic nodes to this tree to give it a much-needed tidying up.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Tidying Your Tree With Logic Nodes:

1. Make a list of all the different bikes on sale against all the responses that would trigger each recommendation. This will help you to keep track while building out your tree.

2. Make a solution node for each bike on your new tree, copy and pasting the content across.

3. Create the 3 question nodes. On each question add Button Click Variables (you’ll need these to program your logic node), then define them with a Value in the right-hand column. Both the Button Click Variable and Score/Value are important, as they will tell your tree what it needs to look for when recommending a bike.

4. From here, head back to the overview, and create the all-important logic node.

5. Now, you need to start writing some rules, so that the decision tree knows which bike recommendation to give your customer. As there are three factors (where the user likes to ride, their age and their personality) that impact the result, you need to use an Advanced Logic Node. You can select “Advanced” at the top of the page.

Head to our FAQs for all the rules you need to know to use logic nodes effectively and to find out more about Advanced Logic Nodes.

Therefore, your rules here will need to look like this:

(terrain == ‘neighborhood’) && (age == ’16 – 30′) && (personality == ‘friendly’) 

This means that the customer likes riding around the neighborhood, is aged between 16 and 30, and has selected their personality type as friendly, laid-back and traditional. As such, the decision tree will send the customer to the result “Cruiser”, the right bike for their needs.

Once all the expressions and options have been filled out, your logic node will look something like this:

6. Now, your work is done! You have an efficient tree that uses the minimum number of necessary nodes.

Test Your Nodes With Our Debug Tool

Our Debug Tool allows you to run test simulations against each logic node in your tree and gain deeper visibility into any potential issues. You can test a range of variables and values, and review a step-by-step explanation of how Zingtree came up with the decision it did. Read all about it in our dedicated blog article. 

From Before to After

After implementing a logic node, you are able to make a much more efficient tree. Take a look at the results:

Optimized Bicycle Types Tree

You can see the improvements when comparing designer view before and after.

Before

After

To make sure your tree building stays as efficient as possible, it helps to take a moment to make a plan before jumping in, and to link back to pre-existing nodes to avoid duplicates. Also, don’t forget to use logic nodes to keep your trees as simple as possible by following our step-by-step tips. It will ensure that your tree building stays as efficient as possible, and save you plenty of time and effort. 

Here at Zingtree, we use Automatically Emailed Reports to monitor the usage of our own decision trees, as well as track changes. I thought it would be interesting to show how we use this feature here.

We actively maintain two organizations for our own use: The Zingtree Gallery, and internal trees like our FAQ, Contact Us page, and a few more. Once a week, we want to:

• See which trees in the Gallery are getting the most use.
• See who in our company has made changes to any tree – either in the Gallery, or our internal trees.
• See what sort of searches are occurring in our FAQ.

Here’s what our Automatic Reports setup looks like for the Zingtree Gallery:

And for our Zingtree organization:

Every Friday morning, we receive reports on any changes made during the week via the Change Log report. We also get usage stats for all of our Gallery trees via the All Trees – Stats report. And we use the Search Terms report to see what the most popular searches in our FAQ were during the week.

I hope this gives you some inspiration on ways you can use Automatic Reports. If you’ve come up with an interesting way to use this feature, please share!

This article shows how to set up the Zendesk Agent Scripting app. Go here if you want to learn more about the features and benefits of the app.

Contents of this Article

Getting Started
Installing the Agent Scripting App into Zendesk
Configuring the App
Data Sent from Zendesk to Zingtree
How to Update Ticket Data
How to Update Custom Fields
How to Set Ticket Tags
Using Zingtree Data Entry Fields to Update Tickets
Using Zingtree’s Zendesk CSS Theme
Enabling Automatic Script Selection
Try It with Example Data

Getting Started

Here are the basic steps to get up and running:

1. Build an interactive decision tree script with Zingtree (or use one of our demos to start).
2. Install the Agent Scripting App into Zendesk.
3. Configure the Agent Scripting app within Zendesk.
4. If you want to have your decision tree scripts update your  Zendesk tickets, you’ll need to add variables and/or tags to your Zingtree tree to match your Zendesk setup.
5. If you want to enable automatic script selection, you’ll need to add tags to your trees in Zingtree and configure the Zendesk Agent Scripting app properly.

Installing the Agent Scripting App into Zendesk

Download and configure the Zendesk Agent Scripting App like so:

1. Download the Agent Scripting app here.
2. In Zendesk, click the Admin icon and go to Apps > Manage.

3. Click Upload Private App.

4. The Upload App page appears.

5. Enter “Agent Scripting” or something similar for the App Name.
6. For App File, locate the file zingtree-agent-scripting.zip you downloaded in step 1.
7. Click Upload, then confirm if necessary.

Configuring the App

Once you’ve uploaded the app, the configuration screen appears:

Here’s what each item does:

Tree ID: This is the default tree that appears when agents click “Open Script”.  (You should always have a default tree.)

Zingtree API key: Each organization in Zingtree has an API key, which is used to match scripts and track new tickets. Your API key can be found at zingtree.com under Account, Organizations and Billing, API Key.

Show Tree in Side Panel: Select this option if you want to display the entire tree in the right-hand sidebar when a ticket is open. Uncheck this to use pop-over mode instead.

Hide Integration Setup Info: When you are setting up Agent Scripting for the first time, you may need some information about your Zendesk setup to take advantage of automatically updating ticket fields. An “Integration Setup Info” link appears by default when you first install the app, and ticking this option hides it.

Display Half-Height: In Popover mode, the popup view will cover half the height of the screen. This has no effect when using Sidebar mode.

Match Tree Tags to Zendesk Brand: If this option is checked, the subdomain of the selected brand will be matched to a Zingtree tree tag.  Any matching tree or trees will appear.  For example, if the brand subdomain is xyz.zendesk.com, any trees tagged as xyz (using the Zingtree Settings tool) will appear.

Match Tree Tags to Zendesk Ticket Tags: If checked, the values in the Zendesk ticket tags will be matched with your Zingtree tree tags (set via the Zingtree Settings tool) to show one or more matching scripts.

Match Tree Tags to values in a Custom field: If you want to use a custom field value to show matching scripts, enter the Zendesk custom field identifier here. The field name can be found using the Integration Setup Info link that first appears in the sidebar when you install the app.

Don’t share Zendesk Custom Fields with Zingtree: By default, the app sends custom field data from each Zendesk ticket to Zingtree so you can do more powerful automatic branching via Logic Nodes, as well as echoing customer information (like their name, for example). If your organization has data privacy concerns, you can check this option to disable data sharing.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to click Install or Update when finished with the app configuration.

Data Sent from Zendesk to Zingtree

Unless you select the Don’t share Zendesk Custom Fields with Zingtree configuration option, Zendesk will send the following variables to your Zingtree decision tree:

• requester_name – The customer’s full name.
• requester_email – The email of the customer.
• zendesk_tags – Any tags in the ticket.
• agent_tags – Any tags from the agent.
• agent – The Agent’s full name.
• agent_first_name – The Agent’s first name.
• zd_subject – The subject of the ticket.
• zd_type -The type of the ticket.
• zd_priority – The priority of the ticket.
• zd_status – The status of the ticket.
• Any custom fields.

To display one of these values, just surround the variable name with # characters. So to show the Agent’s first name in your script, enter #agent_first_name# in the content area of any node in your decision tree.

Tip: Add ##ALL DATA## to the content area of any node in your own tree to see all the variables sent to your script.

How to Update Ticket Data

As agents navigate through your trees, their use of the decision tree scripts you create can automatically update data in that ticket. This can be done in two ways:

• By clicking a button in a script
• By entering data into Zingtree data entry fields.

The Agent Scripting app can update basic ticket data by setting variables within the decision tree script. For example, if you set a Zingtree variable named zd_subject, it will change the subject of the ticket.

These Zingtree variables can update the ticket:

• zd_subject: Set this to change the subject or the title of the ticket.
• zd_priority: Change the priority of the ticket. Possible values: “urgent”, “high”, “normal”, “low”
• zd_type: Change the ticket type. Possible values: “problem”, “incident”, “question” or “task”
• zd_status: Update the ticket status. Possible values: “new”, “open”, “pending”, “hold”, “solved”, “closed”
• zd_comment: Add a new comment to the ticket.

How to Update Custom Fields

You can also set values of custom fields within the ticket. The key is to use variable names in your Zingtree that match the ones used in Zendesk.

First of all, determine the names of the variables in Zendesk by clicking the Integration Setup Info link in the Agent Scripting app. You’ll see something like this:

You’ll see the label for the field as it appears in Zendesk’s ticket form and the Zendesk variable next to it. In the above example, the Product custom field variable is custom_field_22899289. This is a drop-down selector, and the Zendesk values for the field options are astrology and insurance. For the rest of this example, we’ll use custom_field_22899289 as the custom field variable. To make a button selection update a custom field, you’ll set it up in your Zingtree as follows:

• Go to the Overview tool, and edit the node whose button selections will update the ticket.
• Click Edit Buttons (or Add Buttons if you don’t have any buttons defined). The button editor appears:

• Make sure Assign Button Click Variable is checked. This makes the other options appear.
• For the Button Click Variable, enter your custom field variable from Zendesk (custom_field_22899289 in the example).
• For each button option, enter the value of the variable under Score/Value. If this is a drop-down list in your Zendesk ticket, you’ll need to make sure the Score/Value entered matches one of the drop-down option values as shown in the Integration Setup Info.
• Click Save Changes when you’re done configuring buttons.

How to Set Ticket Tags

Button clicks can also add tags to a ticket. Just add two colons and the tag name to the button text.

In the above example, hello or goodbye will be added as a ticket tag. Agents won’t see the ::hello or ::goodbye text.

Using Zingtree Data Entry Fields to Update Tickets

Just like the above example, you can also use Zingtree for data entry and have that data automatically transferred to your ticket. The key is to use the same variable name in Zingtree as you used in Zendesk. The Integration Setup Info link in the sidebar will give you those Zendesk variable names.

Example: If you have a text entry field in Zingtree you want to update into the Zendesk field custom_field_1234, you would set up the variable name as follows:

Using Zingtree’s Zendesk CSS Theme

For the best user experience, we recommend using the Zendesk Apps theme in your trees that display inside of Zendesk. This will give you more room for your content (since the fonts are smaller), and also match the look and feel of the rest of the Zendesk experience.

To include the Zendesk Agent Scripting App theme in your trees, do the following:

• In Zingtree, open the Settings tool for your tree.
• Click the Display tab.
• Choose either Buttons or Panels as the Default Display Style.
• Click Pick a Color Theme.
• Choose Zendesk Agent Scripting as the theme.
• Click Save Theme and Colors.
• Click Update Settings.

Enabling Automatic Script Selection

Automatic Script Selection works by matching tree tags you set in Zingtree to values in the Brand, Tags, or a custom field in a Zendesk ticket. For example, if a tree is tagged with “astrology”, and the ticket tags include “astrology”, then that tree appears. If several trees match, then they will all appear, and the agent can choose one.

To open a script based on Brand:

• Add tags to your trees for each brand you want to match. So if one of your brands is xyz.zendesk.com, use xyz as a tree tag in Zingtree for all the trees you want to show.
• Make sure Match Tree Tags to Zendesk Brand is checked in the App Configuration.

To open a script based upon Zendesk ticket tags:

• Add tags to your trees for each tag you want to match. So if one of your ticket tag possibilities is “billing”, use billing as a tree tag in Zingtree for all the trees you want to show.
• Make sure Match Tree Tags to Zendesk Ticket Tags is checked in the App Configuration.

To open a script based upon a custom field:

• Add tags to your trees for each possible custom field value you want to match. So if one of your custom field values is “billing”, use billing as a tree tag in Zingtree for all the trees you want to show.
• Make sure the proper Zendesk field variable name is entered for  Match Tree Tags to values in a Custom Field in the App Configuration.

Adding tags to a tree in Zingtree is done like this:

1. Select a tree from My Trees.
2. Go to the Settings tool.
3. Click the Tags tab.
4. Enter or select a tag from the Tree Tags field.

5. Click Update All Settings.

Try It with Example Data

You can use trees from the Zingtree Gallery to see how the Agent Scripting app works. This Zendesk Agent Scripting Demo shows how to implement some of the basic integration features. You can install it into your own Zendesk configuration by entering tree ID 350600803 in the App Configuration. For multiple trees, see how a tree can be selected by tag by doing the following:

• In the App Configuration, enter 6a103737e44e4aa6e1e4b6b0bcb46f83 as the API key. Also, make sure Match Tree Tags to Zendesk Ticket Tags is checked.
• Try entering one or more of these tags into a ticket: “zingtree”, “astrology”, “pet_rock”.

Any questions? We’re always here to help. 

If you’re a Zendesk user in a Contact Center environment,  you’ll want to be using our Zendesk Agent Scripting app. This makes it easy to guide, train and onboard agents and is a huge productivity booster for everyone.

This article shows the features and benefits of using the Agent Scripting app.  Go here to learn how to install and configure the app.

Contents of this Article

Overview: Sidebar and Popover views
Pause and Resume
Benefits of the Zendesk Agent Scripting App
New Features in Version 13
Demo Video
Installing the App

Overview: Sidebar and Popover views

You have the option to show your script directly in the right-hand panel when viewing a ticket, like this:

Or you can use less sidebar space, and make it appear as a button in the right-hand panel:

Click Open Script, and you’ll see your decision tree in a larger pop-over like this:

Pause and Resume

This happens automatically: If another agent picks up a ticket, they return to the last viewed node and can see each step taken previously by opening the History.

Benefits of the Zendesk Agent Scripting App

• Standardization: Show a guided path for each ticket, so that Agents follow the proper operating policies or troubleshooting procedures.
• Pause and Resume: If a ticket is transferred, the supervisor or new agent is taken to the last place in the script, and can see the history of the previous steps taken.
• Automatic Script Selection: The Agent Scripting App can choose a script based on the Zendesk brand, Zendesk ticket tags, or the value of a custom field.
• Agent Feedback: Agents can send feedback directly to the authors of the decision trees with a single button click. Feedback is delivered to each author’s email and includes the tree ID and node number where the feedback was sent from.
• Zendesk Ticket Data in your Scripts: Values in any custom field, the agent name, customer info, as well as Zendesk ticket tags and user tags, are transferred into your script so you can display them, or use these variables to branch via Logic Nodes.
• Automatic Ticket Updating: Ticket data like subject, priority, type, status, and comments, as well as tags and custom fields,  can be updated from actions in the script – either via buttons clicked in the script, or from data entry collected.

New Features in Version 13

If  you’re using version 12 of the Zendesk Agent Scripting app, you may want to upgrade to be able to update your tickets in these ways:

• Update the ticket subject.
• Update the ticket type.
• Update the ticket priority.
• Add comments to a ticket.
• Change the ticket status.

Demo Video

This two-minute video shows you how Agents interact with the Agent Scripting App:

Installing the App

Go here to learn how to install and configure the Agent Scripting app.

Any questions? We’re always here to help. 

Over the past month, we’ve continued to improve our core product. Most notably, there is now more flexibility in stock form layouts,  as well as custom forms. Plus, for our Zendesk customers, we’ve updated our Agent Scripting app to even better integrate with Zendesk to update tickets and incorporate more ticket info in your scripts.

New Features

• Two-column Data Entry Fields form layout
• Zendesk Agent Scripting App Version 13 (can read/write ticket subject, priority, type, status and comments)
• Added event_log call to API (Josh O.)
• Agent Portal options now have an “Include Done with Customer” option set by default (Nick D.)
• New API call for get_tags (Fred R.)
• Can now change task name in task manager (Alex T.)
• Include Linked Trees (via Tree Nodes) in Node Content Search (David N.)
• Uptime checker: https://zingtree.com/api/uptime.php

Updates

• Added more server capacity during peak usage times
• #session# in auto email subject now replaced with Session ID (Bradford S.)
• <div class=”node-header”></div> now at the top of every node for CSS customizations (Prima.)
• Added All Trees: Change Log to Automatic Reports
• Added failsafe for retrieving form data if primary session data not located
• Added Github Python example to API page
• Fixed gotcha in Button Click Variables if no values set (Nichola)
• host-trees.php can now include a target= parameter to target iframes (Fred R.)
• Limited the logout time value in Agent Portal options to one week (10,000 minutes)
• Task Manager now supports #agent_first_name# and #agent_name# (Bradford S.)
• We now send a form_data object to container page via postMessage
• XSS security fix now allows classes in uploaded HTML

Fixes

• ##include_url: ## now works across sites (Francisco)
• A parent tree with a live version linking to a tree with an advanced logic node that did not have a live version now works properly (Mark S.)
• Auto reports for All Trees – Stats now works properly
• Automatic report for All Tree Stats CSV now fixed
• Visual Designer now loads trees with phantom button links to non-existent nodes
• Error in changing agent passwords went to a non-existent page
• Gallery Demo reports now work for All Trees changelog
• Multiple form entries no longer show extra horizontal lines for repeating forms
• Now warns when a tree node jump goes to a node that doesn’t exist in the destination tree (Dylan B.)
• Return-to-previous-tree tree node no longer shows a false “(return)” link in Designer view
• Scoring variables don’t initialize list boxes/radio buttons if there is already a variable set for the list box/radio button (Ruisi)
• Session Matrix Report no longer complains about not having a score variable if not present
• Task titles with single or double quotes no longer cause errors in task manager (Alex T.)

Got any suggestions or issues to report? Let us know!

Do you use Zendesk to manage technical support?

If so, you can use Zingtree decision trees to reduce your technical support team’s workload. Customers can either self-solve their issue, or a new ticket can be created automatically in Zendesk that includes all the information from the customer’s decision tree troubleshooting session. By making it easy to gather background information from the customer via the decision tree, your support team saves a lot of time by reducing back-and-forth messages.

Zingtree provides a free app for Zendesk to make it easy for your support agents to see the decision tree transcript. It looks like this inside of Zendesk:

Setup Overview

It’s easy to set this up – here’s an overview of the process:

1. Add a new Application to Zingtree for creating Zendesk Tickets.
2. Create a “Ticket Submitted” node which sends the new ticket info to Zendesk.
3. Create a “New Ticket” node to obtain the customer’s name, email, a ticket subject, a description, and optional custom fields.
4. Make sure Zendesk is properly configured to allow external apps to create requests.
5. Optionally install the Zingtree app into Zendesk via the Zendesk App Marketplace.

Adding a new Application to Zingtree to create a Zendesk Ticket.

A Zingtree application can be called from any node. You’ll need to add the Zendesk New Ticket App first as follows:

1. Log into your Zingtree account.
2. Go to Account > My Apps.
3. Select the Zendesk: New Ticket App.

4. Enter your Zendesk account email, API token and domain name. (Instructions are on the page.)

5. Click Add Zendesk App to save the new App.

Note: You can create an API Token in Zendesk via Admin > Channels > API.

Create a “Ticket Submitted” Node

When this node appears, a new ticket is added to Zendesk. This is the end result of pressing a “Submit Ticket” button inside the decision tree. You can create this node as follows:

1. Go to Tools > Add Node.
2. Add a new Content Node.
3. Give the node a title, and any text you want to appear in the content area – like “Thanks for submitting a ticket” etc.
4. Click the Apps/Webhooks tab.
5. Click Add App/Webhook.
6. Select the Zendesk App you just created. You should see something like this:

7. Click Save Changes to save this node.

Now we’re ready to link a ticket entry page to this “Ticket Submitted” node.

Create a “New Ticket” node

When end-users navigate the troubleshooting decision tree, if they haven’t been able to resolve the issue, you can direct them to a node which collects data for the ticket. These variables must be named exactly as specified below so that Zingtree knows which fields to include in the new Zendesk ticket.

These variables are mandatory:

• zd_subject – The subject of the request.
• zd_description – The description for the request.
• zd_requester_name – The customer’s full name.
• zd_requester_email – The email of the customer.

These variables are optional:

• zd_type – The type of the request. (Defaults to “question”) – Possible values: “problem”, “incident”, “question” or “task”
• zd_priority – The priority of the request. (Defaults to “normal”) – Possible values: “urgent”, “high”, “normal”, “low”.

You can also add custom fields to your ticket form (see below for details).

To create a new ticket form in your decision tree:

1. Edit the node where you want the customer to submit the ticket.
2. Click the Data Entry Fields tab.
3. Add fields for zd_subject, zd_description, zd_requester_name and zd_requester_email at minimum.
4. Add zt_priority or zt_type optionally.
5. When you are done, your Data Entry Fields will look something like this:

6. Click the Action Buttons tab, and add a “Submit” button to go to your submit ticket page.
7. Save the changes to this node.

Bonus: When a ticket is created, the Zendesk ticket ID is returned as a variable named zt_ticket_id.

How to Include Custom Fields

Every field in your Zendesk Ticket from has a unique ID. So to include field #12345 in the ticket form, you would add a variable named like this: zd_custom_field_12345

You can locate the Field ID for your custom ticket fields in Zendesk as follows:

1. In Zendesk, click Admin, Manage, Ticket Fields. The Ticket Fields screen appears:

2. Copy the Field ID (outlined in red above).

Zendesk Configuration

Your Zendesk setup will need to allow anonymous requests. To enable this,  the following Customer settings must be set in the Support admin interface:

• Enable “Anyone can submit tickets”
• Disable “Ask users to register”

You can do this via Admin > Settings > Customers. Your setup should look like this:

Add the Zingtree Support App to Zendesk (recommended)

To make a deluxe experience for your support techs, we recommend adding the Zingtree Support app to your Zendesk. In Zendesk, go to Admin > Apps > Marketplace, and search for “Zingtree”. Be sure to choose the Zingtree app:

Example Tree

Examine this tree from the Demo Gallery to see a real live setup.

Troubleshooting

If tickets aren’t being created, the Event Log is a great way to see if any errors are being returned from Zendesk.

1. In Zingtree, go to Account > Event Log.
2. Choose Zendesk New Ticket as the Event Type, and you’ll see all ticket creation attempts.

    

In the above example, you can see an error flagged with a red exclamation point in the left column.

****

That’s how easy it is to create Zendesk Tickets from Zingtree. Any questions, comments or suggestions for improvement? Talk to us!

Fall is officially here, which means most people are now hunkering down and getting productive again after summer adventures. So although the leaves may be starting to fall in the world’s wooded areas, our Zingtree capabilities keep growing.

Here’s a summary of the enhancements to Zingtree in the last month:

New Stuff

• Can now upload custom logos for agent portal, task manager and Zingtree hosted trees.
• Document nodes can now use advanced logic, and also have a logic debugger (Birte, Meredyth, Lee).
• New Zendesk New Ticket app creates tickets from any node in your decision tree.
• In My Agents, you can now select multiple agents for bulk deletion or adding and removing tags.

Updates

• Action buttons now also appear in Content tab in Node Editor.
• Added password reset link to task manager login page.
• Adding _lc to the end of variable names converts the variable to lowercase.
• Better bulk delete nodes option in Simple Overview.
• Can now specify just certain variables to appear in the form data report via the Settings>Data tool (Ian M.).
• Better UX on the My Agents page.
• Email app now can use an email variable to send an email message.
• Freshdesk New Ticket App now logs into event log.
• host-trees.php can now pass along salesforce object ID (sf_id) (Craig I.).
• host-trees.php now has a default_tree_id parameter option to jump to a specific tree if no matches are found.
• Max file upload size increased from 25 Mb to 40 Mb (Cathy Mc).
• Now allows common MathML tags in node content editor (Walter F.).
• SMS app checks for valid return codes, places result in sms_result variable.
• SMS app now can use a phone number variable to send an SMS message.
• Zendesk app V13 now can jump to default tree if no matching tags are found (Jim R.).

Fixes

• All-trees-search no longer shows results from archived trees (Mathieu).
• Freshdesk ticket submitter now works properly if no custom fields exist.
• Logic Node debugger now works for “contains” operation.
• Preview now scrolls to top of tree (John B).
• Salesforce Object Updater now writes transcript to other objects besides Cases (Craig I.).
• Zendesk Agent Scripting – adding new ticket with tag matching in effect no longer makes infinite loop (Jim R.).

The business landscape has grown increasingly competitive as the internet has transformed the world into a global marketplace. Customer expectations have changed right alongside this transformation, and most customers expect businesses to deliver excellent customer service.

In fact, according to Microsoft’s state of global customer service report, a whopping 61% of people across the world said that they have stopped doing business with a brand due to poor customer service quality.

These numbers clearly emphasize the importance of customer service, especially if you have a small business. A string of missteps here and there could cause your previously built quality customer service to take a nosedive and lead you to lose customers.

Here are 9 pointers on how to deliver excellent customer service. All the examples discussed here relate to well-known brands, but they can still give you ideas about how to deliver excellent customer service as a small business and how to go about it.

#1 Build a Rapport with Your Customers 

Today, social media is the best tool to make your customers feel connected to you and your brand. You can bring out the human face of your brand and win your audience’s hearts.

For example, the make-up brand Glossier uses its social media community to connect with its prospects and customers, and informs them about their product development as a bonus. They have branded themselves as a “people-powered beauty ecosystem” where skin comes first, and beauty comes second. 

The founder, Emily Weiss, regularly takes the stage to answer questions or investigate customer concerns through Instagram stories. They have a lot of interactive content that isn’t selling anything but building a rapport with the customers by providing value first.

Even if it’s in the form of a simple game! 

This allows them to build a relationship with their audience that does not involve selling only. This rapport-building sows the seeds of trust. On top of that, Glossier creates highly relevant and targeted products that fly off the shelves. So, viewing your relationship with your customers as you would with any human helps you to invest in building a rapport, which then translates into long-term trust.

#2 Always Be There for Customer Communication

Online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos realizes the importance of being available for 24×7 customer support because, let’s face it, problems can arise at any time. And unlike other brands, it wants to be there to solve them. So not only does it have a phone number listed on the top of the homepage for all-time support, but a dedicated customer service menu right alongside it as well. 

If, as a small business, it is not possible for your customer support team to be available 24×7, then you can have a dedicated Twitter page (just like Microsoft Xbox) that is made exclusively for handling customer support requests. You can also have a help desk ticketing system that can take care of queries that your business receives when it’s offline.

Tools like Zingtree can also help, allowing you to build self-solving guides in the form of decision trees that empower customers to discover answers for themselves. Plus, Zingtree will provide a full Q&A history of each journey through your decision tree. You can see each session, or have these transcripts delivered along with any support ticket that uses email: ticketing systems like Zendesk, Freshdesk, or Salesforce, chat applications like Zopim and Intercom, or any other system.

#3 Never Take Existing Customers for Granted

SaaS company Dropbox does an excellent job of rewarding its existing customers and fostering loyalty in them. The cloud storage platform comes with an amazing two side referral program. Not only does the brand offers free storage space to those referring the platform to their friends but also for accepting the invitation. The compelling product rewards both sides once they register for a dropbox account with free storage.

#4 Hire Staff With Exceptional People Skills

This means people who are patient, resourceful and have a warm and friendly disposition. When your customers interact with such people, they feel calm and assured that their concerns are being heard and will be addressed properly. Your customer support team have people who are:

• Active listeners, attentive, adaptable
• Creative and good at resolving conflicts
• Empathetic and effective communicators
• Good at reading physical and emotional cues
• Friendly and open-minded
• Patient and responsive

This is one way to deliver excellent customer service consistently and become a dependable name in the business.

#5 Foster Employee Engagement

It’s not just the customer support team but the entire human resource of your company that needs to be engaged to bring more value to your business which will result in enhancing the value for the customers. According to the Temkin Group, there’s a correlation between the companies that fared better in terms of employee engagement and their performance as a brand.

Even small businesses can make little changes to improve processes such as onboarding, communication processes, incentive programs, employee listening programs, recruiting and hiring and more to see a definite increase in employee engagement. As employees start feeling more meaningful in their jobs, it can help to deliver excellent customer service.

#6 Be a Pro at Problem-solving

Sometimes, only paying attention to what the customers are saying is not enough. You need to have an eye and awareness for more significant and global trends that are likely to affect more people in the future.

Adidas did just this and in 2017, when the climate change wave wasn’t as widespread as it is today, it launched a new line of shoes. These shoes were made entirely out of ocean waste. Not only did they fulfill the expectations of being well-made shoes, but they also solved people’s problems of including more eco-friendly items in their wardrobe.

Keep an eye out for the problems that your customers might be facing in the future and tackle those in the most innovative and value-delivering way possible.

#7 Don’t Make False Claims 

In 2010, the popular cereal brand Kellogg’s was found to have committed false advertising. Customers had accused the brand of misleading them about the immunity-boosting properties of its Rice Krispies cereal. The advertising claimed that the cereal improved children’s immunity due to the 25% daily value of antioxidants and nutrients – vitamins A, B, C, and E. The Federal Trade Commission termed these claims dubious. 

The case was settled in 2011 when Kellogg’s agreed to pay $2.5 million to the affected customers and also donated products worth $2.5 million, to charity. 

Lesson? False claims could cost you more than the profit you were hoping to make. Just avoid them.

#8 Understand the Value of Customer Retention

According to Small Business Trends, the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, whereas to a new one its 5-20% since the value has already been proven in the former’s case. And the 80/20 rule is applicable here as well: 80% of your business will come from 20% of your existing customers. Not to mention, retention is cheaper than acquisition. 

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t try to widen your reach and pull new customers in. It’s just that in the name of expansion, you shouldn’t forget your old customers like many small businesses are liable to do.

The best way to go about customer retention is to leverage email marketing, with 56% of businesses saying it was the most effective strategy. You can easily personalize and segment your mailing list using different emailing software to curate special offers.

#9 Act on Customer Feedback

This is perhaps the simplest and most effective method for delivering excellent customer service. Why? Because by implementing the feedback, you are directly indicating to the customer that you value what they have to say. Remember the adage: actions speak louder than words? The same happens here and when it does, your customer feels valued, seen, and heard. These are wonderful feelings for them to associate with your brand because it increases their loyalty and keeps them coming back for more.

For example, in June 2018, McDonald’s announced that it would be ditching plastic straws in favor of paper straws in the UK from September. The change happened as a result of a customer-led campaign that had nearly half a million signatures. Customers had a problem with the reportedly 1.8m plastic straws that McDonald’s was using every day. The company took immediate action as a remedy to the situation and won its customer’s appreciation.

The strategies discussed here don’t require costly implementation. In fact, whether small or large, each business can implement them for quality customer service. For relatively small investments, you will reap large returns for your business in the long-term. After all, it is the customers who keep your business succeeding.

So, are you ready to deliver excellent customer service to them and lock in your business success?

Author Bio

Dwayne Charrington is an expert in customer service and ongoing trends in the customer support industry. He conceptualizes and creates content for ProProfs Help Desk. He specializes in the customer support domain and has paramount experience in SaaS-based products. In his leisure time, he is busy with adventure sports and traveling.

As always, we continue our hard work to make Zingtree better – both for usability and performance. Case in point: Within the last few days we’ve optimized our tree loading code to make your decision trees load faster, while also requiring less server CPUs. You should be seeing a notable increase in performance. We’ve also worked with one of our largest, best customers to improve Task Manager.

Here’s what’s new for the last month or so:

New Stuff

• Added CSS / Script option for Agent Portal customization (David N.)
• Added monthly option for Automatic Reports (many requests)
• Added today_math as a Webhook
• Agent Portal: Can customize the action of “Done with Customer” button via Agent Portal Options (David N.)
• Can now specify a repeat count for Agent Alerts (Susan M.)
• Added a new Webhook for date format conversion (Nicole)

Updates

• Action buttons now also appear in Content Tab in Node Editor
• Add Node has “learn more” links (Juan)
• Added extra security headers to .htaccess: X-XSS-Protection and nosniff (Evan P.)
• Added extra width for main task manager view
• Added library webhook to split multi-line text fields into separate lines for output
• Added stock variable #current_agent_login# to substitute the current agent in Task Manager (Bradford S.)
• All trees load faster – 1 to 3 second difference
• All trees search can now filter on all/live/dev trees (Mathieu S.)
• App Details page has improved layout, option to edit apps (if possible)
• Can now hide nodes from search results via Edit Node > Other > Hide from Search Results (Allie)
• Cleaned up Agent Alert management for adding and editing alerts
• Cleaned up search results display on All Trees
• Content node editor now shows node title above all tabs. Makes it easier to remember what page you are on if you click a tab without the title showing
• Document nodes can now use variable placeholders in node title for the PDF filename (Cathy Mc)
• Escalation nodes in Simple Overview can now be quick edited
• The Freshdesk New Ticket App now can set the ticket type via fd_type (Nithin)
• Improved layout on the main tree tools page
• Initial session tracking now completes faster – should result in zero lost session data headers
• Opening session details from the Event Log now shows advanced session details view (with delete) (Gregoire)
• Overviews: Can now go directly to a node number for preview or edit (Shawn)
• Overviews: Clicking the app icon goes to the App Details page
• Retrieving transcripts now changes persistent button marker *PB* into brackets surrounding the button label.
• Session Detail view now has a button to show all data collected at every step
• Session List, Form data and some other wider reports now use smaller margins.
• Simple Overview now lets you change links just by clicking buttons in any node – no need to go into the node editor to change a button
• System status page now shows the last 90 days
• Task Manager – Added #started_by# variable to show the originator of the task
• Task manager – Added escalations count to task manager view, options to see just escalated tasks (Maria C.)
• Task Manager – Added a “Started By “column to Other Tasks area

Fixes

• Added language attribute to hosted pages so that Google’s translate works (Gregoire)
• All Trees – Form Data and Session List report now sends CSV even if no sessions were present (John D.)
• Button link tool from simple overview now works on the current tree even when another tree is open in a different tab
• Can now delete custom logos
• CORS header error for advanced logic nodes and document nodes in server-side includes no longer occurs (Dan C.)
• Custom logos now appear in Tree View pages from Agent Portal (Camilly)
• Escalations now occur even if a required form field is on the page (Allie)
• Having Email node recipients with non-existent variables doesn’t break email send – just gets ignored (Allie & Shawn)
• Logic node expressions with leading spaces are now trimmed so expressions work properly.
• Persistent buttons no longer act as form submit buttons
• Reloading form data on Pause & Resume no longer overwrites hidden fields (Gregoire)
• Task Manager – Cleaned up task name display with HTML encoded characters
• Task Manager: (i) icon no longer fails when task name includes a single quote (Allie)
• Task Manager: Apostrophe, quotes or ampersands in Task name or variables for remote start no longer break the task (Allie)

Got any ideas to help make Zingtree better for everyone? Please share!

Many of our customers have asked for a simple way to include some sort of customer verification via Zingtree.  Using some built-in apps and simple webhooks, we’ve created a mobile phone verification process you can plug into your own decision tree system.

How it Works

This verification decision tree allows the agent to confirm a customer’s mobile phone number. The agent asks the customer for their mobile phone number (if the agent does not have it already), which the agent then enters into the tree. Zingtree will then send a random four-digit code to the number entered.

The customer will read back this four-digit code to the agent, who will enter it back into the tree. If the numbers match, then the agent is able to continue with the call and a successful “return to tree” node is reached to return to the original tree.

The verification tree is designed to be called from a main tree, where the process will continue after the customer is verified.

You can examine the verification decision tree here.

Integrating the Verification Tree into your System

You can easily add this to your own processes. Here’s how:

1. Copy the verification tree into your own Zingtree Account.
2. Build your own decision tree, and add a tree node link to the new verification tree you copied in the previous step.
3. Make a button go to the tree node in step 2, when you want to verify the customer.

This example shows how to integrate the verification process tree. You see how it works, and also copy it to your account.

In any customer-facing business, customer service agents are one of your greatest assets. In call centers, especially, your agents are the gatekeepers of accessibility to your company, often bridging the gap between the services offered and valuable customer experience. This makes finding, training and retaining excellent call center talent crucial to the overall success of a company.

Ultimately, investing in agent happiness and satisfaction equates to an investment in a business’ very own future. Lower turnover means that businesses will save time and money, and this is something that works out in everyone’s favor.

The key to excellent call center agent retention lies in ensuring their happiness within your business when working together. With this in mind, there are quite a few things that businesses can do to contribute to agent satisfaction and overall success.

Create an Environment of Growth

In any business, from top to bottom, each member of the organization should feel as if they are continually developing their skills and developing as individuals. Businesses themselves are doing the same thing all the time! It’s crucial, then, that call center agents feel a sense of purpose within a company. The best way to give this to your employees is to create measurable and transparent performance metrics so that they can have a sense of how they are doing, and how they can grow within your business. 

This transparency builds a sense of trust between employees and their managers, and also gives them the chance to meet and even exceed expectations. 

Invest in Training 

One of the biggest frustrations that many employees have is often feeling overworked and ill-equipped to manage their tasks. Conversely, businesses often feel the impact of this when they are left with unhappy employees that leave, or worse, are in a position to be let go from their assigned roles. This is often a result of the lack of proper training that businesses are often too busy to invest in, causing extreme frustration at all levels. 

Hiring a new team member is an investment, and as such, businesses save money in the long run by having well-trained employees that are increasingly efficient at their jobs. One way to ensure call center employees are advancing is by using decision trees as a training aide. Call center agents can internalize business procedures and best practices in an interactive way, all while deepening their understanding of how to better help customers. Having this useful tool saves employers time, and promotes employee efficacy.

Value the Individual

Teams are dynamic and are made up of many different types of people with many different strengths. It’s important for managers to make the effort to get to know who their employees are and utilize the strengths of each individual. 

When making environmental considerations, tap into feedback from employees about what could make for a more engaging environment. In meetings, vary the exercises and challenges in ways that appeal to both introverts and extroverts alike, so that each type of personality has the opportunity to thrive. 

Tapping into the unique specialties of each member of your team makes them feel valued and recognized, and adapting to those qualities creates a much more fulfilling work environment. Making team members feel valued as individuals is key in making sure they feel motivated to continue giving their best.

Give Your Employees the Tools They Need for Success

When it comes to call center workflow, it’s important that things are running smoothly and efficiently — that means that agents need to have the tools they need to make that possible. 

Providing updated and dynamic calling scripts give your agents flexibility to lend their unique strengths to each support ticket. Chatbots or customer-facing interactive decision trees allow customers the opportunity to solve some of their own preliminary questions, freeing your agents’ time to attack deeper problems with customers. 

Using decision trees helps customer support agents remain efficient and secure, knowing that they can provide support to customers faster, and more effectively.

Foster a Sense of Community

We are often at our best when we know that what we are doing has value. When employees feel valued and supported by their colleagues and managers, it bolsters performance and allows for exponential growth and motivation. Working in an environment that allows employees to connect with one another significantly lends itself to increased productivity. Studies show that employees who feel supported and challenged by their peers are more likely to excel and bring more value to their company. Businesses can do a lot to create a sense of community within their work environments.

• Create friendly competitions like sales goals with prizes and incentives
• Allow for regular team-building exercises (and not just during a crisis)
• Give employees substantial break time to really connect with their colleagues outside of hours on the clock

Having a sense of community truly brings out the best in teams, from call center agents to upper management and beyond. 

Fostering a team of excellent call center agents is a worthwhile investment. While it may not seem immediately necessary to spend the initial time and expense to invest in the individuals on your team, the payoff will be immense in the long run. Fortunately, there is a lot that businesses can do to ensure that their call center agents are well-trained, motivated, and well-supported. To set up a training system that can save you time and money, Zingtree is here to help. Get a free trial today, or get in touch to set up a demo with someone on the team, and learn how to optimize your call center today.

Many of our contact center customers are looking for a super quick, easy way to integrate decision trees with their custom or specialized chat, CRM or help desk systems. Zingtree’s Decision Tree Chrome Extension makes it easy to incorporate contact center scripts with virtually any application that can run inside a Chrome browser. No coding required!

Here’s how it works: While a customer record is open in the browser, your agents simply click on the Zingtree button in Chrome to open a decision tree:

This opens a decision tree script tied to the URL in the active tab, which should be showing the customer record or conversation. Agents can click through and navigate your decision trees to get the right answer.

Beyond just showing a decision tree, this extension also:

• Tracks the agent via their Google ID. So your reporting can show each session for each agent.
• Activates Pause & Resume. If an agent returns to the same customer record and opens the decision tree again, they will be returned to the same place they were previously. The click history is also saved. So if a customer calls back, you can see what transpired with them previously, or continue a dropped call at the previous location.

To configure the extension, just enter the tree ID for your decision tree, and the height and width you’d like it to display.

The Decision Tree Extension for Chrome is available here.

Already familiar with logic nodes? You can find the rest of our resources here:

• How logic nodes work
• How to test and debug logic nodes
• How to build bigger trees more efficiently with logic nodes
• FAQ: logic nodes (simple logic nodes, and advanced logic nodes with expressions)

An Introduction to Logic Nodes

Zingtree’s logic nodes allow for an automatic branch from one node to another – outside of human interaction. Logic nodes determine where to go next by using variables collected during the course of the decision tree session, or when passed into the tree to start.

Logic nodes can also simplify the overall design of your tree by eliminating duplicate branches.

Here’s a step by step guide to how you can introduce logic nodes into your tree.

Step by Step: Building Simple Logic Nodes

Let’s start from the very beginning. If you’re a beginner, using the Zingtree Wizard is the best way to start building decision trees. In this example, we’re imagining that we run a bakery and that we need a decision tree that will suggest which type of cake the user should order depending on their preferences. This bakery offers different suggestions depending on how sweet the customer wants their cake, and how many people they need the cake to feed. The decision tree will provide the following recommendations:

Here’s the step-by-step guide to how we built this tree using logic nodes.

1. Starting with the Zingtree Wizard, we filled in the basic information about the tree.

2. We started this tree off with a simple question, how sweet do you like your cakes?

3. From this step, we made the next question, “How many people will be attending your event?” 

4. Then, we jumped back into the Overview Screen. From the Overview screen, you can add new content nodes by selecting Tools and Add New Node.

5. Here, we added our solution nodes, which in this tree are the different types of cake on offer.

We built a solution node like this one for each cake, leaving our overview looking a little like this:

6. From the Overview, we can go in to work on our nodes individually. Then it was time to add a Data Entry Field, so that users can input exactly how many guests they have attending. We selected the green editing option next to node #2, which asks “How many people will be attending your event?”. 

7. Here, we selected the tab “Data Entry Fields”, clicked on the “Add Data Entry Field” button, and added a variable name (“number_of_guests”) and label.

8. Then, we needed to add an action button to this node, so that when the user inputs the number of guests, it will be saved into the tree. Here the tree needs to move on to another node, so we have added a final “Almost there” node, where the user will click to reveal their cake recommendation. 

We quickly made that “Almost there” node…

…Leaving the “Action” blank for now, as it needed to be connected to the logic node that has not yet been built.

9. Once this was complete, we could then add that all-important logic node so that the data our user has just entered can help Zingtree produce an answer. We selected “Add Node” and then “Logic Node (Scoring)”.

10. Now that we have our logic node, we could then populate the variable and values so that the tree knows which cake to recommend. Remember how any customer that enters “Sweet” as their cake sweetness preference will be recommended a chocolate cake? And any customer that enters “Not Sweet”, a fruitcake? 

This means that we can make a simple logic node to direct any user that answers “Sweet” or “Not sweet” directly to the solution. They will therefore skip the question where they are asked to add how many guests will be attending.

11. So that the simple logic node will make this happen, we needed to select assign the “Variable” and “Value/Text”, shown here.

12. To do that, we returned to our first node that asks “How sweet do you like your cakes?”. Here, there are several steps to complete. Firstly, we needed to direct the “Sweet” and “Not so sweet” options to the simple logic node under the “Action” column. Then we needed to assign values to each response, we called them “sweet”, “normal” and “notsweet”, in the Score/Value column. Finally, we had to assign a name to the button click variable, which refers to the entire parameter. We called this “sweetness”. 

13. Then, we returned to the logic node to input the rule that will send “Sweet” and “Non-sweet” customers to the right cake. Here, we’ve created two rules, if sweetness = sweet, go to chocolate cake. Else, if sweetness = notsweet, go to fruit cake. These are selected from the drop-down menus. That’s our simple logic node complete!

Building Advanced Logic Nodes

However, if a user selects “Normal” for their preferred cake sweetness, then we need to know how many guests they are catering for in order to provide a recommendation. This is where an advanced logic node will come in handy.

Advanced logic nodes allow you to create more than one requirement in order to jump to a different node. In this example, the tree will examine both the sweetness and the number of guests at the same time in order to provide a recommendation.

14. Using the expressions shown in the screenshot below, we built our rules to send the user to the right cake recommendation. All of these expressions can be found here.

15. Then we have it, our tree is complete! Try it out below:

If you’d like to examine this tree a little closer, you can find it, along with all our other examples, over in the Zingtree gallery.

Ready to start building your first logic node? Jump into your Zingtree account and get started!

November brought about a lot of updates to existing features. As Zingtree continues to grow and bring on new people, we make them all build trees as a part of the initiation process, and we get great ideas as well. One example: Our new employee Brad pointed out a way to make the preview and edit process better, such that you can preview and edit your way through the tree as if it was a continuous session. We got a lot of other great ideas from our loyal customers as well.

New Features

• Task Manager: Added #started_by#, #started_by_name# as Task manager variables to show who started the task.
• History display now has a toggle option to show data entered at each step (Dragan).

• Simple Overview can now filter on node type (Shawn). You can just see content nodes, email nodes, logic nodes, etc.

Updates

• Added an option to Hide Persistent Buttons on any node (Allie)
• Agent Portal top menu items now have classes for CSS customizations (David N.)
• All-Agents report now shows Success, Fail, Unknown results for date range. Also includes a “refresh each minute” option (John R.)
• All Trees Search & Replace now operates on email nodes (Shawn)
• App Details hides Edit button if it’s a built-in app
• Authoring search now includes email nodes (subject, preheader, body) (Shawn)
• Basic search form now includes button text in search scope (Logan)
• Default tag list in My Agents now includes tree tags (David Nichols)
• Designer defaults new email nodes to “Send Automatically”
• List of agents in the Session List report now sorted
• My Trees now sorts tag list in the summary
• My Trees page for new users is cleaner
• New trial user signup process in place. Includes decision tree for data gathering built by Brad.
• Now tracking state of tags on each click for Task Manager
• Number entry field for escalation time is wider (David N.)
• Prune now has an option to just delete a node. Some people were misusing Prune and wound up deleting entire branches (Deb)
• Push live descriptions now have a 256 character limit – increased from 64 (Susan)
• Quick button editor from Overview now can edit the button text, and preview .btn-yes.btn-green and other custom button classes
• Switching between editing and preview maintains session – no longer returns to node #1 (Brad)

Fixes

• #current_agent_login# now displays in the Sender and Subject line of an email node (Bradford S.)
• &,# other characters in remote task-start variables no longer causes an error passing data to Task Manager (Allie)
• Agent Alerts now appear properly for pre-loaded trees – even via Agent Portal (Susan)
• App messages in logic nodes with ampersands now save properly (Paul N)
• CSV export of all session and form data report converts < > and other characters from HTML equivalents (Jason)
• Data Entry Field custom validation with placeholders now works properly (Adam B.)
• Disabled delete of default logic node buttons via Designer (David N.)
• Entering tags no longer shows leading comma in tags display
• get_session_data and get_session_data_pure API calls now return valid results even if the session header is not saved (Paul N.)
• Instant Preview in Node Editor now shows proper buttons/panels style, as well as the current basic theme (Brad)
• Large form data reports now don’t give an error (Katie P.)
• List of default tree tags in Settings tool, Agent tags now only looks at dev trees, not live trees
• Math webhook removes commas from numeric values (Larissa)
• No more error in Agent Portal if search linked trees is set and no trees are available via tag matching
• Setting up a Zapier Zap with a LIVE tree ID now works properly (John & Jamey)
• Snapshots works properly when a new tree is opened in a different tab (Bill)
• Some non-email nodes had a default setting which disabled proper back-button tracking
• Undefined checkboxes don’t get automatically selected when reloading a session (Dan C.)

Got a great idea or use case for Zingtree? Please share!

It’s inevitable that at some point, your agents are going to have some difficult conversations with customers. Instead of dreading these conversations or experiencing unnecessary anxiety about them, your agents can prepare themselves to be equipped to handle them. There are plenty of tools out there (like agent scripting tools) to help agents guide a call, but they will be even more effective at defusing tricky conversations if they can connect with your customers on a personal level. Customers are often treated robotically and handed from one agent or department to another if their issue is outside a rep’s repertoire. You can understand the frustration of a customer having to give their story over and over, or waiting on hold for lengths of time trying to get an answer. 

Using the following steps and suggestions will help to alleviate the pain for your agents, and your customers. These are guidelines that can help your agents to communicate better with your customers. Practicing and personalizing these steps will make it easier to implement them on a regular basis. 

Listen

Two-thirds of customers say it’s frustrating when they are on hold for periods of time or are forced to repeat themselves. That’s why it’s really important for your agents to start by listening to what the customer is really saying. Their inclination might be to rush in and console them, but in reality this might only agitate them more. 

Active listening creates trust. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes as they deliver their story to your agents. Think through the following questions:

• • How would you feel if the same thing had happened to you?
  • How would you want the situation to be handled?
  • How would you want to be treated by a representative?

Many times, a customer just wants to be heard. They want empathy, and they want to know that your agents understand their position. 

Encourage your agents to repeat things back in summary if they are unsure of what the customer is really saying. Agents should begin this sentence with: ‘What I’m hearing you say is…’ and actually summarize what they said. You’d be surprised how often our own assumptions can get in the way of communication. Clarifying what the customer really means by their words will put both customer and agent on the same page. 

Keep an open mind, and remind your agents that they shouldn’t take it personally. When they hear an angry or frustrated voice on the other end of the phone, their defenses will naturally go up. Learning how to control and manage this stress will help them to relax. 

The first thing to remember is that this anger is aimed at the customer’s frustrating experience, it is not personal. Responding in kind will only escalate the situation. Maintaining a calm and relaxed tone without being patronizing will help put the person on the other end of the line at ease. 

Acknowledge and Apologize

After providing space for the customer to tell their story and reaching a common understanding, it will be important for the agent to acknowledge their pain and apologize. This might be more than just an apology for their original frustration. By this point there’s a chance they’ve been passed around to several agents and/or managers and their agitation has grown. Therefore, it’s important to take several things into consideration. 

First of all, your agents should maintain a calm voice while listening and then offer an apology, before explaining how to fix the situation. Saying ‘I’m sorry’ is often the beginning of the turnaround. Saying I’m sorry doesn’t necessarily mean that the agent or the company is at fault. It’s okay to be sorry for their frustration and that they had to make the call in the first place. However, if the issue is because of an error on the company’s part, agents should take responsibility and apologize specifically. As they actively listen to the customer and understand what caused their frustration, offering an apology that lets them know you get it. Some examples for apologizing specifically: 

• • ‘I’m sorry that the wrong item shipped to you, that must have been disappointing’
  • ‘I’m sorry nobody has gotten in touch with you, even though you contacted our support department’

Make a connection to the customer. Let your agents show that they are human. 

• • What is the real underlying issue here? 
  • Why is the customer frustrated (it’s usually beyond product malfunction)? Is this their second attempt to contact customer service? Was the issue not resolved the first time?
  • Are there extenuating circumstances? Maybe the customer has just had a really bad day and now, on top of that, they have to deal with this issue. The expectations people can have when calling customer service is that they will be put on hold or that the person on the other end of the line will treat them robotically. 

Show empathy and understanding. Customers can sense whether the person on the other end of the phone actually cares and understands their situation. Customers want to get a glimpse of human connection because this is what helps them to feel understood. 

Provide Options and Communicate the Solution

There is an art to providing options for your customer. Providing too many options can leave the customer confused and unsure, while not giving them options to choose from can make them feel like they are not in control of the situation. Research shows that if people feel powerless in a situation, then they need options to choose from.

Giving the customer two or three options of how you can right the situation gives them some control of how it is handled. If they get to choose the solution, there’s less of a chance that they will be disappointed with the outcome. Don’t stop at ‘I’m sorry’, get creative and help to solve the issue. An example of this could be:

• • ‘I’m sorry that the wrong item shipped to you, that must have been disappointing. I would be happy to personally make sure the item is rushed to you now, or if you prefer, I can credit your account for the purchase and offer you 10% off your next order.’

Don’t make the customer wait on hold. Obviously, this is not always possible but if your agents can continue the conversation with the customer while researching their information, they can keep the human connection alive. If they do have to place the customer on hold, the customer should not be left on hold for long periods of time. Agents should either check back in with them to let them know what is going on or offer to call them back when it is convenient for them once you have a solution.

Communicate timeframes. If the agent is unable to solve the problem right then on the phone, be sure to communicate timeframes to them. Failure to communicate timeframes accurately to the customer will result in further dissatisfaction and could escalate the situation even more.

Go Above and Beyond

Even if you know the situation was resolved to the customer’s satisfaction, ensure that the agent follows up with them to show that you care. It can be as easy as a quick phone call or email. If you’ve already established a relational connection with the customer, this added level of care will be especially appreciated. The agent could also use this opportunity to encourage them to contact them directly in the future should they need anything. 

Send a note or discount code. Send a handwritten note to the customer to apologize once again for their inconvenience and to thank them for their loyalty. If appropriate, offer them a discount code for their next purchase with the company. 

Follow other company’s examples such as Ritz-Carlton, who understands that offering a relatively small gift — all employees are empowered to spend up to $2,000 per day per guest — helps to reset the internal clock with a customer by establishing a new ‘last point of contact’. Or the story of Elder Glenn, an Ace Hardware chain owner who solved an issue of an agitated customer with just $5. He called this the ‘five dollar lifeboat’ and this small gesture helped to create a loyal lifelong customer.

Conclusion

Using these processes will help your agents not only at work but also in every interaction in life. Simply listening and letting someone know they are heard and understood will quickly deescalate most of the conflicts we encounter in our lives. If your agents are able to control their emotions and remain calm during these customer encounters, the person on the other end of the channel will be more likely to relax as they share their frustrations. 

The next time you or your agents are faced with a frustrated customer, take a deep breath and really tune into what they are saying, and listen well. Acknowledge their frustration and apologize if necessary. Offer ways that you can rectify the situation for them and then follow up to make sure the air is clear and to show that you care. Empathy and kindness go a long way in building a relational connection and showing that you and your company care.

***

by Sarah Chambers, Editor-in-chief, Chatra.

Chatra helps you connect with your website visitors in real-time to answer questions and alleviate concerns more easily, building relationships to help them become customers. You can check out their “free forever” plan to see if Chatra is right for you.

To help support agents during difficult conversations, Zingtree’s agent scripting solution standardizes processes and gives team leads the peace of mind in knowing that every single customer interaction follows standard operating procedures, each and every time. It includes:

As Zingtree continues to grow and evolve, we’re taking steps to make everything under the hood work smoothly for everybody. There are a few updates to our Freshdesk and Salesforce integrations, some new reporting, and fixes for a few edge-cases our customers have encountered.

New Stuff

• Node Times – All Trees report (h/t Abner).
• Salesforce app now can create objects (when running outside of Salesforce).
• Can set the default organization from the Organizations & Billing page.

Updates

• Added an API call to update a session result status (i.e. https://zingtree.com/api/session-status-update.php?session_id=12345678&success=Y).
• Added report preview samples for Change Log. Also, Reset Dates now always goes to the proper place.
• Can now relaunch a session from a specific node (h/t Ravi).
• Freshdesk new ticket app sends numbers properly. String fields that are entered as numbers may fail though (h/t Nithin).
• Freshdesk New Ticket app shows better error messages in case of errors creating the ticket.
• Updating node results now works faster for accounts with lots of sessions (Kristen).

Fixes

• All Zingtree Salesforce fields (including new ones) now appear in the Zingtree Salesforce app.
• Eliminated JS error when previewing.
• Enabling session notes no longer causes webhooks to fail (h/t Nithin).
• Firefox 71 now likes OpenSans fonts.
• Logic node evaluator now removes commas from numeric variables for proper comparisons (h/t Larissa).
• Logic node tester works properly for simple logic nodes and equals test.
• No error message when copying node from a large tree (h/t Bonnie).
• No longer allowed to try to escalate when an escalate time is specified, but no destination node is set.
• Persistent button clicks on a node with a button click variable no longer reset that variable (h/t Agata).
• Preview sessions no longer try to escalate
• Signups are no longer verified until they finish the signup process.
• Weird Unicode characters in node titles or question no longer cause Designer PNG export to fail (h/t Marianne).

In many ways, telesales, also known as lead or demand generation, hasn’t changed in decades. Sales agents are still picking up the phone and doing whatever they can to get through to a decision maker.

Either they are scheduling meetings or demos for themselves, or they are booking meetings on behalf of business development executives that do online or in-person sales meetings or demos with potential clients. At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game. 

A lot of people in sales have seen The Wolf of Wall Street. Starring Leonardo Di Caprio, the film is based on a real company. Di Caprio’s character, a cash-driven Wall Street stockbroker, was a master when it came to selling pink sheet stocks. But as buyers, customers and investors have grown wiser to these schemes over time, cold selling like that rarely works nowadays. 

Sales itself has evolved considerably. Modern sales teams use a lot more tools to get the job done. It isn’t simply a case of picking up the phone and making calls all day long. Outbound sales teams need to use a range of tactics and tools, and should be fully supported by a proactive marketing team. 

In this article, we look at five indispensable telesales tools that help sales teams generate the meetings and demand they need to drive forward growth. 

#1: HubSpot CRM 

Love them or hate them, CRMs are here to stay and are an essential part of the inbound and outbound sales process. Sales managers and everyone on the team needs a transparent 360 view of the prospects in the pipeline, and those that have transitioned into being customers.  Every touchpoint needs to be registered, either automatically or manually, and a CRM makes that possible. 

Although there are dozens of options on the market, from big tech legacy players to high-growth companies such as Salesforce, startups and SMBs usually love products that are free. This is part of the reason why HubSpot is so popular. It’s easy to use, has a 100% free version, and you can upload unlimited contacts. Plus, it allows you to track the entire pipeline and every deal from end-to-end, making it one of the most popular CRMs on the market. 

#2: Zingtree

Zingtree is a great way to quickly and easily put together a series of sales scripts without needing coding skills. While it helps to maintain flexible conversation in a sales call, it’s useful to have a series of scripted workflows that a sales team can go through to make sure they stay in sync and on track.  

Scripts can he hosted in a browser, or Zingtree can host them for free. This way, when agents are working their way through calls, a series of options can appear depending on the questions a prospect is asking. At the same time, these call script workflows can ensure the right questions are being asked on a call to qualify every lead. 

#3: LinkedIn Sales Navigator 

With over 660 million professionals, business leaders and owners on LinkedIn, it is the social network that every inside sales team should be active on. It’s extremely likely that your prospects are already active on the platform. 

Sales Navigator is a popular solution for many sales professionals, who need the tool to extract as much value as  they can from the platform. 

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is subscription product that starts with a 30-day free trial, and then starts at $64.99 per month, giving salespeople the ability to send 20 InMail messages every month. Of course, if you use the features designed to help find and connect with more people, you can send direct messages that don’t require using the InMail limit. 

According to LinkedIn, those who use Sales Navigator benefit from:

• 5% Higher Win Rates
• 34% of Opportunities Sourced
• 35% Larger Deal Sizes

The top 25% of Navigator users perform even better, achieving a 55% increase in deal size, a 15% higher win rate, and a 75% higher influence on revenue. Pretty decent results for $64.99 per month, providing your sales team make the most effective use of LinkedIn. 

#4: Calendar

Time and calendar management is another essential skill for sales teams. Thankfully, there are several apps out there that can help salespeople use their time as efficiently as possible every day. 

Calendar is an AI-enabled digital calendar, time management and scheduling app. It’s available in a browser, iOS (App Store) and Android format (Play Store), with a free version, or Pro at $10 per month, with Enterprise plans for teams. 

It even comes with automated meeting transcripts, and you can connect a range of calendar apps, such as Google, iCal, and Outlook, so everything can be managed in one place. 

#5: CrankWheel 

Screenshare apps are one of the most effective ways for telesales teams to engage directly with prospects, qualify leads, and close deals faster. With tools such as CrankWheel, they can do this without a prospect needing to download software or even be at their desk.

CrankWheel is an easy-to-use screen sharing tool used by tens of thousands of sales reps around the world. It can equally be used in a customer service environment. It gives sales agents the ability to jump on an instant online demo during a phone call, or book one in the future, and then do a call with a prospect to demo a product or service. 

Prospects can also try out a new software product using remote control. Giving someone who’s interested in purchasing a quick tour is far more cost and time effective than waiting days and weeks for a demo in the calendar. It avoids the risk of prospects repeatedly cancelling and a lead going cold.

This is, of course, just a small sample of the many tools out there designed to empower sales teams. There are many more that cover every area of outbound sales, such as call recording and email marketing. But for those looking for the essentials to bring in more leads, track them, and close the deal, these are sure to get the job done. 

Jói Sigurdsson, Founder & CEO of CrankWheel, a zero hassle screen sharing solution tailor made for telesales and inside sales teams, web and mobile-based, designed to help field and inside sales teams increase conversion rates and engagement with prospects.

Imagine the worst-case scenario customer care call: maybe the agent doesn’t know how to respond, they might fail to properly complete security checks, or, perhaps worst of all, they offer the customer incorrect advice. Without the use of scripts, agents run the risk of delivering subpar customer support every time they take a call.  

Most of us can agree that there are several consistent key elements that make up a successful customer interaction:

1. Effective help is provided.
2. The problem is solved quickly.
3. The customer feels like they have been listened to and respected.

But how can you standardize these elements, and make them a part of every interaction? This is where agent scripting comes in. Agent scripting is the most powerful tool out there to ensure that your agents quickly deliver exceptional, consistent support, with every call.

Why Use Scripts

Scripting allows for consistency. Standardizing processes is the best way to ensure that employees are following standard operating procedures and best practices and that customers are ultimately receiving the correct information. A script will mean that your customers get the same response, no matter which agent they are connected to, in addition to ensuring that your key messages, values and goals are expressed in every interaction. This will result in a consistently positive experience for your customers. What’s more, scripts are a powerful tool in making sure that all agents are complying with the specific language or terms required by law. 

As agents follow their scripts, mistakes are reduced. While making mistakes is at times unavoidable, scripts are effective at minimizing the risk of mistakes by keeping agents informed and on the same page. Scripts can prevent agents from going rogue, saying something factually incorrect or expressing a message that goes against your brand values. Plus, scripts take the pressure off the agent, as they know what is coming next. This makes them more likely to feel in control, and less likely to say the wrong thing, press the wrong button, or generally feel stressed to the point that they are prone to making an error. 

With the security of knowing what will come next in the call, agents feel more confident. An agent at ease will put a customer at ease, and make the customer feel like they are being well taken care of. This confidence will make the agent comfortable on the call, and more likely to hit the key elements that make up a good call (provide effective help, solve the problem quickly, listen to the customer).  

Plus, without the need to memorize scripts, or freestyle them, training times are reduced. Scripts are an invaluable tool to augment agent training, allowing agents to learn by doing, rather than spending excessive amounts of time in training sessions. In addition, agent knowledge is enhanced, as all the information they require is at their fingertips thanks to the script. Speeding up the onboarding process reduces costs and relieves trainers more quickly so they can return to other important tasks.

Efficiency and productivity increase, thanks to optimized conversations that make the most of every interaction with a customer. From asking the right question at the right time, to clearing up possible future grievances, a script will quickly guide the agent towards providing the best support possible, and make sure they cover all the most important points. It will also mean that all the possible solutions for the customer are quickly discoverable by the agent. This makes calls shorter, which saves time and money. Furthermore, the best-performing agents can be monitored, and their techniques applied back into the script in order to train new and lower performing agents. As agents perform better, customer satisfaction improves as they receive a higher level of service across the board. 

Scripting Tools

While it’s clear that scripting is crucial in order to run an exceptional contact center, many agent scripting tools simply aren’t up to the job. While there are plenty of options on the market, many scripting tools cannot integrate into your CRM systems and other contact center software. This makes your scripts far less powerful, and creates difficulty for agents as they have to switch between applications and input data multiple times. Additionally, many scripting tools are not interactive, which means that the agent is only offered a rigid set of options to move the call forward, rather than having the script branch out to potential options based on the information collected by the agent. Their systems can also be complex and difficult to use, which wastes time for your agents and your business. Last but not least, many scripting tools even go as far as to set limits for the number of scripts that can be built. This creates further challenges for contact centers that have to deal with a broad range of queries. 

But, There’s a Better Way: Interactive Decision Trees

Agents and customer support reps love Zingtree for interactive agent scripting that is dynamic, easy to use and effective. Zingtree allows agents to stay on message, follow standard operating procedures, and be consistent when resolving issues for their customers as quickly as possible. Zingtree is the preferred tool for the likes of Amazon Ring, August Home, AWS, Change Healthcare, CVS Health, Dropbox, Expensify, Experian, Hilton, Kaiser, Peloton, Ricoh, Ticketmaster and over 700 others.

Zingtree offers as standard: 

1. Total flexibility in your scripts, with models for every use case. As such, the customer never needs to know that you’re using a script, keeping the interaction authentic and genuine. 
2. An easy-to-use platform that agents love. With Zingtree, agents no longer need to memorize anything and can focus entirely on the call. Zingtree makes it easy for call center agents to give relevant feedback to script authors, thereby continually improving the quality of information over time. When a call center script has been tested, observed, and approved due to high performance, it can only mean positive things: customers are satisfied, agents are happy and efficient, and brand loyalty goes through the roof.
3. Effortless set-up and maintenance, with no coding required. Zingtree’s interactive call center scripting software makes it easier to improve and optimize scripts regularly, as standards change, or as things change with the company. With powerful analytics to track performance, reports helping decipher the user’s journey, and ways to easily collect customer feedback every step of the way, it’s far easier than many traditional call center tools to keep things running smoothly.
4. Seamless integration with the platforms your agents already use. Zingtree integrates directly with any CRM tool (like Zendesk, Desk.com, Salesforce, and others) to provide a seamless experience for agents and frictionless sharing of collected customer data. It’s incredibly important (and vital to a call center’s performance) to have these types of tools “talk” to each other and be able to share data. For instance, having the ability to integrate Zingtree with a platform like Zendesk allows call center agents to access data about a specific script-based conversation directly within Zendesk.
5. A cost-effective solution. “For me, the ROI of Zingtree is immediate. Introducing standardized decision tree scripts for insurance has allowed the insurers in my network to really thrive. With scripts for guiding conversations, interactive trees to train new agents, and the reporting that comes along with it, agents are able to provide a better customer experience that’s consistent and informative.” – Ted Baker, Easy Insurance Scripts Founder & CEO
6. Powerful capabilities to record the customer’s journey. Zingtree makes note-taking easier for customer support and sales calls. When it comes to sales calls, recording the right information can be the difference between a lead and a dead end. A strong script will have areas in which the agent can write pertinent information about the customer. This will prevent agents from asking for something twice, and will remind them to gather information from the customer.

Zingtree’s agent scripting solution standardizes processes and gives team leads the peace of mind in knowing that every single customer interaction follows standard operating procedures, each and every time. No more outdated paper scripts, just fully interactive agent scripts that are easy to build, maintain and analyze on a simple interface, with performance reports that keep managers informed and help guide internal improvements. 

Want to learn more about Zingtree’s powerful interactive call center scripting software? Request your free demo today.