Finding My Zen with Zoho Desk

In the world of customer experience there is no more important tool for data analytics than your case management system. Over the years there has been so many changes in the space that many have just stuck with what they have known rather than risking something new. Full transparency that was me till earlier this year when I found Zoho Desk.

Before we talk about Zoho Desk let’s do a quick history lesson. Having grown up in the Call Center Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry as a second gen has provided me a front row seat to back office technology. I have used technologies like Wilke and Astute to Right Now Technology and NetSuite all trying to be the best tool possible. Each of these companies brought a new unique opportunity to businesses and customers. Then in the majority of cases bought or merged into other technologies and became a lesser version of themselves. Then from these companies came a solution that I was a HUGE fan of for a long time, ZenDesk. 

ZenDesk became my chosen replacement for Right Now Technology when they were destroyed by their acquisition by Oracle. I helped countless companies get set-up on ZenDesk with success for their CX team. The problem we quickly discovered through was with cross data comparison for customer success mapping. The solution ZenDesk provided early on was through their partnerships with Sugar and SalesForce, but that just led to massive cost issues. That final piece is what put me on the hunt for something new, and this little tool on the Zoho Desk website is where I found my solution.

The world of customer experience is a hard place to demand budget. Most businesses still, incorrectly, view customer service as a pure cost center of their business and do everything possible to cut costs. That is why many of us CX executives have learned quickly to always look to find the best tools we can at the best price. I think the image above speaks for its self on why I had to look at Zoho Desk for my team.

Beyond cost savings Zoho was quick to push to me their standard list of things they do better which I have shared above. But, for me though this was great the real win came from a creative question we asked that changed the way our whole company operates. The question I asked was, “how do you guys use Desk internally?”

I learned long ago when you can find out how a software company eats their own dog food you can find the key to use the software to the full potential. Zoho did not let me down when the sales engineer shared with me that they use it for both internal and internal support tickets through department separation. 

Now I know this may not mean much to most of you, but the ability for internal team members to put in tickets on a customer that can be tracked and managed separate from external tickets is a HUGE opportunity to become “PROACTIVE”! A term that is very rare in the CX world as most of CS is reactionary. 

We can get proactive in CX through internal ticketing as many times most issues are discovered prior to a customer even knowing they exist. The problem is most businesses do not have an easy way for internal staff to enter these issues and route them to the people who can fix them quickly and effectively. On top of all that most case management systems expose the full history to companies whereby exposing a company’s dirty laundry when most of us would prefer to handle that without anyone seeing it. Plus, the ability to tie all this back natively into my CRM for a full customer record allows for Business Intelligence data like never before.

Yes, I know you can do all this with ZenDesk but where my issue came in was the cost and time to integrate is all. When I take the costs of ZenDesk at $149 ($89 for basic) plus Salesforce $150 ($30 or $75 for basic) I am not at $300 /user and not even gotten into my agent’s telephony needs. In the end I was looking at a price tag closer to $400 per agent vs. $35 per agent with Zoho One. Let’s just be real there was no discussion I could have in the world that would get my executive team to not go Zoho.

​If you would like to see any of what I am speaking about above in person message or comment as I would be happy to show you. Zoho One has changed the way my customers and I do business and I want to help others see it.

To Your Success & Prosperity,

Michael McMillan 

• Topic Participants

• mmcmillan

• Sticky Posts

• How to reach the official Zoho Support channels and avoid fake ones.

  Dear Customers, Thanks a lot for choosing Zoho! Our applications are built to help achieve your day-to-day business goals. We are committed to engaging with you, to understand and develop solutions that enhance your productivity.  We are happy and ready to help you use our services effectively. Understanding and avoiding fake support Just like using popular bank names and financial applications for phishing purposes, using Zoho and claiming to be providing Zoho Support or services with false numbers

• Function #35: Close all tasks associated with a lead and create a new task.

  Welcome back everyone! Last week, we learnt how to close all tasks of a deal depending upon the deal stage. This week, let's look at a custom function that lets you close all of the tasks associated with a lead while simultaneously creating a new task, like when you need to halt all progress towards a lead while the lead is not available at the moment but create a reminder task. Business scenario: The success of a company, in one way or another, is determined by the leads it gets. Each lead is just

• Zoho CRM Webinar - Redesigning Daily User Experiences with Canvas

  <br> Your users across roles use the CRM for day-to-day tasks that are necessary. Whether they perform their tasks on time, the right way, or at all depends on a lot of factors, including User Experience. Many businesses struggle with rigid layouts,

• Join us at the Canada ZUG Meetup: What’s New in Zoho CRM

  Hello Zoho Community! Start your year with fresh insights into Zoho CRM’s latest updates and tools. Whether you're a CRM beginner or a experienced user, this meetup is crafted to help you optimise your processes and leverage new features. Explore practical

• CRM Hack #2: Automate sending of birthday greetings to your customers.

    Hello everyone! What sets you apart as a sales person is your ability to add that personal touch to your business relationship with your customers. Sending a gift on a special day, or leaving a note wishing them on their birthdays, are small, yet significant actions that show your customers that you care. And these are actions done without any expectations :) You must be engaging with a lot of customers and it is highly unlikely that they all are your friends on Facebook or some social channel,

• Recent Topics

• Disputed Purchase Invoices

  We have recently moved to Zoho Books from Sage. In Sage we were able to post a purchase/vendor invoice but mark it as on dispute. This would usually be a pricing query or if something was damaged. It would show in their ledger, so we could agree their

• Getting events in the future

  Hi I am trying to get events in the future by calling this API Endpoint https://www.zohoapis.eu/crm/v8/Events?fields=Event_Title,Created_By,Created_Time,Start_DateTime But that gives me all events in the database. How do I make a query that returns all

• Created Date/Invalid Fields

  Since Saturday we have suddenly had issues with our webhooks and data retrieval from CRM. Specifically how Created Date is handled. It appears there was some sort of change within CRM that broke a lot of our code that has been in place for several years.

• Revenue Management: #9 Revenue Recognition in Media & Publishing

  Media & Publishing industry has evolved in recent times. It offers subscriptions, bundles digital and print access, runs sponsored content, and sometimes even sells ad spaces. If you run a media or publishing business, you will always get into a situation

• Zoho CRM Community Digest - July 2025 | Part 2:

  Hello, Everyone! We’re closing out July with a can’t-miss highlight: Zoholics Europe 2025! Happening from September to October, it’s your chance to level up your CRM skills, covering everything from automation and CPQ to dashboards and advanced workflows.

• How can I trigger a flow action only once while updating contact?

  Hi, we have a trigger to merge&mail file when the field YYY is filled out. For this acion I used "Create or update module entry". But unfortunately we get tens of email on a day with this merged file, because the contact is being regularly updated. The

• Copy a Record Template from one Form to another

  I have a Creator application with several forms.  I developed a record template for one of the reports/forms but want to use most of it for another of the form/report combinations in the application. Is there a way to copy the template (code or otherwise) to another form?

• Tip of the Week #70 – Create common team signatures for your shared inboxes

  Did you know that a small detail, such as an email signature, can make a big difference in how your brand is perceived? One simple yet smart way to enhance your team’s communication is by creating common team signatures for your shared inboxes. Instead

• Enhanced data export features: XLSX format, custom character encoding, and selective record export

  Greetings all, Here are a few enhancements related to exporting CRM data, including the ability to export data in XLSX file format now. The Export feature under Data Administration now offers new options that expand its flexibility and enable users to

• Tip #42 – How to manage data security with Privacy Settings – 'Insider Insights'

  Data privacy is a cornerstone of trust in remote support. Through Privacy Settings in Zoho Assist, you can set up how data is gathered, stored, and handled in your organization. These settings ensure compliance, data protection for sensitive details,

• Zoho DataPrep and File Pattern configuration

  I'm using Zoho data prep to ingest data from One Drive into Zoho Analytics... The pipeline is super simple but I can't any way to get all the files that I need. Basically I need to bring all the files with a certain pattern and for that I'm using a regex

• Introducing Dark Mode / Light Mode : A New Look For Your CRM

  Hello Users, We are excited to announce a highly anticipated feature - the launch of Day, Night and Auto Mode implementation in Zoho CRM's NextGen user interface! This feature is designed to provide a visually appealing and comfortable experience for

• Ticketbai! en el Pais Vasco

  Hola a todos, En enero de 2.022 se va a implantar en el país vasco un nuevo sistema de facturación, denominado ticketbai!, ¿hay alguna previsión de realizar las adaptaciones en zoho books o zoho invoices? Ignoro la cantidad de clientes que tienen estas

• Zoho CRM mobile app feature update: home page widgets, field tooltips and user image upload

  Hello everyone! Your business doesn't pause when you're on the move, and neither should your CRM. That's why in our latest update, we've introduced a few new features to make your mobile CRM experience smoother and more efficient. Let's take a quick look

• Zoho CRM Plain Text Template: Line Breaks and Formatting Issue

  Hello, I'm following the instructions to create email templates in Zoho CRM, but I'm having a problem with the plain text version. https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/zoho-sign/integrations/zoho-apps/zoho-crm/articles/zoho-crm-email-templates#Steps_to_create_a_custom_email_template

• Optimizing Task Handling: Auto-Remove Recurrence for cancelled Tasks.

  Hello Everyone, A Custom function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. Requirement:

• Important updates to your connectors

  Hello everyone, Greeting from Zoho Creator! We're excited to announce that we'll be rolling out significant backend updates to Zoho Creator's built-in connectors to enhance security by following the latest frameworks. The existing version of some of the

• Create, collaborate, and manage agreements with Zoho Sign

  Agreements drive business. We launched Zoho Sign in 2017 as a simple digital signature tool to sign agreements from anywhere, at any time. Over the years, we've learned that most agreements go through last-minute changes before they're signed. Our users

• Function #25: Automatically generate purchase orders from a sales order

  We kicked off the "Function Fridays" series with the goal of helping you automate your everyday accounting tasks. As we delve into today's post, I'm delighted to announce that we're here to present the 25th custom function in this series. While it is

• hiding a topic from all but one segment (or list)

  My organization sends out a number of newsletters using Zoho Campaigns. One of those newsletters is for volunteers. In order to become a volunteer, a person has to first go through our volunteer orientation (training). After that, they can receive newsletters

• How do I set up this automation correctly?

  When contacts enter my Subscribers list, I want it to reference a custom field to see if it is empty. Then I want it to do two things: If empty: Assign a tag based on a different custom field. If that custom field is empty, assign a different tag. If

• Function #62: Display associated Quote on Invoice details screen

  Hello everyone! Today, we are sharing a Related List script that makes it easy to view and access the quote from which an invoice was created right from the invoice details screen. This Related List displays the Quote number and Amount, allowing you to

• Desk x CRM Integration

  Howdy! We currently use SalesIQ but we are considering moving across to Desk as it seems to have more functionality that we want. One of the pulls is the ability for our customers to self serve. But, I might be getting over excited and not actually need

• Issue with Save & Share Link – Works for Others but Not Creator

  I’ve enabled the "Save and Share" feature in Zoho Forms, and it works correctly for all users accessing the public link—except for me (the form creator). Issue Details: When I save and share the link, recipients see a “no permission” error. The form is

• Save the pdf report from a registration form in a Folder

  Through Zoho Forms I created a registration form with quite a lot of rules to handle different variables (TEAM types, payment in installments, etc.), and the result is pretty good. The automatic PDF that is sent to the respondent upon submission is already

• zoho forms integration to zoho work drive

  Scenario: A user fills out a Zoho Form, entering details such as email, mobile number, and other required information, and uploads supporting documents like PAN, Aadhaar, etc. Upon submission, the data is available in Zoho Forms Reports. Requirement:

• Zoho Forms to Zoho CRM Integration failed - can I restart it?

  The integration of Zoho Form to Zoho CRM has failed. Is there a way for me to restart it for the impacted entry?

• insert an equation, but in document, it shows an image not available.

  I'm new to Zoho writer and used Zoho writer in desktop app version . When I inserted an equation, I got an image not available sign. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Charles

• Zoho Desk Android app update - Swipe action customization

  Hello everyone! We have brought in support for the swipe action customization in latest version(v2.9.13) of the Zoho Desk Android app update, enabling you to configure left and right swipe gestures on tickets to carry out the actions swiftly without opening

• Import KB template OR Export template for zoho desk?

  Greetings. Can you tell me if there is a way to get an EXPORT of my KB articles? OR is there a template you supply for importing KB articles into my zoho desk? I am looking for a method of understanding what fields can be imported, and what their possible

• XML format to import knowledgebase into Zoho Desk

  Hi, We just started to use Zoho Desk and want to import our knowledgebase from our old support system (Freshdesk) to Zoho Desk. Can anyone give us information about the format of xml file to import? There is no explanation on the related page.

• Zoho Desk integration with Power BI

  Hi, I want to be able to create a Power BI report which has live updates of ticket data from zoho desk, is this possile at all? Thanks Jack

• Arranging Ticket Templates

  Is there any way to arrange our ticket templates? It doesn't look very organised when it's just arranged according to when they were created. We want the list to look more organised, by arranging/grouping them by topics, or even just by alphabetical

• What they mean with "Portal"?

  I just downloaded this app to take my personal notes on digital art studio because it seemed to me the most comfortable app to do it, I use it very often, what do they mean by “no activity on your portal”? I have about 1 year of work here and I don't

• favorites no longer listed

  Hello, I can no longer navigate to my Favorites from the pulldown at the top of my grid view (see attached screenshot). I wasn't able to find it anywhere! Please help me display my Favorites. Thank you!

• Notecards Disappeared

  Got a new phone. Downloaded and signed in Zoho Notebook. Not finding the Note cards. Just Empty Note books. Frustrating.

• Table Errors

  Hello, I'm new to Zoho Notebook and using it on several Mac/Apple devices. My question is regarding tables: Why do they become broken, and how to fix the error without retyping all my data? (Please see the screenshot attached.)

• Online Calculator with Zoho Forms?

  I'd like to build a custom calculator on my website. Zoho Forms seems to offer all the fields for basic calculations performed live without pressing any "Calculate" buttons. Unfortunately, there is still that "Submit" button at the bottom. There is nothing

• Zoho Tables instead of Zoho Creator Spreadsheet reports <3

  That would make my day for sure. Zoho Creator is create, but miss data entering as AirTable/Spreadsheet can. Seeing Zoho putting effort in this makes me think maybe one day we could see a similar interface for Zoho Creator spreadsheet reports. B.

• Notebook Stack

  Hi Everyone I Hope you´re fine, I´m sorry if this idea was posted before (I made a search but I haven´t find anything related). So, Having the possibility of stacking notebooks would be an interesting way to order notebooks that correspond to the same

• Next Page