Ring in the New Year with Guided Conversations for Smooth Offline Support

As we step into the new year, it’s time to refocus, re-energize, and gear up for fresh opportunities. But what about your customers as they begin the year with their own set of challenges or queries to resolve? 

With Zoho Desk’s Guided Conversations (GC), you can ensure they’re supported seamlessly, even as your team navigates the post-holiday rush.

Zylker Techfix, a mobile gadget firm, has a busy start as its customers flood them with requests: repair appointments, service inquiries, delivery tracking, and questions about new products. By leveraging Guided Conversations, Zylker Techfix provided an efficient, self-service experience that kept customers engaged while their team prioritized high-value tasks.

Here’s why Zylker Techfix setup the Guided Conversations feature within Zoho Desk:

• Customers could effortlessly log repair or service requests.
  
• Delivery updates and product inquiries were instantly addressed without delays.
  
• Clear and reassuring messaging kept customers informed that their concerns were logged and would be prioritized.
  
  
  

Guided Conversations acts as a dependable, 24/7 virtual assistant, automating ticket creation while offering a personal touch. Its intuitive, drag-and-drop builder enables you to design workflows that guide customers through their questions, gather essential information, and create tickets—even when your team is unavailable.

For businesses like Zylker Techfix, GC turned the often-hectic start of the year into an opportunity to build stronger customer relationships. By ensuring requests were acknowledged and logged, customers felt valued and confident that their needs were being addressed.

As you plan for the year ahead, Guided Conversations can help you create a customer experience that’s efficient, thoughtful, and future-ready. 

Guide to Set up Guided Conversations (GC) in Zoho Desk

Here’s how you can easily set up Guided Conversations to create tickets when agents are unavailable/offline:

1. Go to Setup > Self-Service > Guided Conversations.

2. Select the department before creating the flow because Guided Conversations are department-specific. 

Create a New Flow

3. Click on the Create Flow tab in the top-right corner.

4. Select the Web Channel. 

5. Enter a Name and Description for your flow, then click Next.

6. The GC design window will appear. Below the Guided Conversation icon, click the + icon to start building your flow.

7. Drag and drop elements from the right-hand panel to create your conversation blocks.

8. Drag the Text Message Block and drop it into the flow. Type a Welcome message. 

9. Enter the Name of the block and the Message you want to display to customers. This block is used to share direct information with your customers.

10. Click the + icon below the text message block and add a Question Block.

11. Use the Question blocks to collect inputs from customers based on your questions.

For example, use the following Question Blocks using the + icon to receive the information from your customers: 

• Name (Text Block) 
  
• Email (Email Block)
  
• Contact Number (Number Block)
  
• Date (Calendar Block for availability)
  
• Attachments (Attachment Block to receive files or images, such as screenshots).
  

Add Button Choice Blocks

12. Use the Button Choice Blocks to present predefined options to customers, such as a list of countries, states, or regions. This is useful for collecting specific information like location and understanding the time zone.

13. Drag the Text Question block to receive a description on the Issues submitted. 

14. Create the Date and Time question block to get the customer's availability time to reconnect, if required. 

To Create a Ticket

15. Now, click on the Zoho Desk blocks, click on the Create ticket.

16. Give the Block Name, choose the Department (the same department where you create this Guided Conversation), choose the layout for the Email template. 

17. In the Input variable mapping, click on the gear icon, map the field variables in the Tickets layout with the Flow variables created within  GC. 

For example, map the Email field within Tickets to the Email block in GC, map Phone with the Phone field, map Subject with the Issue Type, and map Description with the Describe issue text block

18. Click Save to save the mapping variables

19. In the Output variable mapping, click on the gear icon, map the ticket related information which you would like to share with the customers within the GC.  

Preview and Publish

20. Once all blocks are added, click on Preview to view the flow and ensure it works based on your requirements. 

21. Save your changes, and click Publish. Your Guided Conversation is ready to use!

Note: Some blocks are being developed for Instant Messaging (IM) channels and will appear faded out if you choose IM channels.

Create A GC Widget

i.    Go to Setup(S) >> Self Service >> Guided Conversations >> GC widgets. 

ii.   Click on Create GC widget. Give a Name and Description. 

iii.  Choose the Channels. click on the drop-down arrow under Associate flows >> Add Flow >> select the Published GC.

iv.  Click Associate. under Access Permissions, select users based on your preferences. 

v.   Enter your preferred welcome message that you would like to appear on your GC widget.

vi.  Enter End Options based on your preferences.

vii. Click Save to save your GC widget. 

ASAP Widget

Go to Setup (S) >> Self-Service >> ASAP >> Create New Widget. 

a. Enter a Name, enable the widget launcher to show the widget on your website. 

b. Associate the help widget with required departments.

c. Choose the required modules to associate with the widget.

d. Once you are done, click on Generate.  

Embed GC 

You can obtain the embed code to integrate the widget into your website or Help Center, as well as the organization ID for iOS and Android SDKs.

i.   Go to Setup (S) >> Self-Service >> ASAP. 

ii.  Hover over the created ASAP widget; click on Embeddable Code.  

iii. Copy the web embed code for use on your website or Help Center.

iv. Use the iOS ID for iOS SDK and the Android ID for Android SDK.

That’s it—your Guided Conversation is now live and ready to assist your customers! 

Pro Tip 

Guided Conversations can be tailored to suit a variety of scenarios, from managing customer inquiries to streamlining ticketing operations. Enhance the customer experience by customizing, editing, or updating workflows to meet their needs effortlessly.

Explore our Guided Conversation Guide and the automation with GC to  ensure your customers always have the support they need.

Here’s to a fantastic start to the New Year! Wishing you success and seamless experiences ahead: Happy New Year from the Zoho Desk Team! 🎉

• Topic Participants

• Lydia | Zoho Desk

  

• Sticky Posts

• Register for Zoho Desk Beta Community

  With the start of the year, we have decided to take a small step in making the life of our customers a little easier. We now have easy access to all our upcoming features and a faster way to request for beta access. We open betas for some of our features

• Share your Zoho Desk story with us!

  Tell us how you use Zoho Desk for your business and inspire others with your story. Be it a simple workflow rule that helps you navigate complex processes or a macro that saves your team a lot of time; share it here and help the community learn and grow with shared knowledge. 

• Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

  Mail, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms—there are so many support channels out there. Trying to pick the right channels to offer your customers can get pretty confusing. Emails are most useful when the customer wants to put things on record. However, escalated or complicated issues should not be resolved over email because it's slow and impersonal.  When you need immediate responses, live chat is more suitable. It's also quick and convenient, so it's the go-to channel for small issues. 

• Welcome to Zoho Desk Community - Say hello here!

  Hello everyone! Though we have been here for a while, it’s time to formally establish the Zoho Desk Community; we’re really happy to have you all here! This can be the place where you take a moment to introduce yourself to the rest of the community. We’d love to hear all about you, what you do, what company or industry you work for, how you use Zoho Desk and anything else that you will like to share! Here’s a little about me. I am Chinmayee. I have been associated with Zoho since 2014. I joined here

• Webinar 1: Blueprint for Customer Service

  With the launch of a host of new features in Zoho Desk, we thought it’ll be great to have a few webinars to help our customers make the most of them. We’re starting off with our most talked about feature, Blueprint in Zoho Desk. You can register for the Blueprint webinar here: The webinar will be delivered by our in-house product experts. This is a good opportunity to ask questions to our experts and understand how Blueprint can help you automate your service processes. We look forward to seeing

• Recent Topics

• Is there a plan to allow for the hierarchical organization of Customers / Companies in Zoho Billing?

  We have a few customers who have organizational structures that we haven't quite found a way to deal with in Zoho Billing. In CRM, these sub-companies (or subsidiaries or whatever you want to call them) all have another CRM account as the parent account.

• 【Zoho CRM】作業リスト機能リリースのお知らせ

  ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中から、作業リスト機能リリースのお知らせ情報をご紹介します。 目次 作業リスト機能　概要 機能①　自分の未完了の活動 機能②　処理待ち 機能③　自分の作業リスト 作業リスト機能　概要 営業チームでは、CRM内に業務やデータが分散しているため、管理が煩雑になりがちです。この断片化は、機会の見逃しや生産性の低下につながります。 作業リスト機能は、タブを横断する業務項目をひとつのカスタマイズ可能なダッシュボードに集約し、業務を効率的に管理できるようにします。

• SalesIQとPageSenseの利用について

  初めての投稿で場違いだったらすいません。 弊社ではSalesIQを運用しているのですが、追加でPageSenseの導入もしたいと現場からの声があります。 両サービスともクッキー同意バナーが必要なサービスなのですが 弊社では同意無しに情報はとりませんという方針なので 2つ入れると2つバナーを出す必要がでてきます・・・ 両サービスを運用されてる方があれば運用状況とか教えてほしいです。 PageSenseについては詳細まで機能を理解してないなかでの質問です。

• Parent-Child Tickets using API or Deluge

  Hi Everyone, We are looking at the parent-child ticketing features in Zoho Desk. We want to be able to create a parent ticket at customer level and nest child tickets underneath. The issue we are facing is to be able to automate this. I'm checking the

• Closing connected ticket after closing WA conversation

  Hi, At the moment, once someone sends a message to our WA number, a corresponding ticket is automatically created. After the question is answered, our support department closes the chat/conversation. However, after that, the connected ticket is still

• Note sync turn off

  Hi, Is it possible to turn off notes sync between task notes and the parent module? (Account/Deal)

• Basic Plan Active but Survey Creation Still Limited to 3 Surveys

  I have an active Basic (Monthly) subscription (valid period: Dec 24, 2025 – Jan 24, 2026), but the system still limits survey creation to only 3 surveys, which matches Free plan behavior. The subscription appears active in Portal Information, however

• 2025 in Review: Powering Field Services Forward—One Feature at a Time

  As 2025 draws to a close, it’s time to pause and reflect on a year of meaningful progress at Zoho FSM. This year was all about listening closely to our customers and partners, building with purpose, and continuously improving the way field service teams

• API Support for Creating Invoices with Batch-Tracked Items

  Hi Zoho Community, I am working on an integration where we create invoices in ERPNext and push them to Zoho Books. I need to send batch-tracked items (batch numbers) when creating invoices. I could not find any reference in the Zoho Books API documentation.

• New to automation - please help

  Hi there! We are new to automations in Zoho. We built out one automation campaign and it seems to be firing off for some people but others not. Please advise what's the best practice or if anything we should tweak. Thank you so much!

• Unable to Create Zoho Booking via the Book Appointment API

  Its giving the below error {     "response": {         "errormessage": "Error setting value for the variable:customer_details\n null",         "status": "Error"     } } Request: POST Url: https://www.zohoapis.in/bookings/v1/json/appointment attached Zoho-oauthtoken

• Task Details on task template

  When creating a task template in settings that task details seem to be missing. Is it not possible to set the details of a task, such as the priority, type, reminder settings, and custom field values?

• Building Toppings #3 -Testing and publishing Bigin toppings

  Hey Biginners! In previous forum posts, we discussed what a Bigin topping is and explored the Bigin Developer Console's features. In this post, we're going to create a topping from scratch and discuss how to test and publish it. Our topping will automate

• markdown files?

  How can I import a markdown file into a note?

• Mail to Zoho Notebook

  In the Instuctiosn I faound as email add@notebook.app In my account I see add@eu.notebook.app What is correct please

• Auto-Invite Users to Portals in Zoho CRM based on Conditions

  Hello Everyone, You can now automate portal invitations in Zoho CRM with the new Auto-Invite users feature in Portal management. No more manually enabling portal access one by one. With this enhancement, you can automatically send invites for users to

• Growth You can Count On: Zoho Billing's 2025 Journey

  As we wrap up 2025, we’re reflecting on a year rooted in steady progress and meaningful growth for Zoho Billing. Every enhancement we have introduced was built to support scalable and reliable billing growth for your business. From launching the Enterprise

• Need help with creating workflow with Bigin and Clickup

  Can you please help me with this? I am trying to create a workflow in Zoho Flow wherein a bigin Pipeline deal moves to Decision Closing, it will create a task and subtasks in Clickup, under the condition/filter that the Deal name contains the word Social

• [Webinar] Automate generation of wills, trusts, POAs, and other estate planning documents with Zoho Writer

  Managing the lifecycle of the estate planning documents such as wills, trusts, and POAs, from client intake to final storage, can be complex and time-consuming. Join our live webinar to learn how Zoho Writer transforms this process by automating document

• Create / Update Rule in TeamInbox when record is updated in ZohoCRM using flow?

  I'm currently evaluating options and trying to work out if the possible scenario is possible; If a record in ZohoCRM is updated, take 2 of the fields from that - lets call them 'OrderRef' and 'OrderTo'. Using flow, if a record is added or updated, add

• Plans to allow more columns of monitoring, and monitoring not only your own channels?

  Are their any plans to allow more columns of monitoring, and monitoring not only your own channels? Here's why - I'm sure I'm not alone in that we sell other brands products, so not only am I interested in my own brand social channels, but also the social

• Unwrapping the best practices for the Zoho Desk mobile app: Part 1

  In focus: Empowering the field and frontline customer support representatives Imagine having to carry your computer everywhere to respond to customers, handle escalations, and update your process. This series presents you with efficient tips to handle

• dealing with post dated cheques

  Hi, can you help me please the best way to deal with this We sell an item of three months duration that is paid for with post dated cheques in monthly stages example - item is sold £3000 Cheque 1 is for £1000 due at time of sale (say Sept) cheque 2 is dated 25th of next month (Oct) cheque 3 is dated 25th of next month +1 (Nov) Now, with invoice number one it's simple - i send a standard invoice as usual But with the other two here's what i want zoho to do next month i want it to send an invoice on

• Is there a way to sell in a practical method multiple subscriptions of the same product? i.e. domain names

  In evaluating Zoho Billing, a hurdle to adopting it is that Zoho Billing does not seem designed to support businesses that sell multiple subscriptions of the same product. In our case, we need to sell and manage several domain names per client. Am I right

• Bug Report: "Name A-Z" sorting fails when Note titles start with an Emoji

  Hello, I recently migrated from Evernote (~2600 notes across 23 notebooks). I use emojis at the start of my note titles for visual organization. The Issue: When I set the view to Sort by: Name (A to Z), the sorting logic breaks for any note starting with

• Copy & Paste not working

  I could create and save 10 new documents but when I go to copy and paste content (just text) into them, only 1 of 10 would save the content. It would appear to save the content but when I go back into the documents, they are empty.

• Currency for Petty Cash

  Currencies for Petty Cash should be available

• editing/applying online payments

  We have customers who pay part or all of an invoice and then cancel their service and want the payment as a credit to future work. It would be ideal if we could make it an excess payment and then void the invoice. I can't make it an excess payment because

• Contacts per department

  Hello, Is it possible to limit Contacts to a Department? Thanks

• This site can’t be reached mail.zoho.com took too long to respond

  In my office at any system, we couldnt able to login zoho email. it shows " This site can’t be reached mail.zoho.com took too long to respond". please fix it soon.

• Can send email from zoho mail, but can't receive any.

  Hi, My domain is sattvameditationresort.com. I've updated MX records with those of Zoho. But i can't send any mails to this email id from gmail. I have checked the MX status with MXTOOLS, its showing the correct entry either. The error is as shown below:

• My domain did not activate

  Hi, my domain (apsaindustrial.com.ar) did not activate, and the phone verification message never arrived. Please would you solve this problem? Thanks.

• Host not found?

  Howdy! So i'm trying to add my custom domain for with the mail server. I have 100% control of my DNS and have tried every single option (TXT, CNAME, and even HTML) multiple times, ensuring i did it properly, to no luck. I get the same error message every

• Auto End Chats After Customer Inactivity

  Hello Everyone, I may be missing something, but is there a way to auto-end chats when a customer has been inactive for an amount of time? I have several operators (we use a shared set of account with schedules for people... that's another story) but at

• Report on opportunities showing only the last note added.

  Hi I need to create a report that shows the most recent note added to each opportunity. This is so management can see what the latest update is according to the assigned salesperson. One workaround is to use the status field but this implies added manual work and mistakes as the salesperson would have to copy the existing status to a note before adding the latest status... otherwise the activity history would be lost. My current workaround is a report on Notes with Opportunities as the related module.

• Please add Zelle as an online payment option

  Hello, I would like to request Zelle be added to the online payment service providers for Zoho Invoice. Considering how ubiquitous Zelle has become as a way to pay people via the major banking institutions, I feel like many freelancers would benefit from

• Getting Project Template List using the REST API

  I am trying to confirm that I can use the REST API to create a project using a project template. The API documentation indicates this is possible by providing the Template ID, but it is not clear at all how to get a list of available Project Templates

• How to display the CONTACT ID in the Contact page

  Hi, I've seen this conversation below and it is exactly the same question I'm raising now, but unfortunately the last message is not solved https://help.zoho.com/portal/community/topic/show-contact-id-while-editing-contact-form I need to show the ContactId and I don't know how to do this. The last message included in the conversaton shows the way but not it is not completed. "I am sorry by default we do not have the option to show the record ID for the contacts in the field in a record. When you

• How to change margins in templates

  Hi, I'm new to Zoho Campaigns, and am trying to figure out how to adjust the margins within an email template.  The default margins make the text go all the way to the edges of the page.  Please advise.

• Create Canvas list view templates from images powered by Zia

  Currently available for all paid editions of Zoho CRM in the US, EU, IN, JP & CN DCs. Designing a personalized CRM interface just got even easier. In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, AI is transforming the way we work by automating complex tasks

• Next Page