When moments in customer support get "spooky"

When moments in customer support get "spooky"

It’s Halloween again!
Halloween is celebrated with spooky symbols and meanings based on history and traditions, with each region adding its own special touch. While we were kids, we would dress up in costumes along with friends, attend parties, and enjoy the thrills of the season. Growing older, our perspectives and the way we celebrate might may have changed. Now, we might find ourselves watching children enjoy their spooky fun or simply relaxing.
But for those working in customer support, Halloween can reveal different kinds of “spooky” moments. Some moments at work can feel just as haunting as the Halloween characters that test patience, empathy, and presence of mind. This Halloween, let’s talk about how we can turn moments of horror in customer support into delightful experiences.

The “spooks” of customer support  

Overflowing tickets

When you sign in to your Zoho Desk account, you might immediately have more tickets than you can handle. Too many tickets can make you miss your first-response time, drop your metrics, and soon you’re buried under an endless stream of unresolved tickets.

Falling resolution rates

As the workload piles up, your average resolution time can slip. Despite your best efforts, the gap between customer expectations and your responses continues to widen.


Tone gone wrong

With an overwhelming number of tickets, we might rush to reply quickly, which can make the emails sound curt or emotionless. We end up sounding rude or robotic without intending to. The lack of warmth can turn a neutral interaction into a negative experience.

Disappointing feedback

After all this, you work hard to respond to your customers and close all the tickets, aiming to solve their problems, yet the customer leaves a negative rating or an unhappy emoji. These negative rating can affect our CSAT scores leading to a more chilling experience than a Halloween scare.

Endless escalations

You’ve given your best, but tickets keep escalating one after another. Encountering one frustration after another while juggling deadlines is enough to make any support agent feel haunted by unfinished work.

Self-service pages

Imagine the customer's frustration when they're trying to find an answer, but the outdated knowledge base goes unpublished because it is outdated. What could have been resolved turns into a frustrated ticket.

Let's see how we can turn those spooky moments into spectacular ones.
Every “horror moment” in support can be transformed into an opportunity for excellence with the right tools, automation, and teamwork.

Organize your tickets

The prediction tools in Zoho Desk help you identify the high-priority tickets and learn from ticket history in less time. Zia can also detect anomalies and notify your team of tickets that require attention. The summary tools help you understand tickets and conversations quickly.
Use the default views and create custom views to categorize your tickets based on their assigned priority levels and due dates. Use various views under Workmodes to resolve tickets based on status, priority, and SLAs. The ticket notifications also help you view details where your name is tagged (@ mentions), unread, and flagged messages. These will help you resolve tickets quicker, leading to happy customers.

Assignment rules

Assignment rules help you distribute tickets evenly among agents so that one or two agents do not feel overwhelmed. Sharing the workload with fellow agents helps your team respond faster and serve customers more efficiently. The agent collision feature alerts you if two agents are working on the same ticket, thus avoiding duplicate efforts.

Workflow rules

Automate notifications for customer tickets or complaints. A simple response and acknowledgment can reassure customers that their issue is abeing ddressed to offer resolution.

Define service level agreements (SLAs)

Establish clear response and resolution times based on your business hours and ticket priorities. SLAs help you address the most urgent cases while maintaining service quality and consistency.

Update your availability status

Under profile, set your status for each support channel in Zoho Desk. When you’re online, you’ll be notified of new chats or emails to ensure nothing goes unnoticed.

Keep knowledge base (KB) articles updated

Set expiration dates for your help articles so you’re notified when it’s time to review or update them. Updating your knowledge base with the current information helps customers find the right answers faster, reducing ticket load.

Use Zia

Zia can help you sense the tone of the customers' emails. If you miss noticing the customer's emotions, Zia Insights and Zia Reply Assistance are at your service with emoticons and quick references to respond effectively. Zia insights give you an analysis of the customer's tone as well as the topics they discussed. You can also view the customer's CSAT ratings under their contact info.

Every one of these small steps can turn potential “frights” into smooth, positive experiences, both for you and your customers. The spooky moment in customer support can fade away with Zoho Desk's automation tools, AI-powered sentiment analysis, and unified knowledge base. This Halloween, while we celebrate with costumes and candy, let’s also celebrate the courage, creativity, and care of every customer support professional who turns the fright of a long queue into customer delights.
Wish you a happy Halloween! 🎃
Wishes from the Zoho Desk team 

    • 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

    • Credit Note for Shipped and Fatoora pushed invoices

      We have shipped a Sales Order and created an Invoice. The Invoice is also pushed to Fatoora Now we need to create a credit note for the invoice When we try it, it says we need to create a Sales Return in the Zoho Books, we have already created a Sales

    • FSM - Timesheet entires for Internal Work

      Hi FSM Team, Several of my clients have asked how they can manage internal timesheets within Zoho FSM. Since their technicians already spend most of their day working in FSM, it would be ideal if they could log all working hours directly in the FSM app.

    • Add a way of clearing fields values in Flow actions

      It would be great if there was an option to set a field as Null when creating flows. I had an instance today where I just wanted to clear a long integer field in the CRM based on an action in Projects but I had to write a custom function. It would be

    • Role Management

      I am creating an analytics dashboard for a company that will be utilized by its various departments such as Finance, Marketing, and HR. My goal is to design the dashboard with separate tabs for each department. Additionally, I plan to implement role-based

    • Highlight a candidate who is "off limits"

      Hello: Is there a way to highlight a candidate who is "off limits"?  I would like to have the ability to make certain candidate and / or Client records highlighted in RED or something like that.   This would be used for example when we may have placed a candidate somewhere and we want everyone in our company to quickly and easily see that they are off limits.  The same would apply when we want to put a client or former client off limits so no one recruits out of there. How can this be done? Cheers,

    • Announcing new features in Trident for Windows (v.1.37.5.0)

      Hello Community! Trident for Windows just received a major update, with a range of capabilities that strengthen email security and enhance communication. This update focuses on making your mailbox safer and your overall email experience more reliable.

    • Early Payment Discount customize Text

      Hi, I’m currently using Zoho Books and am trying to customize the standard “Early Payment Discount” message that appears in the PDF invoice template. I’ve reviewed the documentation here: https://www.zoho.com/books/help/invoice/early-payment-discount.html

    • Deprecation of SMS-based multi-factor authentication (MFA) mode

      Overview of SMS-based OTP MFA mode The SMS-based OTP MFA method involves the delivery of a one-time password to a user's mobile phone via SMS. The user receives the OTP on their mobile phone and enters it to sign into their account. SMS-based OTPs offer

    • Zoho Sheet - Desktop App or Offline

      Since Zoho Docs is now available as a desktop app and offline, when is a realistic ETA for Sheet to have the same functionality?I am surprised this was not laucned at the same time as Docs.

    • DKIM Now Mandatory - Changes to Zoho Forms Email Policies

      Hello Zoho Forms Users, This post is to inform you about an important update regarding the authentication of all email domains in your Zoho Forms account. This year, we are doubling down on our commitment to deliver a secure, seamless, and empowering

    • Call description in notes

      When completing a call, we type in the result of the call in the description. However, that does not show up under the notes history on the contact. We want to be able to see all the calls that have taken place for a contact wihtout having to go into

    • Email Address for Contact not Populating

      When I click "Send Mail" from a Contact's page, their email address does not auto populate the "To" field. How do I make this happen?

    • New in CRM: Dynamic filters for lookup fields

      Last modified on Oct 28, 2024: This feature was initially available only through Early Access upon request. It is now available to all users across all data centers, except for the IN DC. Users in the IN DC can temporarily request access using this form

    • Why hybrid project management might be the best fit for you?

      Project management techniques are designed to equip teams with proven methods for easy and efficient project execution. While management teams may have apprehensions about adopting the hybrid method of project management, we’ve compiled the top reasons

    • Allow all Company Users to view all projects, but only owner/admins can change projects

      I was wondering if there was a permission setting I could adjust to allow all our company users to see all projects created. Then, only the project owners and admins with the change permission. Thanks

    • Fail to send Email by deluge

      Hi， today I gonna update some email include details in deluge, while this msg pops up and restrict me to save but my rules has run for one year. can you tell me how to use one of our admin account or super admin account to send the email? I tried to update

    • Seeking help to be able to search on all custom functions that are defined

      Hello I have a lot of custom functions defined (around 200) and i would like to search some specific strings in the content of those. Is there a way to accomplish that? If not, is there a way to download all existing custom functions in some files locally

    • Totals for Sales Tax Report

      On the sales tax report, the column totals aren't shown for any column other than Total Tax. I can't think of a good reason that they shouldn't be included for the other columns, as well. It would help me with my returns, for sure. It seems ludicrous

    • Add Bulk Section / Grid Layout Duplicate Feature in Zoho Forms Builder

      Currently in Zoho Forms, users can only duplicate individual fields. There is no option to duplicate an entire section or two-column/grid layout with all internal fields. This becomes inefficient when building structured forms such as Family Details,

    • Leistungsdatum in Rechnungen (Zoho Books)

      Hallo, ist es irgendwie möglich den Leistungszeitraum in der Rechnung aufzuführen? Beste Grüße Aleks

    • Zoho Trident Windows - Streams Not Visible

      Namaste We’re having an issue with Streams not being visible in Trident (Windows), which is important for us as we share many emails internally. It appears that the feature to show Streams above the Inbox folder, as seen in the default mailbox view, is

    • Sales IQ Chat Widget is Only Displaying Last Name

      Can anyone suggest why the widget is only displaying "last name"?! We have the latest version of the wordpress plugin installed. Thanks Thanks!

    • Shopify - Item sync from Zoho Inventory

      Hi team, We’ve connected Shopify with Zoho Inventory. We want that when an item is created in Zoho Inventory, it must create a product in Shopify. But currently, new items created in Zoho Inventory are not getting created in Shopify even after clicking

    • Bulk upload image option in Zoho Commerce

      I dont know if I am not looking into it properly but is there no option to bulk upload images along with the products? Like after you upload the products, I will have to upload images one by one again? Can someone help me out here? And what should I enter

    • Is it possible to setup bin locations WITHOUT mandating batch tracking?

      Hi fellow zoho users, I'm wondering if anyone else has a similar issue to me? I only have some products batch tracked (items with shelf life expiry dates) but I am trying to setup bin locations for my entire inventory so we can do stock counting easier.

    • Kill zoho meeting

      Saying the quiet part out loud. Can zoho please just give up on the idea that they can make a meeting platform and just make our workplace licenses cheaper when you remove it so people can switch to zoom or teams. Tired of the excuses, you guys cant make

    • Utilisation de Zoho en conformité avec l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI)

      Cher(e) client(e), Conformément à l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI) impose aux entreprises assujetties à la TVA d’utiliser des systèmes de caisse ou de gestion commerciale certifiés lorsqu’elles enregistrent des ventes à des particuliers.

    • Unable to Create Task as a Support Administrator

      Hello! I want to ask for help regarding creating tasks within the tickets. I am by default the Support Admin. I should be able to create tasks or activities right? But there's a prompt that I need to contact the Administrator. See photos for reference.

    • Introducing Forms in Zoho Sheet

      We hereby bring you the power of ​forms in Zoho Sheet. ​Now, build and create your own customized forms using Zoho Sheet. Be it compiling a questionnaire or rolling out a survey, Zoho Sheet can do it all for you. Forms is an excellent feature that helps you collect information in the simplest of ways and having it in Zoho Sheet takes it a notch higher. Build Simple yet Powerful forms Building forms using Zoho Sheet is fairly simple. The exclusive 'Form' tab lets you create one quickly. Whether you

    • Layout one survey question in a time & redirect next Page based on previous response

      I have doubt while, I am scripting survey on the Zoho where I redirecting to next page based on my previous response but didn’t get success on this. Please help me on this and tell me how I layout one survey questions in a time when I submit response

    • Zoho Bookings form pre-filled with Zoho Forms in

      Hi, I've got a contact page on my website and I'd like to have the option to book an appointment (redirected to zoho bookings page) after an option is submitted on the contact form. how would I go about doing this? thanks

    • Support “Other” Option with Free Text in Dropdown Fields

      Hello Zoho Bookings Team, Greetings, We would like to request an enhancement to the registration form fields in Zoho Bookings, specifically for dropdown fields. Current Limitation: At the moment, dropdown fields do not support an “Other” option that allows

    • Sending automated messages that appear in the ticket's conversation thread

      Good morning, esteemed Zoho Desk community, warm greetings Today I am here to raise the following problem, seeking a solution that I can implement: I need to implement an automation that allows me to send reminder messages to customers when I am waiting

    • Introducing parent-child ticketing in Zoho Desk [Early access]

      Hello Zoho Desk users! We have introduced the parent-child ticketing system to help customer service teams ensure efficient resolution of issues involving multiple, related tickets. You can now combine repetitive and interconnected tickets into parent-child

    • Please verify my account

      Hi, We have just launched our website and received media coverage in our country. Hundreds of users are signing up for our platform every day. We would like to send them a welcome email, but we are unable to do so because our ZeptoMail account has not

    • Payment Card or Identity form-fill from Vault?

      Hello! I'm working on replacing Bitwarden with Vault and one issue I've run into is that I can't find any option to fill address and payment forms from Payment Card or Identity info that has been saved in Vault. Is there a way to do this? Is it a planned

    • Ability to add VAT to Retainer Invoices

      Hello, I've had a telephone conversation a month ago with Dinesh on this topic and my request to allow for the addition of VAT on Retainer Invoices.  It's currently not possible to add VAT to Retainer Invoices and it was mutually agreed that there is absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be, especially as TAX LAW makes VAT mandatory on each invoice in Europe!   So basically, what i'm saying is that if you don't allow us to add VAT to Retainer Invoices, than the whole Retainer Invoices becomes

    • Time Log Reminder

      Tracking the time spent on tasks and issues is one of the most important functions of a timesheet. However, users may forget to update the time logs because they have their own goals to achieve. But, time logs must be updated at regular intervals to keep

    • [Early-access] Introducing Zoho's CommandCenter - Cross-Zoho business process automation

        Resources to help Webinar recording | Documentation  Feature Restrictions Currently available on early-access only for US data center accounts Features Role CommandCenter as a Service uses signals across Zoho services to propel the movement of records

    • Tip #58- Accessibility Controls in Zoho Assist: Learning- 'Insider Insights'

      Learning should be clear and interruption-free for everyone. Timely feedback plays an important role in helping users understand actions as they happen, without breaking their focus. In this post, we’ll explore the final section of Accessibility: Learning.

    • Next Page