Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

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. 
 
A telephone conversation helps those customers who don't have an active internet connection reach out to you, and guarantees an immediate response. Phonecalls are also suitable when you need to pacify an irked or angry customer, because it allows for aspects of communication that don't come across through text, like voice and tone. However, if your support staff is not well-trained for phone conversations, or if there is a language barrier, telephone calls are bound to do more harm than good.

Unless you want your customers to broadcast any issues they face to the whole online world, social media channels are best avoided. When you successfully solve an issue, or decide to compliment your customer, though, social media channels are the way to go. If you already have a social media channel, it's best to address the complaints privately on social media rather than diverting them to another channel like chat, phone or email. 

When the customer is new to the product, or if they feel that their issue is too small to raise a ticket over, they can just view your knowledge base and try to help themselves. The FAQs or solutions published there can help reduce your ticket traffic, too.

Know your customers, understand their needs, and enable the right communication channels to create happy customer experiences!

For more information on support channels, check this link: 


    Access your files securely from anywhere








                            Zoho Developer Community




                                                  • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                  • Digest


                                                  • Functions


                                                  • Meetups


                                                  • Kbase


                                                  • Resources


                                                  • Glossary


                                                  • Desk Marketplace


                                                  • MVP Corner


                                                  • Word of the Day


                                                  • Ask the Experts



                                                            • 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


                                                            Manage your brands on social media



                                                                  Zoho TeamInbox Resources



                                                                      Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                        Zoho Books Resources


                                                                          Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                            Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                              Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                                Qntrl Resources


                                                                                  Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                      Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                      • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                        CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                      • Kaizen

                                                                                        Kaizen

                                                                                      • Functions

                                                                                        Functions

                                                                                      • Meetups

                                                                                        Meetups

                                                                                      • Kbase

                                                                                        Kbase

                                                                                      • Resources

                                                                                        Resources

                                                                                      • Digest

                                                                                        Digest

                                                                                      • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                        CRM Marketplace

                                                                                      • MVP Corner

                                                                                        MVP Corner







                                                                                          Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                          Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                          Get Started Now


                                                                                            Zoho Show Resources

                                                                                              Zoho Writer

                                                                                              Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                              Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                                Zoho CRM コンテンツ




                                                                                                  Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                      ご検討中の方







                                                                                                              • Recent Topics

                                                                                                              • An unknown error occurred. Please contact support

                                                                                                                Whenever I visit this page I see this. I changed browser and still the same. Can someone from Zoho help me please?
                                                                                                              • How to Streamline Pick & Ship

                                                                                                                Is there a way to streamline the built-in pick and ship process? I guess mostly on the ship side. Our current process allows us to choose shipping super fast. It's an EasyPost plugin for WooCommerce. You have to populate the boxes / weights / shipping
                                                                                                              • How to add, delete or rename the "payment method" drop down?

                                                                                                                When we recorded payment in invoice, there's a "payment method" drop down with choices like cash, bank transfer... We want to add and delete or rename some new selection. How to do such adjustment? Please advice.
                                                                                                              • Smarter data gathering with Query component in Wizards

                                                                                                                Dear All, Introducing the Query Component in Wizards for CRM! A smart search field that saves you time and effort, and helps you manage and gather data more efficiently than ever before. Long and complex record entries can be overwhelming and prone to
                                                                                                              • Introducing teamspaces and team modules in Zoho CRM mobile app

                                                                                                                Hello everyone, We have an exciting update to share in the Zoho CRM mobile app. As part of CRM For Everyone—a new set of features that reflect our vision to democratize CRM and make it accessible for all—teamspaces and team modules are now available on
                                                                                                              • Client Script - change page and/or section background colours

                                                                                                                Hello, Would anyone be willing to help me with a bit of Client Scripting code? I have had a go myself but only been able to alter the form field styles, not the overall page/section/heading styles. I want to set a different page background colour for
                                                                                                              • Zoho SalesIQのチャットボット、ブロックのコピー機能

                                                                                                                Zoho SalesIQのチャットボットの構築でドラッグアンドドロップで作成を行っているます。 内容は同じブロックのコピーペースト機能がないみたいなのですが、同一のブロック、同一の複数のブロックをいくつも作成する場合は、皆様はどのように行われていますか? 例えば添付の4つのブロックをまとめてコピーして、別のフローの先につなげる場合です。 教えていただけますと幸いです。よろしくお願いいたします。
                                                                                                              • Questions About Zoho Commerce Member Portal

                                                                                                                Hello, A couple questions about the Zoho Commerce Member Portal: 1. Can I add only specific pages be added to the Members Portal, and not the entire website? 2. When a customer signs up on my Zoho Commerce site, is there a setting that gives me a chance
                                                                                                              • Online Payment Fees

                                                                                                                We don't take many online credit card payments so the merchant service provider (PayPal) charges us the 2.9% fee for processing the amount. I would like the ability for the fee to be automatically added to the total amount for "ease of payment". We'd
                                                                                                              • Error occured. please try again!!!

                                                                                                                I created a new list. Added two new contact's email addresses. I try to EDIT either one of them to add their first name, last name and phone number. Whatever I try to edit and update, I get the error message  Error occured. please try again!!! And it doesn't update any of their info. I tried just editing first and last name. Still get the error. No matter what I try to update, I get the error. I tried creating a new list, and adding just one email address and then edit it and also get the error.
                                                                                                              • "Send email as" not work

                                                                                                                Hi team, I currently use ZOHO MAIL services on the MAKE platform (formerly INTEGROMAT). In MAKE I entered my ZOHO MAIL credentials but the problem is that when the emails are sent from the automation in MAKE, the emails do not come in with the name set
                                                                                                              • *UPDATE: ISSUE RESOLVED, SEE HOW FOR HELP* Issue imbedding Youtube Videos

                                                                                                                **UPDATE: RESOLVED** For anyone that is having a similar issue, try this workaround before attempting to have the Zoho techs fix it. I have been in communication with them for weeks about this and they can't seem to fix the issue. Thinking it may have just been my computer or my browser, I tried two different computers on two different networks, each running different versions of Windows, and tried it on Chrome, Firefox and IE; nothing worked. So, needless to say, it's an issue with Zoho somewhere.
                                                                                                              • Backorder For Composite Items

                                                                                                                Hello If i released SO for composite item and use backorder feature of zoho inventory then it should backorder child item items of composite and not composite item.This is basic of backordering.I conveyed this to zoho call center but no solution yet.
                                                                                                              • Paid Support

                                                                                                                We are in the process of creating tiers for our support offerings. There will be three tiers of support available - 2 paid and 1 free. The paid tiers will be purchased in allotted hours. I need to figure out how to a) work in the out of the box SLA, Contracts
                                                                                                              • Automatically CC supervisor

                                                                                                                Hello,  in our organization agents are replying to tickets and they are required to CC their supervisor on all emails to and from customers.  is there a way to have an email address automatically populate in the CC field when reply to a ticket?  tha
                                                                                                              • Zoho One - White Label

                                                                                                                Releasing a white-label feature for Zoho One, or any software or service, can offer several advantages and benefits for both the company providing the software (Zoho in this case) and its users. Here are some key reasons for releasing a white-label feature
                                                                                                              • Are this Features included in the Road Map

                                                                                                                1. Sync between description/short description in Zoho Books/Inventory and Zoho Commerce: I am unsure how it works now. I belive the description is not pulled. 2. Pick Up: This feature is great. It is added on Zoho Commerce but not on Books/Inventory which
                                                                                                              • Reconciliation - Show Transactions After End Date

                                                                                                                I did a quick search, and I've only seen this brought up indirectly. In the reconciliation interface, transactions dated up to a week after the end date should be available for being reconciled. The use case is pretty simple... many times, transactions
                                                                                                              • Auto populate email field in zoho form

                                                                                                                Hi,  Is there a way the email field in zoho forms can be auto populated based on the name selected from a drop down list?
                                                                                                              • Option to accept and pay for estimate from Public Estimate link?

                                                                                                                Is there any way that our customers can get the Estimate in their email, click on "View Estimate" and from the public link, click Accept and Pay? When they click that, in the background Zoho would create the invoice record in the so that the payment would
                                                                                                              • Kaizen #125 Manipulating Multi-Select Lookup fields (MxN) using Zoho CRM APIs

                                                                                                                Hello everyone! Welcome back to another week of Kaizen. In last week's post in the Kaizen series, we discussed how subforms work in Zoho CRM and how to manipulate subform data using Zoho CRM APIs. In this post, we will discuss how to manipulate a multi-select
                                                                                                              • Easily track referrals with Zoho Forms

                                                                                                                Referral tracking can be a powerful way for businesses to understand where their leads are coming from. With Zoho Forms, tracking the referral sources of your leads is an easy and straightforward process. Here are some tips to help you make the most of
                                                                                                              • Add an email to an existing ticket is not working

                                                                                                                I noticed that in Zoho Desk the funcionality to add an email to an existing ticket is not working using the syntax [##12345##], has the method changed? In red is the syntax we use to add email to an existing ticket As you can see, he did not add the email
                                                                                                              • New CRM to Campaigns Sync Doesn't Continue Making Updates

                                                                                                                Changes made in CRM are not appearing in mapped fields in matching Campaign records after migrating to the new sync process. The only way we've found to get records to update is to call into Support and point out the problem. After convincing Support
                                                                                                              • Zoho Integration with UPS

                                                                                                                I have 2 questions: Firstly, is there a way to notify UPS that we have a package to collect once we have done the shipping label? Secondly, how do I get the tracking number and shipment method onto the Invoice and Package Slip for the customer? Than
                                                                                                              • Cannot log in to IMAP account as of last night

                                                                                                                Hey I've been using MFA with an authenticator for a while and have had to use application passwords for Outlook and Edison Mail on my Android devices. Last night the app passwords started to be rejected on my Android devices so I created new ones for
                                                                                                              • Low Stock View

                                                                                                                We use the Low Stock view frequently as a guide to inform us when to reorder items, but the view is misleading because it does not take into account Purchase Orders that have already been raised. Unless you are aware and check item by item, this can lead
                                                                                                              • Improve History Feature in Zoho Inventory

                                                                                                                At present there is a "history" tab on Zoho Inventory Items, however this only shows a date and time stamp along with the users name. It doesn't say what was changed. What is the value of this if you can't see what was changed? My Ideal is to include
                                                                                                              • Show backordered items on packing slip

                                                                                                                We send out a lot of large orders, and often there are one or two things backordered. How can I fix the packing slips to show quantity ordered  & quantity packed There should also be the ability to "ship" 0 of an item so the receiver knows that things
                                                                                                              • Document | Files

                                                                                                                The vendor "Partial matches" still not fixed here after years of putting up with having to select most vendors manually ! ( again, the banking "Transaction rules" would solve a lot of these issues ) Some unwanted, irrelevant pdf's also arrive. It would
                                                                                                              • books+POS+ tap to pay+ stripe

                                                                                                                So in the UK we now have tap to pay with stripe. So we can use the stripe app as a POS terminal. Brilliant news. Can we hope that the Books App might add this feature ASAP. It would be great to have one system rather than using the not very good Square
                                                                                                              • Canvas Form View - Client Script Page on load - Url params not working

                                                                                                                We have a custom module with a canvas page for form view. We have a button in Customers module to open this canvas page using invokeurl function. We send few parameters as in the URL as query parameters. https://crm.zoho.in/crm/orgxxxxxxxx/tab/CustomModule12/create/canvas/64333200000261xxxx?layoutId=643332000002605001&c=${Customers.Customer
                                                                                                              • Sending Recruit SMS's to Zoho Cliq - Or tracking in the Messages module in Recruit?

                                                                                                                Is there any way to send SMS Gateway messages in Recruit to ZOho Cliq? We use 2-way SMS massages a lot in Zoho Recruit to speed up communication with Candidates. However the only way to keep track of received SMS's is by keeping a look out for the Email
                                                                                                              • Is it possible to set a customer context variable in Zobot

                                                                                                                Hi, I want to use a context variable to route users down different paths in my Zobot chat flow. I know I can do this when the user enters data. But I want to know if I can use a variable that is 'hard coded' on the card, that the user is unaware of. Use
                                                                                                              • Cannot change Blog Title

                                                                                                                There is nowhere to change the blog title. You can change the blog URL but that is making no difference to the text "Enter Your Post Title" am I missing something?
                                                                                                              • Kaizen #203 - Answering Your Questions | Handling API Limits and Error Responses

                                                                                                                Hi Everyone, Welcome back to yet another post in the Kaizen Series! We appreciate your keen participation in the 200th milestone celebration of the Kaizen series. We will continue to answer the queries we received through the feedback. When working with
                                                                                                              • How to verify website ownership with google search console

                                                                                                                Hi, I am having a free .in domain provided by Zoho I have created a website on it now I want to verify my ownership to google webmaster. Can you please help me how to do that.
                                                                                                              • "SPF record exceed the allowed limit of 10"

                                                                                                                Hi, I was wondering if there were a "universal Zoho SPF record" that would allow all my configured Zoho services that email things to meet this limitation ? or do I have to have an entry for mail, com, billing, etc?
                                                                                                              • Animated GIF Images in Chat

                                                                                                                I know this seems to be a small feature request but in a recent Cliq update Zoho disabled autoplay for animated GIFs posted in Cliq conversations. We think this was not a good change. In our organization, animated GIFs in a chat play a role in expressing
                                                                                                              • I can't seem to login in to Mail Apps of MacOS /IOS

                                                                                                                Hi, i'm having trouble in signing in to mail apps from IOS. It's always come back to wrong passwords. But i already changed my password like 3 times. But still it says wrong credentials
                                                                                                              • Next Page