Support agents are always working hard to resolve customer inquiries that often require their immediate attention or acknowledgement. While every agent has their own style of responding, they have to follow some organizational standards to maintain consistency.
Sometimes agents may have to use generic responses like "Thank you for contacting Zylker Corp. A support agent will call you soon" or more specific responses that include the customer name and ticket ID, like "Dear Martha, I'm getting in touch with you regarding support ticket number 116".
If agents have to look up every piece of information present in the ticket before responding or typing up a generic response, addressing and closing them all within the stipulated time frames can be extremely challenging and negatively affect the customer service experience.
To facilitate quick and easy responses, maintain consistency in replies, and save time, agents can use canned messages, or snippets.
Benefits of using snippets
- Send faster responses
- Offer more consistent customer service
- Avoid inadvertent errors while typing
- Include customer or ticket-specific information using placeholders
Availability
Creating snippets
In Zoho Desk, agents can create snippets to respond to tickets quickly. A snippet may include pre-written text, videos, links to relevant documents, troubleshooting tips, and more to guide customers.
Snippets can include generic messages or specific details such as product names, purchase dates, item codes, customer names, and more. Using placeholders in the snippets will ensure message auto-populate with the exact field values.
Points to remember
- Users who create snippets can also delete them. A maximum of 200 snippets can be created.
- Images cannot be inserted into snippets.
- The snippet name must not contain a space (e.g. CustomerAcknowledgement).
- The snippet name is case-sensitive. While using the tab key in the reply editor, you should type the exact name.
- The snippet tab can be accessed while using the Radar App.
- Snippets created in the web application can only be accessed in android and iOS Radar app.
To create a snippet
Navigate to theTickets module and open the desired ticket.
- In the Ticket details view page, click Reply All, Reply, or Forward to open the reply editor.
- On the reply editor's toolbar, hover on the Snippet icon ().
The snippet menu will be displayed. - Click Add New Snippet.
- In the New Snippet panel, do the following:
- Enter Snippet Name.
- In Snippet Content, enter the desired text.
You can utilize placeholders here. - Click Placeholder over Snippet Content.
- Click the type of placeholder that you want to add.
- Toggle Share Snippet.
- Add the required agents.
- Click Save.
Viewing snippets
Agents can view snippets they've created and those shared by others under the snippets tab. They're divided into two categories:
- My Snippets - Agents can view snippets they've created.
- Shared Snippets - Agents can view snippets shared by other users. These can be edited or deleted only by the agents who created them.
To view snippets
- Go to the Ticket details view page.
- Click Reply All, Reply, or Forward to open the reply editor.
- On the reply editor's toolbar, hover on the Snippet icon ().
The snippet menu will be displayed. - Click View All Snippets.
In Search Snippets, write the snippet name and select the desired snippet from the displayed list.
Alternatively, click either on My Snippets or Shared Snippets and select the desired one.
Sharing snippets
Snippets can be shared with other users in the organization to maintain consistency in responses and ensure the customer support team follows a standard approach across the org.
For example, if an agent who's handling an order inquiry is unavailable and the ticket is reassigned to another agent, the new agent can use a snippet that includes the ticket ID, customer name, and other details to maintain consistency in the style of their response.
Administrators can provide users permission to share snippets with others in the organization. Users can share unlimited number of snippets.
To enable snippet sharing permissions
- Go to Setup > User Management > Profiles.
- Select a Profile.
- Under Administrative Permissions, toggle Share Snippet.
To share snippets
- Go to the reply editor.
- On the reply editor's toolbar, hover on the Snippet icon ().
The snippet menu will be displayed. - Click View All Snippets.
- In the search bar, type the required snippet name.
- Hover over More icon and click Edit.
- In the Edit Snippet panel, do the following:
- Toggle Share Snippet.
- Add the required agents.
- Click Save.
Working with Snippets
While drafting a response to a ticket, agents can search for the snippets according to their requirements. Snippets can be selected from the following lists:
- View all snippets - Contains snippets created by the user and those created by other users.
- Recently used snippet - Lists frequently used snippets for quick reference.
Agents can see how the snippet appears by clicking
Preview. They can also view the user who created it and the last modified time of the snippet.
To use a snippet
- Go to the Tickets module and click on the desired ticket.
- In the Ticket details view page, click Reply All, Reply, or Forward to open the reply editor.
- On the toolbar, hover on the Snippet icon ().
- Click View All Snippets.
The snippet menu will be displayed. - From the menu, search for and select the required snippet.
Note: The placeholders used in snippets will be auto-populated. For example, if the contact's name is Sarah, Sarah's name will be displayed in the snippet. - Click on the required Snippet.
Using tabs to quickly insert snippets
- Users can use the Tab key to quickly insert the snippet content in the reply editor. After writing the snippet name, they can click tab on their keyboard to automatically populate the content.
- Users can sort the snippets using the Modified Time to insert the recent or Latest snippet using the Tab key.
Editing and deleting a snippet
Agents can edit the content of a snippet as needed, or delete them if they're no longer in use. They can only edit or delete the snippets they've created. If an agent deletes a shared snippet, it will be deleted for other users as well.
To edit or delete a snippet
- On the toolbar, hover over the Snippet icon ().
- Click View All Snippets.
- Hover over the required snippet.
- More icon will appear only for snippets in My Snippet list.
- Click Edit or Delete as required.
- Click Yes, Delete in the warning message.