Your inbox called; it wants less clutter

Your inbox called; it wants less clutter


Inbox full of ghosts? Let Auto-Close do the haunting.

Ever stared at your support inbox wondering why half the chats are just… sitting there? No reply, no closure, just hanging like unread messages from a advertising company.

Let’s fix that.

With Auto-Close, you can set a timer to close inactive conversations automatically. It keeps your inbox clean and helps your team stay focused on what matters.

What is Auto-Close? 

Think of it like the support team’s version of putting the dishes away after dinner.

When a conversation goes quiet (no response from the customer), Auto-Close steps in, waits for a set time, and wraps it up for you. You decide how long is “too long.” Could be 10 minutes. Could be 24 hours. Either way, once the clock runs out, Auto-Close quietly shuts the door. No mess. Just a cleaner inbox.

Why use Auto-Close?  

Save your team’s time. No more manually closing chats that have gone cold.
Set expectations. A clear close message shows customers you’re not ignoring them, you’re just staying efficient.
Stay compliant. Platforms like WhatsApp only allow replies within 24 hours. Auto-close helps you stick to the rules.
Spot trends. Auto-closed chats give you insights into where customers drop off.

Auto-Close isn’t a one-size-fits-all feature.

You can adapt to the platform, the agent, and even the bot.

Let’s break it down:

You’ve got a WhatsApp chat going. The customer asks something, and your agent replies. But then… silence. You’ve set the auto-close timer to 30 minutes. The countdown begins. If the customer doesn’t respond by then, poof! The conversation closes.

For bots, the clock starts as soon as they send a message. You can choose from presets like 5, 10, 15 minutes or 24 hours. If the user doesn’t reply, the bot closes the chat.

Different businesses, different beats.

Let’s say you run:
  • An e-commerce store: Sometimes it's clear people want quick answers to specific questions like “Where’s my order?” or “What’s your return policy?” Use short timers like 5–10 minutes in these cases to keep your queue fresh.
  • A SaaS company or IT support desk: Users might need time to try your suggestions. Give them breathing room with timers between 30–60 minutes.
  • A healthcare or financial service: The stakes are higher here. A customer might pause mid-chat to check a report or talk to someone else. Use conservative timers, 60 minutes or more, and send occasional re-engagement messages like, “Still there? We’re here to help.” 

You’ve got the feature. Now make it work smarter.

  • Keep WhatsApp chats within the 24-hour window.
  • Use short timers for FAQs, longer ones when handling complex questions.
  • Always give a gentle nudge before closing: “We’ll close this chat in 10 minutes. Reply to keep it going!”
  • Review your auto-closed chats regularly. You might spot patterns like when people usually drop off, or which agents get longer pauses.

FAQ time


Can agents override auto-close?
Absolutely. Closed chats can be reopened anytime from the Closed section.

What if I reply just before the chat auto-closes?
The timer resets! The chat stays open as long as the conversation is active.

Can I set different timers for each channel?
Yes. WhatsApp, Messenger, LINE; you can set up timers for each to match their rules.

What happens if a chat is manually turned into a ticket before auto-close?
Let’s say a customer chats with you, and you manually convert it to a ticket before auto-close kicks in. That conversation becomes part of a new ticket. When auto-close runs later, it closes the chat thread, not the new ticket. The chat and ticket are now separate.
   

Let’s hear from you  

Do you have a sweet spot for your timers? Or a clever workaround your team uses? Maybe a bot trick that saved the day?

Share your Auto-Close success stories (or disasters turned into lessons) in the comments.

Your tweak might just be someone else’s "aha!” moment.


      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Topic Participants

          • Raj R

          • Sticky Posts

          • Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

            Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote
          • WhatsApp pricing changes: Pay per message starting July 1, 2025

            Starting July 1, 2025, WhatsApp is shifting from conversation-based pricing to per-message billing. That means every business-initiated message you send will count. Not just the first one in a 24-hour window. Pricing updates on the WhatsApp Business Platform
          • Live Webinar - Work smarter with Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace integration

            Hello customers! Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace are coming together for a webinar on 14th May, 2024. Zoho Workplace is a suite of productivity apps for email, chat, docs, calls, and more at one single place. Zoho Desk is closely integrated with a few tools
          • Apple iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates for Zoho Desk users

            Hello Zoho Desk users! Apple recently announced the release of iOS 17 and iPad OS 17. These latest OS updates will help you stay productive and efficient, through interactive and seamless user experiences. Zoho Desk has incorporated the updates to help
          • Zoho Desk Cheat Sheet For The Year-End

            Check out these Zoho Desk best practices to end this year on a high and have a great one ahead! #1 Set Business (Holiday) Hours - If you have limited working hours, please make sure you restrict your business hours or set them as holidays for the coming days. Let your customers know when you will, and won't, be available. #2 Update the Annual Holiday List - Check the holidays for the new year and update the holiday schedule. Usually, holidays from the current year will be carried over for the next

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

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

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ




                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Unable to Download CRM Contact Data: WorkDrive Integration Issues

                                    ## Problem Description We need to let users download contact information from CRM as CSV files to their local computers. Since we couldn't implement a direct download option, we're trying to use WorkDrive as a workaround - but we're encountering issues
                                  • App Spotlight : PagerDuty for Zoho Cliq

                                    App Spotlight brings you hand-picked apps to enhance the power of your Zoho apps and tools. Visit the Zoho Marketplace to explore all of our apps, integrations, and extensions. In today's fast-paced world, seizing every moment is essential for operational
                                  • Campaigns going to spam folder, how to build so that it goes to inbox

                                    Hello, New to campaigns, now have it functioning correctly. In my test group of 10 email addresses 100% of the emails went to spam/junk folder and/or were blocked/captured by spam filters. What is the process to building a message or format that does
                                  • Integrate QuickBooks with Bigin and streamline your sales and accounting!

                                    If your business relies on Bigin for customer management and QuickBooks for accounting and invoicing, this new integration is here to make your operations more efficient. By connecting these two platforms, you can now manage your CRM and financial processes
                                  • When a ticket is merged, the merged ticket's link should redirect to the remaining ticket.

                                    Zoho Desk deletes merged tickets. Which is not ideal. The issue is if you have a link bookmarked, or even in your inbox from a ticket that was merged, when you visit you receive an error because merging tickets actually deletes the ticket that was merged.
                                  • Pass data from a Zoho Desk ticket to a Zoho Form as pre-fill data?

                                    Hello, I'm trying to pre-fill a Zoho form with client data based on the Zoho Desk ticket data that would be associated. Work flow i'm trying to create: 1. Ticket created for a sales order 2. order requires a site survey 3. link inside ticket links to
                                  • Goods total weight in Sales Orders

                                    Hello everyone, We want to automatically calculate the total weight in Sales Orders based on the weight data specified in the Items. Could you please suggest the simplest way to achieve this in Zoho Inventory? I would greatly appreciate any advice and
                                  • Problem with pagination in Zoho Inventory API

                                    Hello, I'm having an issue with the  Zoho Inventory API when I try to use the pagination. When I send a request to https://inventory.zoho.com/api/v1/items?authtoken=XXXXXXXXXX&organization_id=YYYYYY&page=1&per_page=50, I get back 200 items. And when I send the same request for the second page, https://inventory.zoho.com/api/v1/items?authtoken=XXXXXXXXXX&organization_id=YYYYYY&page=2&per_page=50 I'm getting back the same 200 items I get with the first request.  So I think neither the page parameter
                                  • Can a user be assigned to an Account based on email domain?

                                    Hi ZohoDesk, If I have a customer Account already configured is there any way I can use a domain matching rule to assign a new user to the correct account when logging a ticket by email? Many thanks Rich
                                  • Can't track conversions using GTM

                                    We had to move the installation of the SalesIQ widget from GTM to directly do it in our wordpress site. The SalesIQ widget was being blocked by Adblockers which caused a lot of our visitors to not be able to see it. This issue was fixed from deleting
                                  • WhatsApp Message Pricing Changes (Effective July 1, 2025)

                                    Starting July 1, 2025, Meta will introduce a per-message pricing model on the WhatsApp Business Platform, replacing the current conversation-based billing. This update affects all WhatsApp messages sent through Zoho Marketing Automation. We’ve broken
                                  • 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
                                  • Blueprint transitions on locked records

                                    We use the ability to automatically lock records (quotes, sales orders, etc.) based on criteria, such as stage. For instance, if a quote has been sent to a client, the quote is then locked for further edits. Our ideal quote stage process is: Draft>Sent>Won.
                                  • CC from mail client to Zoho CRM

                                    Hi,  Is it possible to have emails sent outside of CRM use a CC that sends them into the CRM and attaches to the record?  Thanks
                                  • Department e-mail signatures

                                    Hello everyone, We're just in the process of evaluating various help desk software alternatives and Zoho is looking pretty good to us at the moment. Our set up is a bit strange and I was wondering if this is possible. We have one tech who looks after
                                  • How can I hide "My Requests" and "Marketplace" icon from the side menu

                                    Hello everybody, We recently started using the new Zoho CRM for Everyone. How can I hide "My Requests" and "Marketplace" from the side menu? We don't use these features at the moment, and I couldn't find a way to disable or remove them. Best regards,
                                  • Sites Speed and Performance Grades

                                    I noticed that there are no recent inquiries or complaints about load speed or performance issues with Zoho Sites websites. However, I wanted to understand what Zoho has done to ensure that speed remains optimized, images are compressed and lazy loaded,
                                  • Include Audio in Zoho Assist Session Recordings

                                    Hello Zoho Assist Team, We hope you're doing well. We’d like to formally submit a feature request regarding session recordings in Zoho Assist. 🎯 Current Limitation When conducting a Zoho Assist session that includes voice and/or video chatting, the recording
                                  • Unable to update Created Date/Time even via upsert

                                    hi all --- running a demo version and "recreating" some data from hubspot. I had tried the method to automatically move data over but it missed A TON of fields and some stuff wouldn't even map correctly so i am simply creating new Deal records to test
                                  • Blockchain Feature?

                                    Since I'm not an expert in this technology, is there any reason why you would not want to add this option to your Zoho SIgn documents? Is there a downside?
                                  • Kaizen #196 - Zoho CRM Queries - Best Practices

                                    Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone. Got
                                  • Best way to account for shipping charges to customer

                                    I have been allocating all our shipping expenses to the "postage" account, but I realise that is probably incorrect, as for the most part, we pass on shipping charges to our customers. So I should probably add the shipping charges into the "shipping charges"
                                  • Zoho Flow s’enrichit avec les subflows et les actions Webhook

                                    Nous sommes ravis d’annoncer deux ajouts importantsà Zoho Flow : les subflows et les webhooks sortants. Ces nouvelles fonctionnalités ont été conçues pour vous aider à créer des workflows plus facilement et à automatiser davantage de tâches répétitives.
                                  • How to assign canvas view for portal user

                                    Hi , as a portal user, I can switch to another canvas view, however, I cannot find any field to configure a default canvas view for portal user. May I ask how to set it up in CRM? And if I can view list by sheet view as a portal user?
                                  • Restrict Leave Application Based on Attendance Cycle (24th to 23rd)

                                    Hi Zoho Team, Our organization follows a custom attendance cycle from 24th of the current month to 23rd of the next month. I would like to configure the system so that: Employees should not be able to apply backdated leave for any date after the attendance
                                  • How do I assign a parent to an existing campaign?

                                    I created a campaign but now I'd like to make that existing campaign a child of another.  How can I do this?
                                  • Categorize Tickets Through The App

                                    I used to be able to categorize and assign tickets through the app without any issues. However, for the past year, whenever I try to edit a ticket, select a category, and click save, it doesn’t actually save the changes. As a result, I haven’t been able
                                  • Can't add picture to email template. Says I'm over the character limit.

                                    I tried creating an email template with a picture and it says I'm over the character limit. The picture is pretty small. What can I do?
                                  • Allow breakdown of per diem for meals provided

                                    Would it be possible to break the per diem down into what you get for each meal. The reason for this is we want to offer per diem but if a meal is provided by a customer or sales we need to remove this from the per diem bucket for that day. We break down
                                  • Automatically moving Leads into their corresponding buckets

                                    Hi, I have developed a lead pipeline and created different cadences for various lead segments. After enrolling leads into their respective cadences, each lead goes through a series of follow-ups (in my case, three emails). If a lead does not respond after
                                  • Tracking Email Template usage

                                    I'd like to be able to track how many times agents/users send an email from Templates. This is so we can track their activity in relation to Campaigns in CRM. Thanks
                                  • Get employee id of authenticated user via API

                                    Hi, For adding timetracking records an employee id is required. Is there an API Route available to get the employee ID of the current authenticated user? or something like /users/me Currently using https://people.zoho.com/people/api/forms/employee/getRecords
                                  • Collect in-app feedback with richer context and granular insights

                                    Hello, Apptics community! From GenAI chatbots to one-tap checkouts, user experience standards keep rising—yet 96% of unhappy users never explain what went wrong; they simply leave. Introducing in-app feedback 2.0 banner In-app feedback 2.0 is here to
                                  • Temporary restiction

                                    My account says You have been temporarily restricted from publishing jobs from Zoho Recruit.Click here to request a one-time approval to publish your jobs and when I go to click it shows error. Kindly assist.
                                  • Help with Quote template for peer review

                                    We are wanting to do peer review of quotes/proposals, however the quote templates dont have product cost, profit margins, etc. It is difficult for a manager to approve a quote without ensuring nothing is going out at improper margins, etc. I have not
                                  • How many AR fields We can add in a form?

                                    I want to add at least 10-15 AR fields in a form. I just want to know is there any limit on the AR fields or do I need to pay extra money for using 10-15 AR fields. Thanks in advance.
                                  • Agent working hours

                                    Hi, I know it is possible to set company business hours but is it possible so that agents can have different ones? I.e. some agents cover later hours on specific weeks - can these be set so those agents that are "working" get notified about tickets etc. 
                                  • Disallow CLOSE if tags field is empty

                                    I want to introduce a mandatory condition that NEW tickets (not prior closed tickets) cannot enter the CLOSED state without first having an entry in the tags field. Is there a way I can do this?
                                  • Central de Ajuda - Restringir visualização de tickets

                                    Estou tentando configurar o Zoho Desk para que determinados usuários dentro de uma mesma conta consigam visualizar apenas os tickets criados por usuários específicos dessa conta — e não todos os tickets ou apenas os seus próprios. Até onde sei, existe
                                  • Business Hours with lunch break

                                    Our business hours are: mon - fri 08:30 - 13:00, 15:00 - 18:30. How can I handle the lunch break? If I use 8:30 - 18:30 it obviously breaks SLA. Thanks
                                  • Next Page