Zoho Desk: 2023 Feature Release - All New Zoho Desk with accessibility controls and exciting new features and enhancements

Redefining customer service experiences

I. New Generation Zoho Desk

The Zoho Desk UI has been enhanced with a more engaging, intuitive, and user-friendly interface. The new design adheres to an advanced unified component library and follows standard design guidelines.

The fresh Zoho Desk interface brings changes that provide support to agents with a range of easy-to-use and convenient options that save time and effort while increasing productivity.

Take a look at some of the elements of our new UI:

The Agent Queue now displays the agent's name first in the queue. Agents can work on assigned tickets right from this window.

Tags can be edited and deleted from the Tag view in the left panel.

Work Modes provide an organized and clutter-free view. All work modes, including status, handshake, countdown, and priority are consolidated under the list views.

Ticket status can now be changed right from the Queue view without opening the Ticket Detail view.

Filters applied to quick search a record are now displayed as breadcrumbs to provide better context and facilitate better understanding.

Ticket Detail view now includes more functionalities:

Tags can be added from the info panel.
CCs can be added and edited from the info panel.
Color distinction differentiates between public and private comments.
Compact info bar holds more icons and displays extensions for quick access.

This is just a glimpse of some of the key changes incorporated into the new UI design.

Resources: Help documents

II. Providing inclusive experiences

We believe that software should be accessible to all. This was our goal in building an all-inclusive interface to cater to our world-wide customer base. With this in mind, we introduce:

Accessibility controls that help users adjust, enable, or disable visual and display preferences to their liking. Users now have the option to:

Highlight critical information, such as Ticket ID, agent name, email address, and ticket owner in striking colors for prominence and cognitive appeal.
Underline links for quick identification.
Emphasize areas that a user should focus on with highlights and colored outlines around the text.
Optimize animations, motion graphics, and transitions by reducing motion or by allowing Zoho Desk to auto-adjust based on the computer settings. The screen jerks, page transitions, unwanted animations, and motions that can cause distraction and increase strain on the eyes can be mitigated substantially.
Use a reading mask to shine a spotlight on the text as you hover over it. Blur the background for distinction, less distraction, and better comprehension.
Adjust display and layout with page zoom and font size and type.
Set display preferences with new themes and night/dark mode. Switch between light mode, night mode, or auto-mode based on your surroundings.

Multilingual support for your Knowledge Base helps customers access self-service content in their preferred language. Your KB content can be translated and published in 50+ languages.

III. Introducing enhanced privacy and transparent management

Data is the backbone of a business and it requires secure handling. This year, Zoho Desk took big strides to enhance privacy and provide better data management options by introducing:

Data subject rights: In accordance with GDPR, Zoho Desk now provides a reliable and secure system to protect and process customer data. DSR protects two different rights: Right to Access and Right to Erasure. Refer to the help doc for more details.

Right to Access: Data subjects can request a copy of their personal data. In Zoho Desk, you can register a request and send a copy of the data from one or more modules. Data will be exported, and you can send it securely from your official email account.
Right to Erasure: Data subjects can raise a request asking the organization to delete their personal data. In Zoho Desk, you can take up this request and permanently delete the data from one or more modules.

Read receipts for emails: Emails sent from tickets will bear a green double check mark when they've been read by the recipient. This helps agents manage high-priority tasks, deadlines, follow-up conversations, and more. Check marks in different colors indicate whether CC or BCC recipients have read the email, the number of recipients that replied to the email, whether the email bounced or failed, and more. Read the help doc for more details.

Data Backup: A foolproof method for preventing data loss is to periodically back up your data. Zoho Desk now facilitates instant and scheduled backups. Data from the Tickets, Products, KB, Activities, Agents, Teams, and other modules can be backed up as and when needed. Refer to the help doc for more details.

Other new features and enhancements

Aside from these updates, we have some exciting new features:

Auto-translation of your help center

To support your multilingual knowledge base further, Zoho Desk now offers auto-translation of your KB articles to multiple languages. The article, title, tags, SEO title, meta descriptions, and meta keywords will be auto-translated using tools such as Google Translate, Unbable, or Zia, based on their configuration. Refer to the help doc for more details.

Custom actions gallery for Workflow automations

Introducing custom actions to improve workflow automations. The new set of available actions includes: Assign Ticket, Add Comment, Send Email Reply, Share Ticket, Send Cliq Notification, Reply and Notify via Instant Messaging, and more. Refer to the help doc for more details.

Idle timeout to improve agent productivity and optimize ticket assignment

Desk provides the option to set the maximum duration for which an agent can remain idle. After that time, their status will automatically change from online to offline. Increase productivity and maintain better control over ticket assignment by choosing agents based on status. Refer to the help doc for more details.

More functionalities added to Blueprints

Advanced configurations we've added to Blueprint include:

Strict mode: Agents can be restricted from performing certain actions, like editing fields, sending replies, leaving comments, and asking for approvals during a transition. These functions will be hidden from the ticket interface.
Dynamic transition owner: Users can assign transition owners for records as and when needed. The transition owners need not be necessarily from the same department that the record belongs to.
Save draft: Blueprints that are in progress can be saved as drafts so you can resume work at another time.
Additional fields provided during transition: During transition, "tags" is included as a field that can be updated by the agent. Ticket sharing is also an available action. If the agents want, they can share a ticket with team members during the transition.
Transition draft: Save a transition until its finalized as a partial draft. During this stage, multiple transition owners can be involved in its completion. The draft will display the name of the person who drafted the transition and when it was drafted.

New set of marketplace extensions

Earlier this year, we introduced a set of new extensions aimed at enhancing Zoho Desk's performance. The new extensions are:

Zoho Campaigns integration

Experience the benefits of Campaigns within your help desk. Create mailing lists, add or remove customers from mailing lists, find out how many campaigns customers are part of, and more. Refer to the help doc for more details.

Broadcast email template

Create email templates for multiple departments at once, insert an agent's signature and default happiness rating within the template, provide profile-based access to the template, and more. Refer to the help doc for more details.

Related tickets by custom fields

Improve ticket resolutions by adding custom fields. Using these fields, agents can look up tickets with similar field values to identify similar problems, and provide quicker and more personalized solutions. Up to five custom fields can be added to a layout, and can display information such as ticket ID, ticket owner, status, and date/time created from related tickets. Refer to the help doc for more details.

That's a wrap.

We're excited to share the new version of Zoho Desk with its inclusive functionality, improved automation, comprehensive privacy options, helpful extensions, and more.

The new features are now available for all users. Give them a try and share your feedback.

Regards,

Anumita Gupta

Book the date!

We will be hosting an exclusive webinar for the 2023 Release Features on 22nd December (Thursday) at 9pm IST.

Kindly register using the link below.

Registration Link

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