Ring in the New Year with Guided Conversations for Smooth Offline Support

Ring in the New Year with Guided Conversations for Smooth Offline Support

As we step into the new year, it’s time to refocus, re-energize, and gear up for fresh opportunities. But what about your customers as they begin the year with their own set of challenges or queries to resolve? 
With Zoho Desk’s Guided Conversations (GC), you can ensure they’re supported seamlessly, even as your team navigates the post-holiday rush.

Zylker Techfix, a mobile gadget firm, has a busy start as its customers flood them with requests: repair appointments, service inquiries, delivery tracking, and questions about new products. By leveraging Guided Conversations, Zylker Techfix provided an efficient, self-service experience that kept customers engaged while their team prioritized high-value tasks.

Here’s why Zylker Techfix setup the Guided Conversations feature within Zoho Desk:
  • Customers could effortlessly log repair or service requests.
  • Delivery updates and product inquiries were instantly addressed without delays.
  • Clear and reassuring messaging kept customers informed that their concerns were logged and would be prioritized.


Guided Conversations acts as a dependable, 24/7 virtual assistant, automating ticket creation while offering a personal touch. Its intuitive, drag-and-drop builder enables you to design workflows that guide customers through their questions, gather essential information, and create tickets—even when your team is unavailable.

For businesses like Zylker Techfix, GC turned the often-hectic start of the year into an opportunity to build stronger customer relationships. By ensuring requests were acknowledged and logged, customers felt valued and confident that their needs were being addressed.

As you plan for the year ahead, Guided Conversations can help you create a customer experience that’s efficient, thoughtful, and future-ready. 

Guide to Set up Guided Conversations (GC) in Zoho Desk
Here’s how you can easily set up Guided Conversations to create tickets when agents are unavailable/offline:
1. Go to Setup > Self-Service > Guided Conversations.
2. Select the department before creating the flow because Guided Conversations are department-specific. 

Create a New Flow
3. Click on the Create Flow tab in the top-right corner.
4. Select the Web Channel. 
5. Enter a Name and Description for your flow, then click Next.
6. The GC design window will appear. Below the Guided Conversation icon, click the + icon to start building your flow.
7. Drag and drop elements from the right-hand panel to create your conversation blocks.
8. Drag the Text Message Block and drop it into the flow. Type a Welcome message. 
9. Enter the Name of the block and the Message you want to display to customers. This block is used to share direct information with your customers.
10. Click the + icon below the text message block and add a Question Block.
11. Use the Question blocks to collect inputs from customers based on your questions.
For example, use the following Question Blocks using the + icon to receive the information from your customers: 
  • Name (Text Block) 
  • Email (Email Block)
  • Contact Number (Number Block)
  • Date (Calendar Block for availability)
  • Attachments (Attachment Block to receive files or images, such as screenshots).


Add Button Choice Blocks
12. Use the Button Choice Blocks to present predefined options to customers, such as a list of countries, states, or regions. This is useful for collecting specific information like location and understanding the time zone.
13. Drag the Text Question block to receive a description on the Issues submitted. 
14. Create the Date and Time question block to get the customer's availability time to reconnect, if required. 



To Create a Ticket
15. Now, click on the Zoho Desk blocks, click on the Create ticket.
16. Give the Block Name, choose the Department (the same department where you create this Guided Conversation), choose the layout for the Email template. 



17. In the Input variable mapping, click on the gear icon, map the field variables in the Tickets layout with the Flow variables created within  GC. 

For example, map the Email field within Tickets to the Email block in GC, map Phone with the Phone field, map Subject with the Issue Type, and map Description with the Describe issue text block



18. Click Save to save the mapping variables
19. In the Output variable mapping, click on the gear icon, map the ticket related information which you would like to share with the customers within the GC.  



Preview and Publish
20. Once all blocks are added, click on Preview to view the flow and ensure it works based on your requirements. 
21. Save your changes, and click Publish. Your Guided Conversation is ready to use!
Notes
Note: Some blocks are being developed for Instant Messaging (IM) channels and will appear faded out if you choose IM channels.
Create A GC Widget
i.    Go to Setup(S) >> Self Service >> Guided Conversations >> GC widgets. 
ii.   Click on Create GC widget. Give a Name and Description. 
iii.  Choose the Channels. click on the drop-down arrow under Associate flows >> Add Flow >> select the Published GC.
iv.  Click Associate. under Access Permissions, select users based on your preferences. 
v.   Enter your preferred welcome message that you would like to appear on your GC widget.
vi.  Enter End Options based on your preferences.
vii. Click Save to save your GC widget. 
ASAP Widget
Go to Setup (S) >> Self-Service >> ASAP >> Create New Widget. 
a. Enter a Name, enable the widget launcher to show the widget on your website. 
b. Associate the help widget with required departments.
c. Choose the required modules to associate with the widget.
d. Once you are done, click on Generate.  
Embed GC 
You can obtain the embed code to integrate the widget into your website or Help Center, as well as the organization ID for iOS and Android SDKs.
i.   Go to Setup (S) >> Self-Service >> ASAP. 
ii.  Hover over the created ASAP widget; click on Embeddable Code.  
iii. Copy the web embed code for use on your website or Help Center.
iv. Use the iOS ID for iOS SDK and the Android ID for Android SDK.
That’s it—your Guided Conversation is now live and ready to assist your customers! 

Pro Tip 
Guided Conversations can be tailored to suit a variety of scenarios, from managing customer inquiries to streamlining ticketing operations. Enhance the customer experience by customizing, editing, or updating workflows to meet their needs effortlessly.

Explore our Guided Conversation Guide and the automation with GC to  ensure your customers always have the support they need.

Here’s to a fantastic start to the New Year! Wishing you success and seamless experiences ahead: Happy New Year 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

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Can't connect to POP and SMTP over VPN

        I use Thunderbird to access Zoho Mail via POP and SMTP. I have configured an app-specific password for Thunderbird to use. Everything is properly configured and works correctly — until I enable my VPN. I'm using a paid commercial VPN service (Mullvad).

      • my zoho mail is hacked

        my email is sending my username and password to people i dont know

      • Suministrar accesos

        Asunto: Enable UPLOAD_RULE for API Attachments Mensaje: Hola, Necesito habilitar la capacidad de subir attachments vía API en Zoho Mail. Actualmente recibo el error: "UPLOAD_RULE_NOT_CONFIGURED" al usar el endpoint: POST /api/accounts/{accountId}/messages/attachments

      • Introducing real-time document commenting and collaboration in Zoho Sign

        Hi, there! We are delighted to introduce Document commenting, a feature that helps you communicate with your recipients more efficiently for a streamlined document signing process. Some key benefits include: Collaborate with your recipients easily without

      • Ticket Loop from Auto Responce

        We’re seeing an issue where a client’s help desk triggers a ticket loop. When they email us, our system creates a ticket and sends the acknowledgement. Their system then creates a ticket from that acknowledgement and sends one back to us, which creates

      • How to make rule to filter out some emails from receiving the notification "Receiving a new ticket"?

        Good Morning, We are currently using the "Receiving a new ticket" notification rule to provide that auto reply template to a customer that emails us for support. However, there are some emails we don't want to receive this auto-reply. Where can I set

      • Zoho Signatures Missing

        In the past after collecting signatures from two different PDFs I would merge them by calling an api and the signatures would appear in the combined PDF. Recently the signatures have disappeared whenever I combine the PDFs together. Why did this randomly

      • Filter button in the Zoho Sheet Android App doesn't toggle on

        I am a new Zoho Sheets user and experiencing a specific issue with the filter functionality in the Android mobile application. Detailed Issue Description: The filter icon appears correctly in the toolbar. Upon tapping the filter icon/button, the toggle

      • Automate pushing Zoho CRM backups into Zoho WorkDrive

        Through our Zoho One subscription we have both Zoho CRM and Zoho WorkDrive. We have regular backups setup in Zoho CRM. Once the backup is created, we are notified. Since we want to keep these backups for more than 7 days, we manually download them. They

      • Exciting Updates to the Kiosk Studio Feature in Zoho CRM!

        Hello Everyone, We are here again with a series of new enhancements to Kiosk Studio, designed to elevate your experience and bring even greater efficiency to your business processes. These updates build upon our ongoing commitment to making Kiosk a powerful

      • New activity options for workflows

        Greetings, We are excited to announce the addition of two new dynamic actions to our workflow functionality: Create Event and Schedule Call. These actions have been thoughtfully designed to enhance your workflow processes and bring more efficiency to

      • Remove the “One Migration Per User” Limitation in Zoho WorkDrive

        Hi Zoho WorkDrive Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to raise a critical feature request regarding the Google Drive → Zoho WorkDrive migration process. Current Limitation: Zoho WorkDrive currently enforces a hard limitation: A Zoho WorkDrive

      • Kaizen #228 - Process Large-Scale Migrated Data Using Catalyst Solutions

        Howdy, tech wizards! This week’s Kaizen explores how Catalyst Solutions in the Zoho CRM Developer Hub help import large volumes of data into Zoho CRM while improving data quality and simplifying the migration process. Why Catalyst Solutions? Catalyst

      • Zoho Expense Import Reports Won't Work Because Default Accounts Already Exist

        Im trying to import reports from another Zoho expense account to mine and im getting errors that won't allow the import to happen The account name that you've entered 'Ground Transportation' already exists. Enter another name for the account and try again.z

      • Inactive License for free account.

        I recently upgraded my Cliq subscription not my team (on the free version), are unable to login to their accounts. The error message received is Inactive License Looks like you have not been covered under the current free plan of users. Please contact

      • Syncing zoho books into zoho crm

        I was wondering how I can use zoho books in crm as I have been using them separately and would like to sync the two. Is this possible and if so, how? Thanks

      • Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.34.0)

        Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce the latest updates to Trident, which are designed to take workplace communication to the next level. Let’s take a quick look at what’s new. Connect with customers using Zoho Voice integration. You can now easily

      • The Social Wall: January 2026

        Hello everyone, We’re back with the first edition of The Social Wall of 2026. There’s a lot planned for the year ahead, and we’re starting with a few useful features and improvements released in January to help you get started. Create a GBP in Social

      • How to block whole domain?

        I am getting at least 50-75sometimes over 100 spams emails a day. I see a lot of the spam is coming from .eu domains. I would like to block /reject all email coming for the .eu domain. I do not have any need for email from .EU domains. Why won't the BlackList

      • How Zoho Contracts Makes Negotiations Clear, Secure, and Transparent

        Negotiation is one of the most critical—and often most chaotic—stages of the contract lifecycle. Multiple stakeholders review the same document, propose changes, debate terms, and exchange feedback. Without the right tools, this collaborative process

      • Error: Invalid Element tax_override_preference

        In both Books and Inventory, we're getting the following error whenever we try to enter any Bill: I think this is a bug. Even cloning an old bill (that obviously was entered just fine), this error occurs.

      • Assign Income to Project Without Invoice

        Hello, Fairly new user here so apologies if there is a really obvious solution here that I am just missing... I have hundreds of small deposits into a bank account that I want to assign to a project but do not want to have to create an invoice every time

      • How to Print the Data Model Zoho CRM

        I have created the data model in Zoho CRM and I want the ability to Print this. How do we do this please? I want the diagram exported to a PDF. There doesnt appear to be an option to do this. Thanks Andrew

      • our customers have difficult to understand the Statements

        our costumers have big problems to understand Zohos Statements. we need a text box after the payment number to explain what the payments are for. Is it possible to develop a version of the Statement with that kind of box and if so whu can do it

      • How to track a list of ALL the items that ONE customer bought?

        Hello, I am interested in getting a list of all the items that only ONE of my customers bought, and the invoices are what show up instead. It's very tedious to go through every single invoice when we sell a lot of items to this customer. Surely there

      • Exchange Rate Updates

        Hi, It would be great that when you work with multiple currencies, the exchange rate updates automagically every day (as seen on Zoho Books) or at least that when you create/update an opportunity the exchange rate could be manually updated, or maybe both!

      • Locked Out of Super Admin Account

        I'm locked out of my Super Admin account and the external e-mail is no longer associated with it. There seems to be a problem during set up, the system ought to ask to assign a new password instead of using Google accounts. Please help me get back access.

      • Emails are going to notification folder and not in inbox

        emails are going to notification folder and not into inbox

      • 550 5.4.6 Unusual sending activity detected. Please try after sometime

        Hi, I am receiving this error message when trying to send my emails. The only reason I can think why this is happening is my previous two emails were bounced back to me due to a non working mailbox error. I have followed the online links for unblocking

      • Projects Home Customization

        Hello! We've been in Zoho One since July of last year, and my team has started providing feedback on what they'd like to do. Their latest wish is that they could have more control over the Projects Home content. For example, they want a card that shows

      • IMAP search support

        Does Zoho Mail support IMAP search? https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9051.html#name-search-command TEXT <string> Messages that contain the specified string in the header (including MIME header fields) or body of the message. Servers are allowed to implement

      • Performance is degrading

        We have used Mail and Cliq for about three years now. I used to use both on the browser. Both have, over the past 6 months, had a severe degradation in performance. I switched to desktop email, which appeared to improve things somewhat, although initial

      • Cannot reorder fields in Page Layout in Expenses and Purchase Requests

        It is very inconvenient that the custom fields in Page Layout cannot be re-ordered. The only way is to remove the fields and re-create them; however, it is impractical. This would affect the reports and dashboards we are having. Not able to re-order the

      • bouncing emails

        My recurring invoices have bounced back

      • Probable Scam / Phising attempt from email pretending to be Zoho

        I think this is a scam email right? It says "zohCworkplace.com". I'm on the Mail Free plan The link in the CTA button seems to go to a redirect. Just wanted to bring it up to the security team.

      • Feature Request: Ability to set Default Custom Filters and apply them via URL/Deluge

        I've discovered a significant gap in how Zoho Creator handles Custom Filters for reports, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. This limitation has been raised before and continues to be requested, but remains unresolved. The

      • Email Address Search in "To" Field Search is broken, Zoho refuses to fix it

        Typing a part of the email address string other than the beginning of the string does NOT work, I kindly urge Zoho to fix this. Let's say you remember writing an email so someone called "smith" from company "corp.com", but can't remember their first name,

      • Emails not being received by @hotmail.com, @outlook.com and a few others

        When I try to send emails from zoho mail to people with email addresses ending @outlook.com and @hotmail.com (and a few others), I get a 'delayed' automatic email and then a few hours later, an 'undelivered' automatic email. This has started a few months

      • scroll bar for far left of screen

        I am unable to even see the scroll bar to the right of "inbox" etc on the left; it is stuck at "streams" and I can't get to inbox or anything else. It would help if it could be made a lighter color as the black or dark grey can't bee seen.

      • OUt of office every friday

        Hi, I tryed to configure my out of office, because i'm not working or emailing on fridays. But when i select only friday as unavailable day, the out of office still sets for the whole week. What am I doing wrong?

      • Next Page