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

      • How can I import OLM to Yandex Mail easily?

        For migrating Mac Outlook OLM data to Yandex Mail efficiently, the Aryson OLM Converter is a reliable professional tool that ensures complete data integrity throughout the process. Unlike manual methods, which can risk inconsistent formatting or missing

      • Introducing Radio Buttons and Numeric Range Sliders in Zoho CRM

        Release update: Currently out for CN, JP, AU and CA DCs (Free and standard editions). For other DCs, this will be released by mid-March. Hello everyone, We are pleased to share with you that Zoho CRM's Layout Editor now includes two new field formats—

      • Is it possible to setup bin locations WITHOUT mandating batch tracking?

        Hi fellow zoho users, I'm wondering if anyone else has a similar issue to me? I only have some products batch tracked (items with shelf life expiry dates) but I am trying to setup bin locations for my entire inventory so we can do stock counting easier.

      • Implementing Inventory Process

        I am just starting to create an inventory system through Zoho for a nonprofit. We receive in-kind donations of items for kids, and utilize them in 2 or 3 different programs. Then families come in and take the items. I'm thinking of this structure: Our

      • Best way to start zoho inventory with bulk openning stock

        We are already using zoho book since long time for cars trading company. Now to streamline more, would like to import the excel data of closing stock of inventory to zoho inventory and to start on. Since we need to track each VIN (unique vehicle id number)

      • Service Reports.

        Hello Team, I have a requirement to create multiple service reports for a single AP. That means, in one AP I have 5 service line items, and all line items are linked to assets. Once I complete the AP, I want to generate 5 individual service reports, one

      • Blueprint enhancements - Parallel and multiple transitions, and more

        Last modified on Sep 4, 2023: All Zoho CRM users can now access these enhancements. Initially, these features were available only on an early access basis and by request. However, as of August 2, 2023, they have been made available to all users in all

      • Item Bulk Edit - Allow for Reorder Level

        We're implementing a process for using the Reorder Level field for Items, and I have to go through and add this value to a huge chunk of our Items. It's driving me bonkers that I have to do this individually through the UI rather than bulk updating. It

      • Zoho CRM || Unable to Bulk Assignment of Territories for Contacts

        Dear Zoho CRM Support Team, I hope this email finds you well. We recently performed a bulk upload of Contacts into Zoho CRM using the official sample Excel template downloaded from the CRM. The upload itself was completed successfully; however, we encountered

      • What's New in Zoho Inventory | August – October 2025

        Hello customers, The last quarter has been incredibly productive! We've released a powerful slate of new features and enhancements in Zoho Inventory designed to give you better control, greater efficiency, and expanded functionality across your inventory

      • Disable Zoho Inventory Tracking / Delink Zoho Books & Inventory

        We have integrated zoho inventory with zoho books? Now after a long time, we want to disable inventory tracking and delink these 2 modules. Zoho says we cant do it. Anybody else going thru the same ? Any possibility at all? Why does zoho not allow to

      • Tracking Non-Inventory Items

        We have several business locations and currently use zoho inventory to track retail items (sales and purchase orders). We were hoping to use zoho inventory to track our non-inventory items as well (toilet paper, paper towels, etc). I understand that we

      • Price Managment

        I have been in discussions with Zoho for some time and not getting what I need. Maybe someone can help explain the logic behind this for me as I fail to understand. When creating an item, you input a sales rate and purchase rate. These rates are just

      • Set Warehouse based on Vendor

        Greetings. I would like to set automaticaly the Warehouse based on the Vendor. Context: I am working on an adaptation of a Purchase Order to be used as a Quotation. I have defined that when a user has to raise a quote the Vendor will be "PROCUREMENT" I would like to set the Warehouse to a predefined value when "PROCUREMENT" is set as Vendor. I have tried to do with the Automation feature using the Field Update option, but Warehouse does not is listed as a field. Can you help? Thanks in advance.

      • Auto tagging

        Some of the articles I enter into Notebook get there when I enter them in Raindrop.io and IFTTT copies the articles in Notebook. When this happens the notes are tagged but instead of useful one word tags with topic the tag pertains to the specific article

      • How do I save audio files to my PC that I record into Zoho Notebook from my phone?

        I was thinking of using Zoho Notebook as a way to store composition ideas, as well as for other things if it can handle this. For this to be useful for me though, I need to be able to have an easy way to download those audio files to my PC, either individually

      • Search mails in shared mailbox

        Hi everyone, is there a way to search mails in shared mailbox's? Search in streams or mail doesn't return anything from mails in shared mailboxes. Thanks! Rafal

      • Kaizen #186 : Client Script Support for Subforms

        Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting Kaizen post on Client Script! In this edition, we’re taking a closer look at Client Script Support for Subforms with the help of the following scenario. " Zylker, a manufacturing company, uses the "Orders"

      • Writing SQL Queries - After Comma Auto Suggesting Column

        When writing SQL Queries, does anyone else get super annoyed that after you type a comma and try to return to a new line it is automatically suggest a new column, so hitting return just inputs this suggested column instead of going to a new line? Anyone

      • Sync your Products Module for better context.

        In customer support, context is everything. The integration between Zoho Desk and Zoho CRM helps your sales and support teams function as one, delivering better customer experiences. With the latest update to this integration, you can now sync the Product module in your Zoho CRM with your Zoho Desk portal. This feature enables products from Zoho CRM to reflect in the "product" field in Zoho Desk. This can save your support team valuable time and effort.    Some things to note when syncing the two:

      • Where is the desktop app for Zoho Projects???

        As a project manager, I need a desktop app for the projects I manage. Yes, there's the web app, which is AWESOME for cross browser and platform compatibility... but I need a real desktop app for Projects that allow me to enter offline information where

      • CRM verify details pop-up

        Was there a UI change recently that involves the Verify Details pop-up when changing the Stage of a Deal to certain things? I can't for the life of me find a workflow or function, blueprint, validation rule, layout rule ect that would randomly make it

      • Does Zoho Writer have Dropdowns

        I want to add a drop down field in Zoho writer. Is this possible?

      • openUrl in blueprints

        My customer wants to open a URL at the end of a blueprint transition. Seems this isn't possible right now but it would be very useful. In this thread, https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/openurl-not-working the Zoho agent said that it's logically

      • Dropshipping Address - Does Not Show on Invoice Correctly

        When a dropshipping address is used for a customer, the correct ship-to address does not seem to show on the Invoice. It shows correctly on the Sales Order, Shipment Order, and Package, just not the Invoice. This is a problem, because the company being

      • Prepayment of a sales order

        How does everyone handle this common (at least it is common for us!) situation? We require all our orders to be fully prepaid before shipment since we manufacture made to order, custom products. Since ZOHO does not allow a sales order to be prepaid, we are forced to create an invoice at the time an order is placed to allow the customer to pay it. Our sales category is therefore skewed, since the sale was actually booked at the time an order was placed, rather then at the time it is shipped, which

      • Access to Specific Zoho Desk layout for external parties

        Hi, We have a partner who handles for us sales requests from specific markets. He is not a Zoho Desk user. But we want him to b part of a specific Zoho Desk layout to handle inquiries.  How to achieve it in the easiest way possible?

      • Deposit on a Sales Order

        Good day, 100% of my business is preorders, no inventory. I am trying to run away from QB for one of my businesses, but I require two options that I don't seem to find with Zoho Books. 1 - If there is a way to apply a deposit on a sales order, as with

      • How Does Knowledge Base Search and Article Recommendation Work?

        Hello, I would like to understand how the Knowledge Base search engine works. Specifically, does it search based on: The article title only? The full article content? Both, the article and the content? Keywords? Tags? Also, how does the system determine

      • Bulk Delete Attachments

        Is there a way to bulk delete attachments on the form entries? our storage is full and deleting files one by one is pain taking process.

      • How do I sync multiple Google calendars?

        I'm brand new to Zoho and I figured out how to sync my business Google calendar but I would also like to sync my personal Google calendar. How can I do this so that, at the very least, when I have personal engagements like doctor's appointments, I can

      • Ability to Disable System Banner Messages in Chat Flow Control

        Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, Greetings, We would like to request an enhancement related to the system banner messages in Zoho SalesIQ chat flow control. Current Behavior: SalesIQ allows configuring various automatic banner/system messages such as: Waiting

      • Idle Chat Reminders for Agent-Handled Conversations

        Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, Greetings, We would like to request an enhancement to the Idle Chat Handling functionality in Zoho SalesIQ—specifically for chats that are handled by human agents after a bot-to-agent transfer. Current Behavior: In Zobot settings,

      • Snapchat

        Are there any plans to add Snapchat to Zoho Social or is there any API that we can use to integrate into Zoho.

      • Zoho Sign "An unexpected error occured" when clients trying to sign documents

        We are unable to have clients sign our documents. When attempting to complete the process an error appears saying "an unexpected error occured" and in the document history just shows "signing failure." We are at a complete standstill with no response

      • ¡Vuelven los Workshops Certificados de Zoho a España!

        ¡Hola usuarios de Español Zoho Community! Hace ya unos días que hemos dado la bienvenida al 2026, y promete ser un año de lo más emocionante. Y es que nos gustaría haceros nuestro particular regalo de Reyes, aunque lleguemos un poco tarde. 🎁 ¡Nos gustaría

      • How to list services on quote instead of products

        I need to create a customer facing estimate that displays our services. The default quote layout only allows products to be listed. Is there a way to correct this?

      • Syncing calendar with Google Calendar doesn't work when events are sent to auto repeat

        Hi... The ZOHO CRM -- GOOGLE CALENDAR sync is broken. If I create a single event on either side, sync works, but if I create an event with auto repeat on either side it doesn't work. Furthermore, events created before the sync don't show up in the calendar.

      • Invoice status on write-off is "Paid" - how do I change this to "Written off"

        HI guys, I want to write off a couple of outstanding invoices, but when I do this, the status of the invoices shows as "Paid". Clearly this is not the case and I need to be able to see that they are written off in the customer's history. Is there a way

      • Zoho Books - France

        L’équipe de Zoho France reçoit régulièrement des questions sur la conformité de ses applications de finances (Zoho Books/ Zoho Invoice) pour le marché français. Voici quelques points pour clarifier la question : Zoho Books est un logiciel de comptabilité

      • Next Page