Shared values: From classroom lessons to teaching moments in customer service

Shared values: From classroom lessons to teaching moments in customer service

While the world observes Teachers’ Day on October 5, in India, we celebrate a month earlier, on September 5, to mark the birth anniversary of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a great teacher, renowned scholar, educationist, and advocate for empowerment.
We've all had different kinds of teachers in our school years. Their influence continues to shape us as professionals. Some inspired creativity, others instilled discipline, while many patiently walked us through challenging lessons. If we reflect, each teacher has made an impact on our lives, just as every customer interaction leaves a mark on both sides.

​

The common ground for teachers and customer service

Patience and endurance

Teaching and customer service require patience. Customers may come to us frustrated or overwhelmed by circumstances. Sometimes, the stress of the moment affects them more than the “issue”. Like teachers guiding students through confusion, customer service professionals' empathy and patience offer clarity and reassurance alongside solutions.

Simple communication

Teachers excel at breaking down complex concepts into simple, digestible lessons. Customer support agents require this skill to help customers find solutions with simple and easy navigation steps. A simplified process helps customers get hooked on our business. 

Empathy and encouragement

The best teachers are remembered for the way they made us feel: valued, encouraged, and raised our confidence to achieve more. Great customer service works the same way. A thoughtful email, a clear solution, or a proactive follow-up can turn frustration into trust and confidence.

Adaptability and continuous learning

Every student is different, and good teachers adapt their methods accordingly. In customer service, no two tickets nor two customers are alike. Support teams offer guided support through calls, live chats, webinars, and one-on-one sessions that mirror interactive lessons.

Beyond the issue

Teachers don’t just answer questions; they prepare us for future challenges. Likewise, customer service empowers agents to not only solve current tickets but also guide customers through proactive tips, tutorials, and community discussions that help them succeed long-term.

Feedback and growth

Teachers evaluate, correct, and encourage us to grow. Customer service thrives on feedback through CSAT surveys, community discussions, and follow-ups. Each interaction is a chance to improve, both for the organization and the customer relationship.

How does Zoho Desk embody teaching principles?

Knowledge base: Articles, FAQs, and screenshots serve as textbooks for customers.
Help center: A virtual classroom for customers to self-learn, track tickets, and stay informed.
Community: A space for peers and agents to exchange insights, like collaborative learning.
Continuous empowerment: Zoho Desk provides proactive support, product updates, product walkthroughs, and trainings to keep customers engaged and confident.

Time for reflection

Just like how our teachers have left lasting imprints on our lives, the service we provide to customers leaves an impression on them. Each successful issue resolution can help a person grow and thrive at work.

We’d love to hear your experiences:
  1. Which teacher has influenced you the most, and how have their lessons carried over into your professional life?
  2. Share teaching experiences you've had with customers: imparting knowledge, building trust, or guiding them through challenges.
  3. Can you recall a moment where your patience and empathy changed the course of a customer interaction?
At Zoho Desk, we believe in celebrating not just service, but the spirit of teaching that underpins it. Thank you for continuing to share your experiences with us; it helps us connect, learn, and grow together.

Happy Teachers’ Day to all the teachers who shaped us, and to every customer service professional who continues to teach, guide, and empower their customers.

Best wishes, 
Lydia | Zoho Desk

    • 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

    • Recent Topics

    • Signature field is showing black

      Hello, When customer signed the service form, it is showing as below picture Phone model: iPhone 16 Pro We tried delete and install application, but it not solved. This has on phone of a few person. There is any advice to solve this?

    • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - AI-Enhanced Insurance Claim Management in Zoho Creator

      Hello Everyone! We’re excited to invite you to another edition of Learning Table Series, where we showcase how Zoho Creator empowers industries with innovative and automated solutions. Struggling with lengthy claim processes, a lack of visibility into

    • How to update changed purchase account of item in invoice

      I have selected the wrong purchase account for various articles and created invoices. I had to adjust the purchase account in the article afterwards, but the old purchase account is still posted in the transaction-journal of the invoice. To adjust the

    • Zoho Suite is very slow

      Since today Zoho is incredibly slow over all applications! What's going on?

    • Not sure how to use credits to my account

      Hi I have a $50 credit to my account. I'm just wondering how I can apply that to either a current invoice or to try a new service. Any advice would be great, thanks. Kind Regards Chris

    • Control who sees Timeline and Interactions in Zoho CRM through Profiles

      The feature has been enabled for all DCs (except US, EU, and IN DCs). We will be rolling it out to the other DCs in the upcoming days. Dear All, In a CRM, not all users would require access to the history of a record. For instance, a Marketing Operations

    • Zoho Desk Integration - Add the option to send the estimate from the Zoho Desk Ticket Integration

      Hi, Currently in the Zoho Desk integration, the user is able to create an estimate from a ticket, once the estimate is created the user can see the estimate under the ticket (see screenshot below), but is not able to send that estimate from Zoho Desk.

    • Utilisation de Zoho en conformité avec l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI)

      Cher(e) client(e), Conformément à l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI) impose aux entreprises assujetties à la TVA d’utiliser des systèmes de caisse ou de gestion commerciale certifiés lorsqu’elles enregistrent des ventes à des particuliers.

    • Issue showing too many consultations in my workspace link.

      Hi Team, I’ve set up two Workspaces to track meetings from different sources. So far, this has been working well, and the two Workspaces are differentiated without any issues. However, when I navigate to Consultations and share the link to my personal

    • 👋 Welcome to the Zoho MCP Community

      Hello all, glad to have you here! This is your space for everything AI agents, MCP tools, and intelligent business apps. This community is for you — developers, partners, creators, and businesses exploring how agents can transform work. Whether you’re

    • CRM Validation Rules Support Only Single Condition

      Simply put, CRM validation rules support only a single condition for each field on "All Records". You also cannot specify additional validation rules on the same field because it has already been used in an existing validation rule. The ONLY solution

    • Unapproved Leaves are hard to distinguish in Attendance View

      This is a an unapproved leave request It appears in the Attendance view without any visual indicator if its approved or not For a whole day request this might be manageable but for hourly requests it gets very hard to know which are approved, which are

    • Performance Appraisal Probation Period

      Hello All,  Is there any possible way to create an appraisal cycle for new staff members, at the end of probation period? Many thanks!

    • Zoho Creatorの一括操作における処理の同期/非同期について

      現在、Creatorのレポート機能を利用して、複数のレコードに対して一括で処理を実行しようとしていますが、処理の実行順序について確認したいことがあります。 レポート内の複数レコードに一括で処理を実行した際、処理は同期的に行われるのでしょうか？それとも非同期的に行われるのでしょうか？ 【同期処理の場合】 レコード①に対する処理が開始され、終了後にレコード②に対する処理が開始され、最後にレコード③に対する処理が実行されるように、処理が順番に行われる場合。 【非同期処理の場合】 レコード①、レコード②、レコード③の処理が一斉に開始され、それぞれ並行して処理が行われ、全処理が終了する場合。

    • Adding Chargebee as a Data Connector

      Is it possible to get Chargebee added as a Zoho Analytics data connector?

    • Delete commerce website

      I need to delete a commerce website, but the only option is to click on settings, REQUEST DELETE, choose an urgency notice, add a message....AND THEN nothing, no way to send the request. Why is nothing simple!?!?!  I just want to delete the store.  The

    • Adding external users to Zoho Social under Zoho ONE licence - how to best achieve this

      My client has a small business, and we are looking to implementing Zoho ONE with a single flexible user licence as that is all they really need and offers the best pricing for the range of modules we eventually wish to set them up with, one of which will

    • Has anyone built a custom AI support agent inside Zoho (SalesIQ/Zobot)?

      Hi all, I’ve been experimenting with building my own AI support assistant and wanted to see if anyone here has tackled something similar within Zoho. Right now, I’ve set up a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline outside of Zoho using FAISS. It

    • This mobile number has been marked spam. Please contact support.

      Problem Description: One of our sales agents in our organization is unable to sign in to Zoho Mail. When attempting to log in, the following message appears: This mobile number has been marked as spam. Please contact support at as@zohocorp.com @zohocorp

    • Zoho Books - Hide Convert to Sales Order if it can't be used.

      Hi Books team, I noticed that it is not possible to convert a Quote to a Sales Order when a Quote is not yet marked as accepted. My idea is to not show the Convert to Sales Order button when it is not possible to use it, or show it in a grey inactive

    • What’s New in Zoho Inventory | April 2025

      Hello users, April has been a big month in Zoho Inventory! We’ve rolled out powerful new features to help you streamline production, optimise stock management, and tailor your workflows. While several updates bring helpful enhancements, three major additions

    • Zoho Books - Quotes to Sales Order Automation

      Hi Books team, In the Quote settings there is an option to convert a Quote to an Invoice upon acceptance, but there is not feature to convert a Quote to a Sales Order (see screenshot below) For users selling products through Zoho Inventory, the workflow

    • When Zoho Tables Beta will be open to EU data center

      Hello all, We in EU are looking at you all using and testing and are getting jealous :) When we will be able to get into the beta also? We don't mind testing and playing with beta software. Thank you!

    • Pass current date to a field using Zoho Flow

      I am trying to generate an invoice automatically once somebody submits a record in Zoho CRM. I get an error in the invoice date. I have entered {{zoho.currentdate}} in the Date field. When I test the flow, I get "Zoho Books says "Invalid value passed

    • API: Mark Sales Order as Open + Custom Status

      Hi, it's possible to create Custom Status (sub-status actually) states for the Sales Order. So you have Open, Void. Then under Open you can have Open, and create one called Order Paid, Order Shipped, etc etc...which is grouped under Open. I can use the

    • Zoho Quartz Screen Recording

      Hello, can we get access to Quartz, please, as a standalone solution? It would be great for creating training videos for current and future staff on how to use Zoho software according to our company requirements. Thank you

    • Tip 26: How to hide the "Submit" button from a form

      Hi everyone, Hope you're staying safe and working from home. We are, too. By now, we at Zoho are all very much accustomed to the new normal—working remotely. Today, we're back with yet another simple but interesting tip--how to hide the Submit button from your forms. In certain scenarios, you may want to hide the submit button from a form until all the fields are filled in.  Use case In this tip, we'll show you how to hide the Submit button while the user is entering data into the form, and then

    • filter broke my data

      I uploaded a file recently from Sheets and it has top 2 rows frozen, with table headers in second row and each one is filterable. somehow my first 2 columns became unfiltered and no matter what I do I cannot reapply the filter?? also didn't realize they

    • How do I move Notes around within a Group?

      It says here: " You can now sort notes by title (alphabetically), or by date modified and date created. You can even organize your notes by dragging and dropping them into a particular order. To sort your notes, simply go to Settings and tap “Sort By.” Please note: all sort settings will be saved and synced across devices, except for custom sorting. Custom sorting will be device specific."However, I am unable to 'custom sort' in either Notebook for Mac or on the Web. In addition, I can't find the

    • Generate a link for Zoho Sign we can copy and use in a separate email

      Please consider adding functionality that would all a user to copy a reminder link so that we can include it in a personalized email instead of sending a Zoho reminder. Or, allow us to customize the reminder email. Use Case: We have clients we need to

    • Zoho Sign: need to leave document pending for up to a year, or maybe there's a better way?

      I have zoho one, maybe there's a better way to do this with another service than sending a zoho sign template from zoho crm. At the end of the day this requirement is due to regulations, no matter how dumb it may seem. I'm just looking for a way of getting

    • Separate Items & Services

      Hi, please separate items and services into different categories. Thank you

    • What's New in Zoho Inventory | Q2 2025

      Hello Customers, The second quarter have been exciting months for Zoho Inventory! We’ve introduced impactful new features and enhancements to help you manage inventory operations with even greater precision and control. While we have many more exciting

    • Mastering Zia Match Scores | Let's Talk Recruit

      Feeling overwhelmed by hundreds of resumes for every job? You’re not alone! Welcome back to Let’s Talk Recruit, where we break down Zoho Recruit’s features and hiring best practices into simple, actionable insights for recruiters. Imagine having an assistant

    • We are unable to process your request now. Please try again after sometime or contact support@zohoaccounts.com

      I cannot sign up and return the error of we are unable to process your request now. Please try again after sometime or contact support@zohoaccounts.com

    • Multi-currency - What's cooking ?

      Hi,       We have been doing this feature for sometime and we would like to give you some glimpses of it.  Working with Multi Currency :        Multicurrency support gives you the ability to handle business transactions in multiple currencies. You can define a base currency for your organization and add more currencies with exchange rates based on the base currency.  Setup :        From the setup page, you can manage all the currencies supported by your organization.       Currencies page        

    • Integrating Chatbot with Zoho Creator Application

      Is it possible to integrate a chatbot with a Zoho Creator application?

    • How to reduce programmatically the image uploaded by user?

      I need a function that will automatically reduce the pixel dimension to 800 x 600 pixels / 180 resolution or (approx. 1.37MB) of image uploaded by user from digital camera, for example, 2271 x 1704 pixels /180 resolution or approx. 11.1MB. After the user selected the image, the function will able to detect if pixels is above 800x600, process the photo (crop/ reduce) and resume upload. Need help...  

    • Dark mode for Zoho Creator / Zoho CRM Code editor

      Hi Team, Is there any plans for Dark mode in Zoho creator / Zoho Crm code editor and development pages in pipeline?

    • Is there a way to make a button scroll down?

      Looking to have a button on a landing page scroll down to another section on the page. Any recomendations outside of coding?

    • Next Page