Dealing with a mountain of support tickets coming in every day? It’s a challenge every support team faces. Keeping track of customer issues, getting them to the right person, and figuring out what’s happening overall all depend on one basic thing: sorting those tickets into categories. In Zendesk, putting tickets into categories helps you keep your support queue organized and gives you useful data to look at later.
But let’s be real for a second. Reading and categorizing every single ticket by hand? It’s slow, it’s often inconsistent, and it eats up precious time that your team could be spending actually helping customers. It’s a bottleneck that stops teams from working smoothly and really getting the most out of the data sitting in their helpdesk.
This is where artificial intelligence steps in. AI is changing how businesses handle support, and one of the biggest ways it helps is by automating and improving ticket categorization. By letting AI analyze and sort tickets, you can cut out the manual work, get more accurate results, and unlock powerful features like more effective Zendesk advanced search and insightful reports. Let’s chat about why this matters and how AI makes it happen.
Why sorting tickets will matter for your support team
Having a solid way to categorize tickets isn’t just about keeping things neat. It’s actually crucial for running an efficient support operation. When tickets are sorted accurately, you can set up rules to automatically send them to the right agents or teams. This means customers get connected with someone who can help them faster.
Categories also give you the organized data you need for useful reporting and analysis. They let you look at your support data in different ways, using Zendesk advanced search filters and reports to figure out which issues pop up most often, how different teams are doing, and where things might be getting stuck. This kind of insight is key to making smart decisions to improve your product, services, or how you handle support. Plus, clear categories help agents quickly understand what a ticket is about, which speeds things up and helps them respond quicker.
The tricky parts of sorting tickets by hand or with simple rules
Even though it’s important, the old ways of categorizing Zendesk tickets have some real downsides. Asking human agents to read and sort every single ticket that comes in takes a huge amount of time. It pulls them away from talking to customers and fixing problems.
Keeping things consistent is another big issue. What one agent calls a “billing” problem, another might tag as “payments” or “invoicing.” This lack of consistency makes it tough to get accurate reports and spot trends. And as more and more tickets come in, sorting them manually just doesn’t keep up. Trying to stay on top of it can lead to backlogs and agents feeling overwhelmed.
Even using basic keyword triggers in Zendesk can be limited. While triggers can automatically add simple tags, they struggle with how people actually talk. Customers might describe the same problem using totally different words, or one keyword could mean different things depending on the rest of the message. This often leads to tickets being put in the wrong category, which kind of defeats the point of automating. These difficulties really show why we need a smarter, more flexible way to do this.
How AI automates and makes Zendesk ticket categorization better
Artificial intelligence offers a really strong answer to the problems with sorting tickets manually or just using simple rules. Basically, AI uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) to understand what the incoming tickets actually say, much like a person would, but way faster and for tons of tickets at once.
How it works usually goes like this: The AI looks at the ticket’s subject line, the description, and any other important details. Based on patterns it’s learned, keywords, the context, and even the tone, the AI can figure out the topic, what the customer wants, and how urgent it is. Then, it can automatically add the right tags, put the ticket in the correct category, and even send it to the best department or agent.
This automation makes things much quicker, makes sure tickets are sorted the same way every time, and gives agents more time to focus on the harder problems. It cuts down on human mistakes in tagging and makes sure that even when you have a ton of tickets, they’re sorted accurately and efficiently.
Checking out AI options for sorting Zendesk tickets
If your business wants to automate how tickets are sorted in Zendesk, you have a few choices. There are features built into Zendesk itself, or you can look at tools from other companies that connect with it.
Zendesk’s own AI for categorization
Zendesk does have some AI features built-in that are meant to help with sorting, mainly through something called “Intelligent Triage.” This is part of a separate, extra-cost add-on called Zendesk’s Advanced AI, so it’s not included in the regular plans.
Intelligent Triage is designed to automatically look at new tickets and guess things like what the customer intends, how they’re feeling (sentiment), and the language they’re using. This info is then added to the ticket, which is supposed to help with sending it to the right place and deciding how important it is.
However, Zendesk’s native AI for categorization has some limitations:
- It costs extra with the expensive Advanced AI add-on, adding a good bit to the cost per agent each month.
- It mostly learns from your Help Center articles, meaning it might not fully understand the specific details, common issues, and unique words you see in your past support tickets or internal documents.
- This can lead to sorting that isn’t quite as accurate or complete compared to tools that can learn from more places.
- You don’t get as much flexibility to set up really custom sorting rules compared to some third-party tools.
- The pricing based on each “resolution” can make costs hard to predict, especially if Zendesk’s idea of an “automated resolution” is broader than you expect.
Other AI tools and ways to connect them
Luckily, there are lots of other tools and platforms out there that work with Zendesk and offer more advanced AI sorting features. These can be apps you find on the Zendesk Marketplace, or you might use connection platforms like Make.com to link Zendesk with powerful AI services.
One really strong and flexible option that can work alongside or enhance your current setup is eesel AI.
Why eesel AI is great for Zendesk ticket categorization
eesel AI was built specifically to handle the things that native Zendesk AI and other tools might miss. It gives you a stronger, more tailored way to sort tickets.
Here are some key advantages of using eesel AI for Zendesk ticket categorization:
- Wider knowledge sources: While Zendesk AI might stick to Help Center articles, eesel AI can learn from your past Zendesk tickets, internal files like Google Docs or Confluence, external wikis, and over 100 other places. This means it learns from your specific support history and internal knowledge, leading to incredibly accurate sorting that really gets the types of issues your team deals with. Plus, it syncs automatically, so the AI is always learning from the latest info. You can check out eesel AI at https://eesel.ai.
- Deeper customization: eesel AI also lets you customize things a lot through its prompt and actions setup. You can tell the AI exactly how to sort tickets based on detailed criteria, not just simple predefined ideas. This means you can set up rules that describe precisely when and how things like adding tags, sending tickets, or escalating them should happen based on what the ticket says and its context.
- Predictable cost: When you think about cost, eesel AI uses a flexible pay-as-you-go model based on interactions. This is often much more predictable and costs less than paying per agent or per resolution, especially as your team or the number of tickets grows. You can find more details on eesel AI pricing on their site.
- Easy setup: Getting eesel AI set up with Zendesk is really smooth. The integration is designed to be easy to set up, so you can improve how you work in Zendesk without needing to move complex data around.
- Robust testing: eesel AI lets you test things better. You can use its simulation feature to see how the AI would sort tickets using your past data before you turn it on for real. This helps make sure it’s accurate and lets you tweak how the AI performs before it starts working with actual customer tickets.
Thinking about setting up AI-powered categorization
Putting AI categorization in place needs some thought, but it doesn’t have to be overly complicated. The main thing is to focus on the big picture ‘what’ and ‘why’ before you get into the technical ‘how’.
Here are some key steps and tips to consider:
- Figure out your categories clearly: Before you even look at AI tools, create a logical, complete set of categories that makes sense for your business and your customers. This gives the AI a structure to work within.
- Pick the right tool: Look at different options based on if they can learn from your specific data (can it learn from past tickets like eesel AI?), how much you can customize them, how well they connect with Zendesk, and how they charge.
- Make sure your data is ready: The knowledge sources you’ll use to train the AI – whether it’s your Help Center, old tickets, or internal documents – should be correct and up-to-date.
- Plan how your agents will work with tickets that the AI has categorized: Will they double-check the categories? How will they use them for sending tickets or searching? Making sure the AI fits into their daily work is really important.
- Plan to test and make changes: No AI is perfect right away. You’ll need to check how accurate the AI’s sorting is and adjust its training or rules over time. Tools like eesel AI have simulation features that make this testing process much simpler.
Smart ways to use tickets sorted by AI
Once AI is automatically sorting your Zendesk tickets, you can get some big benefits by using that organized data effectively.
Here are some smart ways to leverage AI-sorted tickets:
- Enhance Zendesk advanced search and reporting: The consistent categories and tags the AI adds become powerful ways to filter things in Zendesk Explore or custom views. This lets you analyze things in amazing detail, helping you quickly spot trends, see how different categories are performing, and get a much better understanding of how your support is doing.
- Improve routing rules: Use the categories the AI applied to build more exact triggers and automations that send tickets to specialized teams or agents based on what they’re good at.
- Identify knowledge gaps: By looking at categories where the AI often needs a human to step in or can’t find answers (eesel AI even helps you with specific Knowledge Gap Analysis), you can figure out where your Help Center articles or internal documents need to be improved.
- Monitor and adjust: Regularly check if the AI is sorting tickets accurately. Use feedback to tweak the AI’s training or rules so it keeps getting better over time.
Ready to make your Zendesk ticket categorization better?
Sorting tickets manually in Zendesk is tough work that slows things down and makes it harder to really understand your support data. Artificial intelligence offers a great solution, automating this task quickly and consistently.
AI-powered sorting makes workflows smoother, ensures your data is accurate, and helps you get the most out of features like Zendesk advanced search and reporting. While Zendesk’s own AI is a starting point, tools like eesel AI offer more depth, flexibility, and value for doing advanced sorting and automation.
If you’re looking for a flexible, powerful, and cost-effective way to automate how you sort Zendesk tickets and improve your support processes, check out eesel AI. It connects easily with Zendesk and learns from all your knowledge sources for really accurate results.
You can start a free trial today or book a demo to see how eesel AI could work for your team.
