How to set up your Zohodesk AI agent (and why you might need an alternative)

Imagine this: you have a support team that’s always on, never needs a coffee break, and answers customer questions in a flash. That’s pretty much what AI agents can do. They automate everything from simple “how-to” questions to more complicated stuff, freeing up your human team for the things that really need their touch. Instead of your agents sifting through tickets, tagging them, hunting down docs, and then writing out a reply, an AI agent can handle a lot of that in seconds. Zoho Desk actually has its own AI features built in to help teams get this kind of speed and efficiency.

But hey, just like any tool, Zoho Desk’s built-in AI might not be a perfect fit for everyone. It really depends on what you need and what you’re trying to achieve. Sometimes, a solution that’s built for more flexibility and deeper customization can give you even bigger wins. That’s where a platform like eesel AI could come in handy, offering a powerful alternative you might want to check out.

What is a Zohodesk AI agent?

Alright, let it’s break it down. At its core, a Zoho Desk AI agent is basically an artificial intelligence tool that lives inside the Zoho Desk customer service platform. Think of it as a digital teammate working right alongside your human support staff. Its main job is to make customer interactions smoother and support workflows faster by automating tasks and helping everyone find information quickly.

It’s kind of like a helpful sidekick for your agents, taking care of some of the heavy lifting. And for your customers, it can be a quick guide, helping them find answers fast. For instance, it can pull up relevant articles from your knowledge base the moment a customer asks a question. That cuts down on wait times and gets customers the help they need right away.

Key capabilities of Zohodesk AI Agent

Zoho Desk’s native AI, often powered by their AI engine called Zia, brings a few neat features to the table. These are all about making things run smoother and giving customers a better experience. They cover everything from handling tickets when they first come in to helping agents draft replies.

Here are some of Zia’s key capabilities:

• Smart ticket routing: Zia can look at incoming tickets and make educated guesses about things like what kind of issue it is or which product it’s about. This means tickets can get sent to the right agent or department automatically, kicking off workflows and speeding up that initial response time.

• Response suggestions: Zia also helps agents out. It analyzes the ticket content and can pull relevant info from your knowledge base or even suggest draft replies. This saves agents time and helps keep answers consistent. It uses generative AI to help agents whip up responses faster.

• Customer sentiment analysis: Knowing how a customer is feeling is a big deal, and Zia helps with that. It can figure out the emotional vibe in a ticket, giving agents a heads-up before they even dive into the full message. That way, they can approach the conversation with the right amount of empathy.

• Knowledge base insights: Zia offers insights into your knowledge base. It can look at common questions and ticket trends to spot areas where your self-service content might be missing something. This helps you build a more complete and useful knowledge base for both customers and your own team.

• Chatbots: Zia powers the chatbots you can put on your website or in your help center. These bots can answer frequently asked questions by pulling info from your knowledge base. That means customers get instant support, 24/7, and your human agents don’t have to deal with as many simple, repetitive questions.

Benefits of using Zohodesk AI Agent

Adding AI into your Zoho Desk setup can bring some real advantages to your support game. These benefits often mean happier customers and a team that gets more done.

Here are some benefits of using Zoho Desk AI:

• It saves your agents a ton of time. By automating tasks like finding info or suggesting replies, the AI handles the busywork, freeing up your team to focus on trickier issues and giving customers more personal help.
• AI also plays a big role in improving self-service. By giving you insights into what customers are asking and where they’re getting stuck, it helps you keep your knowledge base fresh and ensures customers can find the answers they need on their own, whenever they need them. According to a report by Gartner, roughly 70% of customers use self-service channels at some point, which just shows how important it is.
• Ultimately, AI helps make the customer experience simpler and faster. Customers get instant access to answers through bots or quicker replies from agents, and that usually leads to them being more satisfied.
• And finally, AI can help streamline your customer service operations. It automates routine stuff like routing tickets and updating requests, making sure things are handled efficiently and resolved quickly.

Limitations of Zohodesk AI Agent

While Zoho Desk’s AI gives you a good starting point, there are spots where its built-in features might feel a bit limited. This is especially true for companies with complex needs or those who want super-tailored automation. Knowing these potential drawbacks is important when you’re figuring out if it’s the right fit or if you should look elsewhere.

Here are some potential limitations of Zoho Desk AI:

• One common thing you might run into with built-in AI tools is limited customization. While Zoho Desk lets you do things like set bot personas, you might find you don’t have as much fine-tuned control over the AI’s tone, the exact words it uses, or how it handles unique situations compared to platforms built specifically for deep customization.
• Training can be a bit limited too. Zoho Desk’s AI mainly learns from your help center content. If your most valuable support knowledge lives in past tickets, internal documents, or other places, the native AI might not be able to use all of that for training. This could mean less accurate or less complete answers.
• Testing things out might not be as easy either. Some built-in AI tools offer limited ways to really test out how your AI workflows will work in a controlled environment before you let them loose on live customers. This can make you a bit nervous about rolling out new automation, worrying about tickets going to the wrong place or getting incorrect answers.
• Furthermore, the actionability of native bots can sometimes be limited. While they’re great at giving information or pointing to articles, doing more complex things like starting a refund, updating a user account using an API, or checking customer details might be beyond their standard abilities. A lot of bots mostly just repeat info from a knowledge base instead of actually fixing problems.
• And lastly, integration depth can vary. Zoho Desk connects well with other Zoho products, but connecting deeply with all the internal systems or outside platforms you need for advanced, data-driven automation might require custom work or be limited by how the native AI is built.

Understanding Zohodesk AI Agent pricing

Figuring out how Zoho Desk prices its AI features is pretty important for your budget. While some basic AI stuff is included in different plans, the more advanced automation often costs extra. And that can add up depending on your team size and how much you use it.

Zoho Desk includes its basic Generative AI features as part of its paid plans. But, just like other platforms, some of the more advanced AI tools might be in higher plans or require an extra add-on.

Here’s a general idea of how Zoho Desk’s plans might bundle AI. Just keep in mind that the specifics can change, and those advanced features might definitely have extra costs.

Things that can affect your final bill include:

• Number of agents: Your cost is usually per-agent.
• Customer interaction volume/number of automated resolutions: Some platforms charge per automated resolution.
• Integration needs: You may need extra investment for alternative tools if you need AI capabilities outside Zoho Desk.
• Monthly or annually billed: Monthly is often more expensive than annual.
• Advanced AI features needed: If you need more than basic Generative AI, an add-on will significantly impact the cost.

These costs can honestly grow pretty fast as your team or ticket volume increases.

Still not sure if Zoho Desk AI gives you enough for what you need? Here’s a quick side-by-side look at how it compares to eesel AI:

A better alternative: eesel AI

So, if those potential limits on customization, training, testing, or the cost structure of built-in AI tools like Zoho Desk’s make you think twice, there are platforms out there designed specifically to boost your existing helpdesk system. eesel AI is one of those platforms. It’s built to plug right into tools like Zoho Desk and give you more flexible, powerful, and potentially more cost-effective AI automation.

eesel AI offers both an AI Agent to handle tickets on its own and an AI Assistant (you could call it a Copilot) to give your human agents superpowers.

How eesel AI outperforms Zohodesk AI Agent

eesel AI is designed to fix those common headaches you might hit with native helpdesk AI. It offers some clear advantages in several key areas by connecting smoothly with your current setup, including platforms like Zoho Desk.

Here’s how eesel AI outperforms Zoho Desk AI:

• Flexible pricing: Forget paying per agent or every time the bot solves something. eesel AI uses a pay-per-interaction model with included usage tiers. This means you only pay for the AI help you actually use. It’s transparent and gives you predictable costs without surprise fees popping up as your team grows or ticket volume spikes. You can find more details on our eesel AI website.

• Comprehensive training: eesel AI really shines here. While some tools only learn from your help center, eesel AI can gobble up info from all sorts of places. We’re talking past tickets, internal documents (like Google Docs or Confluence), PDFs, external wikis, and over 100 other integrations. A really important part is that it automatically syncs and does scheduled training, so your AI always has the latest knowledge.

• Granular customization: This is another area where eesel AI stands out. You’re not stuck with just basic preset tones. With a dedicated tab for customizing the prompt and actions, you can tell your bot exactly how you want it to act and respond. This means it can match your brand voice and specific workflow needs perfectly.

• Robust testing: This is a big deal, and eesel AI makes it easy. You can actually test how the bot would answer old tickets to fine-tune its accuracy before you go live. You can also roll out your AI slowly to a small group of agents or for specific types of tickets. This lets you test things in a controlled, real-world setting before a full deployment. This is a nice contrast to potentially limited testing options in native tools.

• Real actionability: Want a bot that actually does things? eesel AI can go way beyond just giving info. Its custom API actions let your AI agent perform complex tasks like fetching order tracking, updating customer data, or even starting refunds by connecting to your internal systems. This means the AI can handle those Tier 1 tickets where it doesn’t just answer questions, but actually solves the problem.

• Seamless integration: eesel AI offers this by working with your existing helpdesk, like Zoho Desk. You don’t have to move all your data or completely change your platform. You just connect eesel AI to your helpdesk and your knowledge sources, and it enhances what you’re already doing. It’s a really flexible and adaptable solution.

Getting started with AI automation (a quick look)

Getting AI automation up and running should feel pretty straightforward, but how complicated it is can really depend on the tool you pick.

With a built-in solution like Zoho Desk’s AI, setting things up usually means configuring features within the Zoho Desk Admin Center, linking up your help center, and turning on specific AI tools like Zia’s chatbot or sentiment analysis.

Setting up eesel AI is designed to be quick and easy, connecting directly with the tools you already use. Here’s a simple flow of how that looks:

Here are the steps to set up eesel AI:

1. Connect your helpdesk (like Zoho Desk).
2. Add the places you want your AI to learn from (knowledge sources like past tickets, internal documents, PDFs, external wikis, etc.).
3. Tweak how it behaves and sounds (customize prompt, actions, tone).
4. Test it out to make sure it’s accurate (simulate old tickets, selective rollout).
5. Deploy it to your agents or customers and monitor performance.

The idea is to make your current setup better, not replace it entirely.

Monitoring and improving your AI agent

Once your AI agent is live, keeping an eye on how it’s doing is super important for making it better over time. Both built-in tools and platforms like eesel AI offer ways to track your AI’s performance, but the level of detail you get can be different.

• Zoho Desk gives you dashboard metrics related to Zia’s activity, so you can see how the AI is being used. This helps you understand the impact it’s having on your support operations.
• eesel AI provides detailed reporting, including metrics like deflection rate, which shows you how many questions the AI answers without needing a human. A really useful feature is knowledge gap analysis. This points out the areas where the AI had trouble finding answers. It highlights missing info in your training data so you know exactly what content you need to add or update to make your AI smarter over time. These insights help you fine-tune both your training data and the bot’s behavior for better accuracy and performance.

Choosing the right AI partner

Okay, wrapping up. AI is making big waves in customer support, and tools like the Zoho Desk AI agent definitely bring some neat stuff to the table to help teams handle tickets, work faster, and give customers a better experience. Zoho Desk’s built-in AI includes features like smart routing, response suggestions, and chatbots powered by Zia.

However, for companies that need more control, deeper customization, broader training options, and predictable costs, solutions like eesel AI offer a compelling alternative. By connecting smoothly with your existing Zoho Desk setup, eesel AI enhances your support workflows. It offers flexible pricing, comprehensive training from multiple sources (including your past tickets), detailed customization options, solid testing environments, and the ability to actually perform real, data-driven actions.

Ultimately, the best AI partner for you really depends on what you need, your budget, and what’s most important to you. If you’re looking for an AI solution that gives you maximum flexibility, control, and cost-effectiveness while working with the tools you already use, eesel AI is absolutely worth checking out.

Ready to enhance your Zohodesk support with smarter AI?

Don’t let the limits of built-in tools hold you back. See how eesel AI can integrate with your Zoho Desk setup to give you smarter automation, help cut costs, and empower your team.

Book a demo to see eesel AI in action or start a free trial today – no credit card required.