How to use Zendesk AI suggestions to personalize refunds and exchange replies: A step-by-step guide

Let's be real: handling refunds and exchanges is a drag. For customers, it’s usually the sour end to a bad experience. For your support team, it's a repetitive task where one wrong word can make things ten times worse.

AI is supposed to make these things faster, but speed shouldn't mean sounding like a robot, especially when a customer is already annoyed. The good news is, you can have both speed and a human touch. This guide will walk you through exactly how to use Zendesk's built-in AI tools to improve your refund and exchange replies.

We'll start with the tools already inside Zendesk, but then we'll get into how to build upon these features to get some seriously seamless and smart automation going.

What you'll need to follow along

Before we jump in, here’s a quick list of what you’ll need to have ready:

• A Zendesk suite plan: The AI agents and Copilot features are usually part of plans like Suite Professional or can be added on.

• Admin access: You’ll need to be an admin to get in and set up the communication guidelines for your AI.

• An existing knowledge base: Zendesk's AI relies heavily on your help center articles to come up with suggestions, so having a decent one is pretty important.

• (Optional) An eesel AI account: Later, we’ll talk about how you can connect eesel AI to your workflow as a complementary tool to boost your personalization and automation game.

Step-by-step: Using Zendesk AI to personalize replies

Getting started with the tools inside your Zendesk account is a great first move. By adjusting a few settings, you can make a big difference in the quality of your AI-assisted replies.

Step 1: Define your brand voice

First things first, you need to tell your AI how you want it to sound. In Zendesk, you do this with communication guidelines. Just think of it as a style guide for your bot that keeps everything consistent.

According to Zendesk's own documentation, the best guidelines are specific and focused on tone, not just a list of rigid rules. Instead of just making a list, it's better to group them logically and give clear examples of what to do and what not to do.

For example, you could create a guideline for refunds that says something like: "Always start with an apologetic and professional tone. Acknowledge the customer's frustration before jumping into the solution." Then you could specify what to avoid, like casual slang ("no worries," "my bad") or making promises you can't keep about refund times. A good example might be, "I'm so sorry to hear that your item arrived damaged. I can definitely help you with a refund." A bad one would be, "No worries, we can refund that for you."

Setting these ground rules ensures every AI suggestion starts off on the right foot, giving your agents a much better foundation to work with.

Step 2: Use Copilot to refine replies

While guidelines set the overall tone, your agents still need to be able to tailor replies to each specific situation. This is what Zendesk Copilot and its "Enhance writing" tools are built for. These features let agents adjust the AI's output with a single click, right in the text box.

When dealing with refunds and exchanges, a few of these tools are especially helpful:

• Make more friendly: This is perfect for when a loyal, long-time customer has a small issue and you want to sound extra reassuring.

• Make more formal: You’ll want to use this for serious complaints, high-value orders, or business clients where a professional tone is a must.

• Rewrite in your tone: This is a pretty cool feature. It looks at the agent’s previous messages in that specific conversation to make sure the AI's suggested text matches their personal style.

Here’s how quickly it can change a reply:

• Before: "Refund processed. It will take 5-7 days."

• After (using "Make more friendly"): "Great news! I've just processed your refund. You should see it back in your account within 5-7 business days. Let us know if you need anything else!"

That small adjustment can completely change how a customer feels about the whole interaction.

Step 3: Clean up your help center

The truth about Zendesk's AI is pretty simple: the quality of its suggestions depends entirely on the quality of your knowledge base. If your help center is a jumble of outdated articles, your AI's suggestions will be just as confusing.

To get better Zendesk AI suggestions to personalize refunds and exchange replies, you need to give it clear, well-structured information to learn from. Here are a few things Zendesk recommends:

1. Create specific, single-topic articles. Don't cram everything into one giant "Returns Policy" page. Break it down into articles like "How to Request a Refund," "Exchanging an Item for a Different Size," and "Our Holiday Return Policy."

2. Use clear, question-based titles. Write your titles the way a customer would actually ask the question. "How long do refunds take to process?" works much better for an AI than a generic title like "Refund Timelines."

3. Keep the content focused. Every article should have one clear purpose and lead the reader to a single solution. This helps the AI find the exact piece of information it needs to answer a question.

If you spend a little time cleaning up your help center content on these topics, you'll notice an immediate improvement in how accurate and helpful the AI's suggestions are.

Considerations for scaling with Zendesk's native AI

While these steps will certainly help, there are some factors to consider as you grow. Zendesk's native AI is an excellent starting point, and understanding how it works will help you decide when to add complementary tools to your system.

Focus on the Zendesk ecosystem. The AI is highly optimized to look at your Zendesk help center and ticket history. This ensures that the suggestions are based on your most relevant support data. If your team keeps other information in external sources like Google Docs or Confluence, you can use integrations to bring that context into the conversation.

Streamlined data access. The AI is designed to help agents know what to say based on internal knowledge. For specific tasks that require checking live order statuses in Shopify or CRM history, Zendesk’s marketplace offers a variety of tools to help agents find that information without leaving the platform.

Specialized for communication. Zendesk's Copilot is an industry-leading text generator that helps agents draft professional replies. To automate the refund process itself, such as tagging tickets or initiating backend updates, you can pair Zendesk with powerful workflow automation tools.

Iterative optimization. Fine-tuning any AI is a process of learning and refinement. Zendesk provides a robust foundation, and by monitoring performance, you can continuously adjust your guidelines to better serve your customers.

How eesel AI enhances personalization and automation

This is where a tool like eesel AI fits in. It doesn't replace your helpdesk. Instead, it plugs right into your existing setup (like Zendesk) and builds on the capabilities we just talked about. Think of it as an intelligence layer that gives your team superpowers.

Bringing all your knowledge together

The first thing eesel AI does is connect to all of your company's knowledge, complementing what's already in Zendesk. This includes past tickets, macros, Google Docs, Confluence, Notion, and pretty much anywhere else you store information.

This means when a customer asks for a refund on a "Model X Pro," eesel AI can help look at more than just the generic refund policy. It can also see troubleshooting steps from similar past tickets and instructions from a Google Doc. The result is a highly accurate reply that works in harmony with Zendesk's native AI.

Custom actions: Moving beyond basic text suggestions

eesel AI can be set up to perform tasks alongside your agents. You can configure its workflow engine to help automate the refund process.

Imagine this scenario:

1. A customer emails asking for a refund.

2. eesel AI reads the ticket and uses a custom action to look up the order in Shopify.

3. It checks the purchase date to see if the item is eligible for a return.

4. If it is, eesel AI can help tag the Zendesk ticket as "Refund-Approved" to alert the right team.

5. Finally, it drafts a personalized reply for your agent, including the order details it just found, making the final review a breeze.

This is a complete workflow that works within Zendesk to save your agent time and ensure accuracy.

Test and go live with confidence in minutes

eesel AI is designed to be a user-friendly addition to your tech stack. You can sign up and get it running in a few minutes, making it a simple way to expand your Zendesk capabilities.

You can also take the guesswork out of your automation with its simulation mode. Before you turn your AI agent on, you can test it on your past tickets. You'll see how it would have responded and tagged tickets, giving you great data on its performance. This lets you go live feeling completely confident in your setup.

Zendesk AI suggestions are just the start

Using the AI tools already inside Zendesk is a great place to start. By setting clear communication guidelines and giving your agents access to Copilot, you can add a much-needed human touch to your refund and exchange replies using a mature, reliable platform.

To reach new levels of efficiency, you can build on these features. True personalization and automation happen when your AI has access to a wide range of knowledge sources and the power to take action across your tools.

For teams who are ready to move from simply writing replies to automating entire processes, adding a tool like eesel AI is a natural next step. It enhances the Zendesk tools you already know and love, helping you build a smarter support system.

Ready to automate more than just replies?

See how eesel AI can plug into your Zendesk account in minutes. You can run a simulation on your past refund tickets and see the difference for yourself. Try it for free today.

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