A practical guide to using the Zendesk Answer Bot to suggest articles before agent handoff

Let's be honest, it's a little heartbreaking. You and your team spend ages building out a beautiful, comprehensive knowledge base, and then a customer lands on your site and immediately types "chat with a human." All that work, bypassed in seconds.

It's not just frustrating; it ties up your agents with the same easy questions over and over. What if you could gently guide people to the right answer first?

That's exactly what we're going to do. This guide will show you exactly how to set up the Zendesk Answer Bot to suggest articles before agent handoff. We’ll go through the whole process, step-by-step, so you can start deflecting those common tickets and give your team more room to breathe.

Prerequisites for using the Zendesk Answer Bot

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's make sure you have everything lined up. Getting the AI tools working in Zendesk isn't quite a one-click affair, it depends on your plan and who has the keys to the castle.

• The right Zendesk plan. These AI features usually come with the Zendesk Suite plans (think Team, Professional, or Enterprise). If you're on a basic "Support" plan, you might not see these options. Just a heads-up, some of the fancier AI tools can be paid add-ons.

• Admin access. You’ll need to be an administrator in your Zendesk account to get into the Admin Center where all the bot magic happens.

• A decent knowledge base. Your bot is only as good as the information you give it. For this to work well, your Zendesk Guide needs to be filled with helpful articles that answer the questions your customers are actually asking.

How to set up the Zendesk Answer Bot to suggest articles before agent handoff

Alright, let's get this bot working for you. Follow these steps, and you'll have it pointing customers to the right articles in no time.

1. Enabling the AI agent

First things first, you need to turn the bot on. Head over to the Admin Center > Channels > Bots and automations > Bots. This is your command center for AI settings. Just make sure the bot is enabled for the channels you want it on, like your website's chat widget. You can even give your bot a name and a personality that fits your brand.

Navigating the general Zendesk Advanced AI Agent Settings to connect knowledge sources, a key step for the Zendesk Answer Bot to suggest articles before agent handoff.

2. Connecting the knowledge base

An active bot is great, but it needs something to read. You have to tell it where to find answers, and the best place to start is your Zendesk Guide knowledge base. In the bot builder, you'll add a step that says something like "Suggest articles from your help center." This tells the bot to search your articles based on what the customer asks and serve up the most relevant ones.

3. Mapping out the conversation

This is where you decide how the chat will actually go. Using Zendesk's Flow Builder, you'll create a conversation path that encourages people to find their own answers first.

Start your flow with a simple, open question like, "Hi, how can I help?" Then, drop in the "Suggest articles" step. After the bot shares an article or two, you need to ask, "Did that help?" Give them simple "Yes" and "No" buttons. If they click "Yes," great! The conversation ends. If they click "No," it's time for the next step.

A template for conversation flows in Zendesk, used to configure the Zendesk Answer Bot to suggest articles before agent handoff.

4. Setting up a smooth handoff

When a customer says the articles didn't help, you need a seamless way to bring in a human. In the Flow Builder, add a "Transfer to agent" step right after the "No" button.

This will pop the conversation into your live agent queue. It’s a good idea to set up routing rules in Admin Center > Objects and rules > Routing so the ticket lands with the right team. The best part is, the bot passes along the entire chat history, so your agent has all the context and the customer doesn't have to repeat everything. No one likes repeating themselves.

A workflow showing escalation handling, relevant for when the Zendesk Answer Bot to suggest articles before agent handoff needs to transfer to a human agent.

5. Testing and monitoring

You wouldn't launch a new feature without testing, and your bot is no different. Zendesk has a "Preview" button in the Flow Builder that lets you pretend to be a customer. Try out a few common questions and make sure it suggests the right articles and hands off to an agent correctly.

Once it's live, don't just forget about it. Check your Zendesk analytics to see how many chats the bot is resolving on its own. This data is gold, it’ll show you where your knowledge base is weak and how you can make your bot's conversation flow even better.

The Zendesk AI Explore Dashboard, which is used to monitor the performance of the Zendesk Answer Bot to suggest articles before agent handoff.

When the standard setup isn't enough

Getting the basic flow up and running is a fantastic first step. But let's be real, you might notice a few cracks start to appear once it's out in the wild. Here are some common headaches and how to think about solving them.

The bot gives strange (or no) answers

The problem: The Zendesk bot pretty much only knows what's in your help center. If the answer is buried in an old ticket, a Google Doc, or a Confluence page, the bot is stuck. It just can't see it.

A better way: What if your AI could learn from everything? Tools like eesel AI connect to all your knowledge sources, not just your help center, but also your past Zendesk tickets and internal wikis. This gives the AI a much bigger brain, so it can pull the right answer from anywhere and handle a much wider range of questions.

Customers just type "agent" to skip the line

The problem: If the bot feels clunky or the conversation path is too rigid, customers will quickly figure out the magic word to bypass it all: "agent." Zendesk's Flow Builder doesn't always give you enough control to stop this from happening.

A better way: You need more control over the automation. With eesel AI's customizable workflow engine, you get to set the rules. You can decide exactly which types of tickets the AI should handle and when it's okay for a conversation to be escalated. It helps guide customers through a helpful process instead of letting them jump ship at the first sign of a menu.

You're flying blind on performance

The problem: The preview in Zendesk is fine for checking if the buttons work, but it doesn't give you any real idea of how the bot will perform with your actual customers. You won't know your true deflection rate until after you launch.

A better way: Wouldn't it be great to know the impact before you go live? eesel AI has a simulation mode that does just that. It runs the AI against thousands of your past tickets and shows you exactly how it would have responded. You get a clear forecast of your automation rate and how much time you'll save, giving you the confidence to flip the switch.

The setup is a time sink

The problem: As you just saw, setting up and tweaking bots, triggers, and automations in Zendesk takes a fair bit of admin work. And as your team and knowledge base grow, it only gets more complicated.

A better way: Your AI tool should make your life easier, not add another project to your plate. eesel AI is built to be simple and self-serve. You can connect your helpdesk and knowledge apps with a few clicks and have a smarter bot live in minutes, not weeks.

Using the Zendesk Answer Bot as your first line of defense

And there you have it. By setting up your Zendesk Answer Bot to suggest articles before agent handoff, you've built a solid first line of defense for your support team. It’s a great way to encourage self-service, handle the easy questions, and free up your agents for the stuff that actually requires a human brain.

But as you've probably gathered, the built-in Zendesk bot is just the beginning. If you're starting to feel boxed in by the rigid flows, or you wish your bot knew more than what's just in your help center, it might be time to look at what else is out there.

When you're ready for a tool that's more powerful but way simpler to manage, give eesel AI a look. It connects to your existing Zendesk setup and all your other knowledge sources, lets you test everything with real data, and gets you up and running in minutes.

Want to see what that feels like? You can try eesel AI for free and take the next step in automating your support.