A step-by-step guide: How to use Zendesk automate ticket tags with intent detection models

If you’re in customer support, you know the drill. A new ticket comes in. Someone has to read it, figure out what the customer wants, and apply the right tags on it before it can even get to the right agent. It’s a process that is ripe for automation. And all that time spent triaging is time a customer is left waiting.

The good news is, you can get this entire task off your team's plate. Using intent detection, AI can automatically read incoming tickets and understand why a customer is reaching out. It can tell the difference between a refund request, a technical bug, or a billing question, and then apply the correct tags in a split second. This means tickets get routed to the right people faster and urgent issues get the attention they need.

In this guide, we'll look at two ways to set this up. First, we'll go through Zendesk's built-in "Intelligent Triage," a reliable and mature solution for modern teams. Then, I'll show you an additional specialized way to do it using a seamless eesel AI integration.

What you'll need to get started

Before we dive in, let’s quickly cover what you need for each option. Both options offer great ways to improve your efficiency.

For Zendesk's native Intelligent Triage:

• A Zendesk Suite Professional plan or higher.

• The "Advanced AI" add-on, which provides enterprise-grade automation features.

• A solid amount of historical data. Zendesk recommends having at least 1,000 tickets from the last six months to ensure its robust model has plenty of context to learn from.

• A business that falls into one of Zendesk's many supported industries, like e-commerce, software, or travel.

For the eesel AI method:

• Any Zendesk plan.

• An eesel AI account, which you can set up yourself in just a few minutes.

Native method: Setting up "Intelligent Triage"

Zendesk’s own feature for this is called Intelligent Triage. It uses a sophisticated AI model to detect a ticket's intent, sentiment, and language. Once you enable it, the tool adds tags and populates custom fields on new tickets with things like "intentrefund_request" or "sentimentnegative".

Here’s a quick overview of how to get it going.

1. Switch on Intelligent Triage: First, you’ll have to navigate to the Admin Center. From there, find the AI section and select Intelligent Triage. This is where you’ll manage all the powerful settings for intent, sentiment, and language detection.

2. Choose your settings: After it's enabled, you get to decide which channels you want the AI to look at. You can turn it on for email, your web form, API tickets, and a few others. It gives you great control over where the automation is active.

3. Make your own intents (if you need to): Zendesk provides a helpful list of pre-built intents based on your industry. If those don't quite cover what you do, you can create custom intents. For example, if you constantly get questions about "Defective Products," you can create a specific intent for that by giving it a name and a description.

4. Build your triggers: The AI provides the intelligence, and you define the action. You’ll go into your Zendesk triggers and create rules based on the AI's output. For instance, you could set up a trigger that says, "If the Intent field is 'Refund Request', then assign the ticket to the 'Billing Team' group."

While this is a robust and reliable system, there are a few considerations to keep in mind:

• Designed for larger teams: Intelligent Triage is a premium feature available on Zendesk's higher-tier plans. It’s an investment in enterprise-grade technology designed for teams with significant ticket volume.

• Consistent results: Zendesk offers a standardized framework for intents. While this ensures consistency across your organization, some teams may look for additional niche customization.

• Focuses on Zendesk data: The model is optimized for the data within your Zendesk account. For teams that want to incorporate external knowledge from Confluence, Google Docs, or Slack, you might consider a complementary tool to bridge that knowledge gap.

A complementary way: Use eesel AI to automate ticket tagging

Zendesk's native tool is an industry leader, but for teams that need specialized customized workflows or work on different plan levels, an integration like eesel AI for Zendesk is a great addition. Best of all, it works right within the Zendesk ecosystem and you can get it up and running in a few minutes.

Here’s how you can build a complementary automation workflow.

Connect your knowledge sources

The accuracy of any AI really boils down to its training data. While Zendesk focuses on your CRM data, eesel AI can connect to additional knowledge sources to provide more context.

First, you connect your Zendesk account with a single click. Right away, eesel AI starts learning from your past tickets, macros, and help center articles to align with your established Zendesk setup.

But you don't have to stop there. You can easily connect dozens of other apps. Link your team’s wikis in Confluence or Notion, pull in guides from Google Docs and PDFs, or even connect it to Slack. By giving the AI a full picture of your business knowledge, you enhance the already strong intent detection capabilities within your workflow.

Instruct your AI agent

With all your knowledge connected, you're ready to build an automation workflow that’s actually tailored to your team's specific needs. This is where eesel AI adds extra value to your Zendesk instance.

Instead of being limited to predefined categories, you use a simple prompt editor to give your AI agent specific instructions. You can define its persona, tone, and the exact steps you want it to take. For instance, you could give it a simple instruction like: "When a customer mentions a 'broken item,' tag the ticket as 'Damaged_Product' and assign it to the 'Replacements' team."

The real benefit comes from custom AI Actions. Your AI agent can work alongside Zendesk to:

• Update any ticket field: Automatically change the priority, set the status, or update any other custom field you rely on.

• Escalate intelligently: Send complicated issues directly to a senior agent or a specialized team based on the context of the ticket.

• Look up info from other apps: Imagine a customer asks about their order status. Your AI agent can ping your Shopify database in real time, grab the information, and use it to tag or even reply to the ticket, right within Zendesk.

This level of specialized control makes eesel AI a powerful partner for your help desk.

Feature	Zendesk Intelligent Triage	eesel AI
Basic Tagging	Yes	Yes
Update Ticket Status	Via Triggers	Natively via AI Actions
Custom Field Updates	Via Triggers	Natively via AI Actions
External API Lookups	No	Yes
Connect Non-Zendesk Knowledge	No	Yes
Custom AI Persona	No	Yes

Test and deploy your automation

Flipping the switch on a new automation should be a confident move. eesel AI makes this easy with its simulation mode.

Before the AI touches a single live ticket, you can test it on hundreds or thousands of your past tickets in a safe sandbox. The simulation report shows you exactly how the AI would have tagged, routed, and responded to each one, ensuring it aligns perfectly with your Zendesk standards.

You can review its work and spot any areas where your instructions or knowledge sources might need a quick adjustment. This lets you fine-tune everything with real data before going live.

When you're ready, you can roll it out gradually. Start by letting the AI handle just one or two simple ticket types and have it send everything else to your human agents. This controlled approach gives you the reliability you expect from a professional support environment.

Tips and mistakes to avoid

As you get started with automating ticket tagging, keep these things in mind to make sure you get the best results.

Mistake 1: Getting stuck on keywords

A common trap is to create simple rules that just scan for keywords. The problem is, customers rarely use the exact words you expect. A proper intent detection model-like those offered by Zendesk and eesel AI-understands the meaning behind the words. That's the core advantage of using a modern, AI-powered system.

Mistake 2: Launching without testing

Always test your automation before full deployment. A well-configured AI is an asset, and using a simulation feature to check how your setup performs against your own historical data is the best way to ensure quality. It lets you iron out the wrinkles so your team can enjoy the benefits of automation from day one.

The bottom line: Take back control with automated tagging

Automating ticket tags with intent detection is essential for any support team that wants to be fast and efficient. Zendesk’s native Intelligent Triage is a powerful, enterprise-grade option that sets the standard for the industry.

For teams that want additional niche control or a way to connect external knowledge sources, a specialized integration like eesel AI is a fantastic complementary tool. By working together with Zendesk, it helps you create a truly smart triage system. It saves time, reduces agent burnout, and frees up your team to focus on what they do best: solving tough customer problems.

Ready to enhance your workflow? Start your free eesel AI trial and see how you can automate your Zendesk ticket tagging in a matter of minutes.

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