Zendesk automations to send reminders after pending 24 hours

Let’s be honest, staring at a Zendesk queue full of tickets stuck in "Pending" is a bit deflating. You know the ones, they’ve been waiting on a customer reply for a few days, maybe even a week, and they’re starting to clog up your views. Your agents end up spending their precious time sending manual "just checking in" emails instead of solving actual problems. It’s not a great use of anyone’s day.

The good news is you can get that time back. You can build a simple "bump-bump-solve" workflow right inside Zendesk to take care of this for you. This guide will walk you through, step by step, how to build an automation that follows up on those quiet tickets and eventually solves them, freeing up your team from the follow-up grind.

And while Zendesk’s own tools are fantastic for this, we’ll also look at how modern AI can handle these kinds of tasks with a bit more finesse and a lot less setup.

What you'll need to get started

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty, let's make sure you have the keys to the car. You’ll need just a couple of things:

• A Zendesk plan that includes automations. This is available on their Team, Growth, Professional, or Enterprise plans.

• Administrator access to your Zendesk account. You’ll need this to get into the backend and build these business rules.

• A rough idea of your follow-up schedule. For this tutorial, we’re going to send a reminder after 24 hours and solve the ticket after 72 hours. Feel free to tweak these numbers to what feels right for your team.

How to create the Zendesk automation

The magic behind this whole workflow is a tag-team of Zendesk's business rules: time-based automations and event-based triggers. When you put them together, you create a system that quietly manages your pending queue without you having to lift a finger.

Step 1: Understand triggers vs. automations

Before we build anything, it’s important to get one thing straight. People often mix up triggers and automations in Zendesk, but they do very different jobs.

Triggers are your instant-reaction crew. They fire the moment a ticket is created or updated. For instance, a new ticket comes in, and a trigger immediately assigns it to the right support group. It’s an "if this, then that, right now" kind of rule.

Automations, on the other hand, are more patient. They run on a schedule, checking all your tickets once an hour to see if any meet specific time-based conditions. Since our goal is to send a reminder after 24 hours have passed, we need a rule that knows how to wait. That makes automations the right tool for this part of the job. We'll use a trigger later on for a little cleanup.

Step 2: Create the first "bump" automation

Okay, let's build our first reminder. This automation is going to scan for any ticket that has been sitting in a pending state for a full day and give the customer a friendly nudge.

1. Head over to your Admin Center, then look for Objects and rules > Business rules > Automations.

2. Click the Add automation button.

3. Give your automation a clear name that you’ll recognize later, like "Send pending reminder after 24 hours."

4. Now, let's set the Conditions (Meet ALL). These tell Zendesk which tickets to look for.

   • "Ticket: Status" | "Is" | "Pending"
   • "Ticket: Hours since pending" | "Greater than" | "24"
   • "Ticket: Tags" | "Contains none of the following" | "pending_reminder_1"

5. Next, tell Zendesk what to do under Actions.

   • "Notifications: Email user" | "(requester)"

     • Email subject: "Re: {{ticket.title}} - Just checking in"

     • Email body: Keep the message light and helpful. Something like, "Hi there, I just wanted to quickly check in to see if you had a chance to look at our last message. We're waiting on your reply to move forward. Let us know if you have any questions!"

   • "Ticket: Add tags" | "pending_reminder_1" That last action, adding the "pending_reminder_1" tag, is super important. Think of it as a little sticky note that says "I've already reminded this person once." Without this tag, the automation would run every hour after the first 24 hours, sending the customer an endless stream of reminders. That’s a fast way to make someone unhappy.

Step 3: Create an automation to solve the ticket

So, what if the customer still doesn't reply after that first nudge? You don't want the ticket sitting around forever. This next automation will send one final message and then mark the ticket as solved, keeping your queue nice and tidy.

1. Go ahead and create another new automation.

2. Name: "Solve pending ticket after 72 hours."

3. Conditions (Meet ALL):

   • "Ticket: Status" | "Is" | "Pending"
   • "Ticket: Hours since pending" | "Greater than" | "72"
   • "Ticket: Tags" | "Contains at least one of the following" | "pending_reminder_1"

4. Actions:

   • "Notifications: Email user" | "(requester)"

     • Email subject: "Re: {{ticket.title}} - Closing this for now"

     • Email body: You want to let the customer know you're closing the loop but make it easy for them to pick things back up. Try something like this: "Hi, since we haven't heard back, we're going to mark this ticket as solved for now. If you still need help, just reply to this email, and we'll be happy to reopen it for you!"

   • "Ticket: Status" | "Solved" This automation specifically looks for tickets that have been pending for over three days and have our "pending_reminder_1" tag. This ensures it only acts on tickets that have already gone through our first reminder step.

Step 4: Add a trigger to reset the workflow

Great, our automations are set. But what happens if a customer replies? Their ticket status will change back to "Open," which is perfect. But we need a little cleanup crew to come in and reset things. This trigger will remove our custom tag so that if the conversation gets put on hold again later, our reminders can start over.

1. Navigate to Admin Center > Objects and rules > Business rules > Triggers.

2. Click Add trigger.

3. Name: "Reset pending reminder tags on reply."

4. Conditions (Meet ALL):

   • "Ticket: Status" | "Changed to" | "Open"
   • "Ticket: Current user" | "Is" | "(end-user)"

5. Actions:

   • "Ticket: Remove tags" | "pending_reminder_1" Now, anytime a customer writes back, that "pending_reminder_1" tag is stripped away. The slate is wiped clean for that ticket, ready for the process to begin again if needed.

Pro tips and common mistakes

Building this workflow is pretty straightforward, but there are a few little traps people fall into. Here are a few things to keep in mind to get it right on the first try.

• <protip text="Use 'Greater Than' instead of 'Is' for your time conditions. This one is subtle but important. Zendesk automations run about once an hour, but not always on the dot. If you set a condition like "Hours since pending" | "Is" | "24", the check might run at hour 23 and then again at hour 25, completely missing the small window where the condition was true. Using "Greater than" | "24" gives you a much larger, safer window and ensures your automation runs reliably.">

• <protip text="Create a 'do not disturb' tag. Some tickets are sensitive or complex, and you might not want automated reminders going out. A simple solution is to create a tag like "no_auto_remind". Train your agents to add it manually when needed. Then, just pop one more condition into your automations: "Ticket: Tags" | "Contains none of the following" | "no_auto_remind". Easy.">

• Common Mistake: Forgetting to build the reset trigger. Seriously, don't skip Step 4! Without that trigger, a ticket that gets reopened will keep its "pending_reminder_1" tag forever. That means if it ever goes into a pending state again, your automations will ignore it, and it could get lost in limbo.

• Common Mistake: Not thinking about messaging channels. This email-based workflow is perfect for, well, email. It's not so great for conversations happening over WhatsApp or your website's live chat widget. Those channels have their own timeout rules, and customers aren't expecting an email follow-up to a chat they had an hour ago. It's a different experience, so this workflow isn't a one-size-fits-all solution.

A smarter alternative to Zendesk automations

The Zendesk workflow we just put together is a huge help, but it’s still just a set of rules following a clock. It can't tell the difference between a customer who replied with "Thanks, it's working!" and someone who sent back a detailed follow-up question. It just sees that a certain amount of time has passed.

This is where AI tools like eesel AI change the game. Instead of just following rigid timers, eesel AI can plug directly into your Zendesk account and actually understand the context of a conversation to figure out the best next step.

Here's how that makes a real difference:

• Get up and running in minutes. You can pretty much forget the multi-step process of building different automations and triggers. With eesel AI, you connect your helpdesk with a click, and it’s ready to go. It fits right into your existing workflow without you having to rebuild anything.

• Send follow-ups that make sense. eesel AI can be trained on your team's past tickets, so it learns your brand voice and how you handle common issues. This means that instead of sending a generic reminder, its AI Agent can draft a follow-up that’s specific to the conversation. It can even spot when a customer's last reply has solved the problem and just close the ticket for you.

• Test it out with zero risk. One of the scariest parts of building automations is the fear of accidentally spamming your customers while you're figuring things out. eesel AI has a simulation mode that lets you test your setup on thousands of your own historical tickets. You get to see exactly how the AI would have replied, get solid forecasts on how many tickets it will solve, and tweak its behavior before it ever talks to a real customer.

• You're always in control. You don't have to flip a switch and let AI take over everything. You can configure eesel AI's AI Agent to only handle certain types of pending tickets, like simple "how-to" questions, while automatically passing anything more complex to a human agent. It's a safe, gradual way to start using automation with complete confidence.

Moving beyond manual Zendesk automations

Setting up Zendesk automations to send reminders after pending 24 hours is a brilliant first step toward making your support team more efficient. It takes a boring, repetitive task off your agents' shoulders and makes sure your follow-up process is consistent.

But if you're looking to really scale your support, cut down on agent burnout, and have smarter customer conversations, AI is the natural next move. It helps you shift your thinking from "how much time has passed?" to "what does this customer actually need next?"

Ready to move beyond rigid rules and give your team an AI that actually understands your customers? See how eesel AI can start transforming your support workflows today.

Start automating your support with an AI that learns from your team. Try eesel AI for free.