The Playbook for Zendesk Efficiency: How to Boost Capacity and Beat Backlog

Lately, I have been experimenting with customized functions aimed at further optimizing capacity at my current company. Here are some of the capabilities I've implemented:

• Writing the number of tickets for each view into a storage table at scheduled intervals. This allows operations to historically track their queue size.
• Creating a notification bot that accesses these tables and notifies stakeholders when the queue exceeds a certain threshold or is trending upward.
• Monitoring and merging tickets from the same user in the same view to de-duplicate tickets.
• Automatically moving tickets between views to balance the load so that no one group is overwhelmed with tickets.
• Applying automatic macros to update ticket attributes, enabling bulk-solving of tickets that don’t require intervention from an associate.

All of these steps have made operations leaner and more efficient in managing tickets within the company's ticketing ecosystem. The key to kick-starting this process was developing a code that allows operations to access ticket data in Zendesk views. By creating a script that runs at regular intervals and accesses all the main views in the company's Zendesk, we were able to generate a topological view of the entire ticket ecosystem and take actions when certain views became overloaded.

I believe these steps have contributed to one of the most successful NFL season launches from a queue management perspective. There were no significant ticket backlogs that would have delayed response times to client inquiries. In the highly competitive online sports betting industry, reducing response time friction is critical, as clients can easily switch to competitors if their questions aren't answered promptly.

Here’s a simple boilerplate code for accessing Zendesk views and their ticket attributes to kick start off your ZD automation journey!