Stella Connect Zendesk App

Through Stella Connect’s Zendesk integration you can capture real-time customer feedback and use it to motivate your front-line team, power Service Recovery programs, and transform coaching and QA. With the introduction of our Stella Connect Zendesk App, getting started using Stella Connect and Zendesk together has never been easier.

With our Stella Connect Zendesk app, you can quickly create and manage your Zendesk integration, and start automatically sending surveys after support interactions are solved.
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First, download and install the Stella Connect Zendesk app from the Zendesk marketplace. Next, we’ll go through each step you’ll complete within the app to set up your integration!
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An active Zendesk Admin is required for accessing the API. You’ll need to enter your Zendesk username (typically, the email address associated with your Zendesk login) and a Zendesk API token. To quickly create a Zendesk API token, click the here link provided above the API Token field.
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First, you’ll enter an API test email address. All survey requests created when triggers are set to Test status will result in surveys being sent to this email address instead of sending surveys to your customers. This allows you to safely review and refine the Stella Connect experience before going live.
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Next, you’ll enter failed survey alert recipients. You can enter as many recipients as you’d like, with each email address separated by a comma if you’re entering more than one. Failed survey alert recipients will receive email notifications when survey requests sent from Zendesk to our API fail.

Some failed requests are normal (for example, a survey request that does not contain a customer email because the ticket was for a phone interaction where the customer email is unknown). These notification emails are simply meant to alert you to any potential issue that you may want to investigate!

These are the same fields you will find on the Integrations page within your Stella Connect account. You can manage these notification settings directly within the Zendesk app, and they will be automatically updated within Stella Connect to reflect the preferences set in the Zendesk app. You do not need to make any changes on the Integrations page in Stella Connect if you’ve already set these preferences in Zendesk.

Next, you’ll choose which support channels you’d like to send surveys for and create a trigger for each. We currently provide the option to support Email, Phone, and Chat triggers. If your team only handles Email interactions, for example, you would only need to create an Email trigger. For each channel you’d like to send surveys for, you’ll click the Create Trigger button.
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NOTE: In Zendesk, there are many channels related to each of the general channels we provide triggers for. This is intentional. For example, Zendesk considers Incoming Call, Outgoing Call, and Voicemail channels for phone. When it comes to Stella Connect, we create a Phone trigger that includes all of Zendesk’s granular channels related to phone interactions so your data in Stella Connect can be filtered by Phone rather than requiring you to filter between many different channels that all relate to phone calls.
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When you create a trigger in our Zendesk app, the trigger will be automatically configured with default trigger conditions that are most commonly used for Stella Connect surveys. Once your triggers are created, you can always click on View Default Trigger Conditions to review the conditions we predetermined for each channel.

You can always customize the triggers we’ve created for each channel by clicking View Trigger and making changes to the trigger conditions, if necessary. We’ll go over that in more detail later!
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Creating a trigger from the Stella Connect Zendesk app will create a new trigger in your Zendesk instance just like manually creating a trigger would. Your triggers will be named using the convention Send Stella Connect request for X channel. You can rename the title or description of any trigger if you’d like. Simply click View Trigger for the relevant trigger in the Stella Connect Zendesk app, or navigate to Triggers within the Zendesk Admin menu.

NOTE: When you create a new trigger, the trigger will automatically be set to Test status by default. Setting a trigger to Production within the Stella Connect Zendesk app will set the relevant channel to Integrated on the Stella Connect Integrations page, if necessary. You should only set a trigger's status to Production once you are ready for surveys to be sent to your customers. We always suggest testing first!

If you need to make changes to the default triggers we’ve created, you can always edit triggers using the Zendesk UI. Simply click View Trigger in the Stella Connect Zendesk app, or navigate to Triggers from the Zendesk Admin menu.
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​NOTE: Making changes to our default triggers is not necessary, but is an option if you’d like to add custom business logic. For example, if you need to add a condition to your trigger stating Assignee Is not Sally Smith to ensure that surveys are not created when a specific agent handles tickets. There are many custom conditions you can add, and while customizing the trigger is possible, you’ll want to be careful to think about how customizing the trigger will affect surveys being sent and the trigger functioning properly. If you’re ever unsure why a custom condition added to a trigger is not functioning in the way you’d expect, Zendesk has a plethora of resources related to custom triggers, which can be a big help!
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If you have customized your Stella Connect survey triggers, we’ll let you know in the Zendesk app by showing a Custom tag next to that trigger. You will not be able to edit our default configuration directly inside of the Stella Connect Zendesk app.

You can optionally select a Zendesk field to pass additional data about each interaction to Stella Connect. While the field mapping is called Tags, the field you choose should correlate to the most meaningful contact reason or important piece of data you’d like to see about interactions in Stella Connect reporting and on the Stream. You don’t need to choose the default Tags field that Zendesk provides, although sending us granular tags data can be helpful!
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If you’re using a field other than the default Tags field on the ticket, choose the field you’d like to use instead from the Select a tag dropdown. If using the default Tags field, please leave this field blank.

NOTE: The field you select as part of your Tags field mapping will apply to all channel triggers enabled via the Stella Connect Zendesk app.

You can also create a Do Not Send checkbox ticket field using the Stella Connect Zendesk app. When the checkbox is checked on a ticket, the ticket will be marked as Do Not Send in Stella Connect reporting and we will not send a survey for that interaction.
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Once this checkbox field is created, you can create a Do Not Send Stella Connect Survey trigger with business rules that will automatically check the Do Not Send checkbox on a ticket. For example, you may choose specific tags that automatically make a ticket ineligible for a survey, like a fraud tag or billing tag.

The checkbox field will be visible on tickets to your agents by default and they will be able to check the box manually. If you do not want agents to be able to see or interact with the checkbox, Zendesk does offer a third-party app in the marketplace for hiding ticket fields, which you can find here.
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NOTE: You do not have to build a Do Not Send trigger in order to limit the number of surveys that a customer receives within a specific time period. Stella Connect provides a Suppression Period, which will automatically stop surveys from flooding a customer within a timeframe you choose on the Company Info page within your Stella Connect account.

To make sure that Zendesk will consider your desired business rules before sending a Stella Connect survey, make sure that the Do Not Send trigger you’ve created is ordered above the Send Stella Connect Request triggers within your Triggers list found within the Zendesk Admin menu.

You can deactivate a trigger at any time by setting a trigger to the Inactive status in the Stella Connect Zendesk app.
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At this time, the Stella Connect Zendesk app supports creating a survey trigger for Email, Phone, and Chat channels only. If you need to set up a trigger for a custom channel, please contact your Client Success Manager.

When you’re ready to start sending surveys to your customers, set all triggers that should be live to the Production status in the Stella Connect Zendesk app.
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In your Stella Connect account, navigate to Settings by clicking the gear icon in the top right-hand corner and select the Integrations tile from the menu. On the Integrations page, make sure that all of the channels you’ve set live to Production in the Zendesk app have been updated to show the green ON status under Integrated Channels.

You’re now live and surveys will begin sending to your customers when agents solve support interactions for the channels you’ve configured!