Adding support addresses for users to submit tickets

When Zendesk Support is set up, you receive a related email address: [e-mail]. Emails received at this address become tickets.

You can provide your users with alternate email addresses for submitting tickets. These addresses are known as support addresses. You can add as many support addresses as needed. Support addresses can be variations of your Zendesk email address or external email addresses. Any email address you wish to use to receive support requests as tickets (whether a Zendesk address or an external address) must be added to your Zendesk as a support address.
Note: If you are adding support addresses for external email addresses, it takes a few steps to set up forwarding from your email server to your Zendesk.

For each support address added, the sender address will match the support address the ticket is sent to. For example, tickets sent to [e-mail] will receive replies from [e-mail].

This article covers the following sections:
Understanding the end user experience
Adding support addresses
Accepting wildcard email addresses for support requests
Removing a support address
Setting a default support address
Editing support addresses
Receiving emails to your support addresses

Understanding the end user experience

When you add a support address, a preview pane shows you exactly what end users will see in their email inboxes, so you understand the end user experience.

What end users see as a sender address depends on whether you are using a Zendesk address or an external email address to receive support requests. Additionally, using custom replies changes the appearance of the Reply From Address to end users.

Using Zendesk email addresses as support addresses

If you're using Zendesk email addresses, the following table shows what the Shipping Addresses and Reply From Addresses might look like when users send an email to one of your known support addresses.

Table 1. Examples of using Zendesk email addresses
Sending address (address the user sends the email to) Reply-to address from the sender (address the user sees in the reply email) Example
[e-mail] Support address name <[e-mail]> Acme Support <[e-mail]>
Note: If the support address does not have a name, the Reply From Address looks like this: <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] Support address name <[e-mail]> Acme Help <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] Support address name <[e-mail]> Acme Sales <[e-mail]>
Using external email addresses as support addresses
If you are using external email addresses, the following table shows what the Shipping Addresses and Reply to From Addresses might look like when users send an email to one of your known support addresses.
Note: For information about using an external email address, see Forwarding incoming emails to Zendesk Support.
Table 2. Examples of use of external email addresses

Shipping address (address to which the user sends the email)

Sender Reply Address (address the user sees in the reply email)

Example
[e-mail] Support address name <[e-mail]> Acme Support <[e-mail]>
Note: If the support address does not have a name, the Reply From Address looks like this: <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] Support address name <[e-mail]> Acme Support <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] Support address name <[e-mail]> Acme Support <[e-mail]>
Using custom replies with support addresses

When personalized responses are enabled, the Reply From Address will match the support address the request was sent to and will also include the name of the agent or end user responsible for the response.

For more information on using custom replies, see Enabling Custom Email Replies.

The following table shows what the Shipping Addresses and Reply From Addresses might look like when personalized replies are enabled and the user sends an email to one of your known support addresses.

Table 3. Examples

Shipping address (address to which the user sends the email)

Sender Reply Address (address the user sees in the reply email)

Example
[e-mail] Username (support address name) <[e-mail]> Claire Grenier (Acme Support) <[e-mail]>
Note: If the support address does not have a name, the Reply From Address looks like this: Claire Grenier <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] Username (Support Address Name) <[e-mail]> Ben Gunther (Acme Sales) <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] Username (support address name) <[e-mail]> Claire Grenier (Acme Support) <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] Username (support address name) <[e-mail]> Ben Gunther (Acme Sales) <[e-mail]>
Adding support addresses
You can add as many support addresses as needed. Support addresses can be variations of your Zendesk email address or existing external email addresses when using the options:
Connect External Address: Use this option to include existing external email addresses.
Create new Zendesk address: Use this option to add variations to your Zendesk email address.
Note: There is also the option Connect others to add support addresses that should be used with caution. For more information, see this support tech note.

Your original system support address is always displayed at the top of your list of support addresses, followed by your default support address if it is not the same as your system support address. Whenever a ticket is created from an email that was sent to one of your support addresses, the verification timestamp of your support address is updated.

This section covers the following topics

Adding a Zendesk support address
Including an external support address
Adding a Zendesk support address

Zendesk addresses are variations of your original support address: [e-mail]. For example, [e-mail] and [e-mail]. You can add as many Zendesk support addresses as you like.

Note: If you want to add an external support address, see Including an external support address.
How to add a Zendesk support address
In the Admin Center, click the Channels () icon in the sidebar and select Talk and Email > Email.
In the Support addresses section, click Add address and select Create new Zendesk address.

Enter an address you would like to use to receive support requests.
Click Create Now.

The email address is added to your support mailing list.

Including an external support address

External email addresses are your property and your responsibility to keep them outside of Zendesk. For example, [e-mail]. If you are adding support addresses for external email addresses, it will take a few steps outside of Zendesk to set up forwarding from your email server to your Zendesk.

It is not recommended that you use a distribution group email or email alias as an external support address.

Note: If you want to add a Zendesk support address, see the previous section Including a Zendesk support address. If you want to use a Gmail address, see Forwarding incoming support emails to Zendesk using Gmail/Google Apps.
How to add an external support address
In the Admin Center, click the Channels () icon in the sidebar and select Talk and Email > Email.
In the Support addresses section, click Add address and select Connect external address.

Enter your support email address and click Go.

If you want to use our Gmail connector instead of automatically connecting to a Gmail account, see Enabling automatic ticket creation for your Gmail inbox. This is recommended when you expect a small volume of emails.

Complete the onscreen steps to configure forwarding on your email server.

This is done outside of Zendesk and the steps will vary depending on your email server. For help, see Forwarding incoming support emails to Zendesk Support.

Once email forwarding has been configured on your server, click on Yes, I'm done, and then on Check.

A test email is automatically sent to this address to verify that you have properly configured email forwarding. A message next to the address indicates that you are waiting for verification.

A successful test means that you have configured forwarding properly and the message indicates that the address has been verified.

If the test fails, you will receive a notification. After resolving any issues with the forward check, run the forward check again. If you resolve the forwarding issue but do not repeat the forwarding check, tickets sent to the email address will create tickets but not send notification emails from Zendesk Support.

After you set up forwarding, you can include a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record to confirm that Zendesk can send emails on behalf of your email server (see Configuring SPF for Zendesk to send emails on behalf of your email domain). The inclusion of this record is optional, but recommended.

Accepting wildcard email addresses for support requests

As an alternative, or an additional step to using support addresses, you can allow end users to send emails to any variation of your Zendesk address, regardless of whether that is a known support address. For example, if a customer makes a misspelling in the support email address (eg [e-mail]), the email can be accepted and a ticket created. These types of variations are called wildcards. This option can be used as an alternative or complement to support addresses.

For example, you don't need to explicitly declare any of these email variations in your Zendesk.

Wildcard email addresses use your default support address as the Reply From Addresses. Therefore, if an email is sent to a variation of your Zendesk Support email address that is not a known support address, your default support address will be used as the Sender Reply. If you have multiple brands, the default support address for your default brand will be used with the Reply From Address.

How to enable wildcard email addresses

Click on the Admin icon. () in the sidebar and select Channels > Email.
Click on Enable on Accept wildcard emails.
Click Save.
Removing a support address

You can remove any support address except your original system support address ([e-mail]), your Gmail connector address (if any), or your current default support address. If you selected another support address as your default (other than your system support address), you can delete that support address by first making another support address the default.

When you delete a support address, email notifications are no longer sent from that address. Tickets using the support address that was deleted will receive the default address.

How to delete a support address
In the Admin Center, click the Channels () icon in the sidebar and select Talk and Email > Email.
Under Support addresses, hover over the address you want to remove and click Delete.

It is not possible to delete your original system support address ([e-mail]) or your Gmail connector address, if any. It is also not possible to delete your current default support address while it is the default (if you selected a support address other than your system support address as your default). To delete this support address, first make another support address the default.

On the confirmation screen, click on Delete address.

Alternatively, if you do not wish to delete the address, close the confirmation box to cancel the action.

The support address is removed from your list.

Setting a default support address

Remember that when you created your Zendesk, an email address was set up for you: [e-mail]. The system support address is used as your default support address unless you change the default.

Your default support address is used as the address to send notifications when a ticket is manually created, when a ticket is sent directly to your default support address, or when a ticket is created through a channel other than email.

Also, the default support address is used as the Reply From Address in replies to users when the wildcard emails option is enabled and an end user sends an email to an address that is not a support address. known.

Note: The wildcard email option allows users to send emails to any variation of their Zendesk address, regardless of whether you add it as a known support address. To enable this feature, click the Admin icon. () in the sidebar and select Channels > Email. Click on Enable on Accept wildcard emails.

You can change the default support address at any time. The option to make the support address default appears only if the address is verified (see Adding support addresses).

How to change your default support address
In the Admin Center, click the Channels () icon in the sidebar and select Talk and Email > Email.
Under Support addresses, hover over the address you want to make default and click Make default.

The (default) label appears next to your new default address, and that address goes to the top of your system support address list.

Editing support addresses

You can edit the name of an existing support address, but you cannot edit the email address for an existing support address. If you need to edit the email address, delete the support address and add it again.

How to edit a support address name
In the Admin Center, click the Channels () icon in the sidebar and select Talk and Email > Email.
Under Support Addresses, click Edit next to the support address you want to edit.
Add, change or remove the support address name.
Click Save.

Updates made to your address will appear in the support address list.

Receiving emails to your support addresses

Emails sent to any of your support addresses become tickets in your Zendesk. Also, if you have enabled wildcard emails (see Accepting wildcard email addresses for support requests), emails sent to all address variations of your Zendesk, regardless of whether they are known support addresses, will become tickets in your Zendesk.

Note: If you receive an email longer than 65,000 characters in your Zendesk, the resulting ticket comment will be truncated. This happens whenever the email conversation contains a lot of replies and is forwarded to your Zendesk support address.

For tickets received by email, you can identify the address they were sent to at the top of the tickets.

Use the "Ticket: Received by" condition to configure business rules, views, and SLA policies for tickets sent to the support address.

If you've configured the multi-brand feature, the ticket will receive the brand associated with the support address the email was sent to (see Adding support email addresses for multiple brands).