How Zendesk Auto Reply works

Summary

1. What is Zendesk Auto Reply?

2. Prerequisites

3. How to enable Zendesk Auto Reply

4. How to control which tickets get a reply

5. How to create a Zendesk trigger

6. How replies are generated

7. Where to find replies in Zendesk

8. Troubleshooting

9. FAQ

1. What is Zendesk Auto Reply?

Zendesk Auto Reply is a feature inside Tracking Solver that automatically generates a response for support tickets related to a shipment status. When a ticket is matched to a shipment in ShippyPro, the system fetches the latest carrier tracking data and composes a ready-to-send reply — available for your agent to review and send without any manual research.

Key benefits:

• Saves agent time — no more switching between Zendesk and carrier websites to find tracking info
• Reduces response time — replies are ready a few minutes after the customer opens the ticket
• Works in the customer's language — replies are generated in the same language the customer used in their ticket
• Fully controlled by you — replies are only generated for tickets you explicitly flag, using a Zendesk tag

2. Prerequisites

Before enabling Zendesk Auto Reply, make sure you have:

• A Zendesk Support plan — Chat and other Zendesk products are not supported
• The Zendesk integration active on your ShippyPro account — see How to connect Zendesk to Tracking Solver
• Orders inside ShippyPro — either created by generating labels through ShippyPro, or imported via API or Shopify
• ⚠️ Important: Replies are only generated for tickets with status New or Open. Pending, Solved, and Closed tickets are excluded.

3. How to enable Zendesk Auto Reply

1. Go to Tracking Solver and click Settings in the top right corner.
2. Find the Zendesk Auto Reply section and activate the subscription.
3. Choose how replies should be posted in Zendesk:
   • Internal note — the reply is visible to agents only. Use this if you want your team to review before sending.
   • Public comment — the reply is posted as a pending reply visible to the customer once sent. Use this if your team sends responses directly from Zendesk.

💡 Tip: If you're enabling Auto Reply for the first time, we recommend starting with internal note mode. It gives your team time to review replies and build confidence in the output before switching to public comment.

4. How to control which tickets get a reply

Tracking Solver only generates a response for tickets that have the tag shippypro_reply in Zendesk. This gives you full control — replies are only posted for the tickets you want, without affecting the rest of your support workflow.

You can add the shippypro_reply tag in two ways:

• Automatically — by creating a Zendesk trigger that adds the tag based on your criteria (recommended — see next section)
• Manually — by adding the tag directly to individual tickets in Zendesk, useful for one-off cases or testing

📌 Note: The tag must be present on the ticket before Tracking Solver processes it. Tags added after the sync cycle won't trigger a response until the next sync (every 5 minutes).

5. How to create a Zendesk trigger

A Zendesk trigger automatically adds the shippypro_reply tag to the tickets you want to handle with Auto Reply. Follow these steps to create one:

1. In Zendesk, go to Admin Centre.
2. Under Objects and Rules, select Business Rules > Triggers.
3. Click Create trigger.
4. Set the Trigger name to Assign tag for ShippyPro.
5. Assign a Category or create a new one.
6. Under Conditions, add the following rule:
   • Ticket > Tags — contains none of the following — shippypro_reply
7. Under Actions, add:
   • Ticket > Add tags — shippypro_reply
8. Click Save.

⚠️ Important: It's essential to include the condition that checks whether shippypro_reply is already present on the ticket. Every time a ticket is created or updated, all your Zendesk triggers run in a cycle — if the tag is already there and you don't check for it, the trigger would fire again on every update, causing the ticket to loop through the trigger list repeatedly.

You can customise the conditions to target only specific tickets — for example, tickets assigned to a specific group, tickets from a specific channel, or tickets whose subject contains keywords like "where is my order".

If you prefer not to use a trigger, you can also add the shippypro_reply tag manually directly on individual tickets in Zendesk. This is useful for testing the feature or handling one-off cases.

6. How replies are generated

When a Zendesk ticket tagged with shippypro_reply is matched to a shipment in ShippyPro, Tracking Solver:

1. Fetches the latest tracking data from the carrier
2. Identifies the current shipment status and last tracking event
3. Generates a contextual reply in the customer's language
4. Posts the response inside the Zendesk ticket as an internal note or public comment, based on your settings

Zendesk Auto Reply also learns from your recent ticket history. In the first few days, it analyses how your operators write and reply, so that over time the resplies align more closely with your team's tone and voice.

📌 Note:

• A reply is generated once per ticket. If new tracking events arrive after the response is posted, the existing reply is not updated. If the ticket is reopened after being solved, a new response will be generated.
• If a shipment is matched to multiple tickets, a reply is only generated for the first ticket found.

7. Where to find replies in Zendesk

Once generated, the reply appears directly inside the Zendesk ticket:

• As an internal note: visible in the ticket's conversation thread, marked as internal. Only agents can see it.
• As a public comment: visible as a pending reply, ready to be reviewed and sent to the customer.
• In the Tracking Solver table. To check whether a ticket has been matched to a shipment, look at the Tickets column. A number next to a shipment indicates how many Zendesk tickets are associated with it.

8. Troubleshooting

Problem: No response is generated for a ticket
Cause:

• The ticket is missing the shippypro_reply tag, or its status is not New or Open
  Fix: Add the tag shippypro_reply to the ticket in Zendesk and confirm its status is New or Open. Wait up to 5 minutes for the next sync.
• The shipment is missing from ShippyPro, so ShippyPro agent cannot gather tracking information or generate a response

Problem: The Zendesk trigger is firing repeatedly on the same ticket
Cause: The trigger is missing the condition that checks whether shippypro_reply is already present Fix: Edit the trigger and add the condition Ticket > Tags contains none of the following: shippypro_reply (see How to create a Zendesk trigger).

9. FAQ

Q: Do I need a specific ShippyPro plan to use Zendesk Auto Reply?

A: No. Zendesk Auto Reply is available to all ShippyPro accounts with an active Zendesk integration but requires a separate subscription.

Q: Does it work with all Zendesk products?

A: Zendesk Auto Reply requires a Zendesk Support plan. It is not compatible with Zendesk Chat or other Zendesk products.

Q: Is the reply sent automatically to the customer?

A: You decide. The response can appear in ShippyPro or post as an internal note or public comment based on your configuration.

Q: Is there a limit to how many replies I can generate?

A: No. There is no limit on the number of replies generated.

Q: Is a new reply generated if new tracking events arrive?

A: No. A reply is generated once per ticket.

Q: What happens if a ticket is closed and then reopened?

A: If the ticket is reopened and its status returns to New or Open, a new reply will be generated.

Q: What if a ticket already has an agent reply — will a response still be generated?

A: Yes. A response is generated for any tagged ticket with status New or Open, regardless of whether an agent has already replied. To avoid this, we recommend assigning the shippypro_reply tag only to tickets that haven't been handled yet.

Q: What happens if a shipment is matched to more than one ticket?

A: A response is generated only for the first ticket found. The other tickets will not receive a reply automatically.

Q: Can I force the reply to be in a specific language?

A: No. The reply language is automatically detected from the customer's ticket. It is not possible to override the language manually.