This article is for you if you are going to plan and build a multi-brand setup in Zendesk. Here you will find the central decisions, best practices and the pitfalls you should be aware of in advance.
Central components per brand
- Help Center - a separate domain (e.g. support.brand-a.com), a separate knowledge base, its own language settings and user segmentation
- SLA policies - brand-specific response times, resolution times and calendars (e.g. different time zone and public holidays)
- Ticket forms - unique forms per brand with conditional fields, so that agents get the right context from the start
- Visual identity - logo, colour scheme, email templates and custom CSS/JS per brand
Best practices
Internal naming and structure
Use prefixes on groups, views and macros: [BrandA] Første level and [BrandB] Fakturering. This makes it simple for agents and reduces errors. Keep the structure in the Help Centers consistent across brands even though the content varies.
SLA per brand
Avoid copy-pasting SLAs. Analyse the customer expectations per brand and define realistic targets. Review quarterly.
Macros and triggers
A frequent mistake: a macro created for one brand is used on a ticket from another. Always add a condition: Ticket > Brand > Is > [BrandX]. Name macros with a brand prefix and keep the libraries separate.
Agent access
Create roles and groups per brand. Tickets are routed automatically to the right group via triggers based on brand and channel. Agents responsible for one brand do not need access to the others.
Reporting
Standard reports in Zendesk are brand-specific. For a cross-brand overview, you need to create custom dashboards in Explore. Plan this early - it is possible, but requires a little setup.
Pitfalls
- Multi-brand is more complex to design than single-brand. Map out the customer journey per brand before you build
- Agents must know the products and the tone of voice per brand - set aside time for training
- Remember cross-training so that you have backup capacity if one brand is busy
Need help? Available has experience with complex multi-brand setups. Contact us here.