How Zapier works

Zapier works via a “trigger” app and an “action” app. In this case, ProdPad is the trigger and Zendesk is the action.

The first thing to do is to set up your trigger and authenticate your account. Our specific trigger is based on whenever a new piece of feedback is added to ProdPad.

Because we have previously set up a Zap to send items from Zendesk to ProdPad when feedback is submitted, we’ve added a filter to prevent the item from being sent back to Zendesk once it reaches ProdPad. Otherwise we’d be stuck in a constant loop!

We’ve set up an additional filter to continue only if the contact email is present in ProdPad. This is to ensure the Zap doesn’t throw constant fail notices when anonymous feedback is submitted.

The final action is now ready to be added! After authenticating our Zendesk account, we can now tell Zapier to create a new ticket based on the information collected.

In the Zendesk template, we’ve made sure that the first comment (the customer’s feedback) is added as an internal comment. This ensures that the ticket is created privately without spamming the user and allows us to sort through any items that may have accidentally been added as a bug in our system and reroute it to the correct team.

If you’re happy with the results, just click ‘Turn on Zap’ and done!

It’s as magical as watching unicorns jump over a rainbow.

The post Replying to Zendesk Customer Feedback appeared first on ProdPad.

We have set up a special view within Zendesk called “Suggestions.” This means that any ticket that lands on this view will trigger the zap and import to ProdPad. Alongside the view, we also tag all tickets for reporting purposes.

Now authenticate your ProdPad account and define the trigger. For this scenario, we want the action to create new feedback within ProdPad.

Zapier will then prompt you to map fields between the two apps.

These are our current settings:

You can insert as many fields as you want to map over, but I recommend keeping it at a minimum to avoid confusion.

Once you’ve mapped everything, you can go ahead and test the zap to make sure the information is being imported as needed. Keep in mind that this test will generate an instance within ProdPad.

If you’re happy with the results, just click ‘Turn on Zap’ and done! All new submissions moving forward will be automatically added to ProdPad’s Customer Feedback module.

My top tip: Log in once a week and tag all feedback and link it to ideas. It’s a great practice to keep your backlog clean and up to date!

Which tools have you hooked up to ProdPad? Let me know in the comments – or if you haven’t seen the power of ProdPad for yourself start your free trial right here, right now!

The post Feature Friday: Connect Zendesk to ProdPad via Zapier appeared first on ProdPad.

The Customer Feedback module in itself contains a form which any team member can use to input feedback received from clients.
You can set up the form fields to collect necessary details, including a client’s email address, so you can easily reach back to the client for a follow up.

While we do have a CSV bulk upload option available, manually creating lists for upload soon becomes a tedious and time-consuming job. Wouldn’t it just be easier if you could hook up a form directly to the ProdPad form, and have all feedback uploaded automatically? Well guess what? You can! There’s lots of ways you can do this, depending on your preferred feedback platform.

The Zapier Connection

Zapier is a neat little tool that allows you to hook up any two API’s. One app acts as the trigger and the other as an action. At ProdPad, we use this system to push all customer feedback that comes through to Zendesk, Slack, and ProdPad, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

Here’s how we did it:

TypeForm to Slack

This one is pretty simple. TypeForm is the trigger, Slack is the action. All feedback is posted to one of our Slack channels automatically upon submission.

TypeForm to Zendesk

This setup is a bit more complicated. You will need to set up a specific view within Zendesk that pushes all feedback there. Because you cannot select a specific channel for this type of submission, we have it set up to detect a comment string within the form that will automatically tag it (for reporting purposes) and send it to the ‘feedback’ view within our Help Desk.

Zendesk to ProdPad

Once the piece of feedback has been tagged, we use that tag to push it over to ProdPad directly. Zapier allows you to map fields, so we have each field required to complete the ProdPad form with as much detail as possible. (Find a more detailed look at creating your Zendesk-ProdPad Zap here.)

Keeping a clean feedback backlog

Once a week, I go through the feedback requested, add all appropriate tags, and link it to the relevant ideas. This is the leanest way to keep our backlog clean and helps our team understand which ideas are the most wanted. Happy backlog, happy clients!

Have you tried any of these techniques for managing your customer feedback? Let us know in the comments. You’ll also find lots more tips and tricks right here in our blog, or for specific how-to guides check our Help Center!

This is the first blog in our new series: Andrea Says, written by ProdPad Head of Customer Success, Andrea Saez. Each Andrea Says post is dedicated to a using a specific feature of ProdPad that will save you time, energy, and have your whole team working efficiently and collaboratively, building products your users love.

The post Send User Feedback Straight to ProdPad appeared first on ProdPad.