There’s a mind boggling amount of jargon used in the tech industry that gets misused by anyone not in the know. But we’re here to debunk and explain some of them. In the case of AI copilots, they’re essentially AI virtual assistants that your staff uses to help answer customer queries.
When it comes to Zendesk, or other helpdesks, being able to rely on an AI assistant can mean a huge boost not only to productivity but to the overall quality of support that your customers are receiving.
So, why can’t you just get AI to do everything?
Some problems require the human element, the AI copilot just helps deliver inhuman response times. Your live agents can do the job without it. But with it, they’re able to answer faster and more accurate than ever before. They’re not replacements for humans, they’re the perfect companion to your support team.
Different configurations of Zendesk AI copilots
While there are a few AI copilot and assistant options that work within Zendesk, their function and goal remains the same: to support teams by speeding up ticket response time which leads to an improvement of customer satisfaction levels.
We’re going to go over Zendesk’s native option and compare with our very own eesel AI. Each one has their own strengths and limitations, and it’ll be up to you to decide which one aligns better with your needs.
Zendesk copilot features
Zendesk’s copilot/assistant features aren’t as clear cut as some AI tools. They are companion features to other aspects of their support toolkit, but we’ll do our best to explain exactly what AI copilot features Zendesk has to offer.
Auto-assisted replies
Zendesk offers auto-assist replies that can comprehend the contents of a ticket, check it against the knowledge bases it has access to, then give answers to your live agent based on that information. The answers it gives to your live agent could be a drafted message to send to the customer or actions the live agent can take to resolve the issue. This drastically speeds up the response time for live agents and allows customers to solve issues quickly.
Suggested macros
The Zendesk copilot suggests macros or pre-drafted replies to common problems with a confidence level to indicate how accurate the macro is in relation to the ticket’s main issue. This helps live agents shift through the multiple solutions to problems, helping them pinpoint the best course of action.
For example if a ticket is asking about how to cancel or close an order, there’ll be a suggestion for this ticket drop down that you can press and it’ll show you all the macros that apply for that intent.
Ticket summaries
Within the dash, Zendesk’s AI assistant can take a block of text and pull all pertinent information and create a summary, allowing live agents to get to the root of the issue without dealing with the extra fluff usually associated with customer messages. This helps expedite the resolution of customer issues, ultimately leading to happier customers.
Merge suggestions
Your copilot can identify similar tickets and give you the option of merging them, allowing you to resolve multiple tickets with the same issue with 1 answer.
This will save your live agents time when dealing with customers who ask similar questions or have the same issues across channels. Instead of dealing with the same ticket multiple times for the same person, they can be merged, resolved, and closed in one go.
Limitations
With every thing it has going for it, what could possibly make you do a double take and reassess Zendesk’s usability within your business?
Limited customization
Zendesk has pretrained AI which makes it great out of the box, but limits customization for specific needs. Their copilot features utilize procedures and actions that all need to be prepared ahead of time, and are limited to what Zendesk provides you. Flexible customization to actions or procedures for the copilot are limited to whatever is available in your dashboard.
While they’re aware of this limitation, Zendesk just recently put an early access for more tonal customization of their AI – an alpha version of a feature that other AI tools have had in development for much longer, that they’re using customers to test for them.
Language issues
While Zendesk advertises that it supports multiple languages, which it technically does, there’s many inconsistencies depending on the specific language.
A quick search on the internet will reveal a couple of hilarious, but inappropriate replies that have been created in different languages. Clearly their translation methods are lacking and can result in some serious miscommunication that will definitely be a bad look for businesses.
Limited intelligence
The AI sometimes fails to actually resolve a ticket. It may provide an answer, but not actually help the customer solve the problem they’re having. This also leads to bloated bills as these count as resolutions and Zendesk charges on a per resolution basis.
This problem has been quoted by a fair amount of Zendesk users. One user from their forum even stated, “Zendesk bot always said ‘I can’t help you.’ and sent that to an agent. What’s the point of that?”.
High unscalable costs
Probably the biggest limitation of Zendesk is the cost. If you’re a current Zendesk user then you already know the mountain of complaints about this.
For the uninitiated, the cost of the base Zendesk plan + the Advanced AI add-on + the pay-per-resolution (that doesn’t always resolve tickets but charges you anyway), can easily bloat your bill at the end of the month.
In some of our customer surveys, people have stated that they couldn’t justify the usage costs of using Zendesk’s AI, as it made them go over budget within a couple of days. That’s not even considering the monthly bill for all agents on Zendesk, not just the ones using AI. The sentiment was that Zendesk’s new pricing, “was a disaster; and wasn’t scalable.”
Cost
The biggest limiting factor for a lot of customers is Zendesk’s price. It doesn’t take long to see what the sentiment online is.
Zendesk’s pricing plans are billed per agent, per month (see table below). For simplicity’s sake, we’ll only list the annual billing, but keep in mind if you are just trying to test the tool out it will be more expensive to use monthly billing instead.
| Plan | Annual Billing | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| Suite Team | $55 per agent/month | Basic AI agents, auto assist replies, macros. |
| Suite Growth | $89 per agent/month | Multiple ticket forms, light agent access, CSAT ratings, multilingual support |
| Suite Professional | $115 per agent/month | Advanced workflows, eligible for Advanced AI add-on, analytics, skill-based routing |
| Suite Enterprise | Need to contact sales | Sandbox access, custom agent roles, dynamic workspaces |
| Advanced AI add-on | $50 per agent/month | Intelligent triage, macro insights, advanced AI tools |
In order to even have access to the Advanced AI add-on at $50 per agent per month, you need to have at least a Suite Professional plan which means $115 per agent per month. That’s not even including the usage costs.
Previous comments from Zendesk users show that they were being charged $1.50 per resolution, but that what constitutes a resolution is… questionable at best, as some people mentioned when customers closed a conversation with no resolution it would be charged because the AI was involved.
How do Zendesk customers feel about this pricing?
In a couple of surveys we did with customers, the biggest pain point with Zendesk was its price. Smaller operations can’t keep up with the new pricing structure of Zendesk. One customer said they couldn’t justify paying $800 a day just for resolutions as it completely ruins their monthly departmental budget.
Another complaint was the automatic charging, that combined with the mislabelled “resolved” tickets, sometimes inflates the bill to astronomic numbers that negatively impact your bottom line.
Third party alternative: eesel AI
The other AI tool to consider if you’re searching for a copilot for your team would be eesel AI. We offer a feature rich AI tool at a price point that’s hard to beat. Plus, we have more integrations than you could possibly ever need.
100’s of integrations and counting
eesel AI connects easily with multiple apps and tools, so you don’t have to worry about your split company documentation and switching between platforms. This allows you to expand your knowledge base or cut down on the time you spend migrating information to a new tool.
Customizable functionality
You’re able to tailor tone, behavior, and even actions to match your company branding and identity. Use some of our prewritten prompts and actions, or write your own from scratch. Your copilot will be giving your live agents answers that are both accurate and on brand, just the way you want it.
Transparent pricing
At eesel AI, we know that scaling your business shouldn’t be more expensive than not scaling it. We run on a pay-per-interaction model, without any per-agent pricing. You will never be charged unexpectedly if you reach your usage limit.
You’ll know exactly how much you’ll be paying at the end of each month based on your plan. You can even get a custom plan built for you and we promise there won’t be hidden fees when you get your bill.
For example, if you feel like a certain plan fits you, but you need more interactions, you just need to pay that plan’s base price and have the option to purchase more interactions in the amount you need them in. There’s no automatic charging or overages, and if you need more, you just simply have to buy additional interactions.
Multiple bots
You can actually set up eesel AI to have multiple bots in order to serve different purposes. You could have one bot trained on customer service information so your customer support agents have an AI copilot to assist them, while you have a sales trained bot helping your sales agents as their copilot there. Another use case for multiple bots could be for different brands, you could have a bot specialized for each brand you’re representing.
How to get set up
Getting your copilot ready for launch is fairly straightforward, both for Zendesk and eesel AI. Zendesk has a quicker setup due to having less customization options when compared to eesel AI.
Native Zendesk AI offering
- Activate Zendesk AI tools: Enable AI features in your Zendesk Admin settings. Advanced AI tools—like intelligent triage—require purchasing the Advanced AI add-on and being on the correct plan.
- Connect your knowledge base: Link your help center to Zendesk AI.
- Configure (if applicable): Set up what features you’d like in your Workspaces → Agent tools → Context panel → Intelligence.
- Deploy and monitor: Start using AI and track its performance.
eesel AI setup
Setting up a copilot with eesel AI is very straightforward. You can quickly sign up here, and simply follow these steps:
- Sign up and start training your bot with integrations.
- Customize your prompt. Add in your brand’s preferred greeting, tone, and what you want it to say when certain queries come up.
- Draft replies. Download the extension and open it while you have a ticket open and get drafting!
For more details you can follow this guide!
If you’d like to give eesel AI a go, we also offer a free trial so you can make sure we’re the right fir for you.
Best practices and tips
As much as everyone is afraid of AI taking their jobs, their output is only as good as the input. Here’s a couple of best practices to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your AI copilots:
- Keep your knowledge base up to date: Whether it’s Zendesk or eesel AI, your copilots rely on the data in the knowledge base to answer questions. If you have updates about a product, make sure that your copilots get them as well, otherwise your live agents will get outdated information.
- Customize your bots: While not the easiest thing to do in Zendesk there’s still ways to customize your bot in a way that will allow your copilot to answer differently. With eesel AI, the sky’s the limit and you can fully customize your bot so your copilot is giving on brand replies to your live agents.
- Test your copilot: Take your copilot for a test run before you deploy it in a real world scenario. Use your copilot on a couple of test tickets, making sure to test on a wide range of subjects. Use our sandbox chat in the customize tab to test out different prompts before going live.
Flying high with your AI copilot of choice
When in the market for an AI copilot to help your staff, you have to take into consideration all of your needs. If you’re firmly planted in the Zendesk ecosystem and don’t want to use external tools, then the Zendesk AI is probably the one for you and your team. If you’re looking for an alternative that won’t break the bank and still get the job done just as well (if not better), then eesel AI is right for you.
If you’d like to check out what eesel AI can do for you, check us out on our site, or try our 7 day free trial, no credit card required!
