Channel Framework
What is the Channel Framework?
Customer requests can come from anywhere. Messages, questions, live chats, help requests, community posts, and reviews bubble up all across the web. When those messages go unheard or ignored, tension is created between businesses and their customers.
At present, Zendesk Support provides connections to Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) as ticket channels. But beyond this, there's a wealth of additional customer communication that could serve support teams and media managers.
The Channel framework lets you build integrations — two-way ticket-creation services — that bring customer communications from anywhere else into Zendesk Support. Examples include ratings and reviews in Yelp, app stores, Amazon or Ebay, or content in communities like Reddit or Quora.
In the following example, a comment posted by Olga on Google Play created a ticket in Zendesk Support. The agent can reply to her comment on Google Play without leaving Zendesk Support.
Zendesk's goal is to connect people to their customers. We aim to further this goal by opening Zendesk Support up to the world.
Understanding the Channel Framework
This guide is for developers implementing Zendesk Support Channel integrations. It describes how to build a bi-directional integration service that allows Zendesk Support and an external system to communicate with each other. It also documents the interfaces that an integration service must implement.
Build a channel from scratch
Channels are ways to communicate with your customers. Zendesk Support has many different built-in channels, including email, web forms, X, and Facebook. However, Zendesk can't cover every channel where customers ask for help.
In this five-part project, you'll learn how to build a simple channel to a community in a Zendesk help center.