For B2B teams, it's common to assign a dedicated support agent to enterprise or high-value customers. This ensures those customers are always routed to their assigned agent whenever a new ticket comes in.
Out of the box, you can set this up in Zendesk using tags and triggers. This works fine if you have a handful of agents and organizations. But if you're managing dedicated support for hundreds of organizations on a growing team, that approach gets hard to maintain quickly.
Playlist's Dedicated Support workflow gives you a scalable alternative.
What you can do with Dedicated Support
- Create a single trigger that automatically assigns tickets to the dedicated agent
- Select a dedicated agent directly from a user lookup field on the organization sidebar
- Use the Organizations tool to segment and export organizations to a CSV file
- Bulk import changes from a CSV without touching any triggers
How it works
Dedicated Agent ID field
Playlist adds a [Playlist] Dedicated Agent ID custom field to each organization in Zendesk. This field stores the user ID of the dedicated agent for that organization.
You can set this field two ways:
Option 1: Organization sidebar. Select a dedicated agent from the user lookup on the organization sidebar app. The lookup shows all active Playlist users. When you select an agent, their user ID is saved to the Dedicated Agent ID field automatically.
Option 2: CSV import. Use the Organizations tab to segment organizations (by tags, custom fields, etc.) and export them to a CSV. Update the custom_fields.playlist_dedicated_agent_id column in Excel or Google Sheets, then bulk import the changes in Zendesk. This is the fastest way to make changes at scale without modifying any triggers.
How tickets get assigned
When a new ticket comes in, a single trigger checks whether the ticket's organization has a Dedicated Agent ID set. If it does, it notifies the Playlist Dedicated Support Webhook, and Playlist assigns the ticket to that agent immediately. This happens independently of Round Robin or Playlist Button.
Ready to set it up? Jump to Setup.
Setup
There are 3 steps to set up the Dedicated Support workflow.
Step 1: Generate a Playlist API key
Go to Playlist Setup > Tools > API Key.
- If you see a Deactivate button, your account already has an API key. Skip to Step 2.
- If you see a Generate API key button, click it. Once generated, copy the key and store it somewhere secure.
You won't need the API key for this setup, but you may want it for future integrations (workforce management tools, internal apps, etc.).
Step 2: Enable Dedicated Support
Go to Workflows > Dedicated Support and click Enabled.
When you enable it for the first time, Playlist automatically creates a Playlist Dedicated Support Webhook. This webhook is used by the trigger you'll create in the next step.
Once enabled, you can configure the following settings:
Tag — Optionally add a tag to tickets that are successfully assigned via the Dedicated Support workflow. Useful for reporting or for use in other triggers and automations.
Ignore agent status — Enabled by default. When enabled, tickets are assigned to the dedicated agent regardless of whether they're set to Online in Playlist Routing. Disable this if you only want assignment to happen when the agent is available.
Notify agent — Enabled by default. Sends the agent a notification when a ticket is assigned to them via Dedicated Support, including a sound alert if they have one configured in their personal settings.
Step 3: Create a trigger to notify the webhook
Create a trigger in Zendesk that fires when a new ticket belongs to an organization with a Dedicated Agent ID set.
Go to Zendesk Admin > Triggers > Add trigger.
Trigger name
Playlist Dedicated Support Trigger
Trigger category
(choose a category)
Conditions
──────────────────────────────────────
Meet ALL of the following conditions
Category Operator Value
[ Ticket > Ticket ] › [ Is ] › [ Created ]
[ Status ] › [ Less than ] › [ Solved ]
[ Assignee ] › [ Is ] › [ (unassigned) ]
[ [Playlist] Dedicated Agent ID ] › [ Is ] › [ Present ]
[ Tags ] › [ Contains none of ] › [ dedicated_support
(or your tag from Step 2 ]
Actions
──────────────────────────────────────
Category Value
[ Notify by: Active webhook ] › [ Playlist Dedicated Support Webhook ]
Endpoint
https://api.myplaylist.io/workflows/dedicated_support/tickets/{{ticket.id}}/?api_key=***
Description
-
Method
GET
Key Value
────────────────── ──────────────────
dedicated_agent_id {{ticket.organization.custom_fields.playlist_dedicated_agent_id}}Avoiding trigger loops
To prevent a trigger loop, make sure the trigger only fires once per ticket. Using Ticket > Is > Created as a condition (rather than "Is updated") is the simplest way to ensure this.
Additional notes
- Tickets that are closed or already assigned to another agent will be ignored.
- A ticket will only be assigned by the Dedicated Support workflow once.