Fra Gmail

til Zendesk

Når support@ i Google Workspace er blevet et fuldtidsjob at holde styr på

Migrating to Zendesk

A shared inbox scales up to a point – and no further

A shared Gmail or a Google Groups collaborative inbox is free, familiar to everyone and works surprisingly long. That is also why it is the most common place customer service starts.

The problem isn't Gmail. The problem is that an inbox knows nothing about ownership, status, response times or who has waited longest. When two people answer the same customer, when an email is archived too early, or when nobody can say how many enquiries you got last month – you have outgrown the setup.

The switch to Zendesk is technically straightforward. Customers still write to the same address, but behind it every email becomes a ticket with an owner, a status, a history and an SLA. The heavy part isn't the migration – it is the email setup and the habits.

Typical duration2–5 weeks
DifficultyLow – the email setup matters most
Most often forgottenDNS setup and the automated mail

Sound familiar?

Typical symptoms of an inbox that has outgrown itself

Two replies to the same customer

Without ownership on the email, duplicate replies and missed messages are a matter of time, not of care.

Nobody knows how you are doing

Contact volume, response time, busiest days, repeat issues – none of it can be pulled out of an inbox.

Knowledge lives in people's heads

Standard replies sit in private drafts and notes. When someone leaves, they leave too.

No safety net

There is no SLA, no escalation and nobody gets notified when an email has been sitting for three days.

What can be migrated?

How the inbox becomes a system

Gmail and Google Workspace

Emails in the shared inbox

Zendesk

Tickets with owner and status

The customer writes to the same place as before. Behind it, it becomes a ticket you can follow.

Gmail and Google Workspace

Labels and folders

Zendesk

Tags, forms and fields

Labels become structured data you can report on – not just colours.

Gmail and Google Workspace

Filters and rules

Zendesk

Triggers and automations

Forwarding and filters are replaced by routing that also accounts for workload and skills.

Gmail and Google Workspace

Template replies and drafts

Zendesk

Macros

Standard replies become shared, updatable and measurable instead of private.

Gmail and Google Workspace

Aliases and addresses

Zendesk

Support addresses and brands

Several addresses can feed the same Zendesk, each with its own setup and sender.

Gmail and Google Workspace

Email history

Zendesk

Migrated tickets

Existing correspondence can be imported if you want the history. Otherwise we leave Gmail as an archive.

How a migration works

Five phases where you know exactly what happens when

01

Mapping

We review your current setup: channels, volume, workflows, integrations and the habits that aren't written down anywhere.

02

Designing the Zendesk setup

We design fields, forms, groups, SLAs and automations around your processes – not around a standard template.

03

Test migration

We move a subset of the data first so you can see and approve the result before we touch production.

04

Full migration and go-live

We run the full move, switch the channels over and are on hand the day you go live.

05

Training and adjustment

The team is trained before go-live, and we adjust views, macros and rules in the weeks after, once daily use shows what is missing.

What usually causes trouble

What has to be in place before go-live

SPF, DKIM and DMARC

If replies should come from your own domain, DNS has to be set up correctly. Without it your replies land in spam – the worst possible start for a new system.

Forwarding rather than a hard cut

We usually forward from Gmail to Zendesk during a transition period instead of moving MX records on day one. That gives you a safety net.

Calendar invites and automated mail

Newsletters, system mail, notifications and calendar invites have to be filtered out, or you will be creating tickets from all sorts of things on day one.

Habits are the hard part

Some will keep replying from Gmail because it feels faster right now. That has to be agreed and closed off – otherwise you get two systems and history in neither.

Why migrate with Available?

We have moved customer service departments between systems long enough to know that data is rarely what derails a project. It is the decisions nobody made along the way: who owns the customer, what should we stop doing, what do we do with the 400 macros nobody uses.

So we spend as much time on your processes and your team as on the move itself. A migration is the best opportunity you will get to clean up – and the worst one to waste copying old mess into a new system.

Connecting cables and hearts.

Frequently asked questions

Ready to drop the shared inbox?

We help move support@ into Zendesk – with email setup, structure and a team that is ready from day one.

Contact usSee all migrations to Zendesk