How to forward your email into Zendesk

Email Forwarding in Zendesk: A Quick Guide for Admins

This article outlines how to forward incoming email from your existing email address to Zendesk Support so that you can receive support requests at an external email address and send email replies to your customers via your external email address.

Important Considerations

• Connecting your email should be one of the final steps before launching Zendesk.
• Zendesk recommends setting up forwarding before adding the external support address in Zendesk, particularly if IT assistance is required. Email traffic is inbound only until the external address is added, and Zendesk will only send outbound email from that address once it's added and the forwarding is verified.
• Avoid using distribution group emails or email aliases as external support addresses to prevent routing and troubleshooting issues. Use a dedicated forwarding address instead such as support@gravity.cx for example
• Zendesk does not support multi-forwarding, which can lead to inconsistent results.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Forwarding Email to Zendesk

Here are the general steps to forward email from an external domain to Zendesk Support:

1. Add your external support address in Zendesk. This allows Zendesk to verify the address and display it in outbound emails.
2. Set up forwarding on your mail server so that incoming email is forwarded to your Zendesk support address.

When adding your external support address to Zendesk Support, a wizard will guide you through the necessary steps for both Zendesk and your external email account. The specific steps vary depending on your email provider. Once finished, Zendesk will verify that forwarding is set up correctly.

Detailed Steps

1. Plan your Zendesk support addresses. If you use one external email address for support requests, you can forward email from that address to any existing Zendesk support address. You can use your default support address, another Zendesk support address, or create a new address. If customers use multiple external email addresses, Zendesk recommends creating a dedicated Zendesk support address for each forwarded account to facilitate ticket routing.

   • For example:
     1. support@gravity.cx forwards to support@gravitycx.zendesk.com
     2. info@gravity.cx forwards to info@gravitycx.zendesk.com
     3. hr@gravity.cx forwards to hr@gravitycx.zendesk.com

2. Add your external support address in Zendesk:

   • In Admin Centre, go to Channels > Talk and email > Email.
   • If the Zendesk support address you're forwarding to doesn't exist, create it.
   • Under the correct brand (if you only have one brand you can simply add a support address) In the Support addresses section, click Add address.
     • For Gmail: Select Connect other, enter the Gmail address, select "Yes, I have forwarded this address...", and click Next. Follow the on-screen steps to set up forwarding in Gmail.
     • For other providers: Select Connect external address, then Email forwarding, and click Next. Enter your existing support email address in the "Enter current support address" field, then click Go.
   • The wizard will instruct you to enter your default support address (support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com) as the forwarding email address, but you can use any existing Zendesk support address as per above examples.
   • After setting up forwarding, click Yes, I finished, then click Verify. A test email will be sent to verify the setup. If successful, a message will confirm the address is verified. If the test fails, you'll receive an alert.
   • If forwarding from multiple addresses, repeat the steps for each address.

3. Set up forwarding on your mail server:

   • Configure automatic forwarding at the server level, rather than manually forwarding from an email client.
   • Refer to your email provider's documentation for specific instructions.
   • Some email providers allow creating forwarding rules to select specific incoming mail to forward.

Additional steps

• SPF record: Add a sender policy framework (SPF) record if using a custom domain to verify that Zendesk can send outgoing email on behalf of your email server.
• Digitally sign outbound email from Zendesk to prevent spoofing and verify the email's origin.