Public reply vs internal note

Ref: A07 · Track: Agent Essentials · Time to complete: ~4 min

Why this matters

Every Zendesk ticket has two kinds of entries: ones the customer sees, and ones they don't. Confusing them once is embarrassing. Confusing them twice puts you in a compliance review.

The two composers

At the bottom of the ticket, the composer has a tab bar at the top:

• Public reply — a white box. Customer and any CCs see this.
• Internal note — a yellow box. Only agents and light agents in your Zendesk can see this. The customer never does.

Click the tab to switch. The background colour changes immediately so you always know which mode you're in.

When to use each

Public reply

• Answering the customer's question.
• Asking them for more information.
• Acknowledging receipt.
• Sending a solution.
• Confirming you're solving the ticket.

Internal note

• "@Claire, can you take a look — this feels like a billing issue."
• "FYI the customer was very short on the phone earlier."
• Pasting the results of a diagnostic you don't want the customer to see.
• Linking to internal tooling or Jira tickets.
• Flagging behaviour for a team lead.

You can also @mention a colleague inside an internal note (e.g. @claire). They get notified, but the customer still sees nothing.

Everything is auditable — forever

Both public replies and internal notes are stored on the ticket permanently. You can't delete them. You can't edit them after submitting. If you're wondering whether you'd be comfortable with someone reading a note in 18 months during an audit, write it as if the answer is "yes".

⚠️ Zendesk admins (and, in some configurations, your legal team) can read any internal note at any time. Treat notes as if you were sending them on a company-monitored email — because effectively, you are.

Gotchas

• Clicking the wrong tab. Before you hit Submit, glance at the colour. Yellow = internal. White = public.
• Pasting customer-friendly text into a note. You've written a beautiful reply… into an internal note. Nobody saw it. Always check the tab.
• CCs and followers see public replies — always. If a customer has CC'd their manager, the manager sees everything you reply publicly. If that matters, ask the customer to take the manager off CC before you send anything sensitive.
• Formatting in replies. The rich-text editor has bold, italics, links, bullets. Use sparingly — walls of formatting read as AI-generated.

Quick check — have you got this?

• White composer vs yellow composer — which does the customer see?
• You write an internal note saying "this customer is a nightmare". Who can see it?
• You accidentally submit the right content in the wrong composer (e.g. said it as an internal note when you meant to say it to the customer). What do you do?

Related articles

• A06 — Anatomy of a ticket
• A11 — Using macros to reply faster
• B11 — Side conversations via email