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Help Desk Handoff (Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, Zoho Desk)

Let your agent open a support ticket and hand the conversation to your help desk.

Connect your help desk so April can hand off the hard conversations. When a visitor asks for a person, gets frustrated, or hits an issue the agent can't resolve, April opens a ticket in your help desk — complete with a summary and the full chat transcript — and your team follows up by email.

The capability is identical across every supported desk. Only the connection details differ, so pick the desk you already use and follow its setup steps below.

How It Works

April handles the handoff in the same way no matter which desk you connect:

  1. Recognizes the moment — the agent detects when a visitor explicitly asks for a human, is clearly frustrated, or raises something it can't answer from your sources.
  2. Collects the email — before escalating, the agent asks for the visitor's email (and name, if it isn't already known) so your team can reply.
  3. Summarizes the issue — the agent writes a short summary of what the visitor needs, framed for your support team.
  4. Opens the ticket — April creates a ticket in your help desk with that summary, and appends the full conversation transcript so your agent has the complete context.
  5. Confirms in chat — the visitor is told a person will follow up by email, and the conversation closes out gracefully.

You don't have to script any of this. Once a desk is connected, the handoff is available automatically and the agent decides when to use it.

If you connect more than one destination, April uses them in a set order — Zendesk first, then Freshdesk, Intercom, HubSpot, and Zoho Desk — so the ticket lands in a single, predictable place.

Example Conversation

Visitor: I've been charged twice for the same order and your FAQ isn't helping. I need to talk to someone.

Agent: I'm sorry about the duplicate charge — that's frustrating, and I want to get a person on it for you. Could you share the email on your account so our support team can follow up?

Visitor: Sure, it's jordan@example.com. Order #4821.

Agent: Thank you, Jordan. I've passed this to our support team with the details of the double charge on order #4821. Someone will email you at jordan@example.com shortly to sort out the refund. Is there anything else I can note for them?

Behind the scenes, April opened a ticket in your help desk titled with the visitor's issue, with a summary at the top and the entire conversation attached below it.

Setup

For any desk, the connection happens the same way in April:

  1. Open your chatbot in the April dashboard.
  2. Go to Integrations in the sidebar.
  3. Find your help desk and click Connect.
  4. Fill in the fields for that desk (below).
  5. Click the connect button — April verifies the credentials before saving.

Use the section for the desk you're connecting.

Zendesk

You'll need three values from your Zendesk account.

  1. In April's Integrations page, find Zendesk and click Connect.
  2. Subdomain — your Zendesk subdomain only. If your help desk lives at your-company.zendesk.com, enter your-company.
  3. Agent email — the email of a Zendesk agent the tickets will be created under (for example agent@your-company.com).
  4. API token — create one in Zendesk under Admin Center → APIs → Zendesk API, then paste it here.
  5. Click Connect Zendesk.

April verifies the credentials and, once connected, shows your Zendesk URL on the card. New handoffs appear as tickets in your Zendesk agent workspace.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk needs two values.

  1. In April's Integrations page, find Freshdesk and click Connect.
  2. Subdomain — your Freshdesk subdomain only. If your portal is your-company.freshdesk.com, enter your-company.
  3. API key — find it in Freshdesk under your Profile Settings, then paste it here.
  4. Click Connect Freshdesk.

Once connected, the agent creates a Freshdesk ticket whenever a visitor needs a human.

Intercom

Intercom uses an access token and a region.

  1. In April's Integrations page, find Intercom and click Connect.
  2. Access token — paste your Intercom access token.
  3. Region — choose the region your Intercom workspace is hosted in: US, EU, or AU.
  4. Click Connect Intercom.

For Intercom, handoffs open as a new conversation in your Inbox rather than a traditional ticket, so your team can reply right where they already work.

Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk uses OAuth, so it needs a few more values. Create a Self Client in the Zoho API console first, with the scopes Desk.tickets.CREATE and Desk.contacts.CREATE, to generate your credentials.

  1. In April's Integrations page, find Zoho Desk and click Connect.
  2. Client ID — from your Zoho Self Client.
  3. Client secret — from your Zoho Self Client.
  4. Refresh token — generated for the Self Client with the scopes above.
  5. Org ID — your Zoho Desk organization ID.
  6. Data center — your Zoho domain suffix: com, eu, in, com.au, or jp. This must match the region your Zoho account lives in.
  7. Click Connect Zoho Desk.

Once connected, the agent opens a Zoho Desk ticket when a visitor needs a human.

Other Handoff Options

A help desk isn't the only place a handoff can land:

  • HubSpot as a ticket destination — if you use HubSpot, you can route handoffs there as tickets instead of a dedicated desk. See the CRM integration page to connect it.
  • April's built-in live-agent inbox — if you don't run an external desk, April includes its own inbox where your team can take over a conversation in real time. See Human Handoff for the alternative.

You can connect a desk and still keep the built-in inbox available — they're complementary.

FAQ

Do I have to tell the agent when to escalate? No. Once a destination is connected, April decides on its own — when a visitor asks for a person, is clearly frustrated, or raises something it can't resolve from your content.

What information ends up in the ticket? A short summary of the visitor's issue written for your team, followed by the complete conversation transcript so your agent has full context.

How does the visitor hear back? By email. That's why the agent asks for an email address before escalating — your team replies to that address from your help desk.

Can I connect more than one desk? Yes. If multiple destinations are connected, April routes the handoff to one of them in a fixed order (Zendesk, then Freshdesk, Intercom, HubSpot, and Zoho Desk), so tickets always land in the same place.

How do I turn it off? Open the desk's card on the Integrations page and click Disconnect. The agent stops creating tickets there immediately.

What if I don't use any of these desks? You can route handoffs to HubSpot, or use April's built-in Human Handoff inbox to take conversations over live.