The moment it happens

Let your voice agent look up callers in Zendesk

Your phone agent gets the caller's Zendesk record and open tickets, or opens a new ticket from the call notes.

Runs: The moment it happens
Apps: Zendesk
AI: Not needed
Access: read+write

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: give me a link my voice agent can call with a phone number. Return the matching Zendesk user and their open tickets, or create a ticket from the call notes if there's nothing open.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

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First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A voice agent answers the company phone after hours and a caller says their dashboard has been down since morning. The agent can talk, but it has no idea who this person is, whether they already have an open ticket, or where to write the problem down. Without a connection to the help desk, the call ends with a promise to pass it along, and a note on someone's desk that may never become a ticket.

While the call is live, the agent sends the caller's phone number to a trigger link. The number is searched against Zendesk users, and that person's existing tickets are listed so the agent can say you already have one open about this. If nothing relevant exists, a new ticket is created with the details gathered during the call.

It fits small teams that put an AI phone agent in front of their support line.

What you get out of it

Callers are recognized at once
Finding the user by phone number lets the agent greet a known customer by name and see their history. People feel heard, instead of being asked to spell their email address twice.
Duplicate tickets are avoided
Because open tickets are listed before anything is created, a customer calling about the same outage does not generate a second ticket. Agents see one thread, not three. The caller never has to repeat a problem already on file.
Every call leaves a written record
A new ticket captures what the caller said while it is fresh. Nothing depends on someone remembering to type up a voicemail on Monday morning. Staff wake up to a sorted queue, not a voicemail box.
After-hours problems start the clock
A ticket created at 9 p.m. gets its first-response timer started in Zendesk. The morning shift opens a queue where the overnight calls are already sorted by arrival. Customers repeat themselves less.
The agent can speak with facts
With ticket status in hand, the voice agent can say it is assigned and being worked on rather than guess. That reduces repeat calls from customers who just want to know where things stand.
Less after-call paperwork
Because the ticket is created during the call, nobody types up notes afterward, which also removes transcription mistakes. The ticket also gives the human team the original wording of the problem, so callbacks start from what the customer said, not from a summary.

How it works

What happens, step by step

When a call comes in, your voice agent asks ClickRuntime to look up the caller by phone number in Zendesk.
If the caller is found, it returns their name, email and open tickets with their status, so the agent can greet them and pick up where they left off.
If the caller needs new help, it creates a Zendesk ticket for them from the call details.

Before it runs live

Connect Zendesk
Paste your automation's link into the other app's webhook settings

What you get

RunsThe moment it happens

Let your voice agent look up callers in Zendeskjust nowSucceeded

Voice agent · LookupDana Ortiz (dana@northwind.example) · Open: #4790 Refund for order 1042 (pending)

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Zendesk steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

caller_lookup_and_ticket_creation_for_a_voice_agent.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_event, http, credentials

ZD = "https://yourcompany.zendesk.com/api/v2"
AGENT_EMAIL = "you@yourcompany.com"

def zd(method, path, **kw):
    r = http.request(method, f"{ZD}{path}", auth=(f"{AGENT_EMAIL}/token", credentials.secret("ZENDESK_API_TOKEN")), **kw)
    r.raise_for_status()
    return r.json() if r.content else None

@on_event
def handle(event):
    call = event.json or {}
    phone = call.get("phone", "")
    users = zd("GET", "/search.json", params={"query": f"type:user phone:{phone}"})["results"]
    user = users[0] if users else None
    tickets = []
    if user:
        tickets = zd("GET", "/search.json", params={"query": f"type:ticket requester_id:{user['id']} status<solved"})["results"]
    if not tickets and call.get("notes"):
        body = {"subject": f"Phone call from {phone}", "comment": {"body": call["notes"]}}
        if user:
            body["requester_id"] = user["id"]
        tickets = [zd("POST", "/tickets", json={"ticket": body})["ticket"]]
    return {"user": user and {"name": user["name"], "email": user["email"]},
            "open_tickets": [{"id": t["id"], "subject": t["subject"], "status": t["status"]} for t in tickets]}

FAQ

Common questions

What if two users share the same phone number?

The search returns every Zendesk user with that number, so a shared line may match more than one profile. The agent can pick based on a name the caller gives, or create the ticket under the first match.

Does the phone number format matter?

It can. Zendesk stores phone numbers as entered, so a lookup works best when the number is in the same format your users have, such as with the country code. Normalizing the number before searching avoids missed matches.

Can the voice platform be anything?

Any voice agent that can make an HTTP request during or after a call can use the trigger link. It sends the phone number and the details it collected, and the automation replies with what it found or created.

What permissions does it need?

read+write. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run for each event the app sends.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

The moment it happens