Apple Business Chat Now Available to All Zendesk Customers

[MacRumors]

Apple and Zendesk today made Business Chat generally available for all businesses that use Zendesk Support, over two years since the service first went into beta.

First announced in 2018, Business Chat is designed to allow iPhone, iPad, and macOS users to communicate directly with businesses right within the Messages app. Users can chat with businesses, schedule appointments, and make purchases, without having to call for help.

The messaging add-on for businesses also integrates with other core Apple services like Apple Maps and Apple Pay, allowing users to search for relevant local information and pay for things in the Messages app while chatting with a support agent.

Companies wanting to set up Apple Business Chat have to integrate it to a customer service platform that uses Zendesk Support. From there, companies can connect to customers from multiple platforms and manage all interactions through a unified interface.

As with most of its services, Apple focused on privacy with Business Chat, so no business is provided with a user's contact information and chats can be ended at any time.

Article Link: Apple Business Chat Now Available to All Zendesk Customers

 

[HMFIC03]

I hope this comes to Ticketmaster one day. Their chat system like many companies is awful. Apple business chat allows you to multitask i.e go into other apps and not end the conversation. That is so painful of with others because soon as you leave the safari app to reference an email or note, they end the chat on you.

 

[b0fh]

Bah. Zendesk *STILL* doesn't support Safari when you try to login, such as going to https://example-vendor.zendesk.com/ and it sends you bouncing back and forth. Apparently, it's a known issue for 2 years and on-going.

 

[gwhizkids]

I like this service, but it is so sparse and undiscoverable, that its effectively useless, I think. Which is too bad...

 

[town3r]

Bah. Zendesk *STILL* doesn't support Safari when you try to login, such as going to https://example-vendor.zendesk.com/ and it sends you bouncing back and forth. Apparently, it's a known issue for 2 years and on-going.

Is there a specific Zendesk page where you're experiencing this issue?
It's possible the issue is actually related to the configuration the company using Zendesk has setup.
I'm able to sign into a Zendesk account via Desktop and Mobile Safari just fine.

 

[b0fh]

Is there a specific Zendesk page where you're experiencing this issue?
It's possible the issue is actually related to the configuration the company using Zendesk has setup.
I'm able to sign into a Zendesk account via Desktop and Mobile Safari just fine.

Zendesk help

support.zendesk.com

Zendesk support for cookie-restricted browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox)

Note: Recently, Google has announced that third-party cookies will be phased out in Chrome. These changes will not impact the Zendesk Support or help center sign-in experience. This article descr...

support.zendesk.com

Known issue, and they refused to give a **** about it.

 

[kesennnnn]

Sadly this is still limited to the US tho. Don’t forget about us Canadians, haha. 🇨🇦

 

[Amadeo]

Delta uses Business Chat, and it's been my #1 way to contact them with regards to changing travel plans amidst the pandemic. Honestly, has been a fantastic way to get customer support.

 

[mazz0]

Love the really helpful chat in the example photo!

Customer: Hi Apple, which iPad should I buy?
Apple: I recommend the most expensive one. In fact get two - Fathers’ Day is coming up.

 

[town3r]

Known issue, and they refused to give a **** about it.

Thanks for clarifying!
Do know that they do care.
Their Devs have already started working on a long-term approach to resolve this issue.
It's a cross-functional initiative that's requiring resources from other teams and product architects hence it may take a while.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Known issue, and they refused to give a **** about it.

Yes it’s been awhile but is that a fair characterization of the situation? It seems they’ve been working on it and there’s an update scheduled to be released in a couple days (July 23, 2020).

 

[happygodavid]

Love the really helpful chat in the example photo!

Customer: Hi Apple, which iPad should I buy?
Apple: I recommend the most expensive one. In fact get two - Fathers’ Day is coming up.

When I worked at Apple Retail, they trained us to down-sell to customers. "Sell them what they need, not what they think they want or need. Whatever you do, don't sell them the most expensive thing for the job unless they absolutely need it or insist on it." Seems like the app AI didn't get the same training.

 

[b0fh]

Yes it’s been awhile but is that a fair characterization of the situation? It seems they’ve been working on it and there’s an update scheduled to be released in a couple days (July 23, 2020).

When every other website out here has no issues with letting Safari users login, when they have been working on it for "2 years" (probably more), it shows that they don't give a ****.

How the hell do other websites allow logins then? Is what they are doing that special? They haven't been able to identify the issue and code for it? Again... over 2 years... Safari users can't login, and I've told multiple vendors to complain as well.

My only conclusion is that they don't give a **** about Safari users.

If this was a problem on IE, it would have been fixed already.

 

[PickUrPoison]

When every other website out here has no issues with letting Safari users login, when they have been working on it for "2 years" (probably more), it shows that they don't give a ****.

How the hell do other websites allow logins then? Is what they are doing that special? They haven't been able to identify the issue and code for it? Again... over 2 years... Safari users can't login, and I've told multiple vendors to complain as well.

My only conclusion is that they don't give a **** about Safari users.

If this was a problem on IE, it would have been fixed already.

Neither of the threads you posted go back any farther than June 2019, is that what you mean by two years? 2019 and 2020?

Concluding they don’t give a crap when they’ve been working on a fix for months—that’s apparently going to be available in two days—makes no sense to me.

I get that you’re angry, but that’s not something I have the bandwidth to offer support to you for at the moment 🤷‍♂️

 

[hkataria]

Zendesk help

support.zendesk.com

Zendesk support for cookie-restricted browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox)

Note: Recently, Google has announced that third-party cookies will be phased out in Chrome. These changes will not impact the Zendesk Support or help center sign-in experience. This article descr...

support.zendesk.com

Known issue, and they refused to give a **** about it.

Hi folks, I'm from Zendesk and one of the teams I manage works on the login feature you mentioned. We released a fix today, a couple of days early to support Safari logins via their Storage Access API, so you should be able to login now. We've also updated the helpcenter article today - https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360034788653

Apologies for the delay here since we've only been able to prioritize this work recently and we're big mac users here so happy to see this change finally go out!

 

[nicho]

When I worked at Apple Retail, they trained us to down-sell to customers. "Sell them what they need, not what they think they want or need. Whatever you do, don't sell them the most expensive thing for the job unless they absolutely need it or insist on it." Seems like the app AI didn't get the same training.

In fairness, it’s an old image. At the time the iPad Pro was the only option for using an Apple Pencil (see Apple Pencil 1 next to it).

iirc it also wasn’t quite as expensive then.

 

[DeepIn2U]

I like this service, but it is so sparse and undiscoverable, that its effectively useless, I think. Which is too bad...

I feel if Apple allows an API to connect for service desk applications to create for tickets for the dialogue to be input and then this will have a little more from support businesses.

 

[sgtaylor5]

The Apple Business Chat feature in Zendesk is $495/month! Larger companies only, I guess.

EDIT: Misspelling fix

 

[b0fh]

Thanks for clarifying!
Do know that they do care.
Their Devs have already started working on a long-term approach to resolve this issue.
It's a cross-functional initiative that's requiring resources from other teams and product architects hence it may take a while.

Seriously, 2 years to "work on" this problem? Even the Titanic only took 2 years to build. 2 years is enough to roll out *TWO* versions of iOS, macOS and any number of other things.

Do not be an apologist for companies crapping on you.

 

[b0fh]

Hi folks, I'm from Zendesk and one of the teams I manage works on the login feature you mentioned. We released a fix today, a couple of days early to support Safari logins via their Storage Access API, so you should be able to login now. We've also updated the helpcenter article today - https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360034788653

Apologies for the delay here since we've only been able to prioritize this work recently and we're big mac users here so happy to see this change finally go out!

I appreciate the update. And I'm surprised that such "big time" Mac users allowed such a problem to linger - over 2 years. It couldn't have been a priority.

But I'm glad it got done. Lets home it works.

 

[b0fh]

Neither of the threads you posted go back any farther than June 2019, is that what you mean by two years? 2019 and 2020?

Concluding they don’t give a crap when they’ve been working on a fix for months—that’s apparently going to be available in two days—makes no sense to me.

I get that you’re angry, but that’s not something I have the bandwidth to offer support to you for at the moment 🤷‍♂️

I didn't realize you are here to support zendesk. As for the threads, that's just one of them that I found via a quick googling. Here's another from April 2017. Hopefully this will help you out.

Disable 3rd party cookie requirement globally

We have had several end users complain that they need to allow 3rd party cookies to login to our support portal. They mostly use Chrome and wish to not use a separate browser (such as Safari) just ...

support.zendesk.com

I was just ranting at a company that did not give a **** about Safari users. There's no need to jump in and defend them, you know.