Zendesk automation · runs daily
Follow up on pending Zendesk tickets
You asked a customer for an error message and set the ticket to pending. Three days later it still sits there, and nobody notices until the customer writes angrily.
Cotlet does it in your own Zendesk account with search_tickets, get_ticket, reply_to_ticket and update_ticket, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.
Hosted · nothing to install or maintain
Can Zendesk do this on its own?
The standard automations send a fixed email to the requester 24 hours or 5 days after a ticket is set to pending, and the Requester not responding macro inserts a reminder when an agent applies it (checked 16 Oct 2026). All are the same text for every ticket. None quotes what you asked for in that ticket, and none decides that a second reminder is too much.
How you do it in Zendesk today
- The agent sets the ticket to Pending, which means the ticket is not solved but waiting for information from the requester.
- To find stale ones, the agent opens a view that shows unsolved tickets grouped by Open and Pending and scans the Pending group for old updates.
- For each one the agent opens the ticket, rereads the thread to remember what was asked, and writes a public reply.
- Admins can turn on the standard automations "Pending notification 24 hours" or "Pending notification 5 days", which are inactive at signup.
- The checking is the part that gets forgotten, because a pending ticket drops out of everyone's open queue.
How to follow up on pending Zendesk tickets
Find Zendesk tickets that have been pending for more than 3 days with no reply from the customer. Send a short reminder that quotes what we asked for. If we already sent a reminder, tell me instead of sending a second one.- 01
Find the stale ones
search_tickets runs with status:pending and updated older than your cutoff, so only tickets that really waited are in the list.
- 02
Read the thread
get_ticket returns the comments in order. The agent checks that the last public comment is yours, so a ticket where the customer already answered is skipped.
- 03
Count reminders
If an earlier comment already is a reminder, the agent does not send another. It lists the ticket for you with the days waited.
- 04
Write the reminder
reply_to_ticket posts a public reply that repeats the one question you asked, in your wording, and keeps the status at pending. Each reply asks for your OK until you switch confirmation off.
- 05
Close the loop on request
If your prompt says to solve after a second silence, update_ticket sets status to solved, which also waits for your OK by default.
What you get back
Pending for more than 3 days: 9
Reminder sent 5, e.g. #48102 Dana Whitfield, waiting 4 days for the export error text
Skipped 2 (customer replied since)
Already reminded, left for you 2:
- #47990 waiting 9 days
- #48011 waiting 7 daysOther ways to ask
- Every Monday, list pending tickets older than a week with the question we asked and do not send anything.
- Remind only customers on tickets tagged enterprise and write to me in a different tone for them.
- After one reminder and 3 more days of silence, solve the ticket with a polite closing message.
What Zendesk allows, and what to know first
- Zendesk Pending means waiting for information from the requester. On-hold is an optional internal status an admin must turn on, and customers see On-hold tickets as Open.
- The standard "Pending notification 24 hours" and "Pending notification 5 days" automations are inactive at signup until an admin activates them.
- Zendesk closes a ticket 4 days after it is set to solved, a time an admin can raise up to 28 days, and that automation cannot be disabled or deleted.
- A public comment emails the requester unless the notification trigger is disabled, and a comment cannot be removed from a ticket afterwards.
- A Zendesk ticket holds at most 5,000 comments, and one comment is limited to 65,535 characters, HTML tags included.
reply_to_ticket and update_ticket ask for your OK by default. To run it daily without you, switch confirmation off for those tools in your dashboard.
Sources: Zendesk Help: About open vs. pending and on-hold tickets · Zendesk Help: About the standard Support automations · Zendesk Help: Adding comments to tickets · Zendesk Help: Using macros to update tickets
Call reply_to_ticket from a script
curl -X POST https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/zendesk/tickets/48102/replies \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"body":"Hi Dana, just checking in. To fix the export we still need the exact error text you see after clicking Export. A screenshot works too.","status":"pending"}'{
"ticket_id": 48102,
"comment_id": 9120044471,
"public": true,
"status": "pending",
"created_at": "2026-10-16T09:00:00Z"
}MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is zendesk_write → reply_to_ticket. Example data.
Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cronZendesk tools this automation uses
| Tool | Parameters |
|---|---|
| search_tickets | query, sort_by, sort_order, limit, cursor |
| get_ticket | ticket_id |
| reply_to_ticket | ticket_id, body, status |
| update_ticket | ticket_id, status, priority, assignee_id, group_id, add_tags, remove_tags, subject |
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to connect Zendesk to Cotlet?
Yes. You sign in to Zendesk yourself, in your own Cloud Browser in the EU, and we never save your password. Your agents only get Zendesk once you enable it, every background request is listed, and the browser profile is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM, the cipher 1Password uses for its vaults. The AI model never sees a login, posts and messages wait for your OK, and Disable for agents cuts access in one click. Independent scanners grade cotlet.dev A+ on Qualys SSL Labs, securityheaders.com and Mozilla Observatory; live results are on https://cotlet.dev/security.
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