Amazon to Zendesk: connect and route the mails

You have Amazon’s buyer-message mails forwarded to your Zendesk support address, so Zendesk turns them into tickets. Schakel then adds the order data as an internal note, with tags and ticket fields. You connect Amazon and Zendesk, route the mails and review a dry run. It takes about half an hour.

What you end up withAmazon messages as tickets in your Zendesk, each with an internal note holding the order, the address, the shipping and the tracking. Replies stay normal email replies in Zendesk.

  1. 01

    What the connector does and does not do

    Amazon does not release buyer messages through its API, and it does not release A-to-z claims either. So Schakel cannot read a message. The approach is therefore different: you have the mails Amazon sends you (from an address like xxx@marketplace.amazon.de) forwarded to your Zendesk support address, and Zendesk itself turns each mail into one ticket, with the text and the attachments. Schakel regularly checks Zendesk for new tickets from such an Amazon address, looks in the subject and the first text for order numbers (like 302-1234567-1234567) and reads those orders at Amazon. Schakel puts the result on the ticket: an internal note with the order data, a few tags and ticket fields. What it cannot do: read messages, see A-to-z claims, and send replies through Schakel or the Amazon API. A reply is a normal email reply in Zendesk, which goes to the buyer’s Amazon alias address. Schakel only reads at Amazon and never writes anything there, and never sends anything to a buyer.

  2. 02

    What you need

    Four things. An Amazon seller account that you connected in Schakel through your own SP-API app (see the next step). A Zendesk account with API access, and someone with the Admin role to create the OAuth client. Access to the mail account that receives the Amazon mails, to set up the forwarding rule. And your Zendesk support address: by default support@mycompany.zendesk.com, found in Zendesk under Admin Center, Channels, Email. You do not need a Zendesk password or API token.

  3. 03

    Connect Amazon

    Create your own SP-API app in Seller Central and paste the three values into Schakel. It is described step by step in Creating your Amazon app. Schakel then only uses read permissions on orders; the connector writes nothing to Amazon. If you already connected Amazon for another connector, you can pick the same connection here.

  4. 04

    Connect Zendesk with your own OAuth client

    You connect Zendesk with an OAuth client that you create yourself in your Zendesk, the same as for the Bol.com to Zendesk connector. The four screens are shown with screenshots in Bol.com to Zendesk: connect and set up, under “Create your own OAuth client in Zendesk (1/4 to 4/4)” and “Connect Zendesk in Schakel”. In short: Admin Center, Apps and integrations, APIs, OAuth clients, a confidential client with the read and write scopes, and then paste the client ID and secret into Schakel at Zendesk. In step 2 of the wizard you then choose which Amazon account belongs to which Zendesk.

  5. 05

    Route the Amazon mails (Gmail)

    You set this up in the mail account that receives the Amazon mails. In Gmail or Google Workspace: open Settings, See all settings, tab Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Choose Add a forwarding address and enter your Zendesk support address. Gmail sends a confirmation mail to that address; it arrives in Zendesk as a ticket. Open that ticket and click the confirmation link. Then go to the tab Filters and Blocked Addresses, choose Create a new filter and enter at From: marketplace.amazon (this catches every country). Choose Create filter, tick Forward it to, select the Zendesk address and save the filter. Leave general forwarding off: only the Amazon mails belong in Zendesk.

  6. 06

    Route the Amazon mails (Outlook or Microsoft 365)

    In Outlook on the web or Microsoft 365: open Settings, Mail, Rules and choose Add new rule. Set the condition From contains marketplace.amazon. As the action choose Redirect to (or Forward to) and enter your Zendesk support address. Redirect keeps the original sender address intact, which is best for Zendesk, because Schakel recognises the Amazon tickets by that sender address. Save the rule. If forwarding to external addresses is switched off in your Microsoft 365 admin, an admin has to allow it for this address.

  7. 07

    Or: the Zendesk address as the notification address in Seller Central

    Where your account offers it, you can enter the Zendesk support address in Seller Central under Settings, Notification Preferences (or under User Permissions) as the email address for buyer messages. This depends on your account: not every seller account offers it, the menu names differ per marketplace and Amazon limits who may change it. We have not been able to check it for every account type. If you do not see the option, use the forwarding rule above, which always works. Note that the mails must still come from a marketplace.amazon address, otherwise Schakel does not recognise them.

  8. 08

    Test the forwarding rule

    Wait for a real buyer message to arrive, or have a colleague with their own Amazon account send you a test message. Then check in Zendesk that there is a ticket whose requester is a marketplace.amazon address. If you see no ticket, the mail is not arriving: check in your mailbox whether the rule forwarded the mail and in Zendesk whether the address was confirmed. Then confirm in step 3 of the wizard that the rule is in place.

  9. 09

    Choose a start date and review the dry run

    In step 4 you choose from which date tickets are enriched. The default is today: tickets from before that date get no order data. You can also choose extra tags. The dry run reads the up to 10 most recent tickets from Amazon addresses in Zendesk and shows which order numbers Schakel finds in them. It is read only: nothing is changed in Zendesk and nothing is requested from Amazon. A ticket without an order number later gets the tag amazon_order_missing and a short note. Click Start when the list is right.

  10. 10

    What an enriched ticket looks like

    For each ticket Schakel adds one internal note (not visible to the buyer) with a table: product name, quantity, ASIN and SKU, the order number, the shipping service, whether the order is FBA or FBM, the sales channel and marketplace, the name and delivery address, the customer name, the purchase date, the ship-by and deliver-by windows, the carrier, the tracking number and the ship date (for FBM; for FBA it says this is not available), the order status and a link to the order in Seller Central for that marketplace. At the bottom it says an A-to-z claim is not available through the Amazon API, with a link to Seller Central so you can check it yourself. Details Amazon does not hand over, such as personal data, read “not available”. The ticket also gets the fields Amazon order ID, Marketplace, Fulfilment, Status and Tracking, and the tags amazon, amazon_de (or another country code), fba or fbm, amazon_order_found or amazon_order_missing, schakel_enriched and your own extra tags. A ticket is enriched only once, even if a run stops halfway.

  11. 11

    Replying to the buyer

    Answer the ticket like any other ticket: with a public email reply in Zendesk. It goes to the buyer’s Amazon alias address and Amazon delivers it to the buyer, as Amazon allows. This does not go through Schakel or the Amazon API. Follow Amazon’s rules for messages to buyers (about the order only, no advertising). If you want to look at the order or handle an A-to-z claim, use the link in the note to Seller Central.

  12. 12

    Read the dashboard and change your choices

    The dashboard counts honestly what happened: how many tickets were enriched, for how many the order was not found and how many failed, plus the time of the last run. With Sync now you start a run yourself. Under Settings you can switch enriching off, change the start date and the extra tags and decide from which senders tickets are enriched (default marketplace.amazon.*, with * as a wildcard). A change applies from the next run.

Worth knowing

  • Which customer data does Schakel put in the ticket? Only what Amazon provides with the order: name, delivery address and what was ordered. Amazon restricts personal data strictly and sometimes does not release it; then it says “not available”. The data sits in an internal note, not visible to the buyer.
  • Can Schakel read A-to-z claims or messages? No. Amazon offers no API for it. The text of a message is in the ticket because Zendesk processes the forwarded mail; you look at claims in Seller Central, which the note links to.
  • Does it work for all marketplaces? Yes, for the European marketplaces Amazon links to your seller account (such as DE, ES, IT, FR, NL, BE, PL, SE and the UK). The note names the marketplace and links to Seller Central for that country. If a mail contains several order numbers, Schakel reads at most five.
  • What happens to other tickets in Zendesk? Nothing. Schakel only enriches tickets whose requester is an Amazon alias address. Other tickets are not changed.
  • How do I revoke the access? A Zendesk admin deletes the OAuth client that was created for Schakel, in the Admin Center under Apps and integrations, APIs, OAuth clients, and you remove the connection on the Connections page in Schakel. You revoke your Amazon access in Seller Central under Apps and Services, Manage Your Apps. Also remove the forwarding rule in your mail program if you no longer want tickets.

If something goes wrong

No tickets are arriving.
Schakel makes no tickets itself: Zendesk does that from the forwarded mails. So first check the forwarding rule (step above) and whether the Zendesk address was confirmed. Then check in the settings that enriching is on and that the start date is not too recent.
Tickets arrive but get no note.
Schakel only enriches tickets whose requester is an address like marketplace.amazon.*. If the mail was forwarded with your own address as the sender, look in Zendesk for who the requester is and adjust the list of senders in the settings, or choose Redirect in Outlook. Also wait for the next run: Schakel checks regularly, not instantly.
The ticket gets the tag amazon_order_missing.
Schakel found no order number in the subject or the first text, or Amazon does not know the order (for example an order from another seller account or a wrong number). An order number looks like 123-1234567-1234567. Look the order up in Seller Central yourself.
Details in the note read “not available”.
Amazon does not release some fields, mainly personal data, or the order does not have them yet (a tracking number on an order not yet shipped, and never for FBA). Schakel fills in nothing itself. The order number and the link to Seller Central are always there, where you find the rest.
Schakel says Zendesk does not accept the client ID or the secret, or that access has expired.
This is the same as for the Bol.com to Zendesk connector. The fixes are listed under the problems in that guide: check the client ID (the identifier, not the name), paste the secret without spaces and leave the scopes empty or choose read and write.
Schakel says Amazon refuses the access.
Your refresh token or app expired or was revoked. Check the app in Seller Central and enter the values again on the Connections page; see Creating your Amazon app. The connector and settings are kept.
A run did not finish, or Zendesk reports too many requests.
Zendesk limits the number of requests per minute, on the entry plans to around 10, and Amazon limits order lookups too. Schakel respects that: the run stops and continues on the next run. Just wait a run.
A ticket is marked Failed in Schakel.
Schakel retries a failed ticket for three days. If it keeps failing, check the connector log for the reason. If the ticket was deleted or merged in Zendesk in the meantime, Schakel skips it.

Connectors that use your Amazon access

Once you hold the keys, this is where they go. Every connector below talks to Amazon.

Amazon → MoneybirdAmazon → Shopify

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