Can I hide customer email addresses from agents?

Hi Julia

That is not something that is easily done in Zendesk. The only way i see you can solve this, is by developing a new channel into Zendesk. The way it would work is to have the channel handle the contact info on the customer, so no details is available in Zendesk. Then every time an agent writes a reply it goes to the channel, which then sends an email to the customer and the other way round too. That way you won't need any email address in Zendesk at all... 

Hey Julia!

Carsten is right; email address is the main way that a user is identified in Zendesk.

Would it be possible for you to go into more detail about why that information needs to be hidden?

Hello Jessie,

Julia absolutely right, we must to have ability to hide (or partly hide) customers emails. Sometimes, agents can collect emails without permission for use his database after they fired. And sure, as you can see, it's not very good for business.

Here Andy explained very clearly why these data is sensitive https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115000848368-Hiding-Customer-Emails-from-Agents

Carsten, can you explain more detailed step by step about "how to create separate channel to communicate with customer without seeing customer detail to Agent"?

And why so difficult to show to Agents page part of customer email? E.g. cus****r@***.com instead full email? Zendesk "know" the real email to send response to customer. All the same, after all, the agent does not use personal email box to send the email, but answers immediately through zendesk.

Thanks. Best regards 

Carsten, I am also very interested in how you would go about creating a separate channel that customers would contact you on to remove the email address from the Zendesk ticket. If you could provide some additional information or a link to an article explaining how to do this, that would be great!

"The only way I see you can solve this, is by developing a new channel into Zendesk. The way it would work is to have the channel handle the contact info on the customer, so no details are available in Zendesk."

Kind regards

Simone

Hello!

This post is quite old so I want to check this again if it is solved?

I need my agent not to view client details because I work with them remotely and obviously I don't want my customer data to be revealed to them. 

It must be possible with user permission settings but if its not, Please explain the proper process of it. I didn't understand what channel needs to be created and how it is going to work? A video tutorial is much appreciated. 

Please HELP!!!

Unfortunately this hasn't been solved, and I haven't heard this as a topic for the future.
The approach Carsten shared is still the same.

In order for this to work you need some sort of middleware which masks the details of the customer.
Kind of like how Booking.com and Zalando do it whenever you email them. The agent receiving your response, doesn't get your email address.

That means it's required to build a service which maps your customers details with masked email address/IDs, and then forwards it via the Channel Framework or email. I don't believe there is a public solution available of someone who has done this before with Zendesk yet.

Far as I know only Freshdesk offer the possibility to hide email address from the agent, but only on a higher plan, so is too expensive. I use Help Scout and they do not offer the possibility to hide customer email from agent too. Now I see that Zendesk do not offer this possibility too (hide customer email from the agent).

This is not logic at all Zendesk! In this scenario agent can sell your customers data on black market as long as in this days almost all agents work remote, so not from our office!

This is a seriously data breach for all entrepreneurs, and this mean loose of money!

The only way i see you can solve this, is by developing a new channel into Zendesk. The way it would work is to have the channel handle the contact info on the customer, so no details is available in Zendesk. Then every time an agent writes a reply it goes to the channel, which then sends an email to the customer and the other way round too.

Carsten, I am also very interested in how you would go about creating a separate channel that customers would contact you on to remove the email address from the Zendesk ticket. If you could provide some additional information or a link to an article explaining how to do this, that would be great!

Also would be very useful information for me. Any updates or hints?