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Phone conversations route through . When the AI phone agent hands off a call, your rep picks it up as a conversation inside the Zendesk — with the full transcript attached and a clear handoff reason.

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Pre-requisites

Create your AI Phone agent first. No calls can hand off until the agent exists and a number is bound to it — start with Create Phone Agent and come back here.

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How conversations land in Zendesk

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Setting up

1

Confirm the phone agent is live

Open Channels → Phone in the OpenCX dashboard. Your AI Phone agent should appear with an active number. Test a call to confirm the agent answers.
2

Confirm Sunshine is connected

In Settings → Integrations, open Zendesk → Messaging. The status should show Active.
3

Trigger a test handoff

Call the agent’s number and say something like “I need to speak with a person.” The AI should hand off.
4

Verify in the Zendesk Agent Workspace

The conversation should appear with the full call transcript attached. Confirm it’s tagged opencx_channel_phone and that the handoff reason summary is visible.

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What the rep sees

  • A conversation in the Agent Workspace tagged opencx_channel_phone.
  • The full call transcript (AI and caller, with timestamps) attached as messages on the conversation.
  • opencx_session_id on the conversation — the trace key to the recording and full debug view in OpenCX.
  • The handoff reason (what the caller asked for, what the AI couldn’t resolve) in the conversation summary.

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Channel-specific details

The transcript is attached at handoff time, not live during the call. Reps see the conversation appear within a few seconds of the transfer or escalation flag.
Two handoff modes:
  • Live transfer — the AI bridges the caller to a configured phone number. The caller stays on the line. A Zendesk conversation still gets created with the transcript so your rep has context.
  • Logged escalation — the AI ends the call and creates the Zendesk conversation for a rep to follow up on a channel the caller prefers (email, SMS, callback).
Configure the handoff phone number per agent at Channels → Phone → select the agent → Agent Configuration.
When the caller is already a known OpenCX contact (matched by phone number), OpenCX merges with the existing Zendesk support user. Unknown callers get a Sunshine contact created with just the phone number until they identify further.
Audio recordings and per-turn AI reasoning live on the OpenCX side. The View session in OpenCX link in the conversation summary opens the full playback, reasoning trace, and any tool calls the AI made during the call.

AI Phone Support

The channel itself — create the agent, configure, inbound and outbound.

Sunshine Conversations setup

Credentials, webhook, and user merge.

Zendesk overview

What else Zendesk lights up across every channel.

Troubleshooting

Transcript missing, handoff reason unclear.