How to Connect Aircall with Zendesk (Step by Step)

This guide walks the whole setup end to end: installing and authorizing the app, enabling the CTI, configuring how calls turn into tickets, mapping your agents, and testing a live inbound and outbound call. It's verified against Aircall's own integration docs and Zendesk's Talk Partner Edition documentation — both vendors revise their UI periodically, so confirm labels in your own account as you go. One honest note up front: the Zendesk-side screen below is a real first-hand capture, but the Aircall configuration screens are described from Aircall's documentation rather than shown, because they live in the Aircall dashboard.

Aircall vs. Zendesk Talk: which voice option is this?

Zendesk gives you two broad paths for phone support, and it's worth being clear about which one you're choosing:

• Zendesk Talk is the native voice channel built into Zendesk. You buy numbers and minutes from Zendesk, and calls run inside Zendesk's own infrastructure. If you want voice with the fewest moving parts, Talk is the simplest route — we cover it in how to set up Zendesk Talk.
• Aircall is a third-party cloud phone system that connects through Zendesk's Talk Partner Edition — a toolbox Zendesk built specifically so external telephony platforms can plug into the agent workspace. You manage numbers, routing, IVR, and call quality in Aircall; Zendesk becomes the place where the call gets logged and worked as a ticket.

So the honest framing: Aircall is not "better Zendesk Talk" — it's a different model. You'd choose Aircall when you already use it (or want its call-center features: advanced routing, IVR, analytics, a dedicated phone app, 250+ other integrations) and you want those calls to surface inside Zendesk. You'd stay on Talk if you want voice fully native to Zendesk with one vendor and one bill. Many teams genuinely prefer Aircall's phone-system depth; the trade-off is a second platform to administer and a second subscription.

Why teams put Aircall calls into Zendesk

The point of the integration is context. Without it, a call is just a call — the agent scribbles notes somewhere and the ticket history has a hole in it. With the integration:

• The agent's phone lives inside the ticket view, so they never alt-tab to a separate dialer.
• Every call becomes a Zendesk ticket (or appends to an existing one), so voice sits in the same queue as email and messaging.
• Recordings, call notes, tags, and after-call work sync automatically from Aircall into the ticket, so the next agent sees the full story.
• Inbound calls trigger a contextual pop-up of the caller's existing ticket or history, so the agent answers already knowing who's calling.

For how those tickets behave once they land, our Zendesk ticketing system explained primer covers statuses, assignment, and fields — all of which Aircall can set automatically.

Before you start: requirements

Get these in place first; they're the usual cause of a stalled setup:

• **Admin access in both platforms.** You need an admin role in Aircall and in Zendesk. The install authorizes one against the other, so half-admin won't complete it.
• Matching email addresses. Aircall maps each agent to a Zendesk user by email. If an agent's Aircall login email differs from their Zendesk email, their calls won't map to the right person — line these up before you map agents in Step 6.
• Talk – Partner Edition seats in Zendesk. Every agent who will use the Aircall CTI needs a Talk Partner Edition seat in Zendesk. This is Zendesk's licensing for partner (third-party) telephony, distinct from native Talk minutes. Check your Zendesk Talk plan and confirm seats are available before rollout — running out of seats mid-deployment is the most common surprise.
• An Aircall plan with numbers. You need an active Aircall account with at least one provisioned phone number. Aircall's published plans run from an Essentials tier (around $30/user/month billed annually) to Professional (around $50/user/month) and a quote-only Custom tier, with a 3-license minimum to start (pricing from Aircall and third-party roundups, June 2026 — approximate, confirm on Aircall's pricing page).
• Google Chrome. Per Aircall, the Aircall CTI inside Zendesk is only compatible with Google Chrome. Agents on Firefox, Safari, or Edge won't get the embedded dialer — standardize the team on Chrome before launch.

Step 1 — Install the Aircall for Support app

The official integration is Aircall for Support, built and maintained by Aircall and listed on the Zendesk Marketplace. You can kick off installation from either side; both land in the same place.

Option A — from the Aircall Dashboard (Aircall's recommended path):

1. Log in to the Aircall Admin Dashboard as an admin.
2. Go to Integrations & API.
3. Under Discover integrations, find and click Zendesk V3.
4. Click Install integration.

Option B — from the Zendesk Marketplace:

1. Log in to Zendesk as an admin and open the Zendesk Marketplace.
2. Search for Aircall and select Aircall for Support.
3. Click Install and choose your Zendesk account.

Either route installs the app into Zendesk's Apps and integrations area, which is where you'll manage it afterward. The Marketplace listing is the official, Aircall-built app — avoid third-party "connectors" if you want the full CTI and supported logging.

To be transparent about what you're looking at: the screenshot above is the Zendesk Admin Center → Apps and integrations page — this is where the Aircall app gets installed and where you'd uninstall or re-authorize it. The actual Aircall configuration (number selection, logging rules, CTI behavior) lives inside the app panel and in the Aircall dashboard, which is why the next steps reference Aircall's screens rather than Zendesk's.

Step 2 — Authorize and connect your Aircall account

With installation started from the Aircall side, you now link the two accounts:

1. Click Authorize.
2. Under Select numbers, choose the Aircall numbers you want linked to Zendesk (you can skip this and add them later — but note that at least one number must be selected for call activity to log in Zendesk).
3. Enter your Zendesk account URL in the form https://example.zendesk.com.
4. If prompted, log into Zendesk.
5. On the Zendesk authorization screen, click Allow to grant the app access.
6. Click Finish to complete the connection.

Because you're an admin in both platforms (and your emails match), the OAuth handshake completes cleanly. If authorization fails here, it's almost always a non-admin account, a typo in the Zendesk URL, or being logged into the wrong Zendesk instance in your browser.

Step 3 — Enable the CTI in the agent workspace

The CTI is the embedded Aircall phone that appears inside Zendesk so agents place and receive calls without leaving a ticket. In the integration settings, configure how it surfaces:

• Set the CTI display option to control what pops when a call comes in — the relevant ticket view, the caller's contact history, or no automatic display. For most support teams, surfacing the existing ticket on inbound is the highest-value setting.
• Confirm agents are using Google Chrome (the CTI's only supported browser) and that they're signed into Aircall.

Once enabled, each agent sees the Aircall dialer docked in their Zendesk workspace. They sign in with their Aircall credentials, set themselves available, and can take inbound calls and dial out — all without leaving the ticket they're on. The contextual pop-up means an inbound call can open the caller's open ticket automatically, so the agent has context before they say hello.

Step 4 — Configure call-to-ticket logging

This is the heart of the integration: deciding how each type of communication turns into (or attaches to) a Zendesk ticket. In the app's settings, Aircall lets you set logging behavior separately for each communication type — inbound calls, missed calls, voicemails, SMS, WhatsApp, AI Voice agent calls, and automated callback requests. For each, you pick one of:

• Create a new ticket — log the interaction as a fresh Zendesk ticket.
• Log to the previous/existing ticket — append to the caller's most recent relevant ticket instead of spawning duplicates.
• No ticket — don't log that type at all.

Then tune the details:

1. Ticket status. Choose the status each call type lands in — New, Open, Pending, On-Hold, Solved, or Closed. Missed calls as "Open," answered-and-resolved calls as "Solved," for example.
2. Recordings, notes, and tags. Call recordings, comments, tags, and transfers sync automatically from Aircall into the Zendesk ticket. Notes and tags an agent adds during after-call wrap-up flow through too — so the ticket carries the full record of the conversation.
3. Standard Aircall fields. Select which fields write to the ticket: handling agent, call duration, recording URL, transcript, and more.
4. Ticket type and priority by tag. Optionally have Aircall auto-update a ticket's type or priority based on Aircall tags, so a "billing" tag on the call can set the ticket's category in Zendesk.
5. Out-of-hours behavior. Decide whether to create tickets for calls outside business hours so nothing slips through overnight.
6. Unknown callers. Optionally auto-create a contact in Zendesk for numbers that don't match an existing user.
7. AI Insights. If you use Aircall's AI features, enable AI Insights logging to write transcription, call summaries, and sentiment into the ticket. (Aircall's AI Voice Agent calls log as an internal note or voice comment.)

A practical default: new ticket on inbound and missed calls, append to the existing ticket when the caller already has an open one, status "Open," and recordings plus transcript turned on. Tighten from there once you see real volume.

Step 5 — Set up click-to-dial and insert numbers

To let agents dial out from within Zendesk, make sure phone numbers in your tickets and user profiles are click-to-dial enabled:

1. Confirm the phone field is populated on customer profiles — Aircall's click-to-dial reads numbers from the ticket/contact.
2. With the CTI active, a phone number in the agent workspace becomes clickable; clicking it places the outbound call through Aircall and the dialer takes over.
3. Agents can also dial manually in the CTI keypad for numbers not stored in Zendesk.

If click-to-dial doesn't appear, it's usually because the number isn't in a recognized phone field or the CTI isn't loaded on that page — reload the workspace in Chrome.

Step 6 — Map agents and users

For calls to attribute to the right person and route correctly, each Aircall user must line up with a Zendesk agent:

1. Ensure every agent exists as a user in both Aircall and Zendesk with the same email address (this is the join key — mismatched emails are the #1 mapping failure).
2. Confirm each agent holds a Talk Partner Edition seat in Zendesk so they can use the CTI.
3. In the integration settings, set assignment rules — for example, route missed-call tickets to a specific user or group so they don't go unowned.

When mapping is correct, an answered call's ticket is automatically assigned to the agent who handled it, and missed calls follow your assignment rule.

Step 7 — Test an inbound and an outbound call

Don't announce it until you've run the full loop yourself:

1. Outbound test. From a Zendesk ticket, click a customer's phone number (or dial in the CTI). Confirm the call connects through Aircall, and that when it ends a ticket is created/updated with the recording, duration, and your wrap-up notes.
2. Inbound test. Call one of your linked Aircall numbers from a phone. Verify the CTI rings inside Zendesk, the contextual pop-up shows the caller's ticket or history, and answering logs the call to a ticket with the right status and assignee.
3. Missed-call test. Let a call ring out. Confirm it logs per your rule (e.g. a new "Open" ticket assigned to the right group).
4. Check the sync. Open the resulting ticket and confirm the recording, tags, and transcript (if enabled) all landed.

If something misfires, the usual culprits are: no number selected in Step 2 (so nothing logs), an agent on a non-Chrome browser, mismatched emails, or a missing Talk Partner Edition seat.

Limitations and watch-outs

Be clear-eyed about what the integration does and doesn't do:

• Chrome only. The embedded CTI doesn't work in Firefox, Safari, or Edge. A team that isn't standardized on Chrome will have a fractured experience.
• Two platforms, two bills. Aircall is a separate subscription on top of Zendesk, and you administer numbers, routing, and IVR in Aircall — not Zendesk. This is the cost of Aircall's depth versus native Talk's simplicity.
• Talk Partner Edition seats are required and not always free. Every CTI agent needs a seat; confirm your Zendesk Talk plan covers them.
• WhatsApp logging is text-only, and some logging behaviors depend on using the Aircall CTI inside Zendesk rather than the standalone Aircall app.
• It's voice plumbing, not answers. The integration moves calls and data between systems beautifully — but it doesn't reduce how many calls come in. That's a different problem, addressed below.

Where AI fits in

Here's the honest part. Connecting Aircall to Zendesk makes your phone channel excellent — but voice, by nature, needs a human on the line. The integration won't shrink your call volume; it just makes each call better-documented.

What can shrink the load on your phone team is deflecting the answerable text volume before it ever becomes a call. A huge share of "let me just call them" happens because a customer couldn't get a quick answer over email or chat. An AI agent that resolves those repetitive text questions — order status, password resets, policy questions — means fewer people pick up the phone in frustration, so your human agents can focus on the calls that genuinely need a voice.

That's the layer Macha adds. Macha isn't a phone system and it isn't a Zendesk replacement — it's an AI agent that runs on top of your existing Zendesk, resolving the text-based tickets your team would otherwise field, and escalating to a human (with full context) when it isn't confident. There's a neat loop with voice, too: the call notes and transcripts Aircall logs into Zendesk become knowledge the AI agent can learn from, so answers on text get better as your phone team handles more calls.

On cost, Macha bills per AI action — any automated step it takes, like drafting a reply, tagging, or resolving — not per closed ticket, because most automation is work done along the way rather than a tidy "resolution." If a big chunk of your inbound volume is repetitive questions a knowledge base could answer, that's the line where an AI agent earns its keep alongside your phones. You can try it free — 7-day free trial, no credit card required.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Zendesk Aircall integration? It's the official Aircall for Support app — built by Aircall and listed on the Zendesk Marketplace — that embeds Aircall's cloud phone (a CTI) inside the Zendesk agent workspace. Agents place and receive calls without leaving Zendesk, and every call logs back as a ticket with recording, notes, and tags. It connects through Zendesk's Talk Partner Edition, the framework Zendesk built for third-party telephony.

How do I connect Aircall to Zendesk? Install from the Aircall Admin Dashboard (Integrations & API → Zendesk V3 → Install integration) or from the Zendesk Marketplace (search Aircall → Aircall for Support). Then Authorize, select your Aircall numbers, enter your Zendesk URL, log in, click Allow, and Finish. You need admin rights in both platforms and matching email addresses.

Is Aircall the same as Zendesk Talk? No. Zendesk Talk is Zendesk's native voice channel (one vendor, simplest setup). Aircall is a separate, third-party cloud phone system that integrates through Talk Partner Edition. Choose Aircall for its call-center depth (advanced routing, IVR, analytics, a phone app) if you already use it; choose Talk for fully native voice with one bill. See how to set up Zendesk Talk.

Do calls automatically create Zendesk tickets? Yes — and you control it. For each communication type (inbound, missed, voicemail, SMS, WhatsApp, AI voice, callback) you choose create a new ticket, log to the existing ticket, or no ticket, plus the ticket status. Recordings, comments, tags, and transcripts sync automatically into the ticket.

What are the requirements? Admin access in both Aircall and Zendesk, matching email addresses, a Talk Partner Edition seat in Zendesk for each agent, an active Aircall plan with at least one number, and Google Chrome (the CTI's only supported browser).

Why does the CTI only work in Chrome? Per Aircall's documentation, the Aircall CTI within Zendesk is only compatible with Google Chrome. Agents on other browsers won't see the embedded dialer, so standardize your team on Chrome before rollout.

The bottom line

Connecting Aircall to Zendesk is a clear sequence: install the official Aircall for Support app (from the Aircall dashboard or the Zendesk Marketplace), authorize and select your numbers, enable the CTI in the agent workspace, configure call-to-ticket logging (per-channel rules, status, recordings, tags, transcripts), set up click-to-dial, map agents by matching email with Talk Partner Edition seats, then test a real inbound, outbound, and missed call. Remember the trade-off: Aircall gives you a deeper phone system than native Zendesk Talk, at the cost of a second platform and Chrome-only CTI. If voice is your channel of choice, this is the supported, vendor-built way to run it through Zendesk — and if a lot of your inbound is really just answerable text, pairing it with an AI agent keeps your phone team focused on the calls that need them.

Setup steps verified against Aircall's and Zendesk's official documentation, June 2026. Both vendors update their products periodically — confirm labels and seat requirements in your own accounts before relying on them.