How to verify a customer's identity in Zendesk before an account change

To verify a customer's identity in Zendesk before a sensitive change, send them a Persona or Onfido check from the ticket with Whowell, and make your process wait for the whowell_approved tag. Whowell tags each ticket with the newest verification's result and, on approval, sets the requester's "Whowell: identity verified on" date. Views and triggers can then hold 2FA resets, payout changes or ownership transfers until the check passed.

Why email alone isn't enough

A display name and even a familiar address can be spoofed, and "it's me, I lost my phone" reads the same from the real customer and from an attacker. A document and selfie check through your identity vendor answers who is asking, on the vendor's own page.

The flow, end to end

1. Agent sees a sensitive request: reset 2FA, change the bank account, transfer ownership.
2. Agent sends a verification link from the Whowell sidebar with the right flow, such as "Account recovery" or "Payout change", using Send verification link and Create link and add to reply.
3. Ticket gets whowell_pending while the link is sent, in progress or completed without a decision.
4. Customer verifies on Persona's or Onfido's page.
5. Result lands on the ticket as an internal note and one tag: approved, declined, needs review, failed or expired.
6. Agent acts only on approved. For needs review, your fraud or compliance team decides in the vendor's dashboard, linked from the note.

Tags and fields you can build on

Record the approval date on the user is on by default; turn it off if you only want ticket tags.

Example setups

• A view of approved payout changes. Tickets with your payout tag and whowell_approved, so the payments team only works verified requests.
• A view of pending checks. Tickets tagged whowell_pending, so agents can follow up or send a new link.
• A review queue. A trigger that assigns tickets tagged whowell_review to the group that reviews identity results.
• Recent verification. A view of payout-change tickets where the requester's verified-on date is within the last 30 days.

Build these with Zendesk's own triggers and views; the tags and the date field are ordinary Zendesk data.

Limit who can send links

Values are comma separated: agent (everyone), admin, custom role ids or group:<id>.

When the link expires or is lost

Click Send a new link. With Persona, the same inquiry reopens; with Onfido, a new run starts for the same applicant. Cancel link stops a Persona link sent by mistake.

What stays out of Zendesk

No document images, selfies, ID numbers, dates of birth or addresses. Whowell keeps ids, statuses, the flow name, who sent the link and its expiry in a hidden ticket field (at most 20 per ticket), and never keeps the link itself.

What it costs

Whowell is $129 per Zendesk account per month with every feature, billed monthly by Zendesk with a 14-day trial. Verification fees are billed by Persona or Onfido. The Whowell setup guide has every setting.