Best way to handle customers replying to old threads for new cases

  • 26 September 2023
  • 9 replies
  • 148 views
Jeff
  • Jeff
  • Conversationalist
  • 2 replies

Hello,

It seems the default action is for Front to simply place a reply on an old thread back in to Assigned to me box.

In the past we have seen a customer reply to an old thread for a new request, and for one reason or another the reopened thread in Assigned to me was missed by that person.

It seems like within Edit Rule, there could be a condition if Archived to send it back to unassigned. I have tried a few combinations but nothing clicks.

Ideally, if a conversation is Archived, and a reply reopens it, it goes back to the unassigned box.

Thanks for any guidance.

9 replies

Luke
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Hi Jeff, 

 

Thank you for your post and great question! ☺️ 

There are a couple of different elements that can determine what occurs on an older thread being reopened, like threading mode, or the original Assignee’s availability status. 

 

One tip would be to set the “Unassign conversation if inactive for...” setting in your Inbox Settings to suit what your team would consider an average time for a conversation to be unassigned. Say, for example, if a teammate archives a conversation and it remains inactive for 5 days, then it will get unassigned, while remaining Archived. 

If that contact then follows up after that period, their new email will open in the Unassigned tab of your shared inbox 👍

 

Hope this helps! 

Luke

Jeff

Thanks Luke. I saw that setting and it could work. I’m concerned it is not bullet proof tho.

What about the Rules editor?

In the If and And conditions there are selections “Conversation currently archived”. I also saw an Action to Unassign.

I thought this combo might work but when I tested it diid not.

This seems like the most 100% method if it could work.

Luke
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Thank you for the follow-up, Jeff!

 

You could indeed set up a rule to Unassign conversation when they’ve been archived for a while, though this is what the setting I previously spoke of is designed to do also. 

 

For the rules option, it would require a trigger to occur on the conversation in order to run, as rules will not run retroactively, or without a trigger. 

I hope this helps! 

lindsay_rawitscher
Badge

Following up on this, I’d honestly appreciate if this could be taken further and actually reflect a true Case. For ex, in Service Cloud, Intercom, Zendesk etc you can “archive/close” a case so that the user cannot respond. 

 

I know we can have an auto-reply rule, but I’d love the ability to truly close a case and redirect the user to a new thread without having to create tons of auto-reply and new message rules.

Jeff

Luke,

I think a timing rule is problematic.

If a case has been guided to the correct group, assigned, resolved and archived, then replied to at a later date, what rule would unassign it so it goes back to the start of the workflow?

I do have samples from some limited tests I performed.

How do I go about sharing those with you?

Thanks

Luke
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Lindsay - Thank you for your addition to the thread 😊 

That sounds like a really nice addition to the way conversation life cycles work. It’s true that currently, it is mostly dependant on the sender to start a new email thread, and following up on a previous email will continue within the same conversation. 

Although we do have the “Move to new conversation” feature, that allows you to manually do this, having a “Closed” status could be very helpful. 

You can submit this idea on our portal here: https://community.front.com/ideas 💡

 

Jeff - I appreciate your follow-up here 🙏 I will reach out to you via email directly so that you can share your test examples, and I’ll be happy to continue working on your team’s workflow with you from there 😊 

Rik
Badge +2

Hey everyone! 

I wanted to chime in and say that we’re working on a new rule action called ‘Move message to a new conversation’ and I think it solves for some (if not all) of the need identified on this thread. Historically we haven’t had a way to automatically split off a message but this new rule action allows you to do this and either keep the new conversation in the existing inbox, or in Jeff’s case, move it to an ‘Unassigned’ inbox.

moe_corona
Badge

Hi Rik,

 

Thank you for your feedback and Fronts action to solve this pinch point. Is there a timeline for this new feature?

Rik
Badge +2

It’s live today for Scale customers!

https://help.front.com/en/articles/344064

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