Reopen Closed Ticket When Customer Responds Via E-mail.

[GSM]

Hi there,

I know via the employee portal customers can reopen tickets by saying its still an issue.

I've tried searching the forums and maybe I'm missing it but how do i set it so if a customer e-mails in and the ticket is closed that it reopens the ticket, please? At the moment we have it set so if a customer e-mails in and the reference is in the email it updates the timeline and e-mails the owner. However, it does not reopen the ticket.

[James Ainsworth]

Hi GSM,

Thanks for your post.  The automation of tickets tends to come from the workflow that has been created to manage what happens with a ticket through its life.  Once a ticket is close, in most cases the workflow has also concluded.  With this in mind, there is nothing in place to tell a ticket what to do if an email comes in after it is closed.  There is also the challenge of knowing if the email from the customer is just a thank you to say it is all working or if it is still an issue.  You could equally get a number of false re-opening of tickets.

In your BPM you could have some additional workflow nodes that are waiting for customer updates for a period of time once the ticket is closed.  It is good practice to limit the time in which a closed ticket can be updated. Once this time has passed, a new ticket should be raised.  

Additional steps within a Resolution stage of a BPM can also help reduce the number of tickets being reopened.  This could simply be done in some form of confirmation from the user that their issue has been fixed before progressing to a closed state.