CS management tool availability on the Starter plan

Service Hub Tickets & Conversations
1

We are considering implementing the Starter plan as our CS management tool.

Could you please confirm whether the following features are available under this plan?

  • Automatic ticket creation from email inquiries

We would like to automatically forward inquiries received via external companies’ SEED (Cybozu) email to HubSpot and automatically register and manage each inquiry as a ticket.

Additionally, even for forwarded emails, we would like to identify the original inquirer’s email address, if possible, and link it to existing customer information in HubSpot.

  • Bulk ticket registration of inquiry information

We would like to use CSV or similar files to bulk-register multiple inquiries as tickets in HubSpot.

In this case, is it possible to bulk-link tickets with existing customer information based on email addresses, user IDs, etc.?

  • Automatic synchronization of customer information with existing customer management systems

We have a separate system that manages user account information.

We would like to build a mechanism where, using this system as the master, new user registrations and updates to names, email addresses, contract information, etc., are automatically registered and updated in HubSpot customer information (Contacts).

Please also let us know whether automatic integration with external systems using APIs is possible, and whether there are any additional fees or usage limits for API usage.

  • Assignment and coordination of inquiries to other teams or responsible parties

For inquiries that cannot be resolved by first-line support, we would like to assign tickets to other teams or responsible parties who also use HubSpot and request second-line support.

Furthermore, in addition to changing the assignee of the inquiry ticket itself, is it possible to create tasks such as “investigation” or “verification” linked to the ticket, assign them to other teams or responsible parties, and manage them through to completion?

  • Aggregation/analysis of inquiry content and handling results

We would like to aggregate and analyze data such as the number of inquiries, inquiry categories, handling results, resolution status, and handling time, and use this to improve FAQs and CS manuals.

Is it possible to visualize these as reports or dashboards?

3

Hi @shimizu and welcome, it’s a pleasure to have you on the HubSpot Community!

Great questions, thanks for asking! :orange_heart:

With the Service Hub Starter, most of the core requirements are possible, but some advanced service features require Professional or Enterprise. To reply to your questions:

  • Email-to-ticket: You can connect a team email address or forward messages to HubSpot so incoming inquiries are captured as tickets. HubSpot can also identify the original sender in forwarded emails when the original sender information is preserved, and match that address to an existing contact. See Set up the conversations inbox.

  • Bulk ticket registration: You can import tickets using CSV/XLSX files. Tickets can be associated with existing contacts using email addresses, Record IDs, or configured unique-value properties such as an external user ID. See Understand the import tool.

  • Customer-data synchronization: You can build an integration using HubSpot APIs to create and update contacts and tickets and manage associations. Starter API limits currently include 250,000 calls per day and 100 requests per 10 seconds, subject to the applicable account and app limits. See the API reference.

  • Assignment and follow-up: Tickets can be manually reassigned to users or teams, and tasks can be created and associated with tickets. Automated ticket routing, ticket-based workflows, and automated task creation are generally Professional or Enterprise capabilities, so this should be confirmed in the specific trial account.

  • Reporting: Standard ticket, contact, and dashboard reporting is available. More advanced custom reporting and service analytics are generally Professional or Enterprise features. You can still capture fields such as category, resolution, status, owner, and handling time as ticket properties for basic reporting.

Here is the HubSpot Product & Services Catalog with the details of the features.

I’d also suggest to get in touch with our Sales team here for additional information and/or a product demo if that helps!

Now, I’d love to hear from our Top Experts: Hi @danmoyle, @Josh and @rebeccatravels do you have any insights to share, please?

Thanks so much and I hope that you’ll have an amazing day!

Bérangère

4

Welcome to the Community @shimizu! @Berangere gave a great answer to the basic usage here. Adding my own insights as a long-time HubSpot user and consultant.

On email-to-ticket, the original-sender detection HubSpot does depends on how the forward is configured. If Cybozu/SEED forwards as a straight passthrough with the original message intact (not just quoted in the body), HubSpot picks up the sender cleanly. If the forward strips that down to plain text, HubSpot may see the forwarding mailbox as the sender instead. Worth testing a few real forwarded samples in a sandbox before relying on it for volume.

On the CSV import, since email, Record ID, or a custom external ID all work as match keys, I’d lock in whichever one gets used early and keep the format consistent across every export from the source system. A stray formatting difference between batches (capitalization, whitespace) is the most common reason imports create duplicate contacts instead of updating existing ones.

On the sync build, worth deciding upfront whether the external system stays the sole source of truth for contact fields, or whether HubSpot users will also edit those same fields directly. If both happen, the integration needs a rule for which side wins on conflict, otherwise updates can quietly overwrite each other.

On reporting, standard ticket and contact reports cover most day-to-day tracking well. The one thing worth sandbox-testing specifically is any report that needs to join tickets with tasks or other objects in a single view, since that’s where the standard reporting tools hit their limit before custom report builder access matters.

None of this changes the plan above from @Berangere, just a few things worth checking against the actual data before going live. Hope that helps!