inbound forwarded email not logged correctly

[FoxyLoxy]

We use inbound email for customer support quite extensively. Generally it works as expected: an email from a known contact will be logged to that contact record in the CRM, and email from an unknown contact will create a new contact in the CRM and the message gets logged to the newly created record. 

So far so good.

We've found that when a known contact forwards us an email rather than writing a new email, then new contact is created for the original sender, and the message is logged to that newly created record.

I do't want that. I want HubSpot to log the message to my known contact who actually sent (forwarded) the message to us.

Here's some example headers for an email that was wrongly logged to a newly created CRM record rather than to the existing record for the person who actually sent (forwarded) the email to us:

How can we resolve this?

From: Known Contact <KnownContact@gmail.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="Apple-Mail=_22DABB58-13BE-4DED-B560-98331EE483D0"
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 13.4 \(3608.80.23.2.2\))
Subject: Fwd: A forwarded message
Message-Id: <xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com>
References: <xxxxxxxxx@originaldomain.com>
To: My CRM Address <MyCRMInboundAddress@MyDomain.com.au>
Date: Wed, 27 May 2020 18:31:30 +1000
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.3608.80.23.2.2)

--Apple-Mail=_22DABB58-13BE-4DED-B560-98331EE483D0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Hi.

<Message Content>

Cheers
<Known Contact Name>

> Begin forwarded message:
>=20
> From: Original Sender <Original.Sender@OriginalSenderDomain.com>
> Subject:A forwarded message
> Date: 27 May 2020 at 1:36:05 pm AEST
> To: "KnownContact@gmail.com" <KnownContact@gmail.com>
>=20
> <Message Content>,

[JPENKETH]

Hi,

I have to agree with FoxyLoxy on this. Our business is quotation and pricing based, from multiple suppliers, and we are regularly receiving "forwarded" emails. 

It is extremelt confusing when these emails appear to come from companies or individuals we don't know, when they have in fact been sent to us by important clients.

I don't think you can claim it's expected behaviour, or performing as designed. I am unaware of any other email system (gmail, outlook, yahoo, or any system I have ever worked with)that follows this method.

It's dangerous for our business, as if we are expecting an important email from a client, we look to see their name in the inbox. Wheras if they are forwarding something to us, there name will NOT APPEAR IN THE INBOX. 

Surely this is a very obvious feature, that the person who sent the mail is the person who's name appears in the inbox?

This is totally baffling and we need to be able to see who is sending us emails, not the name of the person or company who's message they are forwarding.

Is there a way to fix this?

[FoxyLoxy · Accepted solution]

Hi Jason, I did find a solution for this :

Go to Settings --> Inboxes

Select your email channel for your Hubspot Inbox under the 'Connected Channels' section

Click 'Edit' for that email channel

Here you'll see dome optins for setting up team signatures etc

At bottom of this screen is an option 'Choose original sender of email forwards'. You want this to be turned off.

Cheers

[FoxyLoxy]

Hi Jess, coming back to this as it is re-emerging as a serious problem for my Hubspot implemenattion, and the current behaviour seems obviously wrong to me.

Can you please clarify - is it really the designed/expected behaviour that when one of our known CRM contacts forwards an email into our Hubspot inbox, that forwarded email does not get logged to the CRM contact's record, and instead a new record will be created for the original sender that originally sent that message to our known contact?

This seems very strange - we have no relationship with the original sender, and our contact is forwarding the message to us as part of the relationship we have with the contact.

We've had numerous problems where inbound forwarded messages have not been acted on or responded to because they were not logged correctly to our  known customer's record.

[JessicaH]

Hi @FoxyLoxy,

From my understanding of what you are describing this is the expected behaviour.

I also want to share this article with you which explains the logging requirements of a forwarded email. 

I recommend double-checking if the criteria are met in your case.

I hope this helps.

Take care!

Jess

[JessicaH]

Hi @FoxyLoxy,

Thanks for reaching out.

Currently, this is working as designed. The contact record would be created for the original sender.

However, I'd like to encourage you to share this idea in our ideas forum. 

Take care!

Jess