How do you handle forwarded responses to threads?

[HenrikAllentoft]

Hello everybody.

We're running our support through HubSpot, but are having repeated issues with customer responses being overlooked.

The issue is that Service desk automations do not trigger on:

"The ticket status will not change for the following scenarios: forwarded emails, replies to forwarded emails, other emails sent by the contact, or replies sent from a user's connected personal email."

Link

And well our customers tend to forward emails to one another quite frequently - and HubSpot considers new emails on a forwarded mail string to be part of the existing string (i.e. not triggering new tickets/conversations), but also refuses to update the existing ticket/conversation based on them.

I've had chats with support, which have provided me with a workflow to at least somewhat mitigate the issue by highlighting closed tickets if there is new activity, it creates other issues though. I would like to find something that can fix the problem completely, and I can't imagine we're the only Hubspot customer with this issue.

[Jnix284]

@HenrikAllentoft to clarify, are the customers forwarding emails to their colleagues who are then replying to your previous reply but with a new issue/question? how frequently does this happen? and how are you uncovering the issue?

I've been working with the inbox for quite some time and actually haven't encountered this scenario, where the message is forwarded and not changing the ticket status.

In most cases, the original sender will reply and cc a new person, which reopens the old thread and we still have to manually update.

A few suggestions:

1 - when a ticket is closed, provide a final follow up that indicates the ticket thread is now closed and any new issues would require a new ticket (providing a link and/or steps for how to create one).

2 - the above email can be done through automation or using a template/snippet when your reps close out the thread.

3 - make sure your support policy is clear and communicated with your customers so they know the best way to reach you

[HenrikAllentoft]

Hi Jennifer, thanks for the suggestions.

My issue is when a customer forwards a mail thread for any reason to a colleague. If any emails are sent on the forwarded thread, the HubSpot automation does not react in any way. It will not open a new ticket, as the email is part of an existing email thread, but it will also not change ticket status for active tickets (as stated in the Knowledge Base article) - generally leading to the emails being ignored, as the tickets do not indicate that there has been any activity from the customer.

For closed tickets, we could let the customer know that we do not react to further correspondance in relation to the ticket. I do not think that would be optimal for our customers' experience though.

For tickets in "Waiting on contact", I am not aware of any solutions.

Unless I am missing some obvious fix (which I assume isn't the case, as I have previously been in touch with HubSpot's customer support, and received a work-around which helped the issue somewhat, but no longer works.), I find this to be a rather significant issue, making HubSpot's ticketing system very unreliable, to the point where I wouldn't recommend other companies to use it.

[Jnix284 · Accepted solution]

Hi @HenrikAllentoft thank you for the additional information, I can see why the behavior is happening (forwarding to a third-party, your colleague, is removing the associatoin with the original thread).

Unfortunately, I can't find a suitable solution. 

Have you tested what happens if the colleague who receives the forwarded email forwards it back to your support email (associated with your inbox).

[PamCotton]

Hello @HenrikAllentoft thank you for posting in our Community

 I want to forward you this knowledge base with more information about it here,

and invite our top experts to this conversation @Jnix284 @Josh @bradmin any recommendations to @HenrikAllentoft matter?

Thank you,
Pam