Understanding when email replies become public or private comments

Return to top

38 Comments

  • Alison Cook

    Hello,

    Is there a concept to differentiate chat vs. support tickets in the new agent workspace? Our chat agents have to manually select "chat" in the comment section when they receive a chat. When I enable the "Non-email conversations are public by default" in Ticket settings, our support team then has to switch to 'internal note' when taking notes on a ticket. It is an extra step for either team using two completely different forums of communication.

    Thank you!

    Alison

    0
  • Brett Bowser
    Zendesk Community Manager

    Hey Alison,

    It looks like you were able to find the answer to your question and you created a feedback post here around this limitation: Differentiate between chat vs. support ticket in Agent Workspace

    Let us know if you have any other questions!

    0
  • ggalling

    I am getting some complaints from my customers around the behavior regarding whether an organization admin is able to see all replies to a ticket regardless of whether they CC the ticket requester or not.

    Although I understand that side conversations between our customers and our agents that do not include the ticket requester might be valuable in certain circumstances, we have customers who would like to see all ticket activity by their team no matter what.

    Perhaps a third response type is called for. I can personally attest that, as the Administrator of Zendesk, I get questions all the time about the counter-intuitive way that customers are able to create internal notes. 

    Customers are external. Why are they able to create something that is called "Internal"?

    1
  • Permanently deleted user
    If a CC replies to a ticket notification, and the requester isn’t on the reply, the reply becomes a private comment. If the recipient of the ticket notification is a follower, and the ticket already includes private comments created from email, the reply becomes a private comment. However, if the Make email comments from CCed end users public setting is enabled, the behavior changes and the reply becomes a public comment instead.

    I've tried this setting, but it doesn't seem to work, at least not how I interpreted it should. The email response (from another CC, and missing CC of the requester) was still Internal.

    Please create a ticket from this comment, to review our ticket https://kollmorgen.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/30922 

     

     

    0
  • Julio R.
    Zendesk Customer Care

    Hi Niclas,

    I am creating a ticket on your behalf to investigate this for you.
    Thank you for your patience.

    Julio R. | Technical Support Engineer - EMEA | Zendesk

    0
  • Elza

    I want that when the "Third-party replies to ticket notifications" -  all next public comments will be sent to this "third party". IN other words, when 3-rd party replies to the ticket -  he should become a CC in this ticket (be in the copy in all public responses).

    HOW to achieve it? it was the only reason that I migrated to "cc and followers"...

    1
  • Gabriele F.
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Elza!
    as you can see from the article description, there's two option for let the CC replies becoming public. Once the "third-party" has been added as CC they will receive all the notification when there's a public replies inside the ticket, done by requester, assignee and a CC. This will happen when you've enabled the CC on your ticket settings you can find in Support > Admin > Settings > Tickets ( please check the screenshot attached)

    When a CC replies inside the ticket, the comment will be added as public if the requester is on the reply otherwise, if the requester is not on the reply, you can enable the option to allow the CC replies to become public comments ( see second screenshot attached) but please be aware of the message showed as this is not recommended. 

    Finally, you will need to check if you create custom modification to the default trigger that is sending notification to requester and CC. If you don't modify this default trigger, your CC will get notified every time there's a public comment inside the ticket. The trigger name is "Notify requester and CCs of comment update"

    Kind regards,

     
    -1
  • Alan Ford

    Hello,

    This statement:

    If the recipient of the ticket notification is a follower, and the ticket already includes private comments created from email, the reply becomes a private comment. However, if the Make email comments from CCed end users public setting is enabled, the behavior changes and the reply becomes a public comment instead.

    Appears not to be true; I have had support exchanges with Zendesk Support where this has been shown not to work and yet this has been said to be working as intended. Therefore please can this page be updated with an accurate description of the behaviour, or can this setting be made to do what it says above?

    Thanks! 

    1
  • Dane
    Zendesk Engineering
    @Alan,
     
    The behavior for Make email comments from CCed end users public is only for end-users. Followers/Agents are not affected by this setting. I agree that it can be a bit confusing. I'll bring this up to the attention of our documentations team.
    0
  • Alan Ford

    Thanks Dane. Sadly this leaves no way of resolving the issue that follower replies end up private. I have a forum topic open on this too if anybody else affected by this issue would like to comment: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4420213914778-Allow-follower-replies-to-be-public

    0
  • Kathryn B

    If a CC or third party replies to a ticket/email, how can I make these show as public and not internal comments? I have selected the option Make email comments from CCed end users public (not recommended) but this doesn't seem to have changed anything. 

     

    Thank you!

    2
  • Dion
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Alan,

    The comments will still appear like a private in the support instance, however, their replies are now public comments which means that the requester will be able to see the replies of the cc'ed user.

    Please see this article for more information: Configuring CC and follower permissions

    Regards,

    Dion
    1
  • Harrison Meesschaert

    Hey,

    Haven't been able to find this info anywhere else so asking here. We have an automation that fires off when a ticket has been set to Pending for > 2 days and there are no public replies (to prevent unactioned tickets). This automation runs off of a tag placed by a trigger. The trigger is:

    • Comment is Public
    • Current user Is (agent)
    • Agent replies Greater than 0

    We noticed that this automation fired off for a Messaging ticket (Social Media). It seems like the trigger is not being activated when we reply to a chat. Are Chats/Messaging tickets not recorded as 'agent replies'? Looking at the Events section it seems like it's a 'system' that's placing the comments in.

    Thanks!

    0
  • Carl Hajal

    Hello,

    is it possible for light agent email replies (reply all from their own emails) to appear as a public comment? 

     When the reply is a private comment the ticket does not go from pending to open and that could be misleading for agents

    thank you

    0
  • Dane
    Zendesk Engineering
    Hi Carl,
     
    As it turns out, even when on the CC list, any emails sent by Light Agents will be added as an internal note.
     
    @Harrison,
     
    We'd like to look into this. Can you contact support directly to investigate further?
    0
  • Elza

    @Gabriele, thanks for the response but unfortunately there is still no answer to my question.

    I know that if my agent adds the 3-rd party as CC - since that moment he will receive all public notifications from the ticket.

    BUT what I want is that IF requester forwarded the tickets to the 3-rd party > and then this 3rd party replied to the ticket > Zendesk will automatically add him as CC and also his response will appear as public.

    Is there a way to achieve it?..

    https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842992538/comments/4409440946074

    0
  • Dave Dyson
    Hi Elza –
     
    No, Zendesk won't automatically add the third party as a CC; an agent would have to do that.
    0
  • Luke Tyhurst

    @... I agree with Elza. Forcing this 'Add CC' process to be manual really hurts process automation, which hurts the usability of Zendesk (especially in comparison to other systems we could choose to go to that have this as basic, foundational functionality). Zendesk initially had an 'Add CC' action, but it was removed in favor of 'Add Follower', so it's a feature that is already built out, but Zendesk is choosing to not allow users to access it. Add CC and Add Follower are completely different processes (one allows replies to be public; one forces replies to be private). Why did Zendesk choose to get rid of a feature that people obviously used and want to use to help their internal processes? It should not be a legacy item that was removed.

    3
  • NIki

    I had an agent create a proactive ticket for a user, and cc'd another user. When the CC'd user replied all, he was flagged as not part of the conversation and the comment was made internal. He clearly was part of the conversation as he was cc'd on the original ticket. Our agent's creating proactive tickets and cc'ing other users is a common occurance. We can't afford to be having users flagged and having to copy/paste their content for them. How do we ensure that our users don't get flagged? As far as I can tell the rules say this shouldn't be happening.

    Please create a ticket from this comment, this is the current issue ticket https://stage32.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/66384

    0
  • Dane
    Zendesk Engineering
    Hi Niki,
     
    I have noticed that a ticket has already been submitted for this concern, Ticket #10595927. If you still need help, just reply back to the email that was sent by one of our Advocate to create a followup ticket.
     
    Hi Luke,
     
    I understand that this change negatively affected your workflow. If the workaround that was provided for you on this post did not work for you, feel free to provide feedback in the Community page.
     
    This is to engage with other users who have similar needs and discuss possible workarounds. Conversations with a high level of engagement ultimately get flagged for product managers to review when they go through roadmap planning.
    0
  • Sara De Nolf

    When we cc other departments (non-Zendesk users) and they reply to the customer via email they were cc'ed on the private notes are included in the email thread. Is there a way to stop this? 

    0
  • Cheeny Aban
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Sara, 

    Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I can see that a colleague is already helping you with this concern. Rest assured that we'll do our best to help you with regard to this concern 
    0
  • Irjen Schamphelaere

    We are experiencing the same problem as Sara.

    Can someone please inform about this?

    --> When the other department ( non-Zendesk user) forwards a comment from the original client ticket, only to us ( using Zendesk) and deletes the end users e-mailaddress from the reply, the end users still receives this comment, even when removed from the e-mail field.

    2
  • Anne Ronalter
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hello Irjen,

    If an agent replies directly from an email application and not through Zendesk, the internal notes will also be forwarded to the end user.

    This is due to the email copy that the agent receives, which is different from the email copy that the customer receives when a notification is being sent from the ticket. 
    The Agent's copy contains the internal notes as it should be, therefore, if they reply directly from the email and not through the ticket, it is the same as they would be forwarding the agent copy to the customer which is why it is including the internal note.

    Should you still have questions, please feel free to open a ticket with Zendesk Support.
    0
  • Ashley Moore

    There really needs to be a 3rd comment type brought into Zendesk where these fall into, Internal notes should just be for agents.

    Agents automatically see an Internal note and instinctively believe its from an agent.

    4
  • Sydney Neubauer
    Zendesk Luminary

    100% agree with Ash - we have run into this issue as well

    0
  • De-De Herbert

    Hello Zendesk Team,

    Is there a way to disable an email response and refer to the Zendesk ticket # link as the only way to reply?
    Thank you
    Current state:
    You are registered as a CC on this help desk request (highspot.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/51740).
    Reply to this email to add a comment to the request.

    Future State:
    You are registered as a CC on this help desk request (highspot.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/51740). Please reply to this link to add a comment to the request. 

    0
  • Jupete Manitas
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Ash, thanks for writing in! 
     
    That is actually good product feedback. Currently, the internal note is for agents, and when end-users who are not part of the conversation have received the email, and will reply. The system will make internal for security reasons as also mentioned in the part "Third party replies to ticket notifications". You can submit product here to start with: Giving Product Feedback at Zendesk. Thank you!  
    0
  • Jupete Manitas
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi De-De Herbert, 
    Are you still using the old CC experience or you are now on CCs and Followers. However, there is an option to change the notification sent to CCs as described here: customizing default email notifications for CCs and followers. Also, the experience may differ if using the old placeholders or making use of the new threading experience where CCs are not getting the quoted message as we made some test. 
    Otherwise, please create a ticket further so we can review this inside your account. Thank you!
    0
  • Oanh Chau

    Hi Zendesk,

    if I want below inbound emails become public, what should I do?

    "If the author is an end user and is NOT the requester or a CC on the ticket, the comment will be private."

     

    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Powered by Zendesk