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Stopping the reopening tickets by a ' Thank you ' response.



Posted Mar 14, 2014

Hello,

What I mean by this is what we all experience. A customer creates a ticket and you solve the ticket like a boss and put the status on ' Solved '. 

Now the customer will see that you made a reply in her/his email. With the correct answer.
Ow Goodie! This worked I shall thank the agent who helped me!

The customer will now reply to the email ' Why thank you for your help it worked! '

This is all awesome and epic but on the backside of the the issue will be reopened and it's more work for the agent to close it again.
Yes you can make a trigger function which would allow any ticket that has the words ' Thank you ' in it to be solved but this isn't a viable option.

' Thank you for your help but I still need more help with this issue '

Ticket has been automatically solved and none would ever notice the poor customer that lacks help.
The ultimate way to solve this, is where the customer actually goes to the helpcenter and tags on ' Problem is solved ' and makes a reply. But we all know that this will not happen since many customers will reply on an email, which works way quicker.

So here is my suggestion for a feature request.

I'm not sure what can be done to avoid this situation so I was kind of hoping for idea's of you guys!
If something can be done or created that avoid this issue. It would make the agent-life a lot easier and flexible.

Some kind of detecting way for a ticket to see if another question has been asked including ' thank you '
Then again not all customers write a ' question-mark ? ' at the end since it all has to go fast fast fast!

PS: Pretty sure I'm not the only once experiencing this issue! ;D

This issue occurs a lot and with a lot I mean 60-70% of the time.

Kind regards
Kristof


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72 comments

Just thought I'd chime in here with my input, as this is an issue for me as well. What if it were set up similar to the following:

  1. Agent marks ticket as Solved

  2. Final Resolution email update goes out to user. This email states that if "they feel the issue was not resolved and needs further attention, simply type #reopen(or whatever trigger word you set up) in a reply"

  3. Zendesk logic could check for a trigger word within comments on a solved ticket. If customer replies without that trigger word, the comment is appended to the ticket, but the ticket is not re-opened. If the trigger word is present, the ticket is reopened. Retaining the customers ability to re-open a ticket, while also putting a very small gate in front of it to block out the thank you notes seems like a win/win.

Of course, my environment is pretty simplistic. This set up would work very well for me, but I don't know how well it would work for more complicated environments.

Thoughts?

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I would just like to see an option/setting to control "Replies to solved tickets will reopen tickets" - yes or no checkbox.  We use Spiceworks for internal IT tickets and that is exactly how they handle it - an we have it set to not reopen tickets on replies due to the Thank you situation or other out of office messages, etc. 

I am most worried about the reopens affecting our SLAs - would hate for a Thank You reply reopen to affect our SLA reporting that we must deliver to customers. 

4


@Dbaker Exactly the same issue we have. This ZenDesk "feature" is messing up our SLAs. I need to check out Spiceworks, it sounds more refined :/ Thanks

0


Any updates to the suggestion by @Dbaker ?

Having that be an option would be very useful and for those who don't need it you could just turn it off.

0


So I struggled with this a bit this morning and have a workaround that works for our particular use case

When a ticket status is changed from solved

AND the ticket update is coming from email (or whatever channel yours come from)

The action taken is that it assigns it a new tag called "reopen"

And changes the status to solved

 

If you have tickets coming from multiple sources you'd need to tweak this a little bit but all of our incoming requests are happening via email.

The reason that line is important is that if the response is anything more than a thank you the agent can reopen it through the dashboard.

I added the tag in there because we have other triggers that send feedback surveys out when a ticket is solved and I didn't want them to receive multiples because of this workflow. So you will also have to go in and add language to any emails that are sent out when a ticket is solved that make it not send if it has the tag 'reopen'.

So far it has solved our issues. I don't believe it solves the SLA piece though as the ticket is still re-opened and immediately closed.

0


What if....

you use a #reopen  #open  #notsolved

When you solve the ticket, the user get the email. In it somewhere it says "If you feel this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction reply with  

#something problem is still happening (let them type after the #word)

If they don't put that in the reply and just say "Thanks"  then the ticket says solved.

0


Building on Tlong's suggestion, I set the action to

Ticket Status Solved

and

email Assignee with subject "Reply sent to solved ticket".  

 

Email can obviously sent elsewhere.  It gives the recipient (assignee or otherwise)  the ability to use their discretion as to whether the ticket needs to be reopened or it's simply a "thank you".

 

0


I vote for changing Zendesk to not re-open the ticket automatically. Those who do need this behaviour (e.g. Colin Piper mentions it's important to his team) can implement a trigger that does this for them.

It's not possible (as far as I can tell) to create a trigger to set the ticket back to its original status (i.e. it never was re-opened) so that re-solve statistics, etc., are not affected.

0


I am not a zendesk user but I have a little suggestion to solve this problem 

 

what about if you lock the closed tickets , only support agents can change the closed ticket status back to "Opened" status 

flowchart:

1.customer opens a new ticket 

2. support operator answers all the questions - operator set the ticket status to resolved status 

3.customer wanted to thank the operator , customer sends a thank you message via email (since the ticket is already in resolved status it doesn't get reopened but agent can see the thank you message 

 

 

 

 

 

0


I agree with Dkmedia Killowatt's suggestion.  Give the option to "lock" solved tickets, and only allow agents to reopen it.

 

There would be a new view called "Comments" where these solved tickets with new comments would show up.  When you open the ticket to view it, its marked as "read" and then disappears from this view.

 

0


So for anyone looking to "lock" solved tickets and only allow agents to re-open a ticket here is what we have done and seems to work so far.

Create a new trigger

Meet all of the following conditions:

  • Ticket Status changed from solved
  • Ticket Status changed to open
  • Other: Current user is not agent
  • You can add a Brand/Org filter if required

Perform these actions:

  • Notifications Email User (current user)
  • Create your email template
  • Ticket Status Solved

Sample email template:

The issue described in ticket {{ticket.id}} has been considered resolved.

If you feel this issue has not been resolved, please contact us at <Support Phone Number> and request that the ticket be re-opened.

If you have another issue you need assistance with fell free to submit a request at <web portal url>, <Support email address> or <Support Phone Number>.

  • Deactivate the trigger that notifies assignee of re-opened tickets.

Hopefully this will help someone else looking to accomplish this as well.

0


image avatar

Heather Rommel

Zendesk LuminaryThe Product Manager Whisperer - 2021Community Moderator

We did something similar to davidwarby 

But we added a filter to look for a public comment that contains "thanks" or "thank" so it only re-solves tickets where (hopefully) the end user said thank you/thanks.

We have it fire off an email to the assignee to review the comment to make sure there isn't some legitimate request for additional assistance with "thanks" at the end.

 

0


This will Solve the ticket again immediately after they reply with anything. The agent still receives a last email with their reply of "Thank you" or whatever, and can then re-open the ticket if it is a genuine request for more help etc.

Regards

Shaun

 

 

0


Zendesk customers have been waiting three years or more for this.

Sweet baby Jesus, I pray that this year's Christmas Miracle would be Zendesk gets some brains and implements a solution to this problem - here's a simple suggestion:

1. Agent has the ability to submit a ticket as "Solved" with an added criteria of NO AUTO RE-OPEN
2. If any further conversation is made the agent can use their discretion to re-open the ticket

2


+1

0


How is this still not a solved issue? We need this.

0


Hey,

I would like to add some note from the other side. We have a great support team at our company. I recently found out that when I try to thank them when they help, I actually cause trouble for them with reopening the ticket again.

 

I really hope that Zendesk can solve this with something simple as a Like button or whatever. It might sound silly but I beileve the positive feedback is crucial at these stressful support jobs.

 

Thanks,

Panna

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image avatar

Nicole Saunders

Zendesk Community Manager

Thanks, Panna. That's a great point. 

 

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Nicole

 

We´ve some case that we use "Next-Reply" SLA.

In case we send customer:

"Your appointment is confirmed tomorrow at 9am".

We put the case to On-Hold.

Now customer reply with:

"OK, thanks, got it..."

The case changed to open and "Next-Reply" will be active again.

1.) we can ignore SLA (KPI exclude need)

2.) we response bullshit again like "thanks for your thanks"

3.) We get any option from Zendesk to stop "Next Reply" based keyword detection or max sentence lenght, whatevwer.


Thanks.

0


Another suggestion for ZenDesk would be to stop the auto re-opening of solved tickets when replied to. 

Make re-opening a ticket a purposeful action, add a button to the email or a link that would allow the user to re-open the ticket by purposely choosing this action versus just replying to a solved ticket.

In our environment 95+% of all replies to solved tickets are thank yous or something similar and making re-opening a ticket a purposeful action would eliminate the need for special triggers, automationa, tags, etc that leave room for error.

2


image avatar

Nicole Saunders

Zendesk Community Manager

Thanks, Tobias and David. 

0


+1

0


Has there been an official resolution to this issue?

 

0


This is a complicated topic with some "hidden dangers" (see Heather's comment here, for example).

As Heather notes, the main problem with automatically resolving tickets based on words or expressions is that we could potentially risk ignoring a legitimate request for assistance.

Some ambiguous examples of customer replies/reopens:

  • Thanks a lot! but I still can't see the invoice
  • Have a great day, thanks for nothing!
  • I really appreciate your help! and how can I (...) 

This sort of automatic resolution could be a viable solution if the current comment's character length existed as a business rule condition, for example (e.g. if comment contains "thank" + if comment length less than 10 chars = solve ticket).

A suggestion for a different flow:

  • Tag tickets when they're Solved for the first time (e.g. first_solve)
  • Trigger for reopens would check (ALL conditions): if current user is end user + tag contains "first_solve" + reopens = 1 + comment is public; and (ANY conditions): words contain "thank appreciate ..."  = set ticket to on hold + optionally add another tag (e.g. first_solve_reopened)
  • Edit your SLA policies so that tickets with first_solve/first_solve_reopened won't have an SLA policy
  • You can also create a specific view for these tickets

Any suggestions or corrections to this workflow are most welcome -- I'm sure this is an inconvenience we all share!

2


image avatar

Dan Cooper

Community Moderator

I agree with the "thank" + character length as a potential option.  I'd love to see this sort of solution in place as it would be far less likely that a 10 character response would be anything but a thank you vs a two paragraph thank you response.  

It would be interesting to see an AI approach here.  I imagine that this would be an awesome way to build upon satisfaction prediction models as well as I'd imagine that you could model comments that follow a solve that say thank you against the instance to get a pretty good understanding of the patterns that would indicate if a ticket should stay closed or re-open.  Especially if there was another question included alongside that comment.

0


This issue is bugging us at our company too. My idea is to offer a feature that includes a "Thank you!" button in the email after a ticket has been resolved, possibly side by side an accompanying friendly reminder that replying back to the email will only reopen the issue (and whatever other words are appropriate) and instead a "click will do the trick".

1


Just adding my 2¢. Created a trigger that replies to any email with "Thank You" or "Thanks" in the comment on a solved ticket. The reply has [Reopen] in the subject and asks them to resubmit if they do indeed need additional support. If a [Reopen] reply is received, it reopens that ticket. Seems to be working well.

1


@shanepinnell - Wow, that is a great idea.  Would you be able to share some screen shots of the trigger set ups?  This could be the break though that we have been waiting for.

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Ben Van Iten

Zendesk Digital Resources Team

Hi all,

Just chiming in with the Zendesk perspective. The reason why we generally recommend against doing these kinds of triggers, is all too often there are false positives. When I was a customer advocate here for instance, many times customers would respond with something to the effect of "Thanks for the answer, but something else came up..." or "Thank you, but that's not exactly it". The customer frustration at that point if you solved their ticket out and they didn't notice for a few days and perhaps the ticket moves to a closed status and they have to start all over with someone else outweighs the inconvenience of having to re-solve those out in my opinion.

That being said, these triggers are definitely do-able. If you structured the conditions to work like this:

...and then for the actions you can solve the ticket out and send a message back, it would in theory work. I just wanted to put the previous disclaimer on there.

Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns!

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Precisamos de uma opção em que o agente possa determinar se o ticket reaberto gerou uma nova demanda (reabertura positiva) ou é relativo à demanda anterior e não há necessidade de considerar como reabertura de ticket (reabertura negativa)... ou algo do tipo...

Torço para que essa feature seja priorizada!

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