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Setting up confidential ticket system

onlinesource

10:24 pm on Apr 6, 2017 (gmt 0)

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I need some advice. I work with a business that is trying to setup a ticket system to communicate with customers/clients.The discussion involves personal matters and they don't want private material flooding a customer's gMail inbox so instead they want to keep all communication through the ticket system hosted on their servers.

Right now when the customer sends an email to help@website.tld or visits their support page and fills out the contact form, they are instantly send an email alert which says a ticket has been generated on their behalf, along with a link to access the ticket on their site.

The alert doesn't mention any of the personal data left by the customer when they wrote the email or submitted the contact form. it is a very basic alert, just indicating the ticket is live and can be viewed online.

In the past the alert themselves were sent from help@ and some clients, instead of clicking the link or reading the instructions about needing to click the link, where replying to the email as if it was an open form of communication. Then my business started to get their ticket feed filled with random replies to emails.

We started to send them from donoreply@ and if you try to reply back, it sends an autoresponder which says "Stop, we don't check this email. Go back and click the link in the last email".

Is the best way to handle this? I've read that donotreply@ emails are bad, but I'm not sure why, and I also don't want to encourage email communication.

Trying to figure out the best way to setup a discreet ticket system where the process is clear for the client about what links to click, etc.

tangor

11:42 pm on Apr 6, 2017 (gmt 0)

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Usually

"DO NOT reply to this email. Use the link below."

as the first line of the notification is sufficient. If desired, further clarification such as:

"We do not accept replies to this active ticket notification. If you have questions please send to support@example.com"

keyplyr

4:50 am on Apr 7, 2017 (gmt 0)

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I've read that donotreply@ emails are bad

I use DO_NOT_REPLY@example.com

I've seen no issues. No one has ever replied in 19 years. Don't know why someone said it's bad. You hear a lot of things.

piatkow

8:54 am on Apr 8, 2017 (gmt 0)

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@keyplr you are lucky, I tried using a donotreply address and, apart from the direct replies, one important client promptly updated their address book to use it for all communication.

engine

10:05 am on Apr 8, 2017 (gmt 0)

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The reason why it was suggested it's a bad thing was the apparent perception that donotreply addresses seemed uncaring. In other words, it was seen as, "don't reply to this e-mail as we really do not want to hear from you."

Unfortunately, lots of people don't read e-mails. One way around that is to minimise the information in the e-mail, and perhaps to consider using bullet points instead of paragraphs of text.

keyplyr

10:19 am on Apr 8, 2017 (gmt 0)

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I use DO_NOT_REPLY@example.com for confirmation only. I have contact forms and other email choices displayed all over my properties. No one would confuse the two.

it was seen as, "don't reply to this e-mail as we really do not want to hear from you."

When I use the DO_NOT_REPLY@example.com I really don't want to hear from them :)

robzilla

11:11 am on Apr 8, 2017 (gmt 0)

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I also don't want to encourage email communication.

I like it when a ticketing system allows me to respond by e-mail. I'm already reading my e-mail so why should I have to log on to a ticketing system to respond.

onlinesource

1:58 pm on Apr 9, 2017 (gmt 0)

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keyplyr + ... Do you have an autoresponder set to your do-not-reply@ email IF somebody was to reply? That is my worry! We don't want to ignore the customer's reply and don't want to leave them thinking a reply to do-not-reply@ is going to do anything.

robzilla + ... depends on the business. If I'm writing BedBath&Beyond about bed sheets, sure, who cares reply. What if it's a company that does blood work for labs? Want the email to show your blood work or want to log into a secured, private site, to view data. Email doesn't always work. :)

keyplyr

9:52 pm on Apr 9, 2017 (gmt 0)

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Do you have an autoresponder set to your do-not-reply@ email IF somebody was to reply?

No. As I said, this is only for order confirmation. There are contact links on the order page. I don't know any major vendors who will reply to an order confirmation email.

onlinesource

11:01 pm on Apr 9, 2017 (gmt 0)

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keyplyr, i guess my concern is if somebody is stupid enough to reply to an order confirmation message but still replies back about order questions or concerns, I'd like to somehow get that question and not leave them thinking they were being ignored which would lead to chargebacks etc.

I guess that is the problem, finding that balance.

keyplyr

11:29 pm on Apr 9, 2017 (gmt 0)

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I certainly understand that. When I had an open reply set up for clients, sometimes customers will drive you crazy and you get caught in endless back & forth emails: they change their mind, they want to change shipping address, they want to know when it will arrive, has it shipped yet, will it be left at the door if no one is home... endless. At some point you have to draw the line. I choose to avoid all that.