Evenly Distributing Emails Using Rules Management

For many customer support and sales managers, identifying which representative answers which email can be a daunting task - whether you are answering 20 emails or 20,000. To organize your emails and assign them to the right people, follow these basic steps using Folders and Rules Management.

Here is a scenario to help illustrate email distribution – similar to an email ticketing system:

There are three (3) Customer Support Rep's responsible for responding to email relating to the service of bicycles within the company. However, there are no specific guidelines established for who will answer what email and when. They also need to avoid more than one Rep responding to the email at one time. Here is how they solve the dilemma using ReplyManager:

Create a Folder
From the Maintenance Menu, click on Folders. Begin by creating a specific folder for each user that will be assigned to answer these emails. In this case, they create 3 folders named: Support (Jane), Support (John), Support (Tom). The only necessary information to enter is the Folder Name and From email address. The reason for setting up these folders is that we will establish certain rules requesting that email be distributed evenly to these folders (and thus users).


Set Some Rules
Once you have created the necessary folders, click on Rules from the Maintenance menu. Enter the name and set the conditions for capturing the right emails. Then, select the Support (User) folders created above.



As email arrive into the POP account, the specified rules are matched and the email is evenly distributed to the folders (users) selected. And since John is the only Rep assigned to answer email in the Support (John) folder, there is no chance of duplicate responses.

Happy Customers More Important than Ever

In our challenging economic times, we are always looking for creative ways to actively market to new customers. But now, more than ever, we should also remember the importance of keeping focus on our existing customers and their needs - keep them happy. They are, after all, already purchasing our products or services. One way to do this is through responsive and credible email management. Reestablishing contact with customers, strengthening customer relations, and keeping customer contact information up-to-date are all ways ReplyManager can help. Here is what we recommend:

• Create Auto-responders, such as “We received your request.”
• Create a Standard Replies database for consistent, efficient and credible responses. Be sure responses accurately address your customers question and avoid being too broad.
• Add internal informational notes as reminders so users know when and how to follow up further with customers.
• Identify potential issues or upselling opportunities and assign categories, add notes, escalate the status of the email and move to appropriate folder for action.

Faxing with ReplyManager

Did you know that you can manage your incoming faxes using ReplyManager?

If you are using a MyFax or eFax number all you need to do is forward faxes to an email address that is being received in ReplyManager. We created an alias (fax@yourcompany.com) to receive fax emails. If you use an alias, simply set up a folder with that associated email and you'll soon begin to receive faxes. If you use another email (that is shared for other issues), use Rules Management to direct online faxes into your Fax folder.

Have more tips on managing specific kinds of email? Post them here!

Assign Emails Quickly in ReplyManager

Many customers have asked about adding a "Take Button" to allow users to take responsibility for an incoming email in ReplyManager when several users are working in the same folder. Although there is no designated "button" for this, the same result can be achieved by performing the following quick and easy steps:

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Create categories with user names (necessary only the first time)
  
• From the folder view, mark a group of emails for a particular user
  
• From the bottom of the list, select the category (user name) from the drop down menu and click on the Change button
  

Now you have assigned a specific number of emails that will be answered by one user and that user only.

Drag & Drop Email File Attachments with Firefox

If you use Firefox, you'll love the Firefox add-on DragDropUpload. You can literally drag files from your desktop into the attachment field of ReplyManager instead of clicking on the Browse button to upload the file from your computer.

To start using it, download the application from Firefox at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2190 and install. If you don't already have the latest and greatest version of Firefox, you'll need to update that too. This application works best with Firefox 3.