Enhancing Email Activity Statuses for Improved Collaboration in Customer Service

Background: 

In our use of both Customer Service and Omnichannel for Customer Service, we have identified a key limitation in the email activity handling, specifically related to the status reasons available for inbound emails. Currently, when an inbound email is received, the status is limited to “Received,” whether or not the email has been replied to. This limitation creates inefficiencies and challenges for teams collaborating in the Customer Service Inbox, as it becomes difficult to distinguish between emails that have been handled and those still requiring action.

Current Challenge:

• Inbound emails only display the status “Received,” even after an agent has responded to the email.
• The lack of visibility into whether an email has been responded to, and when it was responded to, makes collaboration across teams cumbersome. Agents have to manually check or rely on inefficient workarounds to determine which emails have been handled.
• This issue is particularly problematic for teams working in a shared inbox environment, as it hinders transparency and prevents effective task management. 
• Email response time is impractical to calculate based on the email activity's "Modified on" date since this parameter is affected by all types of adjustments, thus becoming unreliable in this specific context. 

Proposed Solution:

• We recommend adding an additional status reason to the inbound email activity that would update automatically when the corresponding outbound email activity (response) reaches the status of "Sent." For example, the inbound email status could be updated from "Received" to "Replied to" when the system detects that a response has been successfully sent. The replied to date should be saved and visualized on the activity record. 

Key Benefits:

• Improved Collaboration: This feature would give agents and teams immediate visibility into which emails have been handled, improving transparency and reducing the likelihood of missed or duplicated responses.
• Enhanced Workflow Efficiency: Teams can quickly filter and organize emails in the Inbox based on whether they have been responded to, which is not possible in today's setup. 
• Accurate Email Status Tracking: Adding more granular status reasons and visualization of when the email was responded to ensures more accurate tracking of each email's lifecycle, from reception to resolution.
• Streamlined Filtering and Reporting: This change would enhance the ability to set up filters and reports to track email responses and response times, thus improving overall service management.

How it Would Work:

• When an inbound email is received, it retains the status “Received.”
• Once an outbound email is sent (with a matching thread ID), the system automatically updates the inbound email’s status to “Replied to" and saves the date of when the reply was made. 
• This status update is triggered when the corresponding outbound activity reaches the "Sent" status.

Conclusion:

By introducing additional status reasons for inbound email activities, particularly a "Replied to" status, Microsoft can enhance collaboration, transparency, and efficiency for users of the Inbox. This improvement would help teams work more seamlessly, ensuring better customer service outcomes.