Working with tickets

Emailing a customer first (New email)

Updated

Sometimes you need to write to a customer before they've written to you. For example, a delivery is held up, a document is missing, or a service is down. New email lets you send that email from IntelliDesk. The customer doesn't need to have an existing ticket.

What happens when you send

  • IntelliDesk starts a ticket for the customer, and your email is the first message in it.
  • The email goes out from the desk's own mailbox, with the ticket number in the subject (for example Held at customs, AWB 8790 1234 5678 [HD-1234]).
  • The ticket is assigned to you and set to Pending, waiting on the customer. The SLA clock is paused.
  • When the customer replies, the reply lands in the same ticket, as with any other email.
  • The ticket shows Started by team in its header.

Sending one

  1. Click New email:
    • Inbox: next to New ticket. On a phone, it's the envelope icon beside the search box.
    • A contact's page: the customer is already filled in.
    • A company's page: you choose one of the company's contacts.
  2. In To, search for the customer by name or email. If they aren't a contact yet, type their full email address and choose Email … (adds them as a new contact). You can add their name if you like.
  3. In From, choose the desk to send from. Only desks with a connected mailbox are listed. If a desk's mailbox is having trouble, it's marked mailbox failing.
  4. Add anyone to copy in under Cc, then write the Subject and the message.
    • Templates inserts one of your canned responses. Placeholders such as {{contact_first_name}} are filled in.
    • Your signature is added automatically.
  5. Use Attach files for anything the customer needs, up to 25 MB per file.
  6. Click Send email. The new ticket opens.

Reference numbers

If your workspace uses Reference numbers (Settings → Reference Numbers), a tracking or account number in the subject or message is picked up, the same as on any other ticket. Other tickets about the same number are linked.

Following up automatically

The ticket waits on the customer. If you use Settings → Automations → Waiting on customer, the customer gets a reminder after a few days, and the ticket closes if there's still no reply.

Reports

Reports → Agents shows Proactive emails: the tickets each agent started by emailing a customer first. These tickets don't count toward first response time, because your team wrote first.

The count also includes emails your team sends from Outlook with the desk copied, once your domain is set under Settings → Email Handling → Team domains. Those emails are credited to the sender when they have an IntelliDesk seat.

To list these tickets in the inbox, use the Started by: Team filter.

Sending from your own systems

You can send the same email automatically, for example when your tracking system flags an exception.

  • REST API: POST /api/v1/tickets/outbound with customerEmail, subject, body and, optionally, customerName, cc, priority, ticketType and attachments.
    • The email goes out from the API key's desk.
    • If the key is linked to an agent, it's sent as that agent and counts as their proactive email. Otherwise it's sent in the desk's name and the ticket is left unassigned.
    • It needs a key with Full access.
    • Every ticket in the API has a startedBy field (team or customer). GET /api/v1/tickets?startedBy=team lists the ones your team started.
  • MCP: the send_new_email tool does the same. list_tickets takes a startedBy filter. Keys with Triage access can't send, because sending emails a customer.

The full reference is at intellidesk.co/api/docs.