Why did a customer's reply open a new ticket?

When a customer answers one of your emails, their reply should land in the same ticket, not start a new one. This article explains how IntelliDesk recognises a reply, why one sometimes ends up as a separate ticket, and what to do about it.

How IntelliDesk matches a reply to its ticket

Every email your team sends from a ticket has the ticket number in the subject, in square brackets:

Re: Delivery delayed [HD-1182]

When an email comes in, IntelliDesk checks, in this order:

1. The ticket number in the subject. If the subject contains [HD-1182], the email is added to ticket HD-1182.
2. The email's reply headers. Email programs quietly record which message an email is replying to. If it's replying to an email IntelliDesk sent or received on a ticket, it's added to that ticket, even if the subject was changed.
3. The Gmail conversation (Gmail mailboxes only). A reply in the same Gmail thread goes to the same ticket.

If none of these match, IntelliDesk opens a new ticket.

When a reply is matched, the ticket's status changes to Customer responded and it moves to the top of the inbox. The assignee, and anyone following the ticket, gets a notification. A reply to a closed ticket reopens it.

A reply to a ticket that was merged into another one goes to the ticket it was merged into.

Why a reply opened a new ticket

The usual reasons, most likely first:

• The customer wrote a new email instead of replying. A fresh email to your support address, with no ticket number in the subject, is a new request as far as IntelliDesk can tell.
• They replied to an old email, or to a different thread. For example, they searched their inbox for your address and replied to an unrelated conversation.
• The ticket number was removed from the subject, and their email program didn't keep the reply headers. Some email programs, forwarding services and mobile apps drop these headers.
• Someone else wrote in about the same issue, such as a colleague of the customer writing from their own address without replying to your email.

Putting the conversation back together

Merge the new ticket into the original: open the newer ticket, open the ⋯ menu, choose Merge into…, and pick the ticket to keep. The messages move across, and later replies to either email thread land on the ticket you kept. See Keeping the inbox clean: merge, block and delete.

On desks with AI triage & assist switched on, IntelliDesk may flag a likely duplicate at the top of the ticket (Possible duplicate of HD-…) with a Review & merge button.

Helping customers reply in the right place

• Ask customers to reply to your email rather than writing a new one, and to keep the [HD-…] number in the subject.
• If a customer has to write a new email about an existing request, they can add the ticket number in square brackets to the subject, for example [HD-1182], and it will be added to that ticket.
• The ticket number is also in your acknowledgement email, if you use one (see Automatic acknowledgement emails (auto-reply)).

Replies from people in CC

If someone who was copied (CC) on the conversation replies, their message is added to the same ticket. The ticket stays with the original customer as its contact, and your replies still go to that customer. Check the CC line in the reply box before you send, and use Add CC if the person who replied should get your answer too (see CC'ing people and forwarding a ticket outside your team).

When to contact support

If a customer replied directly to your email, kept the [HD-…] number in the subject, and it still opened a new ticket, contact IntelliDesk support with both ticket numbers.

Related: Keeping the inbox clean: merge, block and delete · Understanding ticket statuses · CC'ing people and forwarding a ticket outside your team