Workflow

Usage

CRMdesk questions management is based on a complex workflow model, which consists of many processes involved in handling questions from creation to closure. Apart from customer and user actions through the main web interface, questions may be created and updated by the customer through CRMdesk e-mail interface. In addition, one user action often triggers more than one event. For example, when a user posts a reply to a customer’s question, the system not only updates the history of the question and changes its status, but it also generates and sends an e-mail notification to the customer.

Procedure

The diagram below illustrates the stages and events of the CRMdesk question lifecycle.

When a new question is created, it is assigned to a customer service representative (assignee) with a status classified as ‘Awaiting Staff Response’, which indicates that the next expected action for this question is the support team reply. When the assignee replies to the question, its status is automatically changed to ‘Awaiting Customer Response’, which means that now it is the customer who is expected to evaluate the response and either close the question or continue discussing the issue by updating it. In that case the question is automatically assigned an ‘Awaiting Staff Response’ status again, and the cycle repeats.

At any point in time, while the question is open, support staff can reassign, edit and move it. When a customer or a staff member closes a question, it can be reopened or permanently deleted. From the process viewpoint, reopening a question is similar to changing an open question’s status to the one classified as ‘Awaiting Staff Response’.

An open question’s status can be changed according to escalation rules.

A more detailed description of these procedures is given below. Please note that every action performed on a question is recorded in its history (discussion thread).

Next: Creating Questions