Support runs through a shared mailbox. Two people answer the same email, a third request stays untouched, and whoever wants to know how often a customer gets in touch counts by hand.
The ServiceDesk plugin turns an incoming email into an issue in the right project. Replies are written from Redmine and reach the customer as an ordinary email.
How it works day to day
- Connect the mailbox. A support address is polled. Every email becomes an issue, and customer replies attach to the same issue.
- Assign. Senders are kept as contacts and companies. The issue then shows who is asking and which organization they belong to.
- Work on it. Owner, priority and status as on any other issue. Internal notes stay internal and the customer does not see them.
- Reply. The reply is written as an issue comment and goes out as an email. The whole history stays on the issue.
- Measure times. With the Reporting plugin come response and resolution times, including business hours and public holidays.
What changes
- No request gets lost, because every one has an owner and a status.
- The history sits on the issue, not in individual mailboxes.
- Reports come from the data instead of a tally sheet.
Canned responses for recurring cases are managed by the Templates plugin. Both plugins are part of the Enterprise+ bundle, and for this function they have to be installed together.
Which functions the Redmine ServiceDesk plugin brings along and what it costs is described on the product page.