When should my team mark conversations as Closed?

When should my team mark conversations as Closed?

Deciding when and how your team should use the Close Conversation function will vary from team to team, as “closing” a conversation can represent different actions depending on your workflow. The best way to determine when a conversation should be closed is to understand how the metric works and what impact closing (or not closing) has on your reporting.

How Conversation Status Works

When a customer email arrives in your mailbox, the conversation status is set to Awaiting Mailbox Response.
After a team member replies, the status changes to Awaiting Contact Response.
As the conversation continues back and forth, the status will keep switching between these two states.

When to Use Close Conversation (Based on Your Reporting Goals)

1. If you want to track daily volumes and handling times

If your goal is to report on:

• the number of conversations closed each day, and

• the average time it takes your team to handle a customer query (total time for the entire thread),

then your team can mark the conversation as Closed after every reply—even if the query isn't fully resolved yet.

2. If you want to measure true resolution time

If your focus is on:

• total time to fully resolve a conversation, and

• comparing conversations that are Awaiting Mailbox Response vs Closed,

then the team should only close a conversation once no further action is required.

For example, if a customer replies with a simple “thanks” and the agent does not close the conversation, the status will remain Awaiting Mailbox Response, since the system assumes a response might still be needed.

What Happens if a Closed Conversation Gets a New Reply?

If a customer (or colleague) responds to a previously closed conversation:

• the status automatically updates back to Awaiting Mailbox Response or Awaiting Contact Response, depending on who replied last.

• the thread will be excluded from the Average Time to Close metric until it is closed again.
  When it’s closed again, the system recalculates the Time to Close from the first email in the thread to the most recent email at closing time.

Final Guideline

There is naturally some overlap between these scenarios, but a helpful way to decide whether to close a conversation is to consider how important the distinction is between:

• conversations that are Awaiting Mailbox Response, and

• conversations that are Closed,
  based on the reporting priorities of your team.

Need help or have feedback? Get in touch with us at support@timetoreply.com — we’re happy to help!