Zap Helpdesk App is the most comprehensive Email-to-Case solution built for Dynamics 365 for Customer Service. For details on various features and functionalities refer: https://zapobjects.com/apps/zap-helpdesk/

Your customer has submitted a support request and a case has been created in Dynamics 365 for Customer Service.

What happens to that case next? How do you know which cases are to be responded? Which cases are waiting for response from customer?

Like this there are multiple questions that you and your support team may be struggling with. Tracking these updates on a case is essential as they signify the root cause of your support inefficiencies.

In this blog, we will explain a sample case lifecycle and how Zap Helpdesk App helps in answering the above questions.

Below shows a sample case lifecycle which we use at Zap Objects for managing our customer support process:

New–
All support cases are automatically set to new status on creation.
This is the stage where you can also verify if the customer has necessary entitlements before proceeding.

Here Zap Helpdesk can help with below points:
=> Can automatically set the Case Status to “New” on creation. This is based on the status chosen in Helpdesk – email-to-case configuration settings.
=> Can automatically send new case creation email acknowledgement to Customer. Further you can also have different email templates used based on whether the case was created during business hours or outside business hours.
=> Can also notify the Case Owner or Support team using email or in-app notification regarding this new case.
For more details, refer blog: Notifications module with more than 10 built-in notifications added to Helpdesk App (link)

Open:
Cases with an open status are ready to be picked up.

In-Progress:
Cases which are actively being worked on by Support team / Agent have status as In-Progress. Basically whenever an agent picks up the case… they change the status to “In-Progress”.

Responded:
If an Agent needs more information from the customer, they will reach out to the customer for whatever information or clarification is needed and then will change the case status to “Responded”.

Here Zap Helpdesk can help with below points:
Agent will reply to the Customer, either using Dynamics 365 “New Email” form OR send email from Outlook.

=> When using the “New Email” form in Dynamics 365 for composing email… Zap Helpdesk provides a feature called as “Quick Response”.
“Quick Response” can auto-populate From-Recipient, To-Recipients, Email Subject, Email body with Case email history (clean email history), Canned Responses etc…Thus allowing to QUICKLY COMPOSE an Email for a faster response to Customer! For more details refer blog (link)
Agent will then manually change the status to “Responded”.

=> When responding from Outlook, agent needs to mark the “Support Email Address” in CC… this way the email will get automatically tracking in Dynamics Case record. Zap Helpdesk can automatically detect that this email is being sent by agent to requestor/customer and change the case status to “Responded”!

=> Zap Helpdesk App can also automatically send reminder email to Customer after X business/calendar hours if no response received! Further it can also automatically close the case after waiting for another X business/calendar hours! This automatic process will help in reducing the dormant cases if any!
For details, refer blog: Avoid dormant cases by sending automated follow-up reminders to requestors/customers. (link)

New Response:
This status reflects that a new customer response has been received.

Here Zap Helpdesk can help with below points:
=> Automatically detects whether new email or portal response has been received from customer and changes status to “New Response”.
=> Notify Support team or Case Owner about this new response.
Further, if support team is not responding to this within next X business hours then do follow-up.
For more details, refer blog: How to know if new email response has been received for a Case (link)

Resolved:
Resolving a case, changes case status to resolved.

=> Zap Helpdesk App can automatically send email notification to Customer/Requestor on Case resolution. This email can optionally have the whole case email history (clean history which is created using newer email responses – excluding the multiple repeating threads)

Miscellaneous Case Statuses:

On-Hold:
Generally case status is set to on-hold when support team is waiting on from third-party for additional information.

Archived:
At-times we set the case status to archived when case has been resolved. And then after few days, mark case as resolved.
This is done to avoid re-opening of the case when customer/requestor sends a thank you email back when we have resolved the issue.

Conclusion:

In order to make your support resolution process faster & efficient… have a clearly defined case lifecycle and train the users to use the Case Statuses correctly.

Also, as we can see from this blog, how Zap Helpdesk enhances this process by automating several tasks (like detecting new response / notifying agent & customer / following up customer if no response received etc)!

Below are some useful links to get started quickly:

How to design Support process when using Dynamics 365 for Customer Service: https://zapobjects.com/microsoftdynamics365_crm_helpdesk_emailtocase_app/design-support-process-dynamics-365-customer-service-crm/

Product Page: https://zapobjects.com/apps/zap-helpdesk/

Support Page: https://support.zapobjects.com/

Please feel free to email support@zapobjects.com if you have any questions.

Zap Recent Updates (Apr 2022)

1. New App  Released: Zap Case Time Entry App: Track and log time spent by support agents on cases directly from Case form (either using built in Timer functionality or manually add Start & End Times or duration)!

2. New Version Released: Zap Helpdesk App (v44.1.1.9) :A super major version of Zap Helpdesk has now been released. Some of the new features are: Case History, Email Reply – with ability to include full email and portal history in all new responses to customer, dedicated notifications module with all standard set of notifications built-in, Email Commands, and many more!

3. New Version Released: Zap Report Scheduler App (v 32.1.1.9):
1. When scheduling Excel or Word Template…user can now select even “Shared” personal excel template and “Shared” personal View
2. Automatic Retry for Report Generation using “Schedule Report” option: If due to any reason (eg report server busy), report generation fails… then we provide the option to retry report execution again after 1 minute… and then again if it fails then after 10 minutes. This retry mechanism would guarantee 99.99% delivery.