Every outbound email sent from Freshdesk is immediately converted into a ticket. From this point, the email is treated as a one-on-one conversation between the agent and the recipient of the email. Though it becomes a ticket immediately, it will not have the characteristics of a normal ticket. However, when the recipient replies to the email (and thereby the ticket), it will be treated as a normal ticket.
Note: You can send outbound emails using the New Email option. However, the option will be visible only if you enable the Allow agents to initiate conversation with customers in Advanced Settings.
The following table gives you a quick overview of the differences. You can further check the respective sections below for more details.
| Property | Normal ticket | Outbound email ticket |
| Ticket status | By default, the ticket status will be Open | By default, the ticket status will be Closed. This will not send out the 'Agent closes the ticket' notification. |
| Ticket SLA | SLA timers will start ticking immediately | SLA timers will start after the ticket is reopened on customer's response. |
| Email notification | New ticket created notification will be sent. | New ticket created notification will not be sent. |
Customer satisfaction surveys | Satisfaction surveys will be sent out based on the setting. | The survey will not be sent along with the outbound email. |
Analytics | FCR% will be calculated | FCR% will not be taken into consideration as the conversation is being initiated by the agent. |
| First response SLA will be calculated based on when the agent sent out the first response on the ticket. | The first response SLA will be the response that the agent sends after the customer responds to the initial email. | |
| Automation rules | Automation rules will be executed on the creation of tickets. | Automation rules will not be executed for an outbound email ticket |
| Supervisor rules will be executed. | Without replies from the customer, the conditions 'Hours since agent/customer responded' in the Supervisor rule will not be considered. |
Ticket statuses and SLA
Outbound tickets are created by default with a Closed status. You can choose a different status like Open or Waiting on customer depending on your use case.
When you compose a new email (using + New > Email) and manually change the status to Open (or any status with SLA timer ON), the Due by time and the First Response time are set immediately. If the customer doesn't reply on time, you might inadvertently violate the SLA while you are waiting. So, we recommend creating outbound emails assigned to a status which has the SLA timer OFF (like Closed or Resolved).
When a customer replies to the outbound email, the status of the ticket is changed to Open using a default Ticket update rule ('Automatically reopen tickets when the customer responds').
To disable this rule or modify it,
- Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations >Ticket Updates.
- Click on the rule Automatically reopen tickets when the customer responds.
- Under the on tickets with these properties section, add a new condition that says 'In tickets if Source is Outbound email'.
Email notifications
- The New Ticket Created notification will not be sent to the email recipients - To and CC email addresses.
- The User Activation Email is not sent to the recipient.
- Even when the ticket is created with the Closed status, the recipient will not receive the Agent Closes the Ticket notification.
Customer satisfaction surveys
- Satisfaction surveys will not be sent along with an outbound email, no matter what the survey setting is. For instance, even if you've chosen to send the survey with 'All replies sent to customer' under Admin > Customer Satisfaction, the survey will not be sent with the outbound email.
Reporting
- Outbound tickets will not be considered in the calculation of First contact resolution (FCR%) and First Response SLA because the agent is initiating the conversation and not responding.
Automation
- The automation rules will not be executed on an outbound ticket.
- In Supervisor, outbound tickets without any replies from the customer will not be considered for the conditions 'Hours since agent responded' and 'Hours since customer responded'.