Best practices for using email clients with CCs and followers

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<div class="note fastpath" style="margin-right: 0px;">
<span class="fastpathtitle">Location: </span> <span class="ph">Admin Center &gt; Objects and rules &gt; Tickets &gt;
Settings</span>
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<p class="p" dir="ltr">With CCs and followers, you have several options available when you use
email clients to update and manage ticket information. This article
describes how ticket settings and email notifications work together. It
includes some best practices for admins and agents who use email
clients.</p>
<p class="p">Sections in this article include:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_zb4_wjr_xgb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_erj_lrl_hhb">Best practices for admins</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_unz_xjr_xgb">Best practices for agents</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_x1f_jlr_xgb">Best practices for end users</a></li>
</ul>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">For a complete list of documentation about CCs and followers, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408836035866" target="_blank">CCs and followers
resources</a>.</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_erj_lrl_hhb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Best practices for admins</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p" dir="ltr">When you’re managing CCs and followers, keep in mind the
following:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_erj_lrl_hhb__ul_ws5_4rl_hhb">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Make sure your notifications are up to
date.</strong><p class="p">Double-check your triggers and
automations to make sure email client notifications
work as expected. Actions for triggers and
automations include a choice between <code class="ph codeph">Email
user - (requester)</code> and <code class="ph codeph">Email user
- (requester and CCs)</code>, depending on who
you want to include.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Use CCs and followers settings to customize your
experience.</strong><p class="p">You have several options to
control how email clients behave with tickets. For
example, you can activate or deactivate CCs in email
clients. You can also specify email addresses that
can never be copied as a CC or follower. Get
familiar with all the choices and pick the settings
that work best for your Zendesk account. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843795482" target="_blank">Configuring
settings and permissions for CCs and
followers.</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Train your agents.</strong><p class="p">Encourage your agents to add other
agents as followers in the ticket, not as CCs. If an
agent uses the email client to CC another agent, the
agent’s email is exposed to customers. This is not
ideal and opens the opportunity for customers to
contact agents directly, which results in missed
activity within Support and potentially a poor
customer experience.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_unz_xjr_xgb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Best practices for agents</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p" dir="ltr">When you’re working with CCs and followers in email clients,
keep in mind the following:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_unz_xjr_xgb__ul_k12_trl_hhb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">
<strong class="ph b">Email notifications for followers.</strong><p class="p" dir="ltr">Followers receive notifications through their email
client whenever the ticket is updated, but their
names don’t appear in the email address. You cannot
add a follower from an email client. Followers must
be included directly from the ticket. Followers see
both public replies and internal notes in their
email notifications. Generally, any email response
by a follower is recorded in the ticket as an
internal note. However, there is one exception. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842992538" target="_blank">Understanding when
email replies become public or private
comments</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">
<strong class="ph b">Email notifications for CCs.</strong><p class="p">By default, CCs
receive notifications in their email client whenever
a public comment is added to the ticket and their
names are included in the email address. Agents and
end users can add CCs as part of an email
notification, but light agents cannot.
</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Use Reply (instead of Reply all) for private
comments.</strong><p class="p">When you reply to an email
notification, use <strong class="ph b">Reply</strong> (instead of <strong class="ph b">Reply
all</strong>) if you want to keep the reply private (an
internal note) on the ticket. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842992538-Understanding-when-email-replies-become-public-or-private-comments" target="_blank">Understanding when
email replies become public or private
comments</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Be protective of confidential information.</strong><p class="p" dir="ltr">Followers don’t show in the email address, so your
email conversation may appear more private than it
actually is. Convert public comments from customers
into internal notes if you don't want to expose the
comment outside your organization. </p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Pay attention to replies from a third party.</strong><p class="p">If a third
party replies to a ticket, a warning appears in the
ticket interface. You may need to manually update
the ticket to include comments from this person and
add this person as a CC from the ticket interface.
See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842992538#topic_lhb_c4l_fhb" target="_blank">Third party replies
to ticket notifications</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_x1f_jlr_xgb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Best practices for end users</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p" dir="ltr">When end users are working with CCs and followers in email
clients, keep in mind the following:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_x1f_jlr_xgb__ul_adq_wrl_hhb">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Be protective of confidential information.</strong><ul class="ul" id="topic_x1f_jlr_xgb__ul_jh5_t2g_gzb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">All conversations you send by email
are stored in a ticket. Any agent with access to
the ticket can see the full thread within the
ticket.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">You may not see the names of everyone
who is included in the conversation.</li>
<li class="li">Removing a CC from the recipients of an email
only removes them from the conversation in Support
if the sender is the requester or CC and the
requester is present on the email (as the sender
or recipient). An end user who is not already
participating in the ticket as a requester or CC
cannot remove CCs via email.
</li>
<li class="li">You can add additional CCs to the email thread.
When you add additional CCs, all public responses
since the ticket was created are included in the
CC. </li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Avoid forwarding if possible.</strong><p class="p">If you forward the ticket
to a third party and the third party replies, you
may end up with part of a conversation that isn’t
recorded in the ticket, unless the agent who owns
the ticket manually adds the reply and includes this
person as a CC on the ticket.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Use Reply all (instead of Reply) to preserve ticket
CCs.</strong><p class="p">When you are the ticket requester, reply
to an email notification using <strong class="ph b">Reply all</strong>
(instead of <strong class="ph b">Reply</strong>) if you want to preserve
all the original CC'd end users on the ticket.
Replying to an email notification using <strong class="ph b">Reply</strong>
will remove all CC'd end users from the
ticket.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Use Reply (instead of Reply all) for private comments.</strong>
<p class="p">When you are a CC'd end user on a ticket, reply to an
email notification using <strong class="ph b">Reply</strong> (instead of
<strong class="ph b">Reply all</strong>) if you want to keep the reply
private (an internal note) on the ticket.</p>
</li>
</ul>
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