Hi!
I'm writing from the Museum of Science in Boston, MA. My name is Amy Germaine and I am the Manager of the Call Center which also includes the oversight of the general inbound email response process on behalf of the Museum.
The inbound e-mails go to several shared e-mail accounts that are managed by my team. We are working on sourcing a replacement for our home grown email response tracker (templating, workflow management, etc. not a replacement for outlook but for coordinating who is responding, how and whether they have, etc.) and are looking to find out more how other organizations are using a similar system and/or if anyone is using any application they especially recommend.
Maybe there have been some creative solutions involving Tessitura?!
Cheers!
Amy
We are using FrontApp (https://frontapp.com) and I find it to be delightful.
Hi Nick,
Thank you for your quick reply. What Organization are you from and where are you located?
I have some questions about frontapp as well as your daily operation if you have some time:
How many different e-mail accounts does your team oversee?
How many staff are using the e-mail program at one time?
What is the average amount of e-mails your team handles per day?
I know that there is the function to assign e-mails to specific users but what happens if everyone is responsible for all e-mails and specific assignment isn't necessary? Would it show that a specific user opened and responded to the e-mail even if it wasn't assigned to them?
Does it show the e-mail as "locked" when it is in use?
Did your team find the transition from the system you were using before easy and are they happy with it?
What e-mail system did you use before?
Did the system end up not doing something that maybe you expected it to? Any surprises?
I just watched a short introductory video about frontapp--I did not see any mention of reporting (maybe I missed it?) If there is reporting capabilities have you utilized it and if so, how do you like it?
Thank you so much for connecting!
Best,
Amy Germaine
Museum of Science
Boston, MA
Our operation isn't particularly large. We currently have two incoming email addresses, and about 4 people who are regularly managing them with FrontApp. Previously we just used email clients synced to the same account over IMAP. The transition to front was very easy — it basically behaves like an email client with "multiplayer" capabilities, so you don't have to shift your thinking into something different like a traditional support ticket system.
At the inbox level, you can set a preference for "assign conversation on first reply" on or off. Everyone can see a conversation's assignee, so in your case you might have users assign a new email to themselves if they see it and want to handle it but can't draft a response right away. Users can see when a response to a conversation is being drafted by another user. It doesn't "lock" the conversation, so your team can still add internal comments in realtime, but reliably prevents response "collisions".
No surprises. I have pretty high personal standards for software quality and have no complaints whatsoever. Their support team is also excellent. Reporting and analytics capabilities are available at the "Premium" pricing tier. One of the main value propositions of Front that is worth noting is that it can be a unified platform for all of your customer contact channels, not just email. Website chat widgets, twitter, facebook, SMS, etc., can all appear in Front as just another inbox.