Work a case from first response to resolution

A case brings the customer’s request, conversations, ownership, tasks, and supporting information into one workspace. Use it to move a complex B2B issue forward without making the customer repeat what another contact or team already explained.

Before you start  ·  Read the context before replying  ·  Download the complete activity history  ·  Send a customer response or record internal work  ·  Coordinate specialists without losing ownership  ·  Verify and close with a useful resolution  ·  Walk through a complex B2B case from start to finish  ·  Write different messages for the customer and the internal team  ·  Common problems

Before you start

Your role and division access determine which cases, tabs, and actions are available. Viewing a case does not automatically grant permission to edit it, close it, or see every customer record. Case policies can add fields and requirements. Ask your administrator to check the relevant role and case policy if a control described here is unavailable.

Read the context before replying

1. Open the case from Cases, a queue, or a saved view. Confirm the subject, contact, and company before taking action.
2. Review the Case details: current state, priority, issue, assignment, and service deadlines. A high priority identifies urgency; a deadline tells you which commitment needs attention next.
3. Read Activities in context, including earlier customer responses and internal work. Check Files for relevant evidence.
4. Open Contact and Company when available to understand the people and organization involved. Use this context to distinguish one person’s request from a recurring account issue.
5. Review Tasks and Discuss for work already underway. Avoid asking a second specialist to repeat an investigation that has an owner.

Download the complete activity history

Use a PDF when you need a portable record for an account review, handoff, or investigation. The export contains the activity history you are authorized to read, so review it before sharing it outside your team.

1. Open the case and choose Full Case history from the activity toolbar.
2. Choose Export to PDF in the history dialog header. The export reads the complete history, including older activities beyond the currently visible page.
3. Watch the progress change from loading activities and content to rendering PDF pages and finishing the file. Leave the case open while it runs.
4. Open the downloaded PDF and verify the first and last activities, important tables, and relevant images before using it.

Large exports retain saved quoted email chains as well as individual messages, so a long conversation can produce hundreds of pages. They are prepared in smaller groups of activities. A group can start on a new PDF page; the written history and activity order are retained. Images that cannot be loaded within the export limits are marked [Image unavailable], and the download reports a warning. While pages continue to render, a large export can run longer than two minutes. An unchanged PDF can be reused for five minutes while the case stays open; permissions, content, and images are checked again before reuse. Export errors appear as a notification. If an export stops making progress or fails, retry once and provide Support with the case ID and a complete browser network capture if the problem continues.

Send a customer response or record internal work

1. In Activities, choose Add activity, Reply, Reply all, or Forward for the intended action.
2. Choose the correct activity type. Use Send email for an outbound message and Add internal note for team-only working information. Log call, Create task, and other activity types serve different purposes.
3. Check the To, CC, and BCC recipients when composing email. Reply all can include more people than the main contact.
4. Write a concise update: what you understand, what has been done, the next action, its owner, and when the customer should expect another update. Add applicable files or a reviewed knowledge article.
5. Review any template or AI suggestion before using it. Replace placeholders, check technical accuracy, and remove internal reasoning or information about other customers.
6. Use the action for the selected activity type. Check the saved activity and its recipients in the case history. If you scheduled a send, verify its scheduled state instead of assuming delivery occurred immediately.

Coordinate specialists without losing ownership

Use Tasks for a defined action and due date. Use Discuss and mentions for an internal conversation linked to the work. A mention draws attention; it does not replace a clear assignment or a customer update.

• Keep one clearly accountable owner for the case, even when several teams contribute.
• Before a transfer, leave a handoff note with impact, evidence, attempted fixes, open questions, and the next promised update.
• Use escalation when impact, risk, or stalled progress needs additional attention. Escalation is a managed intervention, not a substitute for ownership.
• Link relevant articles and cases when the relationship helps future investigation. Use merge only after confirming that combining the records is appropriate.

Verify and close with a useful resolution

1. Confirm the agreed resolution or next supported outcome. Check outstanding tasks and any promised follow-up.
2. Write a resolution that another agent can reuse: symptom, environment, cause if established, action taken, and how success was verified. Separate confirmed facts from a working theory.
3. Send the customer an appropriate final update. Include any remaining customer action and a clear way to return with additional evidence.
4. Use the permitted close action and complete any required fields. Reopen the case view or refresh the list to verify its state.
5. If the solution is reusable, create or improve an article through the knowledge workflow. Remove customer-specific details before publication.

Walk through a complex B2B case from start to finish

Suppose two contacts at a manufacturing customer report that an overnight integration stopped creating orders. The immediate task is to establish impact and restore a reliable process; the longer-term task is to leave enough evidence that another agent can continue without restarting the investigation. The steps below are an operating example, not automatic workflow behavior.

1. Confirm whose problem you are solving. Open the case and check company and contact. Read the latest customer activity and earlier relevant messages. Ask which business process is blocked, which locations are affected, when it last worked, and whether a workaround exists. Record the customer’s deadline separately from your diagnosis.
2. Capture a usable starting point. Record the affected integration or asset and version when known, the exact error, the last successful operation, and a safe reproduction. Mark unconfirmed explanations as hypotheses. Avoid a subject such as “Urgent help”; use a subject that identifies the affected task and symptom.
3. Make the first reply useful. Acknowledge the confirmed impact, ask for missing evidence, and give a realistic next-update time. Check the recipients and activity audience. An internal note is appropriate for your diagnostic hypothesis; it does not deliver the customer update.
4. Coordinate the dependency. If a specialist must compare failed and successful requests, create a specific task or use the approved escalation process. Mention the specialist in the relevant discussion for context. Keep a named owner responsible for the customer update while the specialist investigates.
5. Record each meaningful result. Describe what you tested and what happened. “Tried fix” forces the next agent to guess; “retried the same payload after correcting the mapping; the validation error changed to…” preserves the investigation. Do not describe a proposed fix as completed.
6. Verify recovery. Ask the customer to confirm the intended business outcome, such as a new order reaching the downstream system. A successful test request alone may not prove that the overnight process recovered. Record the agreed verification and any remaining monitoring.
7. Resolve and reuse. Complete outstanding actions or explicitly hand them over. Record the resolution and apply the appropriate case state. Search existing knowledge and improve the matching article when the solution is reusable. Keep customer-specific payloads and account details in their appropriate restricted context.

At the end, another agent should be able to answer four questions from the case: what was affected, what was proved, what remains to be done, and who owns the next customer commitment.

Write different messages for the customer and the internal team

Use real times and facts from the case, not the example values. If you cannot meet a promised update, send a revised update before the deadline where possible. Changing ownership does not communicate that change to the customer by itself.

Common problems

Continue learning

• Build useful case views
• Use discussions and mentions
• Manage escalations
• Configure case forms and requirements
• Configure role and division access