Managing communications for ecommerce company

Large e-mail volume becoming difficult to manage

[transition]

I'm running into some problems trying to manage our e-mail within the office here. We have multiple employees responsible for some 'group' accounts (e.x. [e-mail] ). Since we're getting hundreds of e-mails a day, it can be difficult to figure out who's doing what so work isn't being duplicated.

I'm looking for suggestions on any programs that could make managing group e-mail easier. Here's my ideal scenario.

1.) E-mail Arrives
2.) Employee 'John' Flags or receives a share of e-mails he will be responsible for - other employees are then prevented or informed that john has control of the e-mails
3.) John sends an e-mail and then everyone else will be able to see what he sent for future reference.

Right now individuals here are using Outlook, and we never know who has what and who sent what unless we look on their machine.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to make this less painful?

[jwolthuis]

We use GMail for this, specifically their Apps for Domains bundle. When an email arrives, it's tagged with the person responsible, and the message classification; problem, return, question, order status, etc.

GMail allows us to have many From addresses, all sharing one common Inbox, so the customer feels that they're receiving personalized attention.

All customer service reps can see all the emails received and their replys, and GMail organizes them into "conversation threads". They can be quickly filtered by tag name.

[Kendel]

Check out Kayako. I see this referenced often for the support type tasks you mentioned.

[gabidi]

We use Kayako, it's very good for what you describe.

[Corey Bryant]

You might also consider SmarterTicket if you are on a Windows Server

-Corey

[arubin]

I'm testing liveperson's contact center for this.

The gmail suggestion is quite good. One issue to consider is that all users have access and delete permissions for all the customer data, and have that permission when off site.

[centime]

ms exchange server can be persuaded to do a lot of things, I can imagine configuring it for what you need,

[DryFire]

MS Exchange Server works really well if you already use outlook. We use a managed MS exchange server service and have been pretty happy with it. When we looked into it, managed exchange server servies were much more cost effective then buying what it took to host our own Exchange Server.

Gmail also sounds like a good option... I'm not real familiar with it though... Would you be able to keep your email i.e.: [e-mail] or would you have to use a gmail email address?

[edited by: DryFire at 8:36 am (utc) on Feb. 9, 2007]

[arubin]

You can use apps for domains to use gmail with your domain name.
Supposedly they will start charging for that service though.