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Freshdesk provides your agents with the capability to send outbound emails to your customers directly from your account, convert them into tickets, and track their progress. For example, outbound emails can be sent to:

• inform customers about scheduled maintenance and downtime
• announce unexpected incidents and provide recovery instructions
• simply check in with users with whom they share a customer success relationship

About outbound Emails

Every outbound email sent from Freshdesk is immediately converted into a ticket. This 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, it will be treated as a normal ticket.

Note: You can send outbound emails using the New Email option. 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 an overview of the differences between a normal ticket and an outbound email ticket:

Limits on outbound emails

We have implemented a Fair Usage Policy to limit spam attacks and enhance security.

If you reach the account limit, the Send button for ticket replies and new outbound emails will be disabled. You'll see a banner that says, "Your account has crossed the maximum hourly limit for outgoing emails. Please get in touch with our support team to know more."

Enable outbound email

To allow agents to send outbound emails, enable the option from Advanced Settings.

1. As an admin, go to Admin > Channels > Email and click Advanced Settings.
2. Enable the option Allow agents to initiate conversation with customers. Once enabled, the agents can see the New email option.
   

You can also use the Customize From Email Address app to set default support addresses for outbound emails.

1. Go to Admin > Support operations > Apps. If you don't have the app installed, install it from the Marketplace. You will need your API Key.
2. Click Manage Apps.
3. Next to the app, click Settings > Edit settings.
4. Select Source from the dropdown.
5. Select Outbound Email and the relevant support address and click Save.
   

Send an outbound email

To compose a new outbound email:

1. Click New in the top-right corner of the agent portal and select New email.
   
2. On the Send an email page, enter the following details:
   • From: Choose the relevant option from your configured support emails.
   • To: Choose the primary recipient of the email. If the recipient is not in your Contacts, they'll be added once the email is sent.
   • (Optional) Click Add CC or Add BCC to add multiple secondary recipients.
   • Subject: Craft your email subject. This doubles as the title for the ticket that is created to track this email conversation.
   • Description: Create your email body. Use the formatting options to create rich text and media and modify your email signature.
3. Optionally, configure any properties for the subsequent ticket. Mandatory fields are already displayed. Click Show more fields to configure other ticket fields.
4. Optionally, mark the Send another checkbox to create another email after sending this one.
5. Review your email and click Send.

Note: If you have Multiple products (Pro plan onwards), the Product field will not be displayed on this page. Instead, the field will be automatically filled after the ticket is created using the product associated with the From address.

Ticket workflow for outbound emails

When you send the outbound email, it is automatically converted into a ticket. By default, a ticket created this way has the following properties:

• Agent—you. Since you sent the outbound email, you'll likely be the one to continue responding to it.
• Requester—your email recipient. This way, outbound email tickets are included when you use the Contact or Company filters in ticket list views and analytics.
• Status—Closed. This is so that your SLA timers don't start automatically.

Note: Your default ticket list views do not include closed tickets. To track tickets created by outbound emails, set the Sources filter to "Outbound Email" and save it as a custom view. See Understand the Ticket List View.

Once the customer responds to the outbound email, their reply is appended to the ticket body. The ticket status is changed to Open and the SLA timers start running.

FAQs

1. Can I send emails in bulk and create separate tickets for each customer?

   You can only email one recipient with the New Email method, though you can add multiple CC or BCC recipients. To send outbound emails in bulk and create individual tickets for each customer, use the Proactive Outreach feature.
   
   

2. Can I monitor the number of outbound emails that agents send?

   Yes. On the Tickets page, set the Sources filter to "Outbound Email". This gives you the list of tickets as well as a total count. You can use the same filter in your Analytics reports and group by agents to get agent counts. If you use the Agent Reply metric, you can also understand the number of emails an agent sends per ticket.
   
   

3. Why is my support email address not listed in the "From" field?

   If your configured support email address is not listed in the From field of a new email, try the following:

   • Confirm if your email address is verified.

     Only verified addresses can be used to send outbound emails from Freshdesk. Go to Admin > Channels > Email and check if the status is Verified.

   • If you use marketplace apps like the Customize From Email Address app, check the app's configuration.
     Go to Admin > Support operations > Apps and click Manage Apps. Click Settings > Edit settings for the relevant app and verify your configuration.

   • If you just set up a new support email, it might not show up if your page cache hasn't been refreshed. Wait a few minutes or hard reset your page (Chrome and Firefox: Ctrl+F5 for Windows or Cmd+Shift+R for Mac).

4. What happens when an agent replies to an email notification from the agent email address?
   When an agent replies to the thread of an already existing ticket from their mailbox, it will be added as a public note on the ticket. If the agent sends an email to the support email address as a new thread, it will create a new ticket with the agent as the requestor.
   
   To append a new email to an existing ticket, include the Ticket ID at the beginning of the Subject line of the ticket in the format, [#{{ticket.id}}]. For example, add [#1234] at the start of the subject of a new email to append that email to Ticket number 1234.
   
   

5. How to prevent ticket creation if the support email address is in the CC or BCC?
   If one of your support email addresses is added to the CC field in an email conversation, the email thread will be converted to a ticket. By default, emails will be forwarded from your primary inbox to Freshdesk as tickets.
However, you can set up a Ticket Creation rule to automatically delete the ticket if the email address in Ticket CC is a support email address.
   
   

6. How to solve "An internal error occurred. Please contact support" error?
   When you try to edit email notifications by signing up with a public domain address (such as gmail.com or outlook.com), you may see an error saying An internal error occurred. Please contact support. In such cases, you can edit the email notifications only if you have more than 10 tickets in your account.
   
   If you continue to face further issues, contact support@freshdesk.com with your Freshdesk URL.
   
   

7. Can I manually forward tickets from my support email address to Freshdesk forwarding email address?
   By default, a ticket will not be created in Freshdesk when the From and To addresses of an email are both the support email addresses. This is done to avoid duplicate ticket issues. Please try sending the email from another email address to create the ticket.
   
   

8. How to ensure all replies are sent from only one support email address?
   By default, a reply to a ticket is sent via the support email address from which that ticket was created. However, if you want to reply through an email address irrespective of the email address from which the ticket was created, you can install the Customize 'From' Email Address app (Go to Admin > Support Operations > Apps > Get More Apps).