Customers first consulted on the website, and later made supplements over the phone. If the system completely separated the two contacts, there would be duplicate work orders and different responses. Association requires reliable identification.

Start from needs

Use authorized customer numbers or verification information to associate sessions and retain the sources of each channel; when the identity cannot be confirmed, keep independent records and manually determine whether to merge.

Things that should be paid attention to in the design

For example, phone calls and online consultations for the same order can be associated with existing work orders, but they cannot be automatically merged if they have the same name; customers should be able to know the unified processing number of the current problem.

For example, handle it like this

Verify whether the merged permissions and notifications are correct, and confirm that the original channel records can still be viewed; retain the verification process when customers change contact information, and do not skip identity boundaries for convenience.

Check the processing results item by item

  • When linking channels, you can first display the summary of existing work orders to allow customer service to confirm whether the customer is asking about the same matter.
  • Two different issues of the same customer can still be opened separately and then associated with the customer entity. They cannot be forcibly merged in order to reduce the number.
  • The verification results in the phone record should explain the basis, and subsequent channel takeovers can see that the necessary verification has been completed.
  • Notifications are sent according to the channel selected by the customer to avoid multiple duplicate reminders from one dispatch.
  • When the identity cannot be confirmed, customer service can continue to answer general questions but will not disclose the original account records.
  • Both merging and splitting need to retain the operation history, especially when different orders are involved.
  • The statistical report distinguishes between the number of contacts and the number of questions, so that repeated calls will not be mistakenly counted as new questions.

Check the processing results

When continuing to contact the same problem across channels, the system can prompt that there is a processing record and allow customer service to confirm. The customer can also state that this is a separate issue and that the associated suggestion is not a reason to refuse to create a new ticket.