Request Management: Overview

Managing customer requests across multiple Slack channels

What is a Request?

Thena defines a request as a question or actionable task that is made from a customer in a shared Slack workspace. Thena uses AI to classify a customer outreach as a request.

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Our AI model will flag all Customer messages as requests when it identifies a question or an actionable task.

Examples of a request:

  1. I’m unable to add Thena to this private Slack channel, are you able to help me?
  2. Are you free for a quick call today? I need help on a urgent issue!

Examples of a general comment (not a request)

  1. Thank you so much for your help! It’s resolved
  2. Hi @Sidd

In Thena, you can manage/view the request from one of these three places:

Request Management with Thena

Thena's Request Management helps you manage incoming customer requests with ease. Here's how it works:

How It Works

  • We automatically detect incoming messages from customers on a Slack channel as requests.
  • Requests are notified in a Request Triage Channel, where automated workflows can be set up to manage them. For more information on Request workflows, please visit https://help.thena.ai/docs/request-workflow-automation.
  • Requests start off as Unassigned . Vendor users in the triage channel can take the request by clicking on Looking into it, assign it to someone using the Assign it to someone button, or close it.
  • If you have access to Request Pro, you get additional request features such as:
    • Adding anOn-Hold status, for pending on customer or pending on internal teammates
    • Re-Open an already closed request.
    • Discarding the request if it was flagged but isn’t something that you want to keep in the system. Please note that discarding a Request is irreversible and unhooks any Request workflows from that Request, and also removes it from the Analytics.
    • Viewing activity on request transitions.
    • AI Summary & Tags: Smart Request Titles, Summaries, Summaries on Internal Notes, Sentiment, Urgency, and Tags. To learn more about how these summaries work, please refer to the section below.
    • Dynamic Categories and Tags that you can attach to a request. You can manually tag these specific categories and tags, but if you want to automate tagging for your specific categories and request, please reach out to get access to beta. Please read more about Categories and Tags in the section below.

AI-Based Request Metadata

Available in Request Pro, we detect the following using our AI models for every Request:

  • Title
  • Summary: This is the summary of the request thread between you and your customer.
  • Internal Summary: This is the summary of internal teams’ collaboration on the customer request but on the internal thread.
  • Sentiment: Customer’s sentiment on the Request. This is a dynamic sentiment assessment, so as the request progresses, the customer sentiment can go from Neutral to Negative and back to Neutral or Positive. Our models update the most recent sentiment and are denoted by the flag.
  • Urgency: Between High, Medium, and Low - what is the customer’s perceived expectation.
  • Tags: These are the highlighted tags in the customer's request thread.

Please note that throughout the lifecycle of the Request, these metadata tags are updated dynamically, including the Title and Summary. If you want Title to be static, you can configure that from the global settings page.

Strategy Selection

Available Strategies:

  • Aggressive
  • Conservative

The Aggressive strategy is more proactive, however, it may lead to a higher number of false positives. A 'false positive', in this context, refers to an instance where Thena incorrectly identifies a message as request, when in reality, it's not a request.

Conversely, the Conservative strategy significantly reduces the occurrence of false positives by employing a more cautious approach. This strategy is particularly beneficial if you've been encountering an overabundance of false positives using the Aggressive strategy.

Select the strategy that aligns best with your specific requirements and tolerance towards false positives.

Use the Global Config shortcut in Slack to select your strategy
/thena-global-config -> Request Management -> Advanced Settings

Reopening closed requests

When a user sends a request on the thread of a closed request then it used to create an additional request and multiple requests were hard to manage for a single request.

So now if there is a new request on the thread of a closed request then the original request would be reopened and it will be assigned to the person who was looking into it.