Repeat contact linking for supporter case history
Problem
A supporter emails the shared inbox about a refund, hears nothing back within a day, and calls the ticket line instead. The agent who answers has no way to see the email thread, so a second case gets logged in the CRM under a slightly different subject line. A few days later the same supporter calls again, reaches a different agent, and repeats the whole story from the start. Each contact is treated as new because nothing links a phone number or email address to a case already open. Nobody on the team can see that a supporter has already been in touch more than once, so nobody escalates, and the case only closes when the supporter gives up or complains publicly.
Product idea
A lookup step added at the start of every contact. The agent enters the phone number, email address or membership number the supporter gives, and the tool checks it against open cases already logged in the CRM. If a match exists, the agent sees the case history and what was already promised, before saying anything back to the supporter. If nothing matches, a new case is created as normal. Cases with repeated linked contacts are flagged on a simple list so a supporter services manager can see which issues keep coming back before the supporter has to complain to get attention. It does not read email inboxes or phone systems directly; matching runs on identifiers the agent types in.
Who it is for
Contact centre agents and complaints officers who take the call or email, and the supporter services manager who sponsors it to see which issues are recurring before they become complaints.
Possible first version
A single screen where an agent enters a phone number, email address or membership number at the start of a call, email or chat, and the tool searches existing case records for a match. A match shows the case history and any promised next step; no match creates a fresh case as today. A manager view lists cases with more than one linked contact. Version one does not connect to the telephony platform or the email inbox automatically: identifiers are typed in by the agent, with no caller ID lookup or automatic email thread parsing.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 4-6 week first release
- Roles involved
- Contact centre agent, Supporter services manager, Complaints officer, Membership services lead
- Relevant to
- Professional club, League office, Women's league, Federation / governing body, Venue & stadium operator
- Systems in play
- CRM and case management, Telephony and contact centre platforms, Email and shared inboxes
- Product framing
- Automate a workflow
Questions we get asked
What do we need to have in place before this is any use to us?
A case record that already has a searchable field for phone number, email address or membership number. If your CRM captures that today, the lookup works against your existing records from day one. If agents currently log cases without a consistent identifier, that habit needs to change first, because the tool can only match what has been recorded consistently.
Does this replace our CRM or case management system?
No. It records nothing of its own and holds no case data outside your CRM. It is a search and flag step that sits in front of it, reading what is already logged and surfacing the match before the agent responds. If the CRM is down or the lookup fails, the agent falls back to logging a new case exactly as they would today.
Our agents already ask whether someone has called before. Why do we need this?
Asking depends on the agent remembering to ask and the supporter remembering to mention it, and during a fixture-day spike neither reliably happens. This makes the check automatic and independent of memory on either side, so a repeat contact gets caught even when the agent is moving through calls quickly.
What happens if an agent skips the lookup during a busy period?
Nothing breaks. Skipping it just means the contact is logged as new, which is the current behaviour anyway, so there is no new failure mode introduced under load. The lookup is designed to add a few seconds when used, not to block or slow down a call if it is bypassed.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
Tell us about itMore in Customer service & voice agents
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- Contact reason analytics for supporter servicesA reporting layer that classifies every supporter call, chat and email by reason and shows what is actually driving contact volume, so upstream teams can fix root causes instead of only staffing the queue.