Topic IV:  UsingE-mail Effectively to Communicate with Customers

        There are varying ways that service desks use email (1)internally and (2) to communicate with customers.

        Email does not provide many of the capabilities that an incidentmanagement system provides. For this reason, service desk analysts must log allemail requests received from customers in their companys incident managementsystem (assuming they are not logged automatically). Analysts must also recordall status updates related to a customer incident or service request in theincident management system, not in email messages that may be lost orforgotten.

        Some companies use an email response management system.

        Many incident management systems now integrate with most of thestandard email packages to allow automation of common tasks.

        Email can be perceived as impersonal and that analysts sometimesfind that using email lengthens the incident-solving process. (For this reason,some companies choose not to provide email as a channel option.) To minimizethese downsides, service desk analysts must use common sense and courtesy whenusing email to communicate with customers.

Question: Do you thinkthat using e-mail to communicate with customers should be used by service deskanalysts?  Why or why not?