AsureQuality uses a customer support platform with ticketing to manage customer requests. Each request is recorded as a ticket, keeping the enquiry and related correspondence together.
Sometimes an email reply is recorded as a private note rather than appearing in the customer-visible conversation. This can happen when someone replies to a forwarded email or uses an email address that is not already included on the ticket.
Who is included in a support request?
The requester is the customer contact recorded as the main contact for the request. CCs are additional contacts included on the ticket to receive updates and contribute to the conversation.
Receiving a forwarded copy of an email does not automatically make someone a participant in the ticket. Using the same company email domain as the requester does not automatically add them either.
Why might my reply be recorded privately?
The platform checks who sent the reply and who is already participating in the ticket. If you are not the requester or an existing ticket CC, your reply is normally recorded as a private note, with a warning for our support team. You are not automatically added as a CC.
A reply from an existing CC may also be private if the requester is left out of the email recipients. For shared updates, use Reply all and keep the requester and AsureQuality support address included. Other privacy rules and settings can also apply.
How does this help protect customer information?
Forwarding an email gives someone a copy of that message. It does not necessarily mean they should receive future updates or join the wider conversation.
These privacy rules mean someone cannot automatically join an existing ticket simply by replying to a forwarded notification. Our team can review their involvement before adding them. This helps limit unintended sharing of customer information, such as testing instructions, results, commercial discussions and contact details.
Keeping a CC's reply private when the requester has been omitted also reduces the risk of sharing a message with someone the sender did not include.
Is this an anti-phishing or anti-spam feature?
This behaviour primarily controls participation and the visibility of replies. A practical benefit is that an unsolicited reply from a non-participant is not automatically circulated to customers through the ticket's public-update notifications.
However, a private note does not mean the platform has identified the message as spam or phishing. It also does not prove that the sender is genuine or authorised to receive customer information.
The platform has separate email authentication checks, including SPF, DKIM, DMARC and ARC, which help detect forged sender information. Depending on the authentication settings and results, a message may be accepted, flagged or suspended. These checks serve a different purpose from deciding whether a ticket reply is public or private.
Our team still needs to assess unexpected requests before sharing information or changing instructions.
What happens to a private reply?
If recorded on the ticket, the reply is available to AsureQuality support staff who have access to that ticket. It does not appear in the customer-visible conversation and is not included in the ticket's customer notifications.
Here, public means part of the customer-visible ticket conversation; it does not mean published on a public website.
This does not recall an email already sent directly to other recipients. Those people may still have their original email copies.
Example: a colleague replies to a forwarded email
You forward an AsureQuality ticket update to a colleague who is not on the ticket. They reply and copy another colleague. Their reply may reach our team as a private note, but forwarding and copying people from that non-participant's email does not reliably add them to the ticket for future updates.
Ask us to add both colleagues as ticket CCs. Adding them enables future participation; it does not automatically make their earlier private replies visible. If earlier information needs to appear in the shared conversation, ask our team to include the relevant information in a public reply.
How to keep everyone included
- Include the right contacts from the start. Add colleagues who need the correspondence as CCs when submitting your enquiry.
- Use the same email address. Reply from the address already recorded on the ticket.
- Use Reply all for shared updates. Keep the requester and AsureQuality support address included.
- Add colleagues through the existing request. The requester can add them as CCs when replying, or ask our team to add them. Forwarding alone is not sufficient.
- Check before adding a CC. Their email address will be visible to other recipients, and earlier public correspondence may be included in subsequent notifications. Only include people who should receive that information.
If a reply appears to be missing, contact the team handling your request and provide the ticket number, sender's email address and approximate time it was sent. We can check how it was recorded and confirm who is included.