Couple of (maybe) useful suggestions

[#1]

Don’t get me wrong, appreciate the feedback, but automatically tailoring the generic emails will be confusing due to the type of detail which suppliers provide us, and that in itself will drive people to call in.

From what I see, a lot of the provisioning issues I’m coming across recently are due to an increase of orders being stuck in the supplier systems. This means we’re busier, fielding calls and working tickets.

They’d be aware of this and working to resolve though. 

[#2]

OK @Gandalf - another thought. Send the generic email, but follow it up with a more specific one - presumably Provisioning presumably have a database of 'stuck' - for whatever reason - orders?

I know when I was working, that information was available to Sales at the touch of a button, and I also know we had weekly reviews of overdue orders, and at what stage they were at.

[#3]

That's what we're doing though, but to follow up with a more specific email it'll require an agent to go through the notes and potentially talk with suppliers, which takes time due to how many orders we have to get through.

[#4]

Yea, I know it takes time - I did it for most of my working life. 😉

[#5]

A further suggestion, on a slightly different topic - There are masses of requests to 'new' posters to send a PM to staff, when, due to the perfectly understandable 'security' reason for restricting PM's until a certain number of posts has been reached, they have to post another 3 (5?) times.

To save this stupidity, why, rather than asking them on her to reply by PM - which they can't - is the request not sent by Private Message. They could then reply direct.

[#6]

@jab1 - probably because the restiction applies to both the recipeit and sending of PM's. I don't think there's any granularity to have different rules for each either.

[#7]

@bobpullen If it does apply to recipients, Bob, how come I have been able to PM new members when the information I/we need to help is best kept to PM - and get a reply?

[#8]

No idea.

I'm going from personal experience. I tried it very recently and was unable.

@JonoH or @Gandalf may have some further insight.

[#9]

Fair enough, but I was able to do it in the (recentish) past.

[#10]

Attempt this morning to PM a new member with 2 posts: -

[#11]

Cheers @bobpullen . I admit it was probably about 4/5 months ago since I did it, though. I am not a programmer, but surely it should not be too difficult to allow a selected group (PN staff) to have the facility - it would save a lot of time (IMHO).

[#12]

@bobpullen, I’ve just tried to PM a new member who won’t have permission and I saw the same error as you. 

Not sure if you’re aware but if someone has the rank “New Member” that means they can’t PM or receive PMs. After hitting the criteria, the rank changes to “Member”. Criteria is 3 posts, 10 minutes online and 2 logins.

As a workaround in some cases, Jono has manually swapped the New Member rank for Member.

@jab1, it’s probably possible that the member you PM’d did in fact have the permission at the time. There’s no option from what I can see to provide certain people the ability to bypass the PM privilege. Bob has the highest level of forum permission and he can’t do it.

[#13]

@Gandalf Thanks for that info, although I still find it strange that a time/frustration situation can't be resolved. The current situation where even Bob can't PM a customer is (again IMHO) ludicrous, but I appreciate it is what it is, sadly. The member I PM'd wouldn't have had the permission - I remember he was a brand-new poster, and I PM'd him off the back of his original post, although I didn't - as I rarely do - notice his rank.

[#14]

No problem and by ‘rank’ I meant ‘role’ sorry. It’s not obvious from looking at the rank whether someone has the permission, but we can see the role in the admin tool. 

[#15]

@jab1 - we must remember that this is the best in the industry forum technology platform … so there’s nothing wrong with the way it does (or does not) do what it does!

One wonders how support - which requires sharing of private information - might be delivered differently ... might a "ticket" (or incident management system) be of any relevant assistance?