How to tell why an email landed in a customer's conversation
In Contact by Zaweba, right-click the email and choose Why is this here? to see in plain words what filed it there and the fixes that fit.
To find out why an email appeared in a customer's conversation in Contact by Zaweba, right-click it and choose Why is this here? Contact explains in plain words what brought the email in, tells you whether that reason still holds, and offers the fixes that fit, each with its own Undo.
The three reasons an email joins a record
It helps to know the rules Contact uses. Mail is matched to a record first by the sender being a contact on it. If not, by the sender's company domain, when domain matching is on for that record. If not, by a known contact's address appearing in the body of the email, which is how web-form messages find their way to the right customer.
Every explanation from Why is this here? comes back to one of those three. Once you know which, it is usually obvious whether the filing was right.
Asking the question
Open the customer's conversation and find the email that surprised you. Right-click it and choose Why is this here? The answer names the actual reason, such as the sender being a contact on this record, or the sender's domain matching.
The explanation also says whether the reason still holds. If you have removed the contact or switched off domain matching since the email arrived, it will say so. That tells you whether the next email from the same person would come here too.
Putting it right
Under the explanation are the fixes that make sense for this case. You might take a contact off the record, stop domain matching, keep a sender out, or move the email to the Inbox or to another record.
Which one to choose depends on whether the problem is the single email or the rule behind it. If you'd be happy for future mail from this sender to come here, just move this one email. If not, change the rule: take the contact off, or keep the sender out. If many people at the same company are being pulled in who shouldn't be, stopping domain matching is usually the better fix, and you can add the right people as contacts by hand.
Each fix is a single entry in Recent actions with its own Undo, so you can try one, look at the result and reverse it if needed.
Seeing every rule at once
Why is this here? answers for one email. For the whole picture, open the Matching panel on the record. It lists exactly what brings mail in, every contact's address and any matching domain, and lets you remove an address or keep one out.
A quick look at that panel now and then on your busiest customers keeps conversations clean. People change jobs and addresses move, and an old contact left on a record is the most common reason for a surprise email.
Common surprises and what they usually mean
A supplier's email in a customer's record often means the supplier copied in someone from the customer, or is listed as a contact by mistake.
A personal email from a customer's employee usually comes from domain matching. Keeping that one sender out stops it happening again.
A colleague's email in a customer's record is easy to spot, since Contact shows mail from your own organisation with an inverted sender pill once your domains are listed in Settings > Mailboxes > Your organisation. Your own domains are never matched to customers, so a colleague's email reaches a record some other way, such as being part of a thread.
Why it matters
Status, chase dates and the Home view all depend on mail being in the right place. A misfiled email can make a customer look as though they are waiting on you when they aren't. Asking Why is this here? takes seconds and keeps the whole system honest.
