Automate your automate a weekly report of recurring support issues
Every support lead knows the same question keeps coming in, but nobody has counted it. As a standing job, one department reads the week's conversations and groups the repeats into themes, a second recounts each theme against the actual conversations, and you get a short report on Monday with the numbers you can trust.
By the Organ team · Last verified 2026-10-30
What the job is
A Monday report of the problems customers keep writing in about, with counts rechecked against the conversations.
Usually the support lead or the founder. They skim the inbox on a quiet afternoon, remember the three things that felt loudest, and mention them in a team meeting. On a small team there are no tags worth trusting, so the report is written from memory and favours whatever happened yesterday. Larger teams add tags and a dashboard, but tags are applied by whoever answered, in a hurry, and two people name the same problem differently.
How the departments split it
- ProductUses read access to your helpdesk, through an integration written against its API or MCP server. Pulls conversations created or changed since the last report, with subject, messages, tags and status.
- ProductGroups conversations into themes by what the customer was trying to do and what went wrong, not by the tags. Counts each theme, notes whether it is new, growing or fading against the previous reports, and keeps two or three real customer sentences per theme.
- OperationsRechecks the draft against the conversations. Recounts each theme from the list, moves conversations that were filed under the wrong theme, flags themes resting on one or two cases, and lists conversations that fit no theme so nothing is quietly dropped.
- StrategyHands you the checked report with a one-line headline and the single theme most worth acting on. It comes to you for approval, and nothing is sent to your team or changed in the helpdesk.
What you get
Sample, not live data. The company, customers and numbers below are invented to show the shape of the report.
Week of 12 to 16 January: 142 conversations read
Headline: "Where is my invoice?" is now the biggest theme, and it started the day the billing page moved.
| Theme | Conversations | Against last week | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cannot find invoices | 31 | up from 9 | New since the billing page redesign |
| Password reset email not arriving | 22 | about the same | Mostly one email provider |
| CSV export times out | 14 | down from 19 | Fixed for accounts under 10,000 rows |
| Asking how to add a teammate | 12 | about the same | Answer exists in the docs |
| Everything else | 63 | Spread across 40 small topics |
What customers said
- Invoices: "I used to see them under Settings, now I can't find them anywhere."
- Password reset: "The email never comes. I checked spam."
How the biggest theme lines up with your tags
| Tag on the conversation | Conversations in "Cannot find invoices" |
|---|---|
| billing | 19 |
| account | 4 |
| no tag | 8 |
A count by tag alone would have shown 19 and hidden 12 of the 31. Eight of them carry no tag at all.
Checked by operations
- Recounted from the list: invoices is 31, not the 34 in the draft. Three conversations were about a refund and were moved.
- "Asking how to add a teammate" was compared across 4 weeks, so it is marked steady, not growing.
- 6 conversations fit no theme and are listed below the table.
Worth acting on
Put a link to invoices on the billing page. 31 of 142 conversations this week were that question.
How it would run
- Department
- Product
- Runs
- weekly
Every Monday at the ready-by time below, read the conversations in the helpdesk mailboxes listed in the fields that were created or changed since the last report, leaving out any tag listed in the excluded-tags field. Group them into themes by what the customer was trying to do and what went wrong. For each theme give a count, whether it is new, growing, steady or fading against previous reports, and two or three short customer sentences. Ask operations to recount every theme from the list of conversations, to move any misfiled conversation, to mark themes that rest on one or two cases, and to list conversations that fit no theme. Bring me the checked report with a one-line headline and the one theme most worth acting on. Reply to no customer and change nothing in the helpdesk.
You can change: Mailboxes or queues to read, Tags to leave out of the read, Time the report should be ready
Add this job to my companyQuestions
How does it decide which conversations belong to the week?
It asks your helpdesk for conversations changed since the time of the last report. Zendesk offers an incremental ticket export that returns tickets changed since a start time, and Help Scout's conversations list takes a modifiedSince parameter. Any other helpdesk with an API or MCP server works the same way: the team builds the connection for you.
Why not use the tags we already have?
Tags are applied by whoever answered the conversation, usually in a hurry, and two people name the same problem differently. The job groups conversations by what the customer was trying to do and what went wrong, then shows you how the groups line up with your tags, as in the sample above, so you can see where the tags are missing the pattern.
How do I know the counts are right?
A second department recounts every theme from the list of conversations, not from the draft's numbers, and reports what it changed. Themes that rest on one or two conversations are marked as such, and conversations that fit no theme are listed rather than dropped. You still see the counts, so you can spot-check any theme.
Does it reply to customers or change tickets?
No. It reads conversations and writes a report that comes to you for approval. It does not reply, tag, close or reassign anything in your helpdesk.
What customer text appears in the report?
A few short customer sentences per theme, so you can see the wording. You choose which mailboxes are read in the fields, and you can leave out any tag, such as a legal or billing-dispute tag, from the read.
What if our helpdesk is not Zendesk or Help Scout?
Name it. If it has an API or an MCP server, the team builds the connection for you, and you supply read access.
Sources
- Zendesk developer docs: Incremental Exports (tickets changed since a start time) · developer.zendesk.com · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Help Scout Mailbox API: List Conversations (status, tag, modifiedSince, query) · developer.helpscout.com · retrieved 2026-10-30