Inbox & follow-ups·Beginner4 min read

Reopen a closed case

Three ways a closed case comes back to active — auto-reopen on inbound message, manual reopen button, or via Log customer response.

In this guide

1. Three ways to reopen a closed case
2. What reopen actually does
3. What reopen does NOT do
4. When to reopen vs. start fresh
5. Won to Lost or Lost to Won
6. Refunded cases
7. Auto-reopen window
Common questions

A case goes closed when you mark it won, lost, or closed — but customers don't always stay quiet. When a past customer follows up, you need the conversation thread back in your active inbox. Here are the three ways that happens, what reopening actually changes, and when to start fresh instead.

1. Three ways to reopen a closed case

(a) Auto-reopen via inbound message

The easiest path requires no action from you. When a customer replies to a closed case by email, WhatsApp, or website form within your org's auto-reopen window, Yesoma automatically flips that case back to open and surfaces it in the inbox. The full thread history comes with it.

The window is configurable (default 30 days) — see Settings: auto-reopen window below. For a deep dive on how matching and the AI continuation classifier work, read Auto-reopen returning customers.

(b) Manual reopen from the case page

Open any closed case and look for the Reopen case button in the case header. Click it and the status flips immediately from won/lost/closed back to open. The case rises to the top of the inbox in Needs Reply.

Use this when you're the one initiating — for example, you want to follow up proactively, or you accidentally closed the wrong case.

(c) Log a customer response on a closed case

If you open the Log customer response dialog on a closed case and save it, Yesoma reopens the case at the same time. The logic: saying "the customer just replied" implies the conversation is active again. You don't have to do a separate reopen step.

2. What reopen actually does

When a case reopens — by any of the three paths above — the following happens all at once:

Status flips from won, lost, or closed to open
Case surfaces in the main inbox under Needs Reply
AI Suggested Reply regenerates against the full current thread (same as a force-refresh — it reads all previous messages so the suggestion is in context)
Follow-ups that were auto-closed when the case originally closed are reactivated, so you don't lose nudges you had set up

The original outcome (won/lost) is preserved in the case status history. You can see the trail in the timeline.

3. What reopen does NOT do

A few things stay exactly as they were:

Deal value is unchanged. Whatever you recorded at close stays on the case.
Refunds are not reversed. If you recorded a refund against this case, the refund record sticks (money doesn't un-move because you reopened the conversation).
No blast notification to everyone. Reopening is an internal status change. Team members are not pinged. Normal new-message notifications fire when the next actual message arrives — not on reopen itself.

4. When to reopen vs. start fresh

Reopen when the customer is following up on the same job or inquiry — the same appointment they booked, the same quote they got, the same service they're asking about.

Start a new inquiry when it's a separate ask: a new project, a new appointment for a different service, something unrelated to the original conversation. You can create one manually or just wait for them to message in and let auto-reopen or the intake flow decide.

The same customer can have many cases over time. That's normal — their full history is always one click away on their customer page.

5. Won to Lost or Lost to Won

Reopening does not change the outcome flag automatically. If you closed a case as won and then lost the deal, or closed as lost and it eventually came through, you need to update the outcome explicitly after you close it again.

See Mark inquiries won or lost for how to close with the right outcome.

6. Refunded cases

Recording a refund already flips the linked case from won to lost (Yesoma does this automatically). If you then reopen that case — because the customer is back and asking something — the case becomes active again, but the lost outcome stays. The conversation is live; the money didn't come back.

If the situation eventually resolves differently (they pay again, you re-deliver), close the case with the correct outcome once you're done. The refund record remains in the invoice history regardless.

7. Auto-reopen window

The window controls how far back Yesoma looks when a returning customer sends an inbound message.

Default: 30 days
Configure: Settings → Inbox automation → Auto-reopen window
What happens past the window: inbound from a known customer creates a brand-new inquiry instead of reopening the old one. At some point a follow-up is really a new conversation and it's cleaner to start fresh.

Past-window cases are never lost — they're linked to the same customer row, so the full history is still one click away.

Common questions

I clicked Reopen by accident. Can I re-close? Yes. The Close case button is still there on an open case. Click it, pick your outcome, and save. The case goes back to closed. No data was lost — the status history just gets one more entry.

Will my customer be notified that I reopened their case? No. Reopen is an internal status change. The customer is only notified when you actually send them a message. Reopening quietly brings the case back to your inbox without any outbound to them.

My customer keeps sending new questions about completely different things. Should every reply auto-reopen? Probably not, especially if the questions are truly unrelated. That's what the auto-reopen window is for — tune it down in Settings → Inbox automation so that messages arriving after your cutoff create new inquiries instead of re-threading into old context.