Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Agent |
The button that decides who sees your message. One reaches the customer, one does not, and which tab opens is a setting.
What each one does
- Public reply is sent to the requester and any CCs, and appears in the help centre if they look the ticket up.
- Internal note stays inside your team. Agents and light agents see it. The customer never does.
Use an internal note for
- Handing a ticket over with context the next agent needs.
- Recording what you tried and what it showed.
- Flagging something about the customer that colleagues should know.
- Asking a colleague a quick question, by mentioning them.
For anything longer than a quick question, a side conversation keeps the exchange readable rather than burying it in the thread.
Which tab a ticket opens on
Not the one you used last. The composer does not carry your choice from one ticket to the next; it reads the account setting and the ticket in front of it. The rules:
- With Set composer to public by default on, an email ticket opens on Public reply. Off, it opens on Internal note.
- A ticket that has only internal notes always opens on internal note, whatever that setting says.
- Live channels go their own way: an active chat or messaging conversation opens on its own channel and ignores the private-by-default setting.
- A light agent only ever gets the internal note tab.
So the accident is not the one people expect. On an account left at public by default, the risk is a note for colleagues typed into a ticket that opened public, and it does not feel different from any other ticket. Look at the tab before you send.
A comment cannot be edited or deleted, and an email already sent cannot be recalled. You can mark a public comment as internal afterwards, which hides it in the ticket but not in the inbox it already reached. For sensitive content there is redaction, which is permanent. If it happens, tell the customer plainly rather than hoping they did not read it.
Changing the default
The setting is Set composer to public by default, under Objects and rules > Tickets > Settings in the Admin Center, in the block for agent comment options. Teams doing mostly internal work turn it off, and it removes a whole category of accident. Alongside it sits Allow agent comments via email to be public by default, which does the same for replies agents send by email.
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