The symptom
You handle requests one at a time. Some reasons keep coming back, but you file them by subject: payment, account, delivery.
The signal
File them by cause. A shared cause means one move fixes several problems.
What’s going on
Sorting by subject tells you where requests arrive. Sorting by cause tells you what to fix. “Payment”, “invoice” and “refund” can all come from the same cause: a confirmation message that never arrives. One fix, three categories emptied.
Several messages are about a payment that shows up twice. The symptom is the same. The cause could be two transactions, two displays, or something else. Check a few cases before you choose. “Customer misunderstood” in a column is a guess.
An AI can group a month of requests by likely cause in minutes. Use it to get started, then check each group against real cases. Keep the cases that fit nowhere to one side: they are often the most instructive.
A rare but serious cause comes before a frequent, harmless one.
Check this
Take one month of requests. For each, note the symptom and the assumed cause.
Group them by cause, and check the biggest group on five real cases. If it holds, fix it.
At the next check-in, see whether the related requests went down, relative to the number of users.
To discuss
Which cause sits behind our three most frequent request reasons?