Company finds 19 active shared mailboxes unmonitored, holding 1,400 unread emails

A customer complaint in April revealed that a shared mailbox printed on delivery notes had gone unmonitored for over a year after a mail migration broke its forwarding rule. An internal audit of 212 shared mailboxes found 64 unopened in 90 days, with 19 still receiving external emails and collectively holding around 1,400 unread messages, including carrier claims, customer cancellations, and council enquiries. The root cause was traced to a mailbox creation process that required no named owner or responsible manager. In response, the company overhauled its policy: every shared mailbox must now have an owning team and named manager, owners must confirm their mailboxes twice a year, and externally facing mailboxes are monitored so any message unread for five working days triggers a ticket. The original complainant, who had waited seven weeks for a response about a damaged pallet, was ultimately refunded.