Support AI Skill

Ticket Management Escalation

Manage support ticket lifecycle including triage, prioritization, routing, escalation procedures, SLA management, and resolution workflows. Use when creating support workflows, setting up ticket routing, managing escalations, tracking SLAs, or optimizing su...

Ticket Management & Escalation

Manage support ticket lifecycle including triage, prioritization, routing, escalation procedures, SLA management, and resolution workflows.

Workflow

1. Ticket Triage & Prioritization

TICKET TRIAGE PROCESS
═══════════════════════════════════════

Auto-Triage Rules:
═══════════════════════════════════════

  1. Receive ticket (email, web form, chat, phone, API)
  2. Auto-classify (AI/NLP): Category, subcategory
  3. Auto-prioritize: Based on rules + customer tier
  4. Auto-route: Based on category + team availability
  5. Apply SLA: Based on priority + customer tier
  6. Notify: Assignee + customer (acknowledgment)

TICKET PRIORITY MATRIX:
═══════════════════════════════════════

Priority   Urgency × Impact            Examples                      SLA Response  SLA Resolution
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
P1         HIGH × HIGH                 System down, data loss,       15 minutes    4 hours
           (Critical)                  security breach, P0 bug

P2         HIGH × MEDIUM               Major feature broken,         1 hour        8 hours
           (High)                      performance degradation,
                                       payment processing issue

P3         MEDIUM × MEDIUM             Minor bug, feature request,   4 hours       2 business days
           (Medium)                    how-to question,
                                       integration issue

P4         LOW × LOW                   Cosmetic issue,               1 business    5 business days
           (Low)                       documentation request,        day           (or next release)
                                       enhancement suggestion

AUTO-CLASSIFICATION RULES:
═══════════════════════════════════════

  Category          Keywords/Patterns                  Routing            SLA
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Billing           charge, invoice, payment, refund   Billing team       P3
  Technical         error, broken, crash, bug          Engineering        P2/P3
  Account           login, password, access, account   Account team       P3
  Feature           how to, feature, can I, request    Product team       P3/P4
  Integration       API, webhook, connect, integrate   DevRel team        P3
  Security          security, breach, hack, expose     Security team      P1/P2
  Billing           refund, cancel, upgrade, downgrade Billing team      P3

2. Support Tiers & Routing

SUPPORT TIER STRUCTURE
═══════════════════════════════════════

Tier    Team                    Skills                    Ticket Types        SLA
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Tier 1  Support Agents          General troubleshooting   P3, P4, common P2   4h/2d
         (5 agents)             FAQ, password reset,
                                billing questions

Tier 2  Senior Support          Advanced troubleshooting  P2, complex P3      2h/1d
         (3 agents)             API issues, integrations,
                                data problems

Tier 3  Engineering             Bug fixes, code issues    P1, P2 bugs,        1h/4h
         (on-call rotation)     Root cause analysis       architecture issues

Specialist Teams:
═══════════════════════════════════════

  → Billing Specialist: Refunds, disputes, invoicing
  → Security Specialist: Security incidents, vulnerability reports
  → Account Manager: Enterprise accounts, relationship issues
  → DevRel: API issues, developer support, SDK problems

AUTO-ROUTING RULES:
═══════════════════════════════════════

  → By category: Routing to appropriate team
  → By customer tier: Enterprise → Account Manager
  → By language: Spanish → Spanish-speaking agent
  → By expertise: AI-based matching (skill-based routing)
  → Round-robin: Even distribution within team
  → Load balancing: Least tickets assigned

  Routing Logic:
═══════════════════════════════════════

  IF category == "billing" AND customer_tier == "enterprise"
    → Route to: Account Manager
  ELIF category == "billing"
    → Route to: Billing Team (round-robin)
  ELIF category == "security"
    → Route to: Security Team (immediate)
  ELIF category == "technical" AND customer_tier == "enterprise"
    → Route to: Tier 2 (senior agent)
  ELIF category == "technical"
    → Route to: Tier 1 (round-robin)
  ELSE
    → Route to: Tier 1 (load balancing)

3. SLA Management

SLA FRAMEWORK
═══════════════════════════════════════

Customer Tiers & SLAs:
═══════════════════════════════════════

Tier            Price/Seat    Response (P1)    Response (P2)    Resolution    Support Hours
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Enterprise      $50+          15 min           1 hour           4h (P1)       24/7
Professional    $20-$50       30 min           2 hours          8h (P2)       24/5
Starter         $10-$20       1 hour           4 hours          2d (P3)       Business hrs
Free            $0            4 hours          1 business day   5d (P4)       Business hrs

SLA TRACKING:
═══════════════════════════════════════

  Metric              Target        Current      Status    Breach Rate
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  First response (P1) ≤ 15 min      12 min       ✓ Good    2%
  First response (P2) ≤ 1 hour      45 min       ✓ Good    5%
  First response (P3) ≤ 4 hours     3.2 hours    ✓ Good    8%
  Resolution (P1)     ≤ 4 hours     3.5 hours    ✓ Good    3%
  Resolution (P2)     ≤ 8 hours     7.2 hours    ✓ Good    6%
  Resolution (P3)     ≤ 2 days      1.8 days     ✓ Good    7%

SLA ESCALATION:
═══════════════════════════════════════

  → 50% of SLA elapsed: Warning (assignee notified)
  → 75% of SLA elapsed: Escalate to team lead
  → 100% of SLA (breach): Escalate to manager + customer notification
  → 125% of SLA: Escalate to director + executive outreach
  → SLA credits: Automatic (if breached, per contract)

  SLA PAUSE CONDITIONS:
    → Awaiting customer response (auto-pause)
    → Awaiting third-party (documented)
    → Scheduled maintenance (communicated)
    → Customer requested pause

4. Escalation Procedures

ESCALATION MATRIX
═══════════════════════════════════════

Trigger                          Escalation To          Timeline           Action
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
P1 ticket created               On-call engineer       Immediate          Investigate + update
SLA breach (P1/P2)              Team lead              Within 1 hour      Resolve + document
Customer complaint (executive)  Account manager         Within 30 min     Personal outreach
Recurring issue (3+ tickets)    Engineering            Within 24 hours    Root cause analysis
Security incident               Security team + CISO   Immediate          Contain + investigate
Data breach                     CISO + Legal           Immediate          Breach protocol
System outage (all customers)   Engineering + CTO       Immediate          Incident response
Enterprise churn risk           CS Director + VP       Within 2 hours     Retention plan
Negative review (public)        Marketing + CS Lead    Within 1 hour      Respond + resolve

ESCALATION COMMUNICATION:
═══════════════════════════════════════

  Internal:
    → Slack: #support-escalations channel
    → Email: Escalation template (context, urgency, customer info)
    → Phone: Immediate (P1, security, executive)
    → Ticket: Escalation note (reason, timeline, action)

  External (Customer):
    → P1: Phone call + email (within 30 minutes)
    → P2: Email + Slack (within 1 hour)
    → P3: Email (within 4 hours)
    → Update frequency: Every 2 hours (P1), daily (P2/P3)
    → Resolution confirmation: Phone call + email

5. Ticket Analytics & Reporting

TICKET ANALYTICS DASHBOARD
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Volume Metrics (Monthly):
═══════════════════════════════════════

  Metric              This Month   Last Month   YoY       Status
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Total tickets       1,245        1,180        -15%      ✓ Down (good)
  New tickets         890          850          -12%      ✓ Down
  Reopened tickets    45           52           -25%      ✓ Down (good)
  Escalated tickets   67           72           -18%      ✓ Down
  Self-resolved       312          280          +12%      ✓ Up (good)

  By Channel:
    → Email: 520 (42%)
    → Web form: 345 (28%)
    → Chat: 240 (19%)
    → Phone: 80 (6%)
    → API: 60 (5%)

Resolution Metrics:
═══════════════════════════════════════

  Metric              Target        Current      Status
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  First contact resolution  ≥ 40%    45%          ✓ Good
  Average resolution time   ≤ 24h    18h          ✓ Good
  Customer satisfaction     ≥ 4.5/5  4.7/5        ✓ Good
  Reopen rate               ≤ 5%     3.6%         ✓ Good
  SLA compliance            ≥ 95%    96.2%        ✓ Good
  Escalation rate           ≤ 8%     5.4%         ✓ Good

TOP ISSUES (Monthly):
═══════════════════════════════════════

  Rank  Issue                          Tickets   % of Total  Category     Status
  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  1     Login issues                   145       11.6%       Account      Known bug (fix in v3.2)
  2     API rate limiting              98        7.9%        Integration  Doc update in progress
  3     Payment processing error       87        7.0%        Billing      Fixed (v3.1.2)
  4     Export not working             76        6.1%        Technical    In investigation
  5     Dashboard slow                 65        5.2%        Technical    Performance fix planned

Edge Cases

Volume spike: Incident response, surge staffing
Complex issues: Multi-team collaboration, war room
Enterprise: Dedicated support, executive escalation
Global: Multi-language, timezone coverage
Compliance: Audit trail, data retention

Integration Points

Help desk: Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, HubSpot
Communication: Slack, Teams, email, phone
Knowledge base: Zendesk Guide, Confluence, Notion
Monitoring: PagerDuty, Opsgenie, Statuspage
CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot
Analytics: Tableau, Power BI, native dashboards

Output

Ticket Management Status

TICKET MANAGEMENT — Q4 2024
═══════════════════════════════════════

Monthly tickets: 1,245 (↓ 15% YoY)
First contact resolution: 45% (target: ≥40%) ✓
Average resolution: 18h (target: ≤24h) ✓
CSAT: 4.7/5.0 (target: ≥4.5) ✓
SLA compliance: 96.2% (target: ≥95%) ✓
Escalation rate: 5.4% (target: ≤8%) ✓
Self-service deflection: 312/month (↑ 12%)
Top issue: Login issues (11.6%, fix in v3.2)
Next priority: Fix export issue (76 tickets), reduce P1 volume