Customer Support

Customer Support — Run the Desk on a Live Ticket

You own the support desk as an operation: take an incoming ticket, assign priority and intent, start the SLA clock, draft the reply (macro or bespoke), enforce tone, and decide escalation with a clean handoff. The output is a triaged, answered ticket — human judgment, not a code artifact.

The triage-to-reply loop (the spine)

Run every ticket through these six steps in order. Skipping triage to "just reply fast" is how you send the wrong tone to a P1.

1 Classify intent   →  what does the customer actually want? (bug, how-to, refund, outage, rage)
2 Set priority      →  P1–P4 (impact × urgency × account tier)
3 Start SLA clock   →  pick the FRT target NOW, before drafting
4 Draft reply       →  macro skeleton or bespoke; one personalized line minimum
5 Tone / voice check →  on-brand, de-escalated, no banned phrases
6 Escalate or send  →  trigger met? hand off with the packet. else send + log.

Priority, SLA, and the escalation call

The branch is at step 6. This table sets priority, both SLA clocks, and whether the ticket leaves your hands:

Why pick the FRT target before drafting: the SLA decides your tone and length. A P1 gets a two-line acknowledgment in 20 minutes, not a polished essay in two hours.

Use 3–4 priority tiers, never a flat SLA. Too many tiers confuse the desk; too few don't differentiate the outage from the typo (Emailmeter / Hiver, 2026-06-02).

Acknowledge fast even when you cannot resolve fast. First-response and resolution are separate, linked SLAs: FRT sets the expectation, resolution is the outcome. 89% of customers feel valued by a fast first response even when the full fix takes longer (getMonetizely / Hiver, 2026-06-02). So: acknowledge inside the FRT window with an honest "here's what I know and when I'll update you," then resolve honestly. Never go silent to wait for a perfect answer.

Full P1–P4 matrix by channel (email/chat/phone) lives in references/macros-and-sla.md.

Macros done right

A macro with one genuinely personalized sentence raises CSAT; a verbatim template lowers it. Macros cut first-response time 30–50%, but sent raw they read as scripted (TextExpander / Gorgias, 2026-06-02). So every macro is a skeleton you finish, not a message you forward.

The 4-beat skeleton — every reply hits these in order:

1 Empathy / ack   →  name the problem in their words (1 line)
2 Answer          →  the fix, the status, or the next concrete step
3 Next step       →  what happens now + when they'll hear back
4 Close           →  human sign-off, door left open

Rules:

• Fill dynamic fields, then add one bespoke line. Placeholders like {{first_name}}, {{order_id}}, {{ticket_id}}, {{date}} are table stakes — they are not personalization. The personalized line references this ticket's specifics.
• Never send a macro with a visible {{placeholder}}. A leaked {{first_name}} is worse than no name.
• One reply, one ask. If you need three things from the customer, you'll get one. Batch the request or sequence it.

Bad → Good (info-request macro):

Bad (verbatim template, robotic):
  Dear Customer, Thank you for contacting support. We have received your
  request. In order to assist you, please provide additional information.
  Your satisfaction is important to us. Regards, The Support Team.

Good (skeleton + one personalized line):
  Hi Marta — sorry the export keeps failing on you. To dig in I need one
  thing: the rough time you last hit "Export CSV" today (so I can pull the
  matching server log). I noticed your account is on the new billing plan,
  so this might be the same migration glitch we patched yesterday — I'll
  confirm and get back to you within 2 hours. — Eric

The Good version names the feature, gives a real next step + a time, and the "new billing plan / migration glitch" line proves a human read the ticket.

Full skeleton library (ack, info-request, resolved, refund, known-bug, outage, churn-save, escalation-handoff, feature-request decline, gentle-close) is in references/macros-and-sla.md.

Tone and de-escalation

Apply the brand voice; do not invent it here. The voice guide is authored by ../brand-voice/SKILL.md — this skill reads it and writes the reply against it.

For an angry or churn-risk ticket, de-escalation moves in order:

1. Acknowledge the feeling before the facts. "Three days without a reply is not okay, and I get why you're frustrated" lands before any fix.
2. Take ownership in the first person. "I dropped this" beats "the team was unable to." No passive voice to hide behind.
3. One concrete next step with a time. Vague reassurance reads as a brush-off; "I'll have an answer by 3pm" is trust.
4. Match their stakes, not their volume. Stay calm and specific. Do not argue, and never match anger with anger.

Banned phrases — they escalate, not de-escalate:

Checklist before send: feeling acknowledged · first-person ownership · one timed next step · no banned phrase · no {{placeholder}} left.

De-escalating this ticket is the job here; running a win-back or renewal program is retention.