How to Effectively Manage a Customer Support Inbox using a Three-Tiered Approach
BlinkMetrics was built by a software development company with multiple products. To keep our entire company organized and accountable to our 100K+ customers, we use Help Scout as our customer service portal. The Help Scout support inbox receives all kinds of tickets, ranging from highly technical ones that require a lot of troubleshooting to simple questions.
In the interest of delivering a 5-star customer experience, we split up our customer service inbox into three categories: Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 tickets. We used Help Scout’s custom fields to accomplish this.
- Tier 1: Most tickets, including all simple, easy-to-answer questions
- Tier 2: Tickets that require a bit longer of a response time
- Tier 3: Bug reports and advanced troubleshooting
We’ve also set rules and expectations about how each ticket should be prioritized, as well as automations that reduce the manual effort for our customer success team. Below is our actual internal guide on how it functions on a daily basis.
Daily Workflow for a Customer Success Team
Support team members should start at the highest tier they’re capable of working on. Take a quick look at all the tickets in the inbox and look for angry and frustrated customers, serious-looking bugs, and refunds. These tickets take priority over all other tickets and should be answered first. After those have been answered, start from oldest to newest.
As you’re working from oldest to newest, please don’t skip any because you don’t know the answer. If you come across a ticket where you’re unsure of an answer, send the team a message on #support-chat Slack and we can help you figure it out. Please use the “slack” tag on tickets that are being helped so it doesn’t look like you’re skipping them.
What Types of Tickets are Considered Tier 1 Support?
All of the tickets first land on this tier. Everyone on the support team should be able to respond to these. Tier 1 is the starting point for all of our support members.
Each morning, the first person to work on the inbox should perform triage. This includes deleting spam, merging duplicate conversations, adding necessary tags, sending out easy follow-ups, and otherwise moving tickets that don’t fit in this category to Tier 2. (More on that shortly.)
Expect to be able to write a response and mostly close Tier 1 tickets in under 10 mins. This inbox should be cleared out every day by the end of the last person’s shift.
Tier 1 tickets typically include:
- FAQ
- Sending customer links to guides for their questions
- Handle refunds and other general billing questions
If Tier 1 tickets are left in the inbox for 2+ hours, they will automatically move to Tier 1 (Overdue). Any tickets in Tier 1 (Overdue) should be answered first.
When Does a Ticket Move to Tier 2 Support?
Everyone on the support team should be able to respond to Tier 2 tickets on their own after about two months in the role. These tickets will take longer to respond and may require giving site/business-specific advice.
Expect to be able to write a response and mostly close Tier 2 tickets in under 20 mins. This inbox should be cleared out every day by the end of the last person’s shift.
Tier 2 tickets typically require:
- More knowledge about integrations, troubleshooting, and deeper understanding of the product’s functionality & settings
- Direct answers to customer questions and giving custom guidance around settings & integrations
- Basic troubleshooting, including logging into a sandbox to look at customer settings (if they submitted with their ticket)
- Intermediate pre-sales acumen, such as setting up a static demo page or sharing best practices for their scenario
If Tier 2 tickets are left in the inbox for 6+ hours, they will automatically move to Tier 2 (Overdue). Any tickets in Tier 2 (Overdue) should be answered first.
When Should I Move a Ticket to Tier 3 Support?
Do not move general feature requests to a higher Tier before asking the team if the functionality is possible first.
Do not move tickets that you’re stuck on just because you don’t know the answer. Please communicate and ask the team questions about a solution before moving to Tier 3.
What Should I Expect from a Tier 3 Support Ticket?
This tier is dedicated to the complex tickets that will sometimes take a couple of days and a good amount of communication to resolve. It will often involve back and forth with our development team, adding/updating tasks in Asana, and follow-up with customers.
Some examples of Tier 3 tickets include:
- Writing custom CSS for customers
- Writing/suggesting any use of custom PHP code
- Logging into customer’s sites and making any changes or suggestions specifically for their site
- Looking at and interpreting previous bug report logs
- Writing detailed bug tickets, assisting with troubleshooting, and testing fixes
- Customers engaged in custom consulting or sponsored development projects
If Tier 3 tickets are left in the inbox for 3+ days, they will automatically move to Tier 3 (Overdue). Any tickets in Tier 3 (Overdue) should be prioritized.
Especially when working on Tier 3 tickets, we want to keep our customers updated and make sure they don’t feel forgotten. This inbox should not stagnate. If you see that a customer has been waiting for a response, please reach out to the team or search for an update in Asana to see if there’s been any progress.
Our Customer Success Goals & KPI Reporting
- Maintain a Happiness Score of 95% or higher
- Meet the following expectations for Response and Resolution Times
| Average Response Time | Average Resolution Time | |
| Tier 1 | 120 minutes(2 working hours) | 24 working hours(2 Mon-Fri calendar days) |
| Tier 2 | 180 minutes(3 working hours) | within 36 working hours(3 Mon-Fri calendar days) |
| Tier 3 | 720 minutes(1 Mon-Fri calendar day) | 72 working hours(6 Mon-Fri calendar days) |
If you’re interested in learning more about how we use Help Scout for customer support, you can check out our podcast episodes Why We Use Help Scout for Customer Success and How Small Changes to Customer Success Can Give Your Business a Competitive Advantage. As always, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any other questions about how to optimize your customer support experience!
