Triage and route support tickets on arrival
Each ticket is classified by topic, urgency and sentiment, matched to the customer's plan and history, and sent to the right queue with a suggested priority. Agents start with context instead of a blank ticket. For support teams where a lead sorts the queue by hand.
Function: Support · Industry: Any industry
Triage and route support tickets on arrival
6 steps
At a glance
- Trigger
- A ticket is created from email, chat or a form.
- Typical inputs
- Ticket text and attachments
- Customer plan, tier and open incidents
- Queue and skill definitions
- SLA targets by tier
- Systems it usually connects to
- Zendesk
- Intercom
- Salesforce
- Slack
- How the work splits
4 rules, 1 model, 1 person steps
How it runs, step by step
6 steps, each tagged by what does the work. Rules are fixed logic, a model reads or drafts, and a person decides.
- Rules Fixed logic in code
- Model AI reads or drafts, with a confidence score
- Person A named person decides
- 1
Read and classify
ModelA model labels the topic, urgency, language and sentiment, and extracts details such as order number or product.
- 2
Enrich with account data
RulesCustomer tier, contract, recent tickets and open incidents are attached to the ticket.
- 3
Set priority and SLA
RulesPriority and response deadline are set by rules from the tier and classification, not by the model's opinion.
- 4
Route to a queue
RulesSkills, language and current workload decide the queue and agent group.
- 5
Work the ticket
PersonThe agent handles the ticket and can change the classification with one click when it is wrong.
- 6
Measure the corrections
RulesEvery change an agent makes is logged to track classification accuracy by topic.
Where people approve
The decisions that stay with your team, whatever the confidence score says.
- Support leads own the routing and priority rules.
- Tickets mentioning legal action or security go to named people regardless of classification.
- Agents can override any label.
KPIs to track
What to measure, before and after. Targets come from your own baseline.
- 01Time from creation to first assignment
- 02Share of tickets reclassified by agents
- 03First-response SLA breaches
- 04Lead hours spent on manual triage
Questions about this workflow
What if a ticket has two issues?
It carries both labels and routes by the higher-priority one. The agent sees both, and can split the ticket.
Do we need to change helpdesk tools?
No. The classification and routing run through your helpdesk's own fields and rules, so the tool agents see stays the same.
Which steps use rules, a model and a person?
Rules: enrich with account data; set priority and SLA; route to a queue; measure the corrections. Model: read and classify. Person: work the ticket. Rules are fixed logic in code. A model reads or drafts and reports its confidence. A named person decides.
What do we need to start?
Typically: ticket text and attachments; customer plan, tier and open incidents; queue and skill definitions; SLA targets by tier. You also need read access to Zendesk, Intercom, Salesforce and Slack, or the equivalents you use. A workflow audit measures your volumes and past cases first, then gives a fixed price for the build, so you can decide with real numbers.