Backlog

What it is

A support backlog is the set of unresolved tickets at a point in time. Teams usually track its size, its age distribution, and how much of it is waiting on another team such as engineering.

Why it matters

A growing backlog means demand is outpacing capacity. When the oldest tickets are mostly escalations, the bottleneck isn't support headcount, it's engineering time.

Best practices

1. Watch age, not just count – Fifty tickets under a day old is healthy; ten tickets over two weeks old is a problem.
2. Tag who's blocking – Separate tickets waiting on the customer, on support, and on engineering.
3. Review weekly – Close stale tickets, merge duplicates, and push known issuesKnown IssueA confirmed bug that's been acknowledged but not yet fixed. to a single tracking ticket.

How Decimal helps

Decimal works every ticket as it arrives, which keeps escalation-bound tickets from piling up while they wait for an engineer.