Support Operations
How technical support teams triage, staff, and route customer issues.
Questions
- How should technical support tickets be triaged?Triage technical tickets by impact first, then by type, then by owner.
- What's the difference between L1, L2, and L3 support?L1 handles common questions and account tasks, L2 handles deeper technical troubleshooting, and L3 handles issues that need code-level investigation, usually engineering.
- How can a small team provide 24/7 technical support?Small teams get to 24/7 coverage by combining automation for the first response and investigation with a clear rule for what wakes a human up.
Terms
- BacklogOpen tickets waiting on someone, and the clearest early sign a team is underwater.
- Follow-the-Sun SupportPassing open tickets between teams in different time zones for 24-hour coverage.
- HandoffPassing ownership of a ticket from one person or team to another.
- PriorityHow soon a ticket should be worked, relative to everything else.
- QueueA list of tickets waiting to be picked up by a team or agent.
- Service Level Agreement (SLA)A contractual commitment on response or resolution times.
- Status PageA public page reporting current service health and active incidents.
- Support EngineerA support role that investigates technical issues with engineering-level skills.
- SwarmingPulling the right experts onto a hard ticket together instead of passing it up tiers.
- Technical SupportSupport for products where answers depend on code, config, and system behavior.
- Ticket RoutingAutomatically sending each ticket to the right queue, team, or person.
- Ticket TriageSorting incoming tickets by type, urgency, and owner before work begins.
- Tiered Support (L1, L2, L3)A support structure where harder issues move up through levels of expertise.