FS-DOC-03Operations
Process Runbook / SOP
Support Ticket Triage and Routing
[YourCompany.com] · Customer Support Department · Prepared by FullSpec · [Today's Date]
This runbook is the day-to-day operating guide for your support team. It explains exactly what the automation does on its own, where a human decision is required, how to handle anything that goes wrong, and who to contact in each scenario. FullSpec has built and configured the automation end to end. Your team's responsibility is limited to the single human checkpoint described in Section 02, plus the periodic maintenance tasks in Section 05.
01Process overview
When a new ticket lands in your Zendesk helpdesk from any inbound channel, the automation fires immediately. It fetches the customer's record from HubSpot, classifies the ticket by category and priority using an AI classification agent, writes those fields back to Zendesk, assigns the ticket to the correct agent, adds an internal context note, sends the assigned agent a Slack notification, and sends the customer an acknowledgement email via Gmail. The entire cycle completes in under two minutes. The only moment a human steps in is when the classification agent flags a ticket as ambiguous or below its confidence threshold, at which point the team lead reviews that ticket alone before it continues through the normal path.
Process name
Support Ticket Triage and Routing
Trigger
A new ticket is created in Zendesk from any inbound channel (email, chat, or web form)
Final output
Ticket assigned with category, priority, internal context note, Slack alert to agent, and customer acknowledgement email sent
Agents running
Ticket Classification Agent; Routing and Notification Agent
Tools involved
Zendesk, HubSpot, Slack, Gmail, Notion (routing rules), automation platform
Weekly volume
Approximately 45 tickets/week (~180/month)
Human checkpoint
Team lead reviews ambiguous tickets flagged by the classification agent before they are routed
Process owner
[Your name] — Support Team Lead
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FS-DOC-03Operations
02Step-by-step: what happens and who acts
What you actually need to do: Your team's only active step in this process is reviewing tickets that the classification agent has flagged as low-confidence or ambiguous. These appear in a short manual queue in Zendesk. The team lead opens each flagged ticket, confirms or corrects the suggested category and priority, and marks it ready for routing. Everything else in this process runs without any action from your team.
Step
What happens
Who acts
Type
1
A new ticket is created in Zendesk from any inbound channel. The automation detects this event instantly and begins the triage cycle.
Automation
Automated
2
The automation queries HubSpot using the customer's email address to retrieve their plan tier, account status, and recent ticket history. This context is passed to the classification agent.
Automation
Automated
3
The Ticket Classification Agent reads the ticket subject and body alongside the fetched customer data. It assigns a category (such as billing, technical, account access, or general enquiry) and a priority level (low, normal, high, or urgent) based on the trained classification schema.
Automation
Automated
4
If the classification agent's confidence score meets the defined threshold, the ticket proceeds automatically. If the score falls below the threshold, the ticket is placed in the manual review queue and the team lead receives a Zendesk notification.
Automation
Automated
5 (exception only)
The team lead opens the flagged ticket in Zendesk, reviews the classification agent's suggested category and priority, and either confirms or corrects them before marking the ticket as ready to route. This step applies only to ambiguous tickets.
Team Lead
Human
6
The automation writes the confirmed category tag and priority level back to the ticket record fields in Zendesk so the correct values are visible before any agent opens the ticket.
Automation
Automated
7
The Routing and Notification Agent applies the documented routing rules to match the ticket's category and priority to the appropriate support agent or queue. The assignee field in Zendesk is updated automatically.
Automation
Automated
8
An internal context note is added to the ticket in Zendesk. The note summarises the customer's issue, their plan tier, and any recent or open tickets so the assigned agent can start work immediately without re-reading the full thread.
Automation
Automated
9
A Slack direct message is sent to the assigned agent containing the ticket number, category, priority level, and a direct link to open the ticket in Zendesk.
Automation
Automated
10
A personalised acknowledgement email is sent to the customer via Gmail confirming receipt of their request, their ticket reference number, and an expected response window based on the assigned priority.
Automation
Automated
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FS-DOC-03Operations
03Handling exceptions
Situation
What the system does
What you do
Ticket arrives with missing or incomplete customer data (no matching HubSpot record found)
The automation proceeds without CRM context. The classification agent classifies the ticket on the message content alone and flags the ticket with a note indicating no customer record was found. The ticket is still routed and acknowledged.
No immediate action needed. If the ticket requires account-specific handling, the assigned agent should manually look up or create the HubSpot record and update the ticket. Notify FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com if this occurs frequently, as it may indicate a data-matching issue.
The classification agent cannot classify the ticket with sufficient confidence (ambiguous or multi-issue message)
The ticket is placed in the manual review queue in Zendesk and held from automatic routing. The team lead is notified via a Zendesk internal note. The customer acknowledgement email is still sent immediately so the customer is not left waiting.
Open the flagged ticket in Zendesk, read the classification agent's suggested category and priority, and confirm or correct the values. Mark the ticket as reviewed. The routing and notification steps then complete automatically.
A duplicate ticket is submitted by the same customer for the same issue
The classification agent may assign a matching category and priority. The routing agent will attempt to assign the duplicate to the same agent handling the original. An internal note is added to the duplicate ticket referencing the likely duplicate status.
The assigned agent should merge the duplicate into the original ticket in Zendesk and close the duplicate. No change to routing rules is required. If duplicates become frequent, contact FullSpec to discuss an automated deduplication step.
A high-priority or urgent ticket is submitted outside business hours and the assigned agent is unavailable
The ticket is classified, routed, and the Slack notification is sent as normal. The customer acknowledgement email is sent with the expected response window for the assigned priority. No escalation path fires automatically for out-of-hours tickets in the standard build.
If your team has on-call cover, ensure those agents have Slack notifications enabled on their mobile device. If you need an out-of-hours escalation path (for example, SMS or paging), raise this with FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com to discuss adding an escalation step.
The team lead does not action a flagged ambiguous ticket within a defined review window
The ticket remains in the manual review queue. No automatic fallback routing occurs. The customer acknowledgement has already been sent, so the customer is not left without a response, but the ticket will not be assigned until the team lead acts.
Check the manual review queue in Zendesk at least twice per business day. If you are away, delegate manual queue responsibility to another team lead or senior agent before your absence. Alert FullSpec if you need an automatic escalation timer added to flagged tickets.
Zendesk, Slack, or Gmail is temporarily unavailable (tool outage or API timeout)
The automation platform retries the failed step up to three times with a short delay between attempts. If all retries fail, the automation logs the error and pauses that run. A summary of failed runs is written to the automation platform's error log. No ticket is silently dropped.
Check the automation error log (FullSpec will provide access during handover) if your team reports missing Slack notifications or unacknowledged tickets. For a confirmed outage lasting more than 30 minutes, revert to manual triage temporarily and contact FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com to confirm once tools are restored and any failed runs are replayed.
04Who to contact and when
Fill in the rows below once your team structure is confirmed. Keep this table updated whenever roles change. The FullSpec rows are fixed and do not change.
Role
Name
How to reach them
Process owner / Support Team Lead
[Your name]
[Your email or Slack handle]
Backup reviewer (covers manual queue when Team Lead is absent)
[Your name]
[Your email or Slack handle]
Business owner (escalation decisions)
[Your name]
[Your email or Slack handle]
FullSpec builder (automation changes, scope additions, technical issues)
FullSpec team
support@gofullspec.com
FullSpec support (general questions, error logs, usage guidance)
FullSpec support
support@gofullspec.com
For any change to routing rules, classification categories, or agent assignments within the automation, contact the FullSpec team before making changes manually in Zendesk. Changes made directly in Zendesk fields without updating the automation's routing configuration can cause conflicts.
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FS-DOC-03Operations
05Ongoing maintenance
Whenever routing rules change (new agent hired, category added or removed, agent leaves)
Update the routing rule documentation in Notion. Then contact FullSpec to update the routing configuration in the automation platform to match. Do not update only one side or tickets will be mis-routed.
Process owner + FullSpec team
Whenever the customer acknowledgement email template changes (tone, response time windows, branding)
Send the updated template text to FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com. The FullSpec team will update the Gmail template in the automation and confirm when the change is live.
Process owner requests; FullSpec implements
Monthly spot-check (first week of each month)
Pull a sample of 10 to 15 tickets from the previous month. Verify that category and priority fields were correctly populated, that internal notes are present, and that acknowledgement emails were sent. Note any patterns of misclassification.
Support Team Lead
Weekly error-log review (every Monday)
Check the automation platform's error log for any failed or retried runs from the previous week. If any ticket IDs appear in failed runs, verify those tickets were triaged correctly. Forward unresolved errors to support@gofullspec.com.
Support Team Lead
Whenever a team member joins or leaves the support team
Update the contact table in Section 04 of this runbook. Notify FullSpec to add or remove the agent from routing rules in the automation. Confirm Slack notification delivery to the new agent before their first shift.
Process owner + FullSpec team
Quarterly volume review (every three months)
Compare current ticket volume against the baseline of approximately 180 tickets per month. If volume has grown by more than 25 percent, review whether current routing rules and agent assignments still reflect the team's actual workload. Contact FullSpec if the classification agent needs retraining against newer ticket samples.
Business owner + Support Team Lead
The most common maintenance issue for this process is routing rules falling out of date after a team change. When a new agent joins or an existing agent moves to a different ticket type, the automation continues routing to the old configuration until it is explicitly updated. Always notify FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com the same day any agent's responsibilities change.
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