Which triggers every company needs

Beyond the standard set, six rules cover what almost every support team ends up wanting.

Beyond the standard set, six rules cover what almost every support team ends up wanting.

The six

1. An honest acknowledgement

The standard one is fine but generic. Saying when you actually reply, and differing inside and outside hours, prevents more chasing than anything else on this list.

2. Route by what the customer told you

If your form asks a category question, a trigger should act on it. Otherwise you asked for nothing.

3. Notify the group, not everyone

Deactivate the notify-all-agents rule as soon as you are more than a handful of people, and notify the relevant group instead.

4. Flag your important customers

A rule that tags or prioritises tickets from key organisations. Agents cannot be expected to remember which accounts matter.

5. Bring reopened tickets back into view

A ticket returning from solved to open should land somewhere visible, usually with the agent who had it.

6. Wake up a ticket when a side conversation is answered

If you use side conversations at all. Without it, supplier replies sit unnoticed.

What not to build in week one

Anything clever. Rules that guess intent from the subject line, cascades of five triggers setting each other's tags, automatic closing. All of those are reasonable once you have watched real traffic and know your own patterns, and all of them are wrong when built on assumptions.

See also

• The standard triggers and what they do
• Making a trigger respond to business hours
• What not to do on day one