Agent, admin, light agent, contributor: who is who

Plan requirement

Subscription Any plan
Access Admin

Four kinds of person, differing in what they can do and what they cost. The distinction decides most access questions.

The four

End user Your customer. Raises tickets, reads the help centre. Free and unlimited.
Agent Works tickets. Takes a paid seat.
Admin An agent who can also configure the account. Same seat, same cost.
Light agent Reads tickets and adds internal notes. Cannot reply to customers.
Contributor Sees only the tickets they are added to. Narrower again than a light agent.

The question that settles it

Does this person reply to customers?

If yes, they need an agent seat. If they only need to see what is happening and comment internally, a light agent covers it. If they are a customer, they are an end user and cost nothing.

Light agents are underused

Most "can we give them access" requests are for somebody who needs to look: a product manager, a developer, a team lead in another department.

They rarely need to reply, and a light agent gives them what they actually want.

Admin is not a reward

It costs the same as an agent, so there is no financial reason to grant it, and no reason to withhold it either. Grant it on whether somebody should be changing configuration, which is a smaller group than it usually ends up being.

Where it goes wrong

Staff created as end users because they emailed support once, and then given an agent seat without the end-user record being merged. Two records for one person, and the history splits between them.

See also

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