Working the support desk: the whole loop

Every ticket on Kabbes Development lands in one inbox on the admin, whatever door it came through: the sales site, the client portal, the widget, a form, or email. The desk shows you the queue in the order it deserves to be worked, and the conversation for whichever ticket you open. This guide is the loop, start to finish.

1. Read the queue the way it is sorted

The default sort is the priority queue. It is not newest-first. A portal client waiting on a reply outranks a guest who wrote an hour ago, and a ticket that has breached its first-reply target floats to the top. The pills on each row say why: the status, a High flag, an escalation, a follow-up due, the SLA clock, and who has it.

• Needs first reply is the number to watch. Every one of those is a person who has heard nothing yet.
• Unassigned means nobody owns it. Claim it before you reply so the customer sees one name.
• Your desks decide what you see. A role limited to the client-portal desk never sees guest tickets, and a role without "every ticket" sees only what is unassigned or assigned to them.

2. Open it and read the whole thread

The conversation shows every message, every attachment, and every event in between: status changes, assignments, escalations, merges. Read it all before you type. The line under the header says what the ticket is waiting on and on whom; if it says you, reply. If it says the customer, set a follow-up so it does not go quiet.

3. Reply, or leave a note

A reply goes to the customer: on their support desk on the sales site, in their email, and in the client portal when the ticket came from there. It carries your name and your emblem. An internal note is staff-only, and @mentioning a teammate pulls them in. Ctrl+Enter sends. Attach images and PDFs when they help; they preview on the customer’s desk.

4. Move it along

• Waiting on customer when the next step is theirs. The status reaches their desk on its own; no reply needed.
• In progress when you are actively on it and it will take more than one sitting.
• Resolved when the thing they asked for is done. They can reopen by replying.
• Closed only for duplicates, spam, or tickets merged into another one.

Priority, desk, category, tags and the follow-up date are all on the Ticket tab. Set them as you go so the queue stays honest for the next person.

5. Escalate when it is above your grade

Refunds, contract questions, anything that needs a decision you are not allowed to make: escalate it with one sentence saying why. It lands in the senior feed at that grade, the ticket shows the flag, and the senior can clear it back down once decided. Escalating early is a strength, not a weakness.

6. Merge and split

One person, two tickets about the same thing: merge the newer into the older. Its messages move over and it closes. One ticket, two separate problems: split the messages that belong to the second problem into a new ticket with its own subject.

What the customer sees

On the sales site they see their tickets, your replies with your name and emblem, the status, and the transcript. They never see internal notes, escalations, or assignments. When the ticket came from the client portal, the same conversation shows on their project page.