Customer Support Automation Workflows: AI-Powered Ticket Handling

New Ticket Created (Zendesk/Intercom)
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Extract Ticket Content
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AI Classification Analysis
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Assign Category + Priority
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Check for Auto-Resolution
     ↓
Route to Appropriate Queue
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Alert Assigned Agent

Classify this support ticket:

Subject: {{subject}}
Body: {{body}}
Channel: {{channel}}
Customer: {{customer_name}}
Plan: {{customer_plan}}
Previous tickets: {{ticket_count}}

Output JSON with:
{
  "category": "billing|technical|account|product|sales",
  "subcategory": "specific type",
  "priority": "critical|high|medium|low",
  "sentiment": "positive|neutral|negative|angry",
  "intent": "primary customer goal",
  "entities": {
    "feature_mentioned": "",
    "error_code": "",
    "product_area": ""
  },
  "suggested_team": "billing|eng|support|sales",
  "auto_resolvable": true/false,
  "confidence": 0.0-1.0
}

{
  "category": "technical",
  "subcategory": "integration_error",
  "priority": "high",
  "sentiment": "frustrated",
  "intent": "fix broken Salesforce sync",
  "entities": {
    "feature_mentioned": "Salesforce integration",
    "error_code": "SYNC_FAILED_401",
    "product_area": "integrations"
  },
  "suggested_team": "eng",
  "auto_resolvable": false,
  "confidence": 0.94
}

Ticket Classified as "Product Question"
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Extract Key Terms
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Search Knowledge Base (RAG)
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Retrieve Relevant Articles
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AI Generate Response
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Confidence Check
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High Confidence → Auto-Send
Low Confidence → Draft for Review

You are a helpful customer support agent for [Company].

Guidelines:
- Only use information from the provided knowledge base context
- If the answer isn't in the context, say "I'll connect you with a specialist"
- Be friendly, clear, and concise
- Include relevant links to documentation
- Never make up features or capabilities
- Acknowledge the customer's specific question

Knowledge Base Context:
{{retrieved_articles}}

Customer Question: {{ticket_body}}

Generate a helpful response that:
1. Acknowledges their question
2. Provides the answer from the knowledge base
3. Includes relevant documentation links
4. Offers additional help if needed

Hi [Customer Name],

Great question about setting up the Salesforce integration!

Here's how to connect your Salesforce account:

1. Go to Settings → Integrations → Salesforce
2. Click "Connect" and authorize with your Salesforce admin credentials
3. Select which objects to sync (Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities)
4. Configure the sync frequency (real-time or scheduled)

For detailed steps with screenshots, check out our guide:
📄 [Salesforce Integration Setup Guide](link)

If you run into any issues during setup, just reply here
and I'll connect you with our integrations specialist.

Best,
[Agent Name]

Ticket/Message Received
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AI Sentiment Analysis
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Score Sentiment (-1 to +1)
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Check Against Thresholds
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Negative → Trigger Escalation
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Alert Senior Agent/Manager
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Add Priority Flag
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Track to Resolution

🚨 ESCALATION ALERT

Customer: Acme Corp (Enterprise)
MRR: $15,000
Contact: John Smith (VP Operations)

Ticket: #12345
Subject: Integration has been down for 3 days

Sentiment Score: -0.85 (HIGHLY NEGATIVE)

Key Phrases Detected:
- "completely unacceptable"
- "considering alternatives"
- "executive team is asking questions"

Previous Context:
- 2 similar tickets in past month
- Both required engineering escalation
- NPS score dropped from 8 to 4

Recommended Actions:
1. Senior agent response within 30 minutes
2. Engineering review of integration status
3. Customer success manager outreach
4. Consider service credit

[View Ticket] [Assign to Me] [Escalate to Manager]

Customer Starts Chat
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AI Chatbot Engages
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Attempt Resolution
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Check Resolution Status
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Resolved → Close with Survey
Not Resolved → Evaluate Complexity
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Simple → Continue AI
Complex → Human Handoff
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Transfer Context to Agent
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Notify Customer of Handoff

=== HANDOFF CONTEXT ===

Customer: Jane Doe (jane@company.com)
Company: TechStartup Inc
Plan: Professional ($99/mo)
Customer Since: 2023-01-15

Conversation Summary:
Customer is trying to export their data but getting
a timeout error. They've tried:
✓ Chrome browser (failed)
✓ Firefox browser (failed)
✓ Smaller date range (partially worked)

Issue Identified:
Large data export (>100MB) causing timeout.
Likely needs backend optimization or chunked export.

Suggested Resolution:
Offer to run export on backend and email results,
OR escalate to engineering for timeout increase.

Conversation Transcript:
[Full chat history attached]

=== END CONTEXT ===

I want to make sure you get the best help with this.
I'm connecting you with [Agent Name], who specializes
in data exports.

I've shared our conversation so you won't need to repeat
anything. [Agent Name] will be with you in about 2 minutes.

Is there anything else I should pass along to them?

Message Received (Any Channel)
     ↓
Identify Customer
     ↓
Check for Existing Ticket
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Exists → Append to Thread
Not Exists → Create New Ticket
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Unify Customer Timeline
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Apply Channel-Specific Handling
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Route Appropriately

=== CUSTOMER 360 ===

Jane Doe | jane@company.com
Company: TechStartup Inc
Plan: Professional | MRR: $99
Customer Since: Jan 2023
Health Score: 72/100

Active Conversations:
📧 Email #4521 - Export timeout (High Priority)
💬 Chat session - Same issue, ongoing

Recent History (30 days):
- Jan 15: Chat - Password reset (resolved)
- Jan 10: Email - Billing question (resolved)
- Jan 3: In-app - Feature question (resolved)

Product Usage:
- Last login: Today
- Active days (30d): 22
- Key features used: Reports, Exports, API

Support Stats:
- Tickets (lifetime): 12
- Avg resolution: 4.2 hours
- CSAT: 4.2/5.0

Notes:
- Prefers email communication
- Technical user, usually self-sufficient
- Has referral credit available

System Event Detected
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Evaluate Customer Impact
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Affected? → Create Proactive Ticket
     ↓
AI Draft Proactive Message
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Send Before Customer Notices
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Track Resolution
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Follow Up When Fixed

Subject: Heads up: We noticed an issue with your integration

Hi [Name],

Our systems detected some failed API calls from your
[Integration Name] connection in the past hour.

What we're seeing:
- Error: Authentication failed (401)
- Impact: Data sync may be delayed
- Started: Today at 2:15 PM

What likely happened:
Your API credentials may have expired or been rotated
on the [Service] side.

Quick fix:
1. Go to Settings → Integrations → [Service]
2. Click "Reconnect"
3. Re-authorize with your [Service] credentials

We're monitoring this and will reach out if we see
anything else. Let us know if you have questions!

[Support Team]

Subject: You're at 85% of your monthly API calls

Hi [Name],

Quick heads up—you've used 85,000 of your 100,000
monthly API calls with 8 days left in your billing cycle.

At your current pace, you might hit the limit around
[Date].

Options:
1. Upgrade to our Growth plan for unlimited calls
2. Optimize high-frequency queries (we can help!)
3. Stay on current plan—overage is $0.01/call

Want to chat about which makes sense? Reply here or
[Book time with us](link).

[Account Team]

Monthly Savings Calculation:

Tickets per month: 10,000
Auto-resolved (40%): 4,000
Cost savings: 4,000 × $15 = $60,000

Agent productivity increase: 50%
Equivalent headcount savings: 3 FTEs
Cost savings: 3 × $60,000/year = $180,000/year

Annual ROI: $240,000+ in direct savings
Plus: Faster response → higher retention → more revenue