Support teams: when the customer is in the room
The customer on an incident is a counterparty, not a seat. They report through email, WhatsApp or a link, the incident pack runs reported, triaged, investigating, fix in progress, customer verify and closed, and the customer themselves confirms the fix through a door with no account. Customer verify is an approval stage with a 48-hour window. Closure is a decision on the record, not a status the desk typed.
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A request arrives
The request work item type records the channel (email, phone, portal or meeting), who asked, and a reference link. Inbound email, WhatsApp and Slack are doors into the workspace, so a message on any of them can become a request without retyping.
Custom fields extend the request with whatever the desk tracks.
- Channel: email, phone, portal, meeting
- Requested by and a reference link
- Inbound email, WhatsApp and Slack as doors in
The incident pack
Reported and triaged carry an 8-hour window each. Investigating and fix in progress carry 24 hours. Customer verify is an approval stage at 48 hours: the customer confirms the incident is resolved, or sends it back to fix in progress with changes requested. Closed is done.
That last stage is the point. The customer closes the incident, and the closure is stored with a name and a time.
Queues, windows and what is not here
A queue is a saved view: the incident list grouped by assignee or by priority, saved and shared. Bottleneck analytics show the median time each stage actually takes. A rule written as a sentence, such as when an incident enters triaged with severity blocker, notify the on-call channel, is compiled, translated back and simulated over last month before it goes live.
No customer satisfaction survey. No knowledge base surface. No time tracking. No CMDB. Tasked is the incident record, the customer's door and the workflow around them.
Questions that keep coming up
- Does the customer need an account to confirm the fix?
- No. They confirm through a door: a code, a link, a phone number or an email address.
- Can an incident come in from WhatsApp or email?
- Yes. Both are doors into the workspace, and the request type records which channel it arrived on.
- Are service windows enforced or only displayed?
- They are displayed per stage, reminders go out for approval windows, and analytics measure median time in stage against them. An approval left waiting for days is a named reason on the risk score.