Triage and assignment

What this guide covers#

Use triage and assignment to classify incoming conversations, set priority, and route tickets to the right owner.

Good triage keeps the inbox usable. It should identify what the customer needs, which team should own the conversation, and whether the issue is urgent enough to interrupt the normal queue.

AI Triage is different from strict Automations. Use AI Triage when priority, assignment, or labels depend on the meaning of the customer's message. Use Automations for exact rules like sender-domain labels, subject keywords, round robin assignment, and ignore lists. For the full comparison, see Automations vs AI triage.

Setup steps#

1. List the most common request types your team handles.
2. Create labels that reflect how your team actually works.
3. Decide which labels change priority or ownership.
4. Configure routing for teams, individuals, or round-robin ownership.
5. Define escalation rules for urgent or sensitive issues.
6. Test with realistic conversations from each channel.
7. Review triage results after the first production week.

Common routing patterns#

• Billing: refund, cancellation, payment failure, invoice, receipt, or subscription questions route to the teammate who can approve billing actions.
• Technical support: bug reports, login failures, data sync issues, and integration errors route to the technical owner.
• Account access: password, ownership, email-change, or identity-verification issues get higher scrutiny before any account update.
• Feature requests: product feedback and requests are labeled for product review, but do not interrupt urgent support.
• Security and privacy: account compromise, data deletion, privacy, abuse, and compliance requests route to a designated owner.

Priority guidance#

Use priority for urgency, not importance in the abstract.

High priority is appropriate when:

• A paying customer is blocked from using the product.
• A billing issue is actively charging or preventing payment.
• A security, privacy, or account-access risk exists.
• A production integration or broad feature appears broken.
• A high-value customer has an active escalation.

Keep routine product questions and normal refund requests out of urgent queues unless there is a specific time-sensitive reason.

Assignment models#

Choose the assignment model that matches your team size:

Use Round robin assignment when new tickets should be distributed across eligible teammates automatically. Use Auto label tickets for predictable sender or subject patterns that should be labeled before review.

Review accuracy#

For the first week, sample triage decisions daily. Look for:

• Tickets with the wrong label
• Urgent tickets that stayed normal priority
• Normal tickets that were over-escalated
• Tickets assigned to someone who cannot take the needed action
• Channel-specific noise, especially from Discord or API-created tickets

Update labels and knowledge guidance when a wrong triage decision repeats.

Related guides#

• Round robin assignment
• Auto label tickets
• Automations vs AI triage
• Automations overview