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Greetings fellow users,


I apologize in advance for this crazy long post but I though giving every a full picture, entertaining suggestions, would end up being a helpful read for the next person in my situation.  A sincere and humble thanks to all of you reading/posting your thoughts.


The basics:

I'm running a pilot project here in India with a very contained environment. FD is one tool under evaluation as part of that pilot.


I'm using this as a level 1 with 3 agents, then one additional/different person as Level 2, then 3 people as level 3 one from each of my three external ISVs.  There's a real business reason Level 2 is separate from the agents getting the inbounds

 

Here is the flow:


  • We have a single helpdesk/call center for both sales person support and end customers.
  • An inbound call/email will be triaged as either sales person (SEC) or end customer issue.
  • Level 1 always open a ticket. Always.
  • Once determining SEC or customer, the agent will use the available internal FAQs and tools to try and resolve the problem/close the ticket.
  • Failing this, the agent will advise the SEC or customer they will need to escalate, verify the person's contact information and promise to get back to them asap.
  • The agent will then escalate the ticket to level 2  for further triage and (hopefully) resolution.
  • If this L2 work is successful, the ticket is updated with relevant fixes, action items and other information the agent needs in order to, if required, contact the customer/SEC, and close the ticket.
  • If this can't happen, L2 is responsible for pushing this to the L3 rep of the respective ISV.
  • The L3 rep is responsible for managing the ticket and updating it as per the respective SLAs, getting a resolution and ensuring the ticket is updated with relevant fixes, action items and other information the agent needs in order to, if required, contact the customer/SEC, and close the ticket.


So, with that in mind, questions:




  1. It appears that tickets can be forward from an agent to L2.  If the L2 can't solve, L2 can forward to L3. Once the L3 solves the problem, can it forwarded back to L1 after resolution for L1 to review, take any action and then close it?  I'm aware of the shared ticket feature, I'm asking here about the forwarding process and the 'reforwarding' capability. 
  2. Does the history of the ticket, once forwarded from the Agent to L2 get updated and the Agent can see the progress, notes, etc.  If it goes to Level 3, same question.  Can the agent see all the action on the ticket if it is forwarded to somebody else?  I know that if I set everybody to see all tickets, everybody can see everything.  The core is having a service level agreement and having the agent get alerted if there is no movement or time is expired.  In other words, how does the prime agent retain tracking/alert responsibility for the ticket if it is forwarded.
  3. If a ticket is shared on the other hand, what transpires here?  How is this different than forwarded beyond the obvious sharing; both see it.  Who is 'responsible.  Consider a 1hr response time that L2 has to acknowledge and get back to L1.  If that time expires, it does not appear there is any way to tie the escalation back to the L1 person.  I already know a group can have a resolution escalation to a single person but there seems to be a gap where if I pass a ticket to L2, I lose the ability for L1 to track the ticket against SLAs.

Generally, the rest of the product seems pretty clean and straightforward.

Thanks again for any and all commentary.

Side note: No forum for "Setup" or some type of ask the community seems odd.


Hello Rick,


Thanks for taking the time to write such an elaborative setup question. Much appreciated 🙂 Thanks for pitching in the idea of having one forum type for setup related questions. We'll look into it soon !


Having gone through your requirement, let me propose an idea that might work for you :



1. Setup the three agent groups in the helpdesk. Create unique SLA policies for each group-> You can create them under Admin -> SLA policies section and assign the policy to the respective groups


2. When there is a need for the L1 agent to escalate the case, the agent can create a Child ticket and assign it to the L2 group. Now the L2 team will be responsible for the child ticket with the SLA's tailored for them. The agent can either set him/herself as the requester of the child ticket or inform the customer and create the child ticket on behalf of the original requester. For more details on the Parent-Child relationship, please check this folder : https://support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/folders/272497


3. Assuming all agents will have global access to tickets, the L1 agents can access the child ticket anytime to know about the status of the ticket 


4. Since the child tickets are treated as individual ticket(s), the SLA policy for the respective groups would be applied and you can setup an automation to alert the L1 agent group in case if the ticket gets overdue ( You can also re-assign the ticket back to the L1 group ) 


Let me know if this helps!


Cheers!





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