What to Include
A complete customer support SOP covers the full ticket lifecycle from first contact to confirmed resolution:Ticket Intake and Categorization
Ticket Intake and Categorization
Define how tickets arrive (email, chat, phone, portal), how they are logged in your ticketing system, and the standard fields that must be filled in at intake — account name, product area, issue description, and reproduction steps. Consistent intake data makes every downstream step faster.
Priority Triage Criteria (P1 / P2 / P3)
Priority Triage Criteria (P1 / P2 / P3)
Define your priority levels clearly so any rep can triage any ticket without guessing:
- P1 — Critical: Service is fully down or a security incident is suspected. Immediate response required.
- P2 — High: Core functionality is degraded or a workaround is unavailable. Response within 4 hours.
- P3 — Normal: Non-blocking issue or question with an available workaround. Response within 1 business day.
Response Time SLAs
Response Time SLAs
Document your committed response time SLAs for each priority level and whether those SLAs differ by plan tier. Include guidance on what counts as a “response” — acknowledgment alone versus a substantive update — and how to communicate delays proactively.
Escalation Path
Escalation Path
Specify the exact conditions that trigger an escalation, who to notify at each level, and how to escalate (tag in ticketing tool, Slack message to on-call, phone call for P1s). Avoid vague guidance like “escalate if needed” — instead, define the precise criteria.
Standard Response Templates
Standard Response Templates
A library of approved response templates for your most common scenarios: initial acknowledgment, request for more information, workaround available, escalation notification, resolution confirmation, and follow-up CSAT request. Templates speed up responses and keep tone consistent.
Resolution and Closure Steps
Resolution and Closure Steps
The steps required before a ticket can be closed — confirmation that the fix works in the customer’s environment, internal notes documenting the root cause and solution, any follow-up tasks logged, and the ticket status updated to resolved.
Customer Satisfaction Follow-Up
Customer Satisfaction Follow-Up
How and when you send a CSAT survey, who monitors the responses, and what the process is for following up on low scores. Include thresholds that trigger a personal outreach rather than an automated survey.
Building It in Seilers
Create a new SOP titled 'Customer Support Process'
In Seilers, go to SOPs → New SOP and name it
Customer Support Process. Choose the Support category so it’s easy to find. Add a one-paragraph description summarizing what the SOP covers and who it applies to.Add a step for each stage of the support workflow
Create individual steps in the SOP for: Intake, Triage, Initial Response, Investigation, Escalation (if applicable), Resolution, Closure, and Follow-Up. Keep each step focused — one action or decision per step makes the SOP easy to follow under pressure.
Embed checklists for triage and escalation decisions
Inside the Triage step and the Escalation step, use Seilers’ Checklist feature to add the priority criteria and escalation conditions as checkable items. Reps can work through the checklist in real time rather than trying to recall criteria from memory.
Assign a Support Lead as owner
Use Assign Owner to tag your Support Lead or Head of Support as the SOP owner. The owner is responsible for reviewing the SOP when SLAs change, when new ticket categories emerge, or when a support incident reveals a gap in the process.
Linking to Your Playbook
A support SOP is most powerful when it’s embedded in the broader context of your customer success operation. In Seilers, you can link this SOP inside a Customer Success Playbook that covers the full post-sale journey — onboarding, ongoing health monitoring, renewal, and escalation. To embed the SOP in a playbook:- Open or create your Customer Success Playbook.
- Navigate to the Support and Escalation section of the playbook.
- Click Link SOP and select your
Customer Support ProcessSOP. - The SOP appears inline — team members can open and complete it without leaving the playbook.
Incident Response SOP
Handle outages and critical incidents with a documented, tested response process.
Hiring Playbook
Standardize how you hire the support reps who will use this SOP every day.