Create customized SLAs for your customer base with support plans

Create customized SLAs for your customer base with support plans

Managing customer expectations, prioritizing critical issues, and resolving customer inquiries on time is quite a juggle. Without a clear timelines or defined priorities, a support team may struggle with delays in response, SLA violations, and pending tickets, which will eventually impact customer satisfaction.
 
Support plans help businesses customize the support services based on service type, product requirement, issue type, business tier, customer needs, and more. By setting specific support plans for different accounts, businesses can ensure that every interaction is handled with the right level of attention and urgency to improve overall efficiency and customer satisfaction.

How are support plans beneficial?

Efficient SLA management

Businesses can create specific SLAs for support tiers and account types to ensure that the team meets customer expectations efficiently and consistently.

Example: A business can set different resolution times for various clients—such as 4 hours for enterprise customers and 48 hours for others—keeping service levels consistent while avoiding the risk of missing important deadlines for high-priority clients.



Clear credit cycle and limit management
 
Businesses can define specific credit cycles and limits for accounts based on their support plan to help manage service usage and costs effectively.

Example: A business can set a monthly support limit for an account on a basic plan and ensure that additional services beyond this limit are billed accordingly. For premium accounts, the business can offer higher or unlimited credit to provide flexibility while still maintaining control over resource allocation and usage. This helps businesses manage their support costs and optimize resource allocation strategically.



Automatic escalation handling

Critical issues can be escalated automatically if they’re not addressed within the set SLA, which ensures that urgent matters receive the necessary attention.

Example: If a critical issue isn’t resolved within the specified time, it can be escalated to the support manager without manual intervention. This ensures no critical issues are overlooked.

Greater flexibility for seasonal business models

Companies with fluctuating customer demands can adjust support plans to match seasonal trends.

Example: During holiday seasons, when demand is expected to increase from certain client types, businesses can associate multiple support plans to a single account. This allows them to provide the necessary level of support for different needs without the hassle of constantly upgrading and downgrading plans, ensuring smooth operations and quick resolution of time-sensitive issues.

Note: A support plan can be associated with multiple contracts. However, one contract can be associated with only one support plan at any given point.



Enhanced team accountability and performance

By setting clear SLAs and goals for different support plans, businesses can track team performance and ensure accountability.
Example: Support teams can track whether agents meet SLAs or not and optimize the SLA timelines and improvise other aspects periodically.

How does it work in Zoho Desk?

  1. Assign support plans to accounts: Within Zoho Desk, businesses can create and assign different support plans to specific customer accounts based on their requirements. This allows for customized SLA management.
  2. Set up SLAs: For each support plan, businesses can configure different SLA policies, such as response and resolution times, which will apply to tickets associated with the respective plans.
  3. Track performance: Zoho Desk will enable the manager track SLA performance and notify the team if the SLA is at risk of being breached, which helps ensure timely resolution.
  4. Escalation rules: Automatic escalation rules can be set up within Zoho Desk to ensure that critical issues get the necessary attention if they are not resolved within the specified SLA time.

Kindly refer to our help document for more information on working with support plans.
This feature is available to all users across all the DCs. Please give it a try and provide your feedback and suggestions in the comments below.

Thanks, and have a great day!

Regards,
Varsha P
Zoho Desk | User Education


      • Sticky Posts

      • Webinar 2: Supercharged customer support for growing business

        Join us for this webinar and learn how to step up your support game using a real-time communication platform to generate happier, more successful customers. In this live webinar, we will will discuss the importance of SalesIQ for your support team and how it can help you:  Understand your customers better and their journeys to proactively support and engage them even before they ask for help.  Integrating real time conversations into Zoho Desk’s Support, providing a conversational customer service

      • Customize Colors of your Customer Self Service Portal

        You asked for it. We heard you. We're happy to roll out the most sought after feature request, Customizing the Colors of your Customer Self-service Portal. Now you can set the color of your customer portal to mimic your company's web site, so that your customers visiting the portal will not feel alienated by the default theme.  Go ahead and configure the color of the header, tabs, fonts and background according to your needs. You can either choose between default color themes like Blue, Grey, Green

      • Edit and Delete options in Comments

        A lot of teams have been using ticket comments extensively to collaborate everyday. Notification Center further improved this experience by bringing real-time updates. As we continue to build more improvements to this experience, we've shipped a small-yet-important

      • 2024 Email Authentication Standards: Elevating Security with Google and Yahoo

        In contemporary email communication, email authentication plays a pivotal role in mitigating email fraud, spam, and phishing attacks. Brace yourself for a new level of security. Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will be implementing robust email

      • Announcing the New and Improved Article Editor

        KBase articles are known to help customers, find solutions to problems on their own and set the stage for ticket deflection. That said, the way you present your KBase content is the clinching factor that ensures your customers stick around to consume it.  We took it upon ourselves to build an editor that allows you to publish articles without delving into the code. Well, at least for the most part. With more options and a redefined interface, the article editor in Zoho Desk is now better than ever!

        • Recent Topics

        • Basic Price List Functionality Still Missing

          I am having a problem with the most simple imaginable pricing scenario - you buy cheap, add profit, then sell high. Or in less simplistic terms: business buys a product at a given cost, then adds predetermined percentage markup, and finally sells that

        • How do I hire employees????

          Hi! I own a bookkeeping company, where a few of my clients use Zoho Books as their accounting platform . I started utilizing Zoho Practice to work on the books of my Zoho clients, some have Zoho One and some have Zoho Books plans. I just hired an employee,

        • Advanced Framing Techniques

          I'm a construction professional passionate about optimizing building practices, and I want to share my insights on Advanced Framing Techniques with this forum. When I first learned about these methods, I was amazed at how much efficiency they bring to

        • Automate data upload process like reports

          I'll start with the end in mind.  I want to basically keep certain creator tables updated with data that are in a sql database/tables in our office (employees, active jobs, employee positions) so I can reference that data and not have to duplicate it by hand every time someone adds a new job or employee in the office desktop software.  Here are some thoughts I had about how to do this, but am unsure as to whether any of them are actually possible and how to go about it from there: Is there any way

        • Greylisted, try again after some time

          Can you check my ip, i send to duyna@vietlinkjsc.vn but have an error; my ip is 112.213.94.12 Here is log: 2018-01-09 09:40:29 H=mx.zoho.com [204.141.32.121] SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<duyna@vietlinkjsc.vn>: 451 4.7.1 Greylisted, try again after some time 2018-01-09 09:40:32 H=mx2.zoho.com [204.141.33.55] SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<duyna@vietlinkjsc.vn>: 451 4.7.1 Greylisted, try again after some time 2018-01-09 09:40:32 duyna@vietlinkjsc.vn R=lookuphost

        • Zoho Sheet Custom function column showing Error #EVAL!

          Hello I have a custom function in Zoho Sheet developed to convert a date time from one time zone to another. The custom function takes date and time columns and then using subHour( ) converts the time to PST time. However, though the custom function works,

        • Clear String field based on the value of other field

          Hello everyone, We would like to be able to clear a string field (delete whatever has been written and make it empty) when another field (picklist) is changed to a specific value. While I can empty other types of fields, I noticed that I can't do this

        • Emails linked to Deal

          Hello everyone, I’d like to ask a question to see if someone can help me out. We are requesting availability from suppliers by sending emails directly from the Opportunity. These emails we send are logged within the Opportunity; however, when we receive

        • How to transfer all my mails from Zoho to Gmail or Office 365

          is there any option to move my emails from zoho to gmail or office 365. i would like to export more than 25k emails from zoho to office 365 or gmail. can anyone help me to guide properly. this will help me to access my emails easily i have both account and can easily  do it with office 365 or gmail. i want two options. direct from zoho to office 365  or exported eml files from zoho to gmail. please suggest me both if possible 

        • Inquiry Regarding Image Display Issue in Campaign Duplication

          We are currently using Zoho Campaigns for email distribution to our clients. I would like to inquire about an issue we encountered. When duplicating a previously created and sent campaign from the "All Campaigns" section, the images used in the header

        • New integrations for Bigin: Zoho Sign, SalesIQ, and Marketing Automation

          Greetings, We're excited to share new integrations that make Bigin more powerful and useful for your business! Zoho Sign for Bigin Zoho Sign now integrates seamlessly with Bigin, enabling you to sign, send, and manage contracts or agreements without leaving

        • Add multiple users to a task

          When I´m assigning a task it is almost always related to more than one person. Practical situation: When a client request some improvement the related department opens the task with the situation and people related to it as the client itself, the salesman

        • What is Attendee Status 0 and 1?

          Hi there, I recently stumbled upon the API to get the attendee list and in the return value, there is a parameter called "status", and 0 supposed to mean not_attending, and 1 means attending. I cannot find this representation anywhere in the attendee

        • How to add a Data Updated As Of: dynamically in text?

          I need to add a "Data Updated As Of" in the dashboard to show when was the last date the data was updated. I tried to create a widget but it does not look really good, see below. Is there a way I can do this through the text widget and update it automatically

        • ZOHO BackStage

          How to get list of events, using ZOHO BackStage APIs. Is it possible OR not?

        • Email with attachments saving attachments into Zoho CRM from Zoho Mail

          Hi, I get a lot of emails from prospective clients asking if we would bid their project. Those projects usually have many documents associated with them that I link to.  I would like to have those documents be saved as an attachment in my Potential or Contact or Account. I don't see a way to do that that isn't multi-step. As of now I do the following: 1.) Open email 2.) If email sender isn't in my Zoho CRM database I enter them creating a Potential 3.) I download the attachment and save it to a different

        • Directly Edit, Filter, and Sort Subforms on the Details Page

          Hello everyone, As you know, subforms allow you to associate multiple line items with a single record, greatly enhancing your data organization. For example, a sales order subform neatly lists all products, their quantities, amounts, and other relevant

        • Request For Quotation (RFQ) module

          Hello, Do you have any plans to implement a RFQ module in to ZOHO Inventory? I would like to chose items that I require a price for, select a number of different suppliers to e-mail and have them submit there pricing online. I would then like to see a

        • How to Customize Task Creation to Send a Custom Alert Using JavaScript in Zoho CRM?

          Hello Zoho CRM Community, I’m looking to customize Zoho CRM to send a custom alert whenever a task is created. I understand that Zoho CRM supports client scripts using JavaScript, and I would like to leverage this feature to implement the alert functionality.

        • Email signature not being included if user creates ticket / sends email

          When I create a ticket (send email), the signature doesn't appear to be added to the ticket. Can you confirm if this is the case? It would obviously be useful to include the user's signature even when sending a client an email and not only on replie

        • Lookup Fields not Converting

          I manage holiday properties. I have a lookup to the Accounts (Properties) in the Leads module. The lookup is connected to the property address field. When I convert it the lookup field does not update in Deals, although the property address does. There

        • Zoho Meeting iOS app update - Join breakout rooms, access polls, paste links and join sessions, in session host controls

          Hello, everyone! In the latest iOS version(v1.7) of the Zoho Meeting app, we have brought in support for the following features: Polls in meeting session Join Breakout rooms Paste link in join meeting screen Foreign time zone in the meeting details screen.

        • Calculate hours between 2 date/time fields

          Hi, Does anyone know if it is possible to get the number of hours between 2 date/time fields in a zoho crm custom function? Thanks, Michael

        • External ID validation.

          I added an external ID field as below in one of my custom modules: When creating records via the API using some value (eg: 762115b2-097e-43b2-bdba-f3924a5371a6) for this field, it works without any problem. I can create and even see the records on the

        • Sales Order, what are the statuses under Confirmed and Closed

          Hi, I have to build a workflow in Deluge which should be triggered when Sales Order status is Confirmed or Closed. But these 2 states don't exist when you fetch a sales order. Which of the statuses are considered as Confirmed or Closed ? Here is a list

        • CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

          Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

        • Not able to change colors help center

          Hi. How can I change the orange color in the help center? You can change everything besides this font color And how can I remove the part on the bottom?

        • Default ticket template in helpcenter

          Hello, I have a web form and a ticket template created. How can I make that my default ticket template? If an user clicks New ticket or create a ticket, I want that template to be the default one. Thank you for the time and info.

        • Remove Address from credit card payment

          I would like to remove the need to add address when paying by credit card. I only want the customer to have to add their credit card details.

        • Copy Widget to another Dashboard

          I can see the option to clone a widget to the same dashboard but is it possible to copy it to another dashboard?

        • Create a button that executes a customized function

          Hello, I have created a summary view in which I combine the data from my items table and suppliers table. I would like to know if there is the possibility of adding a button somewhere in the view to be able to execute a function when clicked on it. I

        • Whatsapp reply not reflected under Tickets for offline agent

          Hi, We are encountering a situation where WA response from customer is not reflected under tickets (if the agent handling the case previously is not active due to off day/ MC). The ticket will remain in the offline agent's queue until agent is back to

        • Custom field doesn't fill when converting sales order to invoice

          Hi, When I convert a Sales Order to an Invoice one of the custom fields on a product line names "Subsidie" does not seem to fill in automatically. I manually have to select the product again by clicking on the product name in the order line en re-select

        • Can I use ZOHO calendar to schedule a Youtube video that is already in my youtube account, but listed as private or unlisted?

          I am creating Youtube videos and shorts and then uploading them to our Channel so others can view and approve. Once approved I would like to just schedule them over the next few days within Zoho. So far it looks like I have to re-upload the video to Zoho

        • How to Display a Logo Image on a Public Form?

          I would like to display a logo image in the header of a form. To achieve this, I added an Add Notes field to the form. The code below works perfectly for Zoho users accessing the form. However, when the form is made public, the image does not load properly:

        • Advice for my first project in Zoho

          Hello, how can I design and implement a customized ERP and CRM system using Zoho to automate and manage core business functions, including customer relationship management, property inventory, sales tracking, and financial processes. This is one of my

        • Associate Email API Internal Error

          I am trying to associate an already existing email within a function using the Related Emails API. To provide more context, I also have admin permissions and have ensured that the fields are correct and that I have admin permissions when associating the

        • Profit on Sales order

          Hi, would it be possible to implement a column at the Sales order overview of Purchase amount? So a field with the amount of all purchase related to this Sales order? This is very usefull so you will see the profit you made on this deal. I tried to get

        • Subform Data in v2 REST API

          What is the mechanism for adding subform data in the Creator v2 REST APIs?  There is nothing documented in the Data APIs documentation (https://www.zoho.com/creator/help/api/v2/).   I was able to determine how to GET the subform data by adding it to the

        • ZOHO Widget SDK not loading in html

          I have this code below, I have imported the widgetsdk however I get the error shown in the image, I have tried many different ways of importing and initiating the function ZOHO but nothing is working. can someone explain what I'm doing wrong, if I am

        • Next Page