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

        • 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?

        • 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

        • Information problem

          ZOHO Guys, I am trying to evaluate your product as a serious business tool. However your attitude to providing key information such as 1. CRM Data Model 2. Product Roadmap and Enhancement promises 3. Complete and accurate help make it very difficult to recommend as a serious choice for small business. You may be cheap, but I would prefer to pay if it means not being kept in the dark! Kind Regards Andrew Copley

        • How to create comparison time periods like these examples

          In a Pivot Report I would like to be able to select any date range and show a set of metrics for that date range e.g. revenue, orders, units sold. I would then like to be able to compare to the previous period based on the amount of days on the selected

        • Overwrite Option for custom modules

          Hi Team, I noticed that the overwrite option is unavailable in Zoho Books when importing data for custom modules. This limitation makes it challenging to bulk update old data, as the only option is the 'bulk update' feature, which is restricted to 25

        • Zoho Creator - Zoho Analytics

          I am facing an issue in Zoho Analytics where I am still seeing deleted data from the Zoho Creator form I created. Could you please look into this and let me know what needs to be done?

        • Important updates to Zoho CRM's email deliverability

          Last modified on: Jul 24, 2024 These enhancements are released for all users across all data centers. Modified on: Oct 30, 2023 Organisations that are in the Enterprise and above editions of Zoho CRM, and have not authenticated their email-sending domains

        • Unable to send emails

          I have this email parth@mrcolumbus.in, but I couldnt send outgoing email. Can you please help?

        • Notifications push : Encourager le réengagement et renforcer la fidélité des utilisateurs efficacement

          Vous avez déjà souhaité engager et communiquer de manière proactive avec les utilisateurs, y compris lorsqu'ils utilisent votre application de manière peu active ? Zoho Apptics vous offre déjà des fonctionnalités qui vous permettent d'évaluer la performance,

        • Easy way to delete attachments

          I've reached my data limit and would like to run a view/report, and mass delete attachments. Is there an easy, fast way to do this? Moderation Update: Post Summary: There are two features the post discusses a) Easy way to remove Email attachments Will

        • How to add new deal to existing contact

          Hi, I want to add new deal to existing contact.

        • Domain verification is in progress... (How long do I need to wait?)

          Trying to setup my first email domain by connecting with GoDaddy. Have been here for quite some time and the screen is not changing. How long should this take?Send DataSend Data

        • Linking an email to a Contact when the email is sent in deluge via sendmail

          The "to:" address in this code is a CRM Contact. Email address is forced unique in CRM This sendmail gets sent via a workflow which is in a custom module. It works, except that the outbound email does not appear (i.e, get linked to) the Contact such that

        • How to restore deleted Field

          I edited a field in zoho form and by accident I deleted a field (email address). The form is ongoing to be filled by respondent. Then, when I checked to the all entries and report, the email address is gone. I checked in audit log, there is a record that

        • How to select multiple notes at once in the PC client?

          In the PC client, you can select notes using ctr+LMB. But why can't you use shift+LMB? PC version 3.2.0

        • Feature Request: Search in the PC client. Some thoughts about the search.

          Hi all. I'm really excited to start using Zoho Notebook, but I'm missing some of the search capabilities on my desktop. There are also some thoughts on improving search in general. Search is very important to me, without it it is difficult for me to use

        • Create Your Own Issue Management System

          Effective issue management is a cornerstone of project success. Every bug or issue, no matter how small, needs to be tracked and resolved in time to maintain project momentum. In this post, we’ll explore how an issue management system in Zoho Projects

        • How I can add customized Invoice

          Hi, I wanna use a customized Invoice, how i can add that

        • Zoho MA and Custom Module

          I am trying to create a sync between Markting Automation and Zoho CRM. I am mapping a custom module from the CRM. The custom module has email field mobile phone field However I cannot finish the integration since the system keeps asking me for email or

        • Zoho Analytics Pivot Table - How to compare month vs last year same month

          Hi, I had created a pivot table with setup as below: Column: - Delivery Date Row: - Customer Group Data as column - Total amount (sum > normal) (show data of the month) - Total amount (sum > % difference from previous value) (compare between this month

        • Employees can not add some expenses suddenly

          Zoho expense was working fine and whenever there was a new merchant, it would automatically add and also the same auto added in Zoho Books (due to merchant-vendor sync) untill now. From today, it is having problems in searching the existing vendors and

        • Recorded imported goods

          I have imported some goods from a foreign vendor called ABC. to Bahrain. My Customs duty and VAT are paid by an agency called XYZ to authorities. I have paid the amounts to XYZ and they have paid to authorities in behalf of us using our TRN Number. Now

        • Match Transaction > Filter | Allow wildcards in search

          The Filter function is useful for narrowing down to a specific set of transactions. It would be useful to have the ability to use wildcards in search. e.g. customer name "starts with" or " * " as a placeholder. e.g. "National * " instead of "National

        • Files Uploaded to Zoho WorkDrive Not Being Indexed by Search Engines

          Hello, I have noticed that the files I upload to Zoho WorkDrive are not being indexed by search engines, including Google. I’d like to understand why this might be happening and what steps I can take to resolve it. Here are the details of my issue: File

        • Next Page