Support playbook

Customer Support Triage Workflow

A practical triage workflow to reduce repetitive handling of WISMO, returns, refunds, and delivery issue tickets in ecommerce support.

7 min read

Common ticket categories

WISMO (Where is my order?) — typically 30–50% of all tickets in high-volume storeshigh
Returns and refund requestshigh
Delivery issues: delayed, damaged, or missing parcelshigh
Product questions pre-purchasemedium
Order modifications (address change, cancellation)medium
Billing and payment issuesmedium

Tag every ticket on arrival with a category (WISMO, Returns, Delivery Issue, etc.)high
Route WISMO tickets to automated tracking reply first — only escalate if order is 48h+ overduehigh
Route return requests to self-serve portal link — only escalate if portal cannot handle the casehigh
Route delivery issues to carrier investigation flow — acknowledge within 4 hourshigh
Prioritise tickets from repeat customers or high-value ordersmedium
Review ticket tags weekly to identify rising categoriesmedium

WISMO auto-reply: trigger when subject contains 'where is my order' or 'tracking' — include order tracking linkhigh
Returns macro: link to self-serve portal with return policy summaryhigh
Delivery delay macro: empathetic acknowledgement + carrier escalation stepsmedium
Order modification macro: steps for cancellations and address changes with cutoff guidancemedium
Post-resolution CSAT trigger: send satisfaction survey 24 hours after ticket closeslow

1Escalate if a WISMO ticket is more than 5 days past estimated delivery
2Escalate if a customer mentions a chargeback or payment dispute
3Escalate if a delivery issue ticket has been open more than 48 hours without carrier resolution
4Escalate if the same customer has had three or more issues in 30 days
5Escalate if a product defect pattern is emerging across multiple tickets

Margin Leak

Estimate the combined annual cost of returns, fulfilment, packaging, app spend, and support handling to identify your biggest margin leak.

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