In terms of support, there are a lot of things that can and should be automated. And rules are your best option here. Setting them up once will help the agents avoid the routine and save them plenty of time for more important things.
Despite the impressive possibilities of the rules, they have a simple structure. Each rule consists of conditions and actions. All cases are checked for compliance with the conditions. If the conditions are met, then the actions you specify are performed.
Types of rules
For greater convenience, the rules are divided into three types: rules for new cases, updated cases, and existing ones.
Rules for new cases allow you to automate the handling process of new cases. For instance, you can set groups, priorities, and assignees for new cases under specified criteria. These rules are triggered immediately when a new case arrives.
Rules for updated cases allow you to perform the necessary actions immediately after certain changes in the case. For example, you can send a browser notification when the case is assigned to an agent.
Rules for existing cases allow you to automate the handling process of existing cases. For example, you can configure reminders to be sent to users when an agent is waiting for a response. Compliance with the conditions of these rules is checked every 30 minutes and applies only to the cases that have been updated (note or response added) within the last 30 days.
If there are multiple rules of the same type in the list, for instance, for new cases, all rules created will be applied to the new case in turn.
Actions from one single rule are processed in turn so that lower actions can build on previous ones.
Creating a rule
The easiest way to see the process of creating a rule is with an example.
Imagine that you have a client who sends urgent cases to your support desk from time to time. The client's name is Adam Smith, and his email address is [email protected]. He is very important to you. Therefore, you decided to create a rule that will increase the priority of his urgent case to "high" and assign that case to the most experienced agent, Mary Brown.
Step 1 - Select a rule type. The first step is to select the type of rule to be created. We need to perform actions with the case immediately upon receipt, so we add a rule for new cases.
Step 2 - Give the rule a name. When creating a rule, give it a short but descriptive name. You can also add a description to explain what the rule is for.
Step 3 - Add conditions. Conditions are added in the "if ... are met" block, which consists of two items — "ALL of the following conditions" and "ANY of the following conditions".
To understand in what exactly block the condition should be added, you need to decide on the logical operator ("AND", "OR" ):
Each of the conditions added in the block "ALL of the following conditions" must be met — the "AND" operator;
At least one of the conditions added in the block "ANY of the following conditions" must be met — the "OR" operator.
Don't be discouraged if this is your first time encountering logical operators. Returning to our example will help to understand.
First, you need to check the sender of the case. To do this, add the condition "Email address — is equal to — [email protected]". This condition must be met, so it is added to the "ALL of the following conditions" item.
You may want to add the condition "Full name — is equal to — Adam Smith". But in this case, it makes no sense to do so. Firstly, you can accurately determine the case sender by the email address. Secondly, the user can change the name (for example, to a nickname), and the condition will no longer be met.
As a next step, we need to set conditions that will allow us to select only urgent cases. To do this, we add two conditions: "Subject or content — contains — important" and "Subject or content — contains — urgent". It is enough for us to meet only one of these conditions, so they need to be added to the "ANY of the following conditions" item.
Thus, with the help of three simple conditions, only urgent cases sent by Adam Smith will be selected from all incoming requests.
Step 4 - Add Actions. Actions are added in the "then perform actions" block. With them, everything is as simple as possible, so there should be no questions.
We want to increase the priority of cases to high and assign them to Mary Brown. To do this, just add two simple actions: "Change priority to — high" and "Assign to — Mary Brown".
As a result, you will get this simple but very effective rule:
We also recommend you familiarize yourself with the rules that were automatically added to your account immediately after registration.
Rules of the same type can be combined into groups - this will make it easier to navigate the list of rules if there are many of them and massively disable rules or change the order they are executed in. For the convenience of creating rules of the same type, there is a cloning function: in one click, you can clone an existing rule, make spot edits and create a new one based on it.