Reply and fix times

Tell your customers how fast you will answer and how fast you will fix it. The system watches the clock, warns you before the time runs out, and shows you afterwards how often you kept your word. (Software people call this an SLA.)

Set your own targets, per customer if you like

A target is a number of minutes. You can have one set of targets for everybody, or a different set for a plan, a brand, a channel or one named customer.

  • Six things you can put a target onThe first reply, every reply after that, a regular progress update, how long the customer is left waiting, how long your team spends on it, and the fix itself
  • A different target per urgencySet the minutes separately for low, normal, high and urgent
  • Decide which requests a rule coversMatch on urgency, channel, type, team, tag, words in the subject, the customer's email address or the brand — and add a written query on top, such as high urgency with a particular tag
  • The first rule that fits winsDrag them into the order you want and keep a catch-all at the bottom, so nothing is left without a promise
  • Copy a rule before you change itThe copy arrives switched off, so you can get it right first
  • Archive one when you are done with itNew requests stop using it; the ones already running are matched against your other rules
  • Support plansBundle several rules and an office-hours schedule into a plan — Gold, Premier, whatever you call yours — and attach it to a company with a start and end date
  • Show customers their own planOn their help page they see their plan, the targets for each urgency, and where their open requests stand. Switch that off per plan if you would rather not.

The clock stops when the wait is not yours

You should not be marked late because a customer took three days to send the order number.

  • Pause while you wait on the customerPick the statuses that pause the clock, such as waiting on customer
  • Pause while a request is snoozed
  • The request shows it as pausedSo nobody is left guessing why the timer is not moving
  • The next-reply clock restarts each time the customer writesSwitchable, per rule
  • Count a note the customer can see as a reply, or notYour choice, for the whole account
  • Targets in hours or in working days"Two working days" behaves the way your customers expect
  • Choose how times are shown and roundedSo 119 minutes does not read as two hours in one place and one in another
  • Office hours or round the clockSet it per rule, and override it on a single target when one promise is a 24-hour one

Working hours and holidays

The clock only runs when you are open. Different teams can keep different hours.

  • As many schedules as you needA name, a time zone, and several open periods a day — so a lunch break is not counted as working time. Mark one as the default.
  • Overlapping times are refusedChecked when you save, before it can quietly cost you
  • Holiday calendarsDated holidays with names, each able to repeat every year, attached to a schedule
  • India's national holidays in one clickIt imports the five fixed-date ones. Holi, Diwali, Eid and the other moving festivals you add yourself each year.
  • Copy a ready-made holiday setInto a new calendar or one you already have
  • A different calendar per teamTie a schedule to a team, a channel, an inbox or a brand. A rule with no schedule of its own uses the one bound to the team.
  • Chat box hoursSet when the chat box on your website is staffed, with your own message for when it is not, per chat box
  • A schedule in use cannot be deletedNot while a reply-time rule or a chat box still points at it
  • ShiftsStart, end, days and a colour, with the people on each one. These label who is working, for automatic assignment; they are not a full rota or leave planner.

A warning before you are late, and what happens if you miss

The point of a target is to act before it runs out. You decide who hears about it, and who hears about it next.

  • Warn when part of the time is used upEighty per cent by default, and you can set your own share per rule
  • On that warning, do one thingTell the person it is assigned to, tell the team lead, raise the urgency, move it to another team, or give it to someone else
  • If the target is missed, do one thingFrom the same list
  • Then a second step, minutes laterSet how long after the miss it runs; it tells the team lead
  • Built-in warnings have somewhere to goThey reach the person it is assigned to, or the team lead when nobody owns it yet
  • Each person chooses how they hearPer kind of alert: in the app, by email, or as a push to their phone. Admins can lock the ones nobody may switch off.
  • Quiet hoursStart, end and days of the week, with urgent ones still allowed through
  • Hand your alerts to a teammateBetween two dates, while you are away
  • A daily or weekly summaryInstead of being told one at a time
  • Escalation rules that keep goingRepeats until somebody acknowledges it, with your own alert rules able to raise one

Where alerts arrive today. The full list of your alerts is in the phone app; on the web you get the unread count and can mark them read. Email, push, SMS and chat-app alerts (Slack, Teams, Google Chat, Telegram, Rocket.Chat, Discord) are built, but each one needs your own provider account before anything is really sent.

On the request, and in the list

Nobody has to go looking. The time left is where your team is already working.

  • A badge on the requestThe timer in the most trouble, which target it is, and how long is left or how late it is
  • A panel with every timerAll six, with the name of the rule in force
  • Sort and filter by itFilter the list by state, sort by when it is due, with red and amber flags you can turn off
  • A list of the ones about to goNear a miss or already missed, with the rule and the next time due
  • Today in four numbersHow often you hit the target in the last 24 hours, how many you missed, how many are close right now, and how many are missed and still open
  • Save a search as a shared queueNamed, for the whole team. The screen creates and lists them.

Check it before you promise it, and report after

A target you cannot hit is worse than no target. So you can count the damage before you save the rule.

  • Count it against your real queue firstBefore you save, see how many of your open requests would be missed, close to missed, or already missed under the new rule, split by urgency
  • A change does not move the goalpostsRequests already running keep the version of the rule they started under
  • How often you kept your promiseBy rule, team, urgency or measure, over 7, 30 or 90 days: the target, how many were met, how many missed, how many are still open, the average time to meet it, and the hit rate. Needs the reporting permission.
  • Turn it off if you need toThe colour flags, the late warnings, or the whole thing — which pauses the running clocks rather than losing them