Connect to Intercom— Operations —
Support Tiers
— Definition —
Support Tiers (Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3) describe a hierarchical structure for routing and resolving customer issues by complexity and required expertise. Tier 1 handles common, high-volume, low-complexity issues (password resets, basic how-to questions). Tier 2 handles technical issues requiring deeper product knowledge or cross-functional access. Tier 3 typically involves engineering, product, or specialist teams for bugs, custom integrations, or critical escalations.
— Common mistakes —
- 1Defining tiers by job title rather than ticket complexity — "junior vs. senior agent" is a staffing structure; tiers should be defined by the nature of the work, not the seniority of who handles it.
- 2Not defining clear escalation criteria between tiers — ambiguous criteria lead to under-escalation (agents guessing instead of escalating) and over-escalation (anything hard goes to Tier 2).
- 3Skipping Tier 1 for enterprise customers as a default — routing all enterprise tickets directly to Tier 2 is expensive and often unnecessary. Strong Tier 1 agents can resolve 60–70% of enterprise tickets.
- 4Measuring Tier 2 and Tier 3 on the same metrics as Tier 1 — AHT and FCR benchmarks for Tier 1 are meaningless applied to complex multi-week technical investigations.
— Related metrics —