Customer service
Log and resolve a service request
Record a customer's complaint or request, see which SLA and coverage apply, move it through its statuses with a note at each step, and schedule a visit when someone has to go on site.
3 min readLast updated
In this article
A service request records everything a customer asks of your service team: a fault, a complaint, a question, a change. Each request has a category, a status that follows your workflow and, when you use service levels, a response and resolution deadline that the system watches for you.
Before you start
Your administrator must set up the ticket categories and statuses and, for each category, the opening status and allowed moves in ticket routing.
To get deadlines, at least one SLA policy must exist.
Log a request
Open CRM › Service › Tickets and select New ticket.
Choose the Customer. The Customer address is filled from the customer's saved addresses; pick another one if the job is elsewhere.
Type the Title and the Description; both are required.
Choose the Category, then the Status the request opens in. Only the opening statuses of that category are offered. If none is set up, the form says so and the request cannot be saved until an administrator adds one.
Set the Priority (Low, Medium, High or Urgent) and the Channel the request came through.
Under Service coverage, choose the Site and the Customer equipment concerned, if any. The form shows the coverage today: covered by a contract, under warranty or not covered. Leave Billable on Automatic (billable only when not covered), or set it yourself.
Add Attachments, such as photos of the fault, and select Save.
Before you save, a line under the form tells you which SLA will apply, with its response and resolution times, or warns that no SLA will apply.
Work the request
Select Open in the request's Actions menu.
The page shows the request's details, the customer's contact details and address, and:
the Service level card: the Policy, the SLA status, the First response due and Resolution due times, and the Time remaining or how long it is Overdue by;
the Service coverage card, where Edit site / asset corrects what the request is about and recalculates the coverage;
the Timeline of every action and note, and the Attachments.
To move the request on:
In Update ticket, choose the next status in Move to status. Only the moves your workflow allows for this category are listed. To answer without changing the status, choose Add reply only (no status change).
Write the Note; it is required.
Select Submit.
A move into a final status closes the request.
Send someone on site
If your company uses service visits, the Visits for this ticket section lists the visits and offers Schedule visit. See service visits.
How the deadlines behave
A status marked to pause the SLA (for example "waiting for customer") stops the clock until the request leaves it.
At 80% of the allowed time a warning goes to the person responsible, or to the users of the assigned group.
When the resolution time is missed, the request's priority is raised one level, once, and the change is written to its timeline.
Find requests
Filter the list by status, category, priority, SLA policy, SLA state (On track, At risk, Breached, Met), response or resolution SLA, coverage and site, or search with Search tickets.
Common questions
Why can't I pick the status I want? Each category has its own workflow. Ask your administrator to allow that move in ticket routing.
Why was the priority raised? The resolution time was missed, so the system escalated the request one level.