Business rules

Routing is deciding which agent, team, or AI agent receives a contact, based on intent, language, skill, customer tier, and availability. Accurate routing is the cheapest available reduction in handle time, because a misrouted contact pays the cost of being read and reassigned twice.

Triage is sorting incoming contacts by intent, urgency, and value before they are worked, so the most consequential conversations reach the right place first. Automated triage now performs the classification step, leaving prioritisation rules and exception handling as the main human contribution.

Escalation is moving a contact to a more senior agent, a specialist team, or a human when automation stalls. Escalation paths are defined by business rules, and the rate at which contacts escalate is a direct measure of whether the first line is equipped to resolve them.

A service level agreement sets the committed response and resolution targets for a customer, tier, or contract, often with financial penalties attached. Support operations design queues, routing, and escalation around SLA thresholds, which makes the agreement a structural constraint rather than a reporting line.