Customer Support Triage With AI

TL;DR

• AI is good at categorizing tickets, drafting canned responses, and answering "how do I do X?" from docs.
• AI can't handle escalation judgment, relationship nuance, or "this customer has a weird setup."
• Use AI for throughput. You own the "should we escalate?" and "what does this customer really need?"

Support orgs got smaller because AI handles tier-1. The humans who stayed are the ones who do what AI can't: judgment, empathy, and "this is actually a sales opportunity."

Where AI Helps

Ticket Triage and Routing

Input: Incoming ticket. "I can't log in."

AI does: Categorizes (auth issue). Suggests route (tier-1 support). Maybe pulls a knowledge base article. Fast. Consistent.

What you add: "This customer is enterprise, high value, and has had 3 tickets this month." Escalation judgment. AI doesn't know account context.

Draft Responses

Prompt: "Customer says X. Draft a response."

What you get: Polite, helpful draft. Maybe a link to docs. Often usable with light editing.

What you add: Tone calibration. "This customer is frustrated — soften the language." "This is a known bug — set expectations." AI is generic. You match the relationship.

Knowledge Base Lookup

Input: "How do I reset my API key?"

AI does: Finds the doc. Extracts the steps. Formats a response. Works for standard questions.

Caveat: Is the doc current? AI might cite outdated steps. You verify.

Where AI Falls Short

Escalation Judgment

• "Is this a bug or user error?" — Sometimes obvious. Sometimes not. AI can guess. Wrong escalation wastes eng time or pisses off the customer. Human triage.
• "Should we loop in sales?" — Relationship signal. AI doesn't know the account history.
• "This looks like a security incident." — Triage to the right team. AI might misclassify. You own the routing for high-stakes.

Edge Cases and Custom Setups

• "We have a custom integration and it's failing." — AI doesn't know your product's edge cases. It'll give generic troubleshooting. You need to dig.
• "Our environment is hybrid, we use X with Y." — Config soup. Human territory.

Relationship and Tone

• "This customer is about to churn." — AI can't read between the lines. "I'm considering alternatives" = escalation, not tier-1. You sense it.
• "This customer wants to be upsold." — Opportunity. AI routes to support. You might route to sales. Context.

Accuracy and Liability

• "Can I use your API for medical devices?" — Compliance. Legal. AI might say "sure" when the answer is "talk to our legal team." You own correctness.
• "What's in the next release?" — Confidential. AI might hallucinate. You control the message.

How to Use AI for Support

1. Use AI for first draft and triage. Speed up the obvious. Free yourself for the hard stuff.
2. Always review before sending. Especially for high-value accounts, compliance topics, or nuanced situations.
3. Train AI on your knowledge base. The better the source, the better the output. Garbage in, garbage out.
4. Own escalation criteria. Document when to hand off. AI can suggest; you decide.

Do This Next

1. Draft one support response with AI. Edit it. What did you change? That's your quality bar.
2. Document one escalation rule AI wouldn't know — account value, relationship signal, or compliance. Make it explicit for your team.