Cady Customer Service — Expert Operational Guide

Contents

1 Cady Customer Service — Expert Operational Guide

Overview and Purpose

Cady Customer Service is the operational backbone connecting product, engineering and sales to end users. The objective is to resolve issues quickly, prevent repeat failures, and convert service interactions into retention opportunities. This guide outlines a practical, measurable model for running Cady’s support function across channels, SLAs, staffing, technology, and quality assurance.

We assume Cady serves a mixed B2C/B2B customer base with both self-service and paid support tiers. Recommendations below are intentionally concrete: specific KPI targets, staffing ratios, sample pricing tiers, and escalation timelines that you can adopt or adapt to fit Cady’s current volume and revenue profile.

Channels, Hours and Service Tiers

Cady should operate a multi-channel stack: phone, email, live chat, and a searchable knowledge base combined with an in-app ticketing widget. Recommended core coverage is 24/7 email/ticket intake with phone and chat coverage from 8:00–20:00 local time in primary markets. For global operations, stagger shifts to cover key time zones—e.g., US East (08:00–20:00), UK (08:00–20:00), APAC (08:00–20:00).

Implement three service tiers: Free (email + KB), Standard ($9.99/month or bundled with subscriptions) with 24-hour guaranteed response, and Premium ($49.99/month) with 1-hour SLA, dedicated account rep, and priority escalation. Price points above are prescriptive examples designed to align support cost with incremental revenue per user.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

First Response Time: Phone <2 minutes; Live Chat <60 seconds; Email/Ticket <4 hours for Standard, <1 hour for Premium.

Average Handle Time: 6–12 minutes per interaction for routine queries; track resolution vs. transfer rates.

First Contact Resolution (FCR): Target 70–85% for Standard tier, 85%+ for Premium.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): Target 85–92% aggregated; Net Promoter Score (NPS) target +30 for paid customers.

Service Availability & SLA Compliance: 99.5% uptime for ticketing and KB; SLA compliance rate 95%+ for paid tiers.

Measure volume both by tickets/day and active users. Benchmark staffing using a ratio of 1 full-time agent per 1,200–1,800 monthly active users or per 40–60 average daily tickets depending on complexity. Use these KPIs to model capacity with shrinkage (training, breaks, meetings) at 25–30%.

Staffing, Roles and Shifts

Organize the team into three core roles: Tier 1 generalists (triage, knowledge base guidance), Tier 2 specialists (product, billing, integrations), and Tier 3 engineers (bug fixes, escalations). For an operation serving 50,000 monthly active users, a recommended build is 12 Tier 1 agents, 4 Tier 2 specialists, 1 dedicated escalation manager, and 1 QA/training lead.

Shift planning should guarantee overlap between shifts for handovers: use 8-hour shifts with 30-minute staggered overlaps. Cross-train agents so 20–30% can handle Tier 2 tasks during peak times. For Premium customers, assign named account reps or a VIP queue with a maximum queue time of 5 minutes.

Processes and Escalation Matrix

Level 1 (0–2 hours): Triage, information gathering, use KB articles and standard scripts to resolve 60–70% of cases.

Level 2 (2–8 hours): Specialist intervention for configuration, billing disputes, or integration assistance; escalate to engineering if root cause is product-related.

Level 3 (8–72 hours+): Engineering/Development for bugs and feature defects with documented RCA (root cause analysis) delivered within 72 hours for high-severity incidents.

Define severity levels and response windows: Sev A (service down for multiple customers) response within 30 minutes, updates every 30–60 minutes; Sev B (partial outage or data loss risk) response within 2 hours; Sev C (single-user issue) response within SLA window for the user tier. Maintain an incident bridge protocol with a dedicated conference line or virtual room and an incident commander role to coordinate cross-team action.

Technology Stack and Security

Use an integrated ticketing system (e.g., Zendesk, Freshdesk, or a comparable SaaS) combined with a CRM for user history. Add live chat with co-browsing for complex product support. Instrument metrics with a BI dashboard that refreshes hourly and stores 24 months of data for trend analysis. For costs, expect a SaaS ticketing stack to be roughly $25–40 per agent/month plus add-ons for reporting or automation.

Security: enforce least-privilege access in support tools, MFA for all agents, session logging, and redact PII automatically. For actions like password resets or access to billing data, implement two-step verification and record consent. Keep a current GDPR/Data Protection addendum and a retention policy for transcripts (e.g., retain 18 months for customer service records unless legal hold applies).

Quality Assurance, Training and Continuous Improvement

QA should sample 5–10% of tickets weekly, scoring against a rubric: accuracy, empathy, resolution completeness, and compliance. Use side-by-side coaching that highlights transcripts, suggested alternative responses, and a short corrective action plan. Expect a new agent ramp time of 6–8 weeks to hit full productivity with structured onboarding and shadowing.

Run monthly product-to-support reviews with product management and engineering to reduce repeat tickets; log a “top 10 issues” report each month and aim to close 30–40% of top recurring issues via product fixes or KB improvements within a quarter. Track cost-to-serve and compare it to churn impact—reducing average handling time by 10% typically improves margins by 0.5–1.0% of ARR for subscription businesses.

Contact Templates and Practical Details

Provide clear contact points on all user-facing pages. Example placeholders (replace with Cady’s live data): Support portal URL: https://support.example.com/cady, General support email: [email protected], Phone (example): +1 (555) 010-0001. Display hours per region and a “status” page link prominently: https://status.example.com/cady.

Finally, publish SLA terms and refund/credit policies in plain language. Example policy: Standard customers receive service credits for SLA breaches equal to 5–25% of monthly subscription fee depending on severity and recurrence. Keep policies transparent and link them in billing receipts to reduce disputes and chargebacks.