Here's the way I do it...
- All requests REQUIRE a ticket, sales, billing, customer service, L1 support, L2 support, L3 support, etc...
Live Chat
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1. Sales
2. L1 Support Issues Only
3. Customer Service
4. Billing
If the customer has an emergency. I will be nice and I will verify them and will open a ticket on their behalf. They are already frustrated enough in an emergency situation.
We use Security PIN verification for accounts. The client WILL need to login to their WHMCS account in order to get the Support PIN to verify. After they generate that, then we can proceed with supporting their account.
This is a MUST with accounts. We may also implement 'Security question' verification as well into our support verifications and account holder validation.
We are very limited on what we provide on live chat, but we do also do billing and customer care (account changes, etc.) via live chat too, but again, everything needs a ticket first before live support is provided, for documentation and tracking purposes.
We use LiveChatInc and they have a module that is nice, that attaches the ticket to the customer's account, if they are logged in and start a chat with us. So we can always reference that chat ticket, but we still create 'another ticket' for the actual issue and the troubleshooting that takes place, and for documentation purposes.
If you don't document it, it never happened!