customer-support_skill

Overview

This skill provides practical guidelines for professional customer support interactions. It codifies a clear response framework, tone rules, escalation criteria, and SLAs to ensure consistent, helpful, and timely assistance. Use it to structure replies, troubleshoot issues, and manage escalations effectively.

How this skill works

The skill uses the HEAR method (Hear, Empathize, Assess, Resolve) to guide every interaction. It supplies a compact message template for greetings, empathy, solutions, and next steps. It also defines scenario-specific patterns (password resets, billing, technical troubleshooting), escalation triggers, documentation requirements, and channel SLAs.

When to use it

• Responding to customer inquiries across chat, email, phone, or social channels.
• Troubleshooting technical problems or guiding users through fixes.
• Handling billing questions, subscription changes, or refund requests.
• Deciding whether to escalate security, legal, or complex issues.
• Closing interactions with clear outcomes or follow-up plans.

Best practices

• Start by acknowledging the issue and empathizing before troubleshooting.
• Ask targeted questions to gather reproducible details and error messages.
• Provide concise, step-by-step actions and set realistic expectations.
• Document customer info, steps taken, and desired outcome before escalating.
• Avoid jargon, never blame the customer, and don’t promise impossible timelines.

Example use cases

• Walk a user through a password reset with a numbered step list and next steps.
• Explain billing activity with dates, amounts, and subscription details.
• Triage a technical issue by requesting environment details and reproductions.
• Escalate a suspected account compromise immediately with documented evidence.
• Confirm a pending fix, state the expected outcome and follow-up timeframe.