Customer tiers
Not every customer needs the same response time, the same routing, or the same level of escalation latitude. Customer tiers let you classify customers — typically by their commercial importance — and have Atender respond accordingly.
What a tier is
A tier is a labeled group with three properties:
- Name — VIP, Gold, Silver, Premier, Standard, whatever you use internally
- Color — a hex code that drives the badge color across the app
- Priority — a number from 1 (highest) to 6 (lowest) that orders the tiers
Each tenant can define up to six tiers. The tier list is fully configurable — you don’t have to use the names “VIP” or “Gold”. Use what your business uses.
Optional: a tier can link to a SLA policy, so different tiers automatically get different response and resolution targets.
Where tiers show up
Once tiers are configured and customers are assigned, tier badges appear in:
- The conversation list — a colored badge next to the contact name on every row
- The conversation detail header — a prominent tier indicator
- The contact’s CRM record — front and center on the contact’s profile
- Voice queues — VIP callers can move up in queue priority automatically
- Analytics — break down volume, response time, and CSAT by tier
The visual signal is intentional. Agents glancing at the conversation list see who’s a VIP without thinking about it.
What tiers can drive
- Visual prominence — Colored badge in conversation list and detail
- Priority routing — Automation rules can route, assign, or escalate based on tier
- Voice queue position — VIP callers can jump the voice queue
- SLA differentiation — A tier can link to a specific SLA policy with tighter targets
- Reporting — Filter and segment analytics by tier
The mechanism is a building block — what your tenant actually does with tiers depends on your automation rules, SLA policies, and team practices.
When tiers are off
Customer tiers are gated by a per-tenant setting. By default, the feature is off — no tier badges show, no tier field is exposed, and contacts don’t have a tier assigned.
To turn it on: Settings → Customer Tiers → enable. Once enabled, define your tiers (up to six) and start assigning them to contacts.
Assigning tiers
A tier can be assigned to a contact in three ways:
- Manually — open a contact, pick a tier from the dropdown
- By automation — automation rules can assign tiers based on conditions (email domain, custom field value, conversation count)
- By API — push tier assignments from an external CRM via the API
Most tenants combine all three: manual for special cases, automation for “everyone from this org gets Gold,” API for a sync from the source-of-truth CRM.
Designing your tier set
A few patterns:
- Three tiers (VIP / Gold / Standard) — simplest. Most tenants don’t need more.
- Tiers by revenue band — Platinum / Gold / Silver / Bronze, mapped to ARR ranges.
- Tiers by relationship lifecycle — New / Active / At-risk / Churned. Less about importance, more about state.
- Tiers by license type — Enterprise / Pro / Free. Maps directly to product plans.
Whatever you pick, keep it simple. Six tiers is the maximum, but four is usually enough. More than four tends to create operational ambiguity (“is this a Gold or a Platinum?”).
Default tier
You can pick one tier as the default — assigned automatically to new contacts. Useful when most customers should start at, say, “Standard” without an explicit assignment.
Tier vs. tag
Tiers and tags overlap conceptually — both are labels you apply to records. The difference:
- Tier belongs to a contact, has a single value (one tier at a time), and drives priority/routing/SLA
- Tag belongs to a conversation, can have many values, and drives content classification
Use tiers for “who is this customer?” Use tags for “what is this conversation about?”