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Recipe — Route VIP conversations to the Premium team

When a new conversation comes in from a VIP contact, assign it to the Premium customer service team and tag it for visibility. Uses customer level on the contact to discriminate.

4 min read

Recipe — Route VIP conversations to the Premium team

When a new conversation comes in from a VIP contact, assign it to the Premium customer service team and tag it for visibility. The simplest possible tier-based routing rule.

What this rule does

  • Trigger: A new conversation is created on any channel.
  • Condition: The contact’s customer level is VIP.
  • Actions: Assign the conversation to the Premium team; add the VIP tag.

Before you start

Build it

Go to Settings → Automation rules, click Add rule, then Build it by hand instead. Or type “Assign conversations from VIP customers to Premium and tag them VIP” and click Build it.

  • When — A new conversation starts
  • Only if — Customer tier is VIP
  • Then — 1. Assign conversation to an agent or team → Team: Premium
    2. Add tag → VIP

Test before you turn it on

Click Test on recent conversations. The matches should be the recent conversations from VIP customers. Read a few. If non-VIP contacts appear in the list, the customer level field is set on conversations or contacts inconsistently — clean up tier assignments before enabling.

Variants — full tier-based routing

Once the simple rule is working, expand to a full tier-based router using branches:

  • Only if — Customer tier is VIP — Assign Premium, add VIP tag
  • Otherwise, if — Customer tier is Pro — Assign Pro Support
  • Otherwise — — — Assign General

Add the Otherwise, if with More options → Add branch, and the last section with More options → Add otherwise. Otherwise runs only when neither condition above it matched.

This keeps the routing logic in one rule rather than three competing ones. See Branches and decision trees.

Variants — by channel and tier

For teams that want different VIP handling per channel:

When: A new conversation starts

Only if (Match all of these): Customer tier is VIP, Channel is Phone
Then:    Assign conversation to an agent or team → Premium Voice (live agents only)
         Add tag → VIP-Voice

Otherwise, if: Customer tier is VIP
Then:          Assign conversation to an agent or team → Premium
               Add tag → VIP

Otherwise
Then:          Assign conversation to an agent or team → General

VIP phone calls bypass async queues and route to live-only agents; VIP non-phone conversations go to Premium for normal handling. Choose Phone for call-routing rules: it covers current phone calls and legacy voice/voice_twilio call conversations.

Verify it worked

Open a test conversation from a VIP contact (or temporarily set a test contact’s customer level to VIP). Confirm the conversation is assigned to Premium and tagged VIP within seconds of arrival.

Troubleshooting

  • Symptom: VIPs are routed correctly, but non-VIPs are also being assigned to Premium. Fix: The operator is wrong (for example is not empty instead of is VIP). Open the rule and verify the operator.

  • Symptom: Rule fires but the team assignment doesn’t stick — agents in the General team still see the conversation. Fix: Confirm the team named “Premium” exists and isn’t a typo. Run History will show the action error if the team can’t be resolved.

  • Symptom: Rule fires only on email but not on chat. Fix: No condition should be filtering on channel. If you accidentally added one, remove it.

See also

Tags

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