Set up a tiered support team (Tier 1 → Tier 2 → Specialist)
To run tiered support in Atender, create three teams (Tier 1, Tier 2, specialists), point every channel’s default team at Tier 1, and move conversations up via manual reassignment plus tag-triggered automation rules — Atender has no dedicated “escalation” feature. This recipe gives you the concrete setup.
What you’ll end up with
- Tier 1 — General team receives every new conversation by default on all channels
- Tier 2 — Senior team picks up conversations Tier 1 reassigns, or that an automation rule sends directly based on a tag
- Specialists — Billing / Technical teams handle specific topics, routed by content auto-tagging
Three teams, three channel default settings, and three or four automation rules.
Before you start
- Admin permissions on Teams, Users, and Automations
- Users already invited (at minimum: a few people for each tier)
- A clear idea of who escalates to whom — the recipe assumes a linear T1 → T2 → Specialist flow, but you can adjust
Step 1 — Create the three teams
In Settings → Teams, create:
Tier 1 — General— Frontline support, all new conversations land here — Most of your support teamTier 2 — Senior— Senior agents handling complex cases — A subset — your most experienced 2–4 agentsSpecialists — Billing— Finance-savvy team for invoice / payment issues — 1–2 agents with billing knowledge
If you need more specialist teams (Technical, Returns, Compliance), create them with the same pattern.
Detailed steps: Create a team.
Step 2 — Point all channels at Tier 1
For every active channel, set Tier 1 — General as the default team. New conversations always start with Tier 1.
- Email inboxes — Settings → Email → each inbox → Default team
- Voice numbers — Settings → Voice → each call queue → Team
- Web Chat widget — Settings → Web Chat → widget → Default team
- SMS numbers — Settings → SMS → each number → Default team
See Assign channels to a team for the per-channel detail.
Step 3 — Manual reassignment to Tier 2
Tier 1 agents reassign conversations to Tier 2 using the Assign action in the conversation panel:
- Open the conversation.
- Click the team assignee (or the Assign button if unassigned).
- Type
#Tier 2to filter teams, pick Tier 2 — Senior. - Confirm.
This is the human-driven path — Tier 1 decides what gets pushed up. Reassignment between teams is escalation in Atender (see Does Atender have an escalation feature?); train your Tier 1 agents on when to reassign, and the model works.
Step 4 — Automated reassignment to specialists
Create an automation rule per specialist team. The rule fires when a tag is applied — either manually by an agent or automatically by AI auto-tagging.
Recipe — Billing rule
In Settings → Automation Rules → New rule:
- Trigger: Tag Added
- Conditions:
Tag isbilling(or whatever your billing tag slug is) - Actions:
Assign team → Specialists — Billing
(Optional) Add an internal comment: “Auto-routed from tier: billing topic detected”
Save and enable.
Repeat for each specialist team with their respective tag:
- Specialists — Billing —
billing - Specialists — Technical —
technical-issue - Specialists — Returns —
return-request
How tags get applied
- Manual — agents tag conversations with
billing, etc. - AI auto-tag — the Sidekick auto-tag feature applies tags based on conversation content; set it up in Settings → Tag Management. Best for high-volume teams.
Many teams start with manual tagging and graduate to auto-tagging once they trust the AI’s accuracy.
Step 5 — SLA differentiation (optional but recommended)
Different tiers usually have different response-time expectations. Define separate SLA policies and tie them to teams:
- Tier 1 — General — Standard SLA — 15 minutes
- Tier 2 — Senior — Standard SLA (inherited) — 30 minutes
- Specialists — Billing — Specialist SLA — 1 hour (higher complexity, longer target)
Set this up in Settings → SLA Policies — the policy’s Team Assignment matrix scopes each policy to a team. See Channel-specific SLAs for the assignment pattern.
Verify it worked
- Send a test conversation through any channel. It should land in Tier 1 — General.
- As a Tier 1 agent, reassign to Tier 2 — Senior. Verify it appears in Tier 2’s queue.
- Add the
billingtag to a new test conversation. The Billing automation should auto-reassign within seconds; the conversation history should show the rule fired. - Open Analytics → Team Performance after a day or two of real traffic and confirm conversations distribute across the three tiers.
Extend the model
- After-hours coverage — route after-hours conversations to an on-call team.
- Not sure tiers fit your traffic? See when a tiered support model doesn’t fit — skill-based routing, flat structure, or an AI agent in front of Tier 1.