Switching them on
Turn On Support Tickets, in the middle of the page, switches them on. From then on the switch is in a card at the top of the page: Support Tickets Is On, or Support Tickets Is Off. While they are on, your customer panel has a Support Tickets page. While they are off:- the customer panel shows no Support Tickets, and nobody can open a ticket or write on one;
- you cannot reply either, since the buyer could not read it, but you can still resolve and reopen;
- every ticket is kept, and is there again when you switch them back on.
What a buyer does
A buyer signed in to your customer panel opens Support Tickets, then New Ticket:
They have one open ticket at a time: while one is open, New Ticket is not offered and they write on that one instead. They read your replies on the ticket’s page, are emailed when you reply, write back, and can mark it resolved themselves (Mark as Resolved).
A resolved ticket’s conversation ends with a message in blue saying so, and until when writing on it opens it again: in the customer panel for the buyer, and on the ticket’s page for you, with who resolved it. A buyer who writes on a resolved ticket within 30 days opens it again, unless they have another one open. After 30 days they open a new one.
The page
Each ticket is in one of three states, coloured the same on the dashboard and in the customer panel:
Four figures head the list:
Under them is the list, the latest message first. A dot before the subject marks one the buyer wrote on since you last opened it. Show narrows it to Open, Waiting on You, Answered or Resolved, and the search looks through subjects, the buyer’s address, the latest message, and ticket and order IDs.
A ticket
A row opens the ticket’s own page: the conversation, oldest first, with the buyer’s messages on the left and yours on the right, and beside it About This Ticket (the buyer, the order it is about, when it was opened, its state) and Their Orders, the buyer’s latest five. Under the conversation you write a reply, with up to three pictures. Send Reply sends it and the ticket is Answered. Reply and Resolve sends it and resolves the ticket. Resolve Ticket in the page’s head resolves it without a word, and on a resolved ticket it is Reopen Ticket. A ticket you answered is resolved by itself 48 hours later if the buyer has not written since. One waiting on you is never resolved by time.Writing a message
Messages are written in Markdown, the buyer’s and yours:**bold**, *italic*, `code`, lists, quotes and blocks of code. An address typed into a message is a link by itself.
So that a link cannot hide where it goes, or show either of you anything the other did not mean to:
- every link opens in a new tab, and goes only to a web address or an email address;
- a link whose words are not its address shows where it goes after it, as
(example.com); - a picture written in Markdown is shown as a link to it and never loaded. Pictures go in a message as files, with Add Picture.
Kept up to date
The list and a ticket’s page keep themselves up to date while they are open, on your dashboard and in the customer panel. A new message, a new ticket, and a ticket resolved or opened again show within a few seconds, with no reload, and whatever you are typing stays in the box. A page in a tab you are not looking at asks nothing until you come back to it.The limits
Pictures are private: they are seen on your dashboard, by your API keys with Read Support Tickets, and by the buyer in their customer panel, and nowhere else.
Being told
Each ticket emails you at most once in 15 minutes. What a buyer writes meanwhile comes together in one email when the 15 minutes are over. The buyer is emailed your replies the same way, with View Your Ticket, which opens it in your customer panel.
Your server
Webhook events:ticket.opened, ticket.message, ticket.resolved and ticket.reopened. See Webhook events.
With an API key, your server can list tickets, read one, reply, resolve, reopen, switch Support Tickets on or off, and read a ticket’s pictures. Each message has its body as written and its html, the words as Markdown draws them, escaped and safe to show as they are. Reading needs Read Support Tickets and the rest Answer Support Tickets. A reply sent with a key is words only: pictures are sent from the dashboard. See Support Tickets in the API reference.
The Customer API has the buyer’s half, for a support page on your own site or in an app: a buyer lists their tickets, opens one, reads one, writes on it and resolves it. Its messages are words only too, and a picture in one is named but not sent.