Intent, Tagging, and Routing

Intent classification should interpret the customer’s message. Routing should apply the support team’s rules. Keeping those responsibilities separate makes the system easier to test, audit, and improve.

What It Does

The intent, tagging, and routing function:

Reads the normalized ticket and customer context bundle
Classifies the primary intent and secondary topics
Identifies product area, urgency, sentiment, language, and missing information
Applies allowed categories, attributes, and helpdesk tags
Calculates priority and SLA risk
Routes the ticket to the right queue, owner, response workflow, or specialist team
Escalates when confidence is low or the routing consequence is sensitive

Recommended Components

Need	Duckie component
Interpret customer language	Autonomous triage classifier agent
Restrict tags to allowed values	Workflow branch logic and categories
Calculate priority and SLA	Routing workflow
Write tags and assignment	Helpdesk app tools or custom tools
Track confidence and routing path	Attributes and analytics
Review low-confidence cases	Slack escalation agent

Flow

Suggested Taxonomy

Start small. A useful first taxonomy usually has broad intent, product area, urgency, and route dimensions.

Dimension	Example values
Intent	access issue, billing question, bug report, how-to question, feature request, cancellation, complaint, account change
Product area	account, authentication, billing, dashboard, integration, notifications, API, mobile, data import
Urgency	low, normal, high, critical
Sentiment	neutral, confused, frustrated, angry, positive
Customer segment	enterprise, business, self-serve, trial, partner
Route	tier 1, billing support, technical support, account management, engineering triage, trust and safety
Missing information	no account match, unclear product area, missing screenshot, missing order ID, missing reproduction steps

Avoid overfitting the first taxonomy. If reviewers cannot consistently explain the difference between two tags, start with one broader tag and split it after you have run data.

Classifier Output Contract

Have the classifier return structured output. The routing workflow can then validate values and apply rules.

{
  "primary_intent": "access issue",
  "secondary_topics": ["authentication", "workspace permissions"],
  "product_area": "account",
  "urgency": "high",
  "sentiment": "frustrated",
  "missing_information": [],
  "recommended_route": "technical support",
  "confidence": 0.86,
  "reasoning_summary": "Requester can log in but cannot access a workspace after a permission change."
}

Routing Rules

Keep routing rules deterministic after classification.

Rule	Example action
Low confidence	Send to Slack triage review before writing assignment.
Known incident match	Tag as incident-related and route to incident macro or response workflow.
Priority customer and high urgency	Assign to priority queue and set elevated SLA.
Billing intent	Route to billing support unless account risk or refund approval is required.
Bug report with reproduction details	Route to technical support or engineering triage.
Bug report without reproduction details	Ask for missing details before routing to engineering.
Angry sentiment and repeated contact	Add management-review attribute or route to senior support.

Helpdesk Writeback

Common writebacks include:

Tags
Category or custom fields
Priority
SLA policy
Queue or group
Assignee
Internal summary note
Missing-information request
Link to the Duckie run

Start with internal notes and shadow tags. Turn on assignment and priority writebacks only after replay testing and human review show that the routing rules are reliable.

Attributes

Track confidence, urgency, SLA risk, and route.

Autonomous Agents

Configure the triage classifier agent.

Workflows

Apply deterministic routing and writeback logic.

Overview

Use Case Blueprints

What It Does

Recommended Components

Flow

Suggested Taxonomy

Classifier Output Contract

Routing Rules

Helpdesk Writeback

Categories

Attributes

Autonomous Agents

Workflows

​What It Does

​Recommended Components

​Flow

​Suggested Taxonomy

​Classifier Output Contract

​Routing Rules

​Helpdesk Writeback

​Related Docs

Categories

Attributes

Autonomous Agents

Workflows

What It Does

Recommended Components

Flow

Suggested Taxonomy

Classifier Output Contract

Routing Rules

Helpdesk Writeback

Related Docs