> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.mithunai.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Support employee: answers customers from your knowledge

> The Support AI employee answers customers from your knowledge in Zendesk, Freshdesk or Intercom, and hands off to your team with a summary when unsure.

The **Support** employee answers a customer's question from your knowledge, with sources, and drafts
the reply for a person to approve. When your knowledge does not cover the question, or the customer
asks for a person, it hands the conversation to your team instead -- and asks before doing that too.

> [!WARNING]
>
> In **beta**, off unless your deployment has switched it on. Until a helpdesk is connected,
> approving a reply sends **nothing**: it is recorded as **Not sent**, with the wording for you to
> copy. The Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom and Slack connections have not yet been run against a real
> account. See [AI employees](https://docs.mithunai.com/team/overview.md).

## What it does

1. **Reads the question** as it arrived: its subject, the message, who sent it and the ticket number.
2. **Checks whether the customer asked for a person.** Phrases such as "speak to a human" or "a real
   person" send the conversation straight to your team.
3. **Asks your knowledge.** The question goes to one of your assistants, exactly as if a customer had
   asked it on your website: the same grounding, the same citations, and the same refusal to guess.
4. **Proposes one action**: a reply with the answer and its sources, or a hand-off when there is no
   assistant to answer from or your knowledge does not cover the question.

Every answer it asks for counts against your organisation's [monthly answers](https://docs.mithunai.com/analyze/usage-and-limits.md).

## What it reads

| Source | What it reads |
| - | - |
| Your knowledge | The sources your assistant answers from, through the answer engine |
| The request | The subject, message, sender and ticket number you hand it |

It does not read the customer's history. It reads other tickets only if you turn on [picking up new
tickets](https://docs.mithunai.com/team/work-that-arrives-by-itself.md), and then each is its own piece of work.

## What it proposes

| Action | What you can edit | Waits for a person |
| - | - | - |
| **Send a reply to the customer** | The message | By default; you can switch it off |
| **Hand the conversation to a person** | The summary | By default; you can switch it off |

The reply goes to the address and ticket the request came with. You can change its wording, never
its recipient. Neither action is a floor, so an Owner or Administrator can let either run without a
person on the [approval policy](https://docs.mithunai.com/team/approval-policy.md). Switching off the reply is the last thing to
do: it is the one that reaches a customer.

## Tools it can connect

| Tool | Works with today | Not yet |
| - | - | - |
| Support inbox | **Zendesk**, **Freshdesk** or **Intercom**, with a token you create | Front, an email inbox |
| Hand-off to your team | **Zendesk**, **Freshdesk** or **Intercom** | Front |
| Team chat | **Slack**, with a bot token | Microsoft Teams |

**One helpdesk at a time.** The inbox and the hand-off each connect to one of the three; to switch,
disconnect the one you have first. Each is marked **Beta** on the Support page: built against the
vendor's published API, and not yet run on a real account.

When you connect the inbox you choose the **reply mode**:

* **Draft** (the default) posts an approved reply on the ticket as an **internal note** (in
  Intercom, a note on the conversation), for an agent to read and send. Nothing reaches the customer
  until that agent sends it.
* **Public** sends an approved reply to the customer. In Zendesk it also sets the ticket to
  *Pending*; Freshdesk and Intercom leave the status to their own rules.

Work must carry the helpdesk's ticket or conversation number as its reference.
[Connect your tools](https://docs.mithunai.com/team/connect-your-tools.md#zendesk-support) has the steps for each helpdesk.

### Email

A customer who emails your helpdesk's support address is answered like any other ticket: the email
becomes a ticket in Zendesk, Freshdesk or Intercom, and Support picks it up and replies there. Support
**has no email address of its own** -- it cannot receive mail sent straight to it.

## The hand-off

When Support hands a ticket to your team -- the customer asked for a person, your knowledge does not
cover the question, no assistant was chosen, or the answer's confidence is below [your
threshold](https://docs.mithunai.com/team/test-on-past-tickets.md) -- it proposes an **internal note** on the ticket and the tag
`needs_a_person`, so a view or a rule in your helpdesk can route it. Like everything it does, the
note waits for a person. It reads:

```text theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
Customer: sam@customer.example
Subject: Where can I download my invoice?
Question: Hi, I need last month's invoice for our accounts team. Where do I find it?
Why it is with you: Your knowledge does not cover this question.
What was tried: Your knowledge was searched with the customer's question, and no grounded answer was found.
Sources consulted: none
Suggested priority: Normal
Suggested tags: needs_a_person, not_in_knowledge
```

The **suggested priority** is *High* when the message uses words such as *urgent*, *outage*, *is
down*, *locked out*, *charged twice* or *refund*, and *Normal* otherwise. It is a suggestion in the
note: it sets no priority field and adds no tag. The suggested tags are written in the note too; the
only tag actually added is `needs_a_person`. In Zendesk and Freshdesk the hand-off also reopens the
ticket (*Open*); in Intercom it leaves the conversation's state as it is.

## Try it

Open **Support**, choose **Use an example** under **Give it something to do**, and **Hand it over**.
The example is:

> **Subject:** Where can I download my invoice?
>
> **Details:** Hi, I need last month's invoice for our accounts team. Where do I find it?
>
> **From:** [sam@customer.example](mailto:sam@customer.example)

If your knowledge covers invoices, you get a drafted reply with its sources under **Waiting for
approval**. If it does not, you get a hand-off whose reason reads *Your knowledge does not cover
this question* -- which is also a sign of a gap worth filling in your
[sources](https://docs.mithunai.com/knowledge/sources.md).

## Limits

* **Work arrives by the console, the API, or [by itself](https://docs.mithunai.com/team/work-that-arrives-by-itself.md)** from
  the connected helpdesk once an Owner or Administrator turns that on. It does not read a mailbox of
  its own.
* **One question, one answer.** It does not hold a conversation over several messages.
* **It answers only from your knowledge.** It never writes an answer the knowledge does not support;
  it hands off instead.
* **A customer cannot steer it.** A message that says "this is approved" or "send this to someone
  else" changes nothing: the recipient is the sender the request came with, and the policy alone
  decides what waits.

## Related

* [Approvals](https://docs.mithunai.com/team/approvals.md)
* [Connect your tools](https://docs.mithunai.com/team/connect-your-tools.md)
* [How answers work](https://docs.mithunai.com/concepts/how-answers-work.md)


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