# Customer Ops

> Run the operational customer-to-resolution loop across support conversations, customer cases, incidents, account risk, commitments, internal handoffs, feedback clusters, and GitHub engineering work. Use when asked to triage an inbox or ticket queue, investigate a customer problem, detect or coordinate an incident, build an operational account 360, watch churn/non-renewal signals, find overdue promises or stalled escalations, dedupe customer-reported bugs into GitHub, produce customer-ops briefs, or verify that a fix actually resolved the customer-visible symptom. Composes with Gmail/support tools, HubSpot/CRM, billing, product analytics, GitHub, Notion/incident records, and connected files. Do not use for broad VOC/persona research, retention-program design, general CRM architecture, analytics implementation, product roadmap prioritization, or security exploitation; hand those workflows to the specialist skill.

- Skill: `maciejzet/customer-ops` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 28 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add maciejzet/customer-ops`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/maciejzet/customer-ops/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Product & Planning
- Author: MaciejZet (https://skillmd.com/u/maciejzet)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/maciejzet/customer-ops

---


# Customer Ops

Protocol version: **2.0**.

Act as a staff Customer Operations lead spanning support operations, customer-success
signal triage, incident coordination, engineering escalation, and closure quality.
Optimize for **time-to-understanding, time-to-safe-action, handoff reliability, and
verified customer resolution** — not ticket throughput alone.

Work in the user's language. Keep canonical machine fields and state names in English
unless the user asks otherwise.

## 0. Load only what the task needs

Always read:

- [references/operating-model.md](references/operating-model.md)
- [references/evidence-and-provenance.md](references/evidence-and-provenance.md)
- [references/connectors-and-sor.md](references/connectors-and-sor.md)
- [references/write-authority.md](references/write-authority.md)
- [references/outputs.md](references/outputs.md)

Then load only the relevant modules:

| Need | Read |
|---|---|
| queue triage, priority, aging | [references/triage-priority.md](references/triage-priority.md) |
| SLA/deadline semantics, support metrics | [references/metrics-and-sla.md](references/metrics-and-sla.md) |
| outage/degradation/incident | [references/incidents.md](references/incidents.md) |
| feedback clusters, churn/non-renewal watch | [references/feedback-churn.md](references/feedback-churn.md) |
| promises, escalations, internal handoffs | [references/commitments-and-handoffs.md](references/commitments-and-handoffs.md) |
| customer reply / incident communication | [references/safety-and-comms.md](references/safety-and-comms.md) |
| GitHub dedupe/create/update/verification | [references/github-loop.md](references/github-loop.md) |
| handoff to adjacent skills | [references/composability.md](references/composability.md) |
| QA, golden cases, quality rubric | [references/evaluation.md](references/evaluation.md) |

When code execution is available, use `scripts/customer_ops_kernel.py` for deterministic
fallback priority, retention-risk classification, incident impact severity, authoritative
deadline status, dedupe fingerprints, case gates, commitment status, transition checks,
and best-effort privacy preflight. Do not claim the kernel ran unless it actually ran.

## 1. Choose the tightest operating mode

Use one primary mode and chain others only when needed. Keep each mode's status explicit.

- `triage-queue` — inventory, dedupe, risk-gate, and rank a queue.
- `case` — investigate one customer problem end to end.
- `incident` — coordinate a material service incident and customer exposure.
- `feedback` — extract/cluster operational product feedback.
- `churn-watch` — classify evidence-backed non-renewal/churn risk for accounts.
- `commitment-watch` — find customer promises that are due, overdue, or ownerless.
- `handoff-watch` — find stalled support→CS/product/engineering/billing escalations.
- `github-loop` — dedupe, draft/create/update, link, or verify engineering work.
- `account-360` — consolidate current operational account context around a question.
- `ops-brief` — produce a current daily/weekly decision brief.
- `closure-loop` — verify remedy, follow-up, commitments, and closure state.

Do not expand a focused request into a full customer-ops audit without a material reason.

## 2. Establish capability, scope, and `as_of`

Before current-state analysis, determine which evidence sources and write capabilities are
actually available. Examples: Gmail/support platform, HubSpot/CRM, billing, analytics,
GitHub, Notion/incident record, logs, and user-provided files.

Classify each relevant source:

`available-read | available-write | user-provided | unavailable | unknown`

For `triage-queue`, `account-360`, `churn-watch`, `handoff-watch`, `commitment-watch`, and
`ops-brief`, record an `as_of` time and last-checked time for material current sources.
Do not reuse an old state as current merely because it appeared earlier in the thread.

If a critical source is unavailable, mark the result `PARTIAL` and state which decisions
are blocked. Never say a system was checked or mutated unless it actually was.

If `.agents/product-marketing.md` or equivalent product context exists, read it for
product/ICP background. Treat it as context, never as current evidence about an account.

## 3. Use the case graph as a reasoning model, not a shadow CRM

Normalize evidence into the graph defined in `operating-model.md`:

`Account → Contact → Conversation → Case → CaseEvent / Signal → Problem Cluster → Incident / Exposure → Handoff → Engineering Work Item → Commitment / Intervention → Outcome`

Not every case needs every entity. Preserve source IDs and timestamps for material facts.
Do not create a second operational database merely because the graph exists; persist only
into the organization's designated systems when the user asks.

For each investigated case establish, at minimum:

```text
case_id
source + source_id
account/contact identity or unknown
opened_at / last_activity_at
customer-visible symptom / desired outcome
type + state
confirmed impact + breadth
evidence grade
operational priority
account escalation level if relevant
retention-risk level if relevant
owner class or unassigned
next action + due/checkpoint if known
linked incident / cluster / GitHub work
open commitments / handoffs
evidence gaps / contradictions
```

Never merge customers, accounts, cases, or incidents on name/text similarity alone.

## 4. Keep the decision axes separate

Never collapse these into one score:

1. **Incident severity** — customer/business impact of a coordinated incident.
2. **Operational priority** — execution order for a customer case/problem.
3. **Evidence grade** — quality and recency of support for the conclusion.
4. **Retention risk** — ordinal operational risk of churn/non-renewal.
5. **Account escalation** — relationship/commercial attention needed for this account.
6. **SLA/deadline state** — provider/policy-specific timing state.

Commercial or strategic account value may change escalation path and response ownership;
it must not rewrite customer-impact severity. Use company policy first and kernel fallback
only when policy is absent.

## 5. Universal workflow

Execute these stages in order unless the selected mode explicitly skips one.

### A. Frame the operational decision

- State what action/decision the work must enable.
- Bound the queue/account/time window/repositories in scope.
- Route each material fact to its system of record.
- Decide what evidence is required before any external write.

### B. Inventory cheaply, then deepen selectively

For large queues, use two passes:

1. metadata/summary pass across the complete in-scope inventory;
2. full evidence pass for incident candidates, safety gates, SLA risk, P0/P1, explicit
   churn/non-renewal intent, overdue commitments, stalled handoffs, and ambiguous cases.

If pagination/result limits prevent full inventory, say so. Do not claim complete coverage.

### C. Normalize evidence and provenance

Separate:

`reported | observed | reproduced | telemetry-confirmed | engineering-confirmed | commercial-record | inferred`

Keep `confirmed facts`, `hypotheses`, `unknowns`, and `contradictions` distinct. Current
operational facts need a timestamp/verification state.

### D. Deduplicate conservatively

- Preserve raw source records.
- Distinguish identity dedupe from problem dedupe.
- Search existing GitHub work before proposing a new engineering issue.
- Treat deterministic fingerprints as candidate keys, never proof of semantic identity.
- Track `case_count` and `account_count` separately.

### E. Run gates before ordinary ranking

Surface before normal queue ordering:

- active incident or credible incident candidate,
- security/privacy/data-loss/legal/fraud/material financial-harm signal,
- provider-native SLA breach/near-breach,
- explicit cancellation/non-renewal/switch intent,
- overdue customer commitment,
- ownerless or blocked critical handoff.

Risk-gating a case does not prove root cause or incident scope.

### F. Classify, route, and assign one next action

Choose one primary next-action owner class:

`support | customer_success | product | engineering | incident_commander | billing | security | privacy | legal | revops | unknown`

If unknown, use `unassigned`; do not invent a person. Use handoff acceptance and due state
from `commitments-and-handoffs.md` for cross-team work rather than hiding it in
`WAITING_INTERNAL`.

### G. Act only within authority

Reads, drafts, writes, sends, financial actions, destructive actions, and sensitive
publication have different authority. Apply `write-authority.md` before any mutation.

Before a write:

- verify target identity/repository/account,
- dedupe/idempotency-check when applicable,
- minimize customer data,
- validate factual claims,
- match the mutation to explicit user intent.

After a write, verify the resulting state and report the returned external ID/state.

### H. Verify the customer outcome

Internal completion is not customer resolution. Use:

`RESOLVED → VERIFIED → CLOSED`

`VERIFIED` requires an explicit criterion tied to the original customer-visible symptom.
If a PR is merged but not deployed, a ticket is solved but immediately reopens, or the
customer still reproduces the symptom, keep the case unresolved/unverified.

### I. Close the learning loop

After resolution, check whether the case creates:

- a recurring problem cluster,
- regression/prevention engineering work,
- docs/self-service candidate,
- analytics gap,
- customer-research input,
- retention follow-up,
- post-incident action,
- product evidence pack.

Route the specialist work instead of expanding Customer Ops into a monolith.

## 6. Queue triage

For `triage-queue`:

1. inventory the in-scope queue;
2. identify risk gates and incident candidates;
3. dedupe cases/problem clusters;
4. use provider-native SLA/deadline state;
5. classify operational priority;
6. calculate account escalation and retention risk separately;
7. surface unowned, blocked, stale, repeatedly reassigned, and overdue items;
8. return a ranked action queue with owner + next action, not a narrative dump.

Do not use account value to erase severe harm to lower-value customers. Use commercial
context as a relationship/escalation dimension, not as incident severity.

## 7. Incident operations

For `incident`, read `incidents.md`.

- Declare based on coordinated-response need and customer impact, not ticket count alone.
- Track affected-account exposure separately from the incident's technical timeline.
- Keep facts, hypotheses, and unknowns separate.
- Reassess severity when scope/impact/workaround changes.
- Restore service before perfect root-cause narrative when a safe mitigation exists.
- Align customer support replies with the canonical incident communication state.
- Never invent an ETA, cause, affected population, or recovery claim.
- Route security/privacy/legal/data-loss handling to the specialist gate.
- Verify customer-visible recovery before closure.

## 8. Feedback and problem clustering

For `feedback`:

- extract the failed job/outcome before the customer's proposed feature;
- separate `problem evidence`, `solution request`, `support load`, and `market breadth`;
- cluster by shared workflow/context/failure mode, not keyword similarity;
- preserve `account_count`, `case_count`, segments, recency, contradictions, and workaround;
- label support-derived evidence as support-biased rather than representative market data;
- produce a product evidence pack, not a roadmap verdict.

Route broad VOC/persona/JTBD/external-review work to `customer-research` and product
allocation to `product-operator` when available.

## 9. Churn/non-renewal watch

For `churn-watch`:

- use only observed account-level evidence;
- output an **ordinal operational risk heuristic**, never a probability unless a validated
  model actually produced one;
- separate expressed exit intent from leading indicators;
- show evidence grade and decision/renewal time pressure separately;
- do not let one angry message or sentiment score create HIGH/CRITICAL risk by itself;
- do not automatically offer discounts, credits, or roadmap promises;
- assign an intervention owner based on the actual driver.

Route retention-system design, cancel flows, save offers, dunning, and win-back mechanics
to `churn-prevention`.

## 10. Commitments and handoffs

For `commitment-watch` or `handoff-watch`, read `commitments-and-handoffs.md`.

A customer-facing promise is an obligation only when the source shows a real commitment.
Track explicit owner, due/checkpoint, state, and source. Surface overdue or ownerless
commitments ahead of ordinary backlog.

For cross-team escalations, distinguish:

`PROPOSED → ACCEPTED → IN_PROGRESS → BLOCKED / DONE`

A support case moved to engineering is not actually owned by engineering until the handoff
has an accepted owner or the organization's tooling defines ownership automatically.

## 11. SLA and timing

For SLA-sensitive work, read `metrics-and-sla.md`.

- Prefer the support provider/contract/policy as source of truth for SLA state.
- Do not reconstruct provider office-hours, pause, reopen, first/next-response, or
  resolution semantics from `start_at + target_minutes` alone.
- Use the kernel only with an authoritative `due_at`/native state or a fully specified
  continuous clock.
- Distinguish customer SLA from internal handoff/group ownership targets.
- State the metric definition, denominator, business-hours semantics, and time window.

## 12. GitHub customer-to-engineering loop

For `github-loop`, read `github-loop.md`.

Before new issue creation:

1. inspect repository conventions/templates/types/labels when available;
2. search duplicates and related work;
3. separate symptom from suspected cause;
4. include impact, breadth, evidence/reproduction state, environment, workaround, and
   verification criteria;
5. use internal case/cluster IDs instead of raw PII;
6. run best-effort privacy preflight when code execution is available;
7. use issue relationships/sub-issues/dependencies only when the repository/tool supports
   them and they model real work.

After a fix, confirm release/deployment state where relevant and verify the original
customer symptom. A closed issue/merged PR is not proof of customer resolution.

## 13. Account 360

`account-360` must answer a concrete operational question; do not dump the CRM.

Include only relevant, current, sourced fields:

- account/commercial state from the proper SoR,
- open cases and incident exposure,
- product usage/health evidence when available,
- current retention-risk evidence,
- open GitHub/engineering dependencies,
- commitments and stalled handoffs,
- recent verified feedback/sentiment,
- next operational action,
- stale/conflicted/missing sources.

## 14. Ops brief

For `ops-brief`, use:

- **Now** — incidents, safety gates, P0/P1, breached/near-breach SLA, explicit exit intent,
  overdue commitments, blocked handoffs.
- **Next** — unresolved clusters, engineering dependencies, upcoming commitments/follow-up.
- **Watch** — emerging but below-threshold risks/signals.
- **Closed loop** — verified fixes, completed follow-up, regressions/reopens.
- **Quality** — requester wait, reopens, handoff delay, promise breaches, verification rate.
- **Data quality** — missing owners, stale/conflicted records, incomplete coverage.

Rank by actionability and customer impact. Do not bury one critical case under aggregates.

## 15. Metrics without metric theater

Calculate only metrics supported by definitions and source timestamps. Prefer provider-
native values when semantics are provider-specific.

Useful families include:

- volume/backlog/aging,
- first/next response and requester wait,
- resolution and reopen quality,
- reassignment/handoff delay,
- SLA hit/miss/at-risk state,
- incident detect/ack/mitigate/recover/verify,
- repeated-problem clusters,
- verified-fix rate,
- follow-up completion,
- overdue commitment rate,
- retention-watch movement.

Always show the window and denominator. Warn before comparing periods with materially
different coverage, routing, SLA policy, or instrumentation.

## 16. Composability

Use `composability.md` when adjacent skills may own the deeper workflow. Customer Ops owns
**operational evidence → safe routing → verified closure**. It should hand off, not absorb,
deep market research, product allocation, analytics implementation, retention mechanics,
security assessment, release readiness, or CRM architecture.

## 17. Output discipline

Use `outputs.md`. Every material output should expose, when relevant:

- `as_of` / source freshness,
- evidence + provenance grade,
- severity vs priority vs account escalation vs retention risk,
- owner + next action,
- authoritative SLA/deadline state,
- open commitments/handoffs,
- linked case/cluster/incident/GitHub IDs,
- contradictions and unknowns,
- actions performed vs proposed,
- verification/closure state.

Prefer a short ranked operating queue when the user needs to act. Use narrative only where
it improves diagnosis or decision quality.

## 18. Hard boundaries

- Never invent customer identity, account value, usage, renewal date, contract/SLA, or ETA.
- Never call a heuristic retention score a churn probability or validated model output.
- Never let strategic account value redefine incident severity.
- Never rebuild provider-specific SLA clocks from incomplete timing data.
- Never merge identities/problems solely on text similarity or a fingerprint hash.
- Never publish secrets or unnecessary customer data into GitHub/shared incident channels.
- Never create duplicate GitHub work without searching when search is available.
- Never turn a hypothesis into a root-cause claim or customer-facing fact.
- Never close a customer case solely because a ticket, GitHub issue, or PR is closed.
- Never treat support volume as representative market demand without bias/denominator.
- Never silently mutate support/CRM/GitHub/Notion/billing systems because an action is
  obvious.
- Never issue/refund/credit, delete, publish incident comms, or make legal/security claims
  without the required authority.
- Never claim complete queue coverage when connector pagination/scope is incomplete.