90-Day Project Plan: Customer Support Portal Development

Department: Customer Support
Owner: Customer Support Agent (New Hire)
Project Duration: 90 Days
Primary Goal: Create a high-functioning, easy-to-navigate support portal that empowers customers to find answers and solve problems independently with minimal agent involvement.

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🎯 Project Objective

The primary objective is to shift LED Sign City’s support model from agent-driven responses to self-service empowerment, reducing support volume while improving the customer experience. This will be achieved by auditing, restructuring, and improving the existing support content, building a categorized knowledge base, and responding to tickets with links to helpful articles instead of crafting custom replies.

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📅 Phase Overview

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✅ Phase 1: Orientation & Classification (Days 1–30)

🔑 Core Deliverables

• Learn all tools: Zoho Desk, Zoho Assist, CRM, Projects, People, Shopify

• Shadow supervisor and observe ticket workflows

• Classify all existing support articles (most critical task)

• Track and rate article usefulness for live tickets

• Provide customers with article links only in responses

• Weekly self-assessment on knowledge base usability

📌 Critical Task: Article Classification

📋 Description:

Every article must be reviewed, categorized, tagged, and rated. This sets the foundation for searchability and usability by both customers and agents. Categories may include:

• Setup & Installation

• Troubleshooting

• Software Use

• Content Scheduling

• Maintenance

• Power & Connectivity

• Warranty & Returns

• Orders & Shipping

📌 Why It Matters:

• Without proper classification, even the best articles remain hard to find

• Enables quick article matching during support ticket responses

• Reduces duplicate content and confusion

• Guides future article rewrites and new content development

📌 Actions:

• Build a master content inventory (title, URL, summary, category, tags, rating)

• Mark outdated, unclear, or missing articles

• Submit a weekly feedback log with improvement recommendations

• Suggest article format and naming conventions to improve discoverability

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✅ Phase 2: Content Development & System Refinement (Days 31–60)

🔑 Core Deliverables

• Begin rewriting or drafting missing articles based on Phase 1 findings

• Follow standardized article templates (steps, images, FAQs)

• Continue responding to tickets only with approved links unless pre-approved

• Propose content improvements (format, search tags, categories)

• Reduce dependence on supervisor for daily ticket handling

• Monitor ticket categories to spot common customer themes

📌 Supporting Tasks:

• Submit all new article drafts for supervisor review before publication

• Flag frequently used articles for enhancement (add screenshots, videos, etc.)

• Propose canned responses and keyword tags for Zoho Desk

• Update Shopify Help Center structure as needed

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✅ Phase 3: Portal Ownership & Optimization (Days 61–90)

🔑 Core Deliverables

• Maintain article database independently

• Lead weekly knowledge base review and optimization

• Create article request form for internal teams (sales, install, etc.)

• Propose automation opportunities (auto-replies with article links)

• Track ticket deflection (how many customers solve problems via portal)

• Finalize internal SOP for customer support ticket triage

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📈 Weekly Evaluation: Every Friday by 5 PM

Agent Must Submit:

• 🔟 Knowledge base search experience rating (1–10)

• 🧠 Notes on issues with finding articles or categories

• 🛠 Suggestions for structural or content improvements

• 📝 List of tickets where article was unavailable or insufficient

• 📊 Progress update on classification, rewrites, and new content

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🧰 Applications Used

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🏁 Success Criteria by Day 90

• ✅ 90% of tickets handled with article links only

• ✅ 50+ high-quality articles available in structured categories

• ✅ Customers report higher satisfaction with online help tools

• ✅ New support agents can use portal with minimal training

• ✅ Weekly improvement suggestions consistently implemented