Support
Definition
Ticket deflection is the process of preventing support tickets from being filed by providing customers with effective self-service resources — knowledge base articles, chatbots, in-product help, community forums, and AI-powered answers. Deflection reduces support costs and improves customer experience for common questions.
Key points
- Deflection rate = Deflected inquiries / (Deflected + Filed tickets)
- Knowledge base is foundational; AI chatbots amplify
- Best deflection targets repeatable, documentable questions
- Don't deflect what should be proactively fixed in the product
Example
A customer starts to file a ticket asking 'how do I reset my password?'. An AI chatbot intervenes with the correct article before submission. Deflected.
Stop stitching tools to track this
CRM, communications and operations share one database here, so the numbers this term describes are a dashboard rather than a spreadsheet.