When the same issue hits support repeatedly, every agent shouldn't reinvent the fix. A support runbook makes the resolution consistent and fast: how to recognise it, how urgent it is, the diagnostic steps, the decision tree, and exactly when to escalate (with what info). This skill writes that — turning tribal knowledge into a procedure tier-1 can follow.
Required Inputs
Ask for these only if they aren't already provided:
- The issue type — the recurring problem this runbook covers (e.g. "sync failures," "login loops," "billing discrepancy").
- How to recognise it — symptoms and how it's reported.
- The resolution path(s) — diagnostic steps and fixes (including the branches — "if X then…").
- Escalation — when it exceeds tier-1, who it goes to, and with what diagnostics.
Output Format
Support Runbook: [issue type]
1. Identify — the symptoms and how customers describe it (so agents recognise it from a vague ticket). What it's often confused with.
2. Severity / triage — how to rate urgency (is it down vs. degraded vs. cosmetic? affecting one user or many?) and the response-time expectation per level.
3. Diagnose — ordered steps to pinpoint the cause; what to check and what each result means. A decision tree where the path branches:
If [symptom A] → likely [cause] → go to Fix 1. If [symptom B] → check [thing] → if yes, Fix 2; if no, escalate.
4. Resolve — the fix per branch, step by step, including what to tell the customer to do (and what not to touch).
5. Escalate — the exact trigger to escalate (time-boxed: "if unresolved in N min" or "if it affects >X users"), who to (team/tier), and the diagnostics to attach so the next tier doesn't start cold.
6. Customer comms — ready snippets for the key moments: acknowledging, mid-resolution update, resolved, and "escalating, here's what's next" (pair with support-macro).
7. Prevention note — if this issue recurs a lot, the upstream fix/feature to flag to product/eng.
Quality Checks
- Identification covers how customers actually describe it (not just the internal name)
- Severity/triage guidance sets response expectations
- Diagnosis is a clear ordered path / decision tree, not a wall of tips
- Escalation has an explicit trigger, target, and the diagnostics to attach
- Customer-comms snippets cover acknowledge / update / resolve / escalate
- Flags the upstream fix if the issue is frequent (so support feeds product)
Anti-Patterns
- Do not write a tip list instead of an ordered path — agents need "do this, then this," with branches
- Do not leave escalation vague — "escalate if needed" means everyone escalates differently; time-box and specify the target + attachments
- Do not omit the customer comms — resolution + silence still feels like bad support
- Do not ignore severity — treating a full outage like a how-to question loses trust fast
- Do not let a high-frequency issue stay a runbook forever — flag the root-cause fix to product
Based On
Support-operations practice — issue triage, decision-tree diagnosis, time-boxed escalation, and consistent agent procedures.