Section 03

What the service provider owns, and where the line is drawn

Mid-market software companies across three territories. The boundaries at code and at money are absolute, and they are the two an eager agent is most likely to cross.

Client profile

Client type	Share	Territories	What makes it distinctive
Business software, mid-market	~34%	US, UK, AU	Broad contact mix; the largest and most stable category
Vertical software	~22%	US, UK	Deep domain product; the longest ramp of the five
Developer tooling	~18%	US, UK, AU	Technically literate customers; escalation accuracy matters most here
Marketing and analytics platforms	~14%	US, UK	Seasonal peaks around campaign cycles
Workflow and productivity tools	~12%	US, UK, AU	High how-to share, lower severity

Responsibility split

Function	Client	Akontec	Service provider
The product, and the roadmap	Owns	—	—
Support platform and licences	Owns	Coordinates access	Uses
Knowledge base content	Approves	Maintains	Cites, and flags gaps
Macro and canned-response library	Approves	Maintains	Uses; proposes additions
Escalation matrix and severity definitions	Sets	Publishes	Applies
Agent hiring, payroll and supervision	—	Sets standards	Owns
Roster, coverage and workforce management	—	Sets the coverage plan	Owns and evidences
Contact quality audit	Reviews	Re-audits and calibrates	Owns first-line audit
Refunds, credits and billing changes	Owns	—	Routes, never executes
Bug triage and engineering fix	Owns	—	Diagnoses and escalates with evidence

Out of scope

Explicitly outside the engagement

A request to do any of these is an escalation, not a task, and it is recorded in the out-of-scope register.

Issuing a refund, credit, discount or extension of any kind. Billing outcomes are the client's decision, always.
Changing a customer's subscription tier, seat count or contract term.
Writing, deploying or modifying any code, script or configuration in the client's production environment.
Accessing customer data beyond what the support platform surfaces for the contact in hand.

Confirming a roadmap item, a release date or a feature commitment.
Making a statement about a security incident, a breach or an outage cause before the client has published one.
Handling a legal threat, a regulator contact or a press enquiry — these route immediately.
Sub-contracting any part of the work, or moving it to a second site, without written consent.

Two boundaries have no exception at all. An agent never moves money and never touches production. Both feel small in the moment — a five-dollar credit to calm an angry customer, a quick configuration change to unblock them — and both create a liability the client did not agree to and cannot easily unwind.

Allocation

How work reaches the desk

Chats route by queue and skill, not by agent preference. An agent is assigned to queues their certification covers, and the platform will not offer them a conversation outside it — which is what makes the certification register meaningful rather than decorative.

Email works oldest-first inside each priority band. An ageing queue is a coverage symptom, not an email symptom, and it is reviewed as such.

Every answer that draws on product knowledge cites the knowledge-base article it came from. An answer that cannot be sourced is an answer nobody can audit, and the citation rate is service-levelled at ninety per cent for exactly that reason.

Where the knowledge base is wrong or missing, the agent raises a gap. Gaps are counted as a positive signal at calibration — a floor that never raises one is a floor that is guessing.

Standing documents

Document	Maintained by	Reviewed	Purpose
Knowledge base	Akontec, approved by client	Continuous	The source every product answer cites
Macro and canned-response library	Akontec	Monthly	Approved wording for repeated situations
Escalation matrix	Client, published by Akontec	Monthly	Severity definitions, routing, response obligations
Coverage plan and roster template	Akontec with the provider	Monthly	Minimum staffing by band and by hour
Tone and writing guide	Akontec	Quarterly	How the client sounds in writing
Out-of-scope register	Akontec	As raised	Requests refused at desk level and the outcome

Next step

Two lines an agent never crosses: money and production.

Everything else on this process is a judgement call with a knowledge-base article behind it.

See the team and seat mix Read the quality framework