This article explains what Customer Success and Customer Support do in Sales Layer, what to expect in terms of communication and response times, and what is considered in or out of scope.

Customer Success

What Customer Success does

The Customer Success team helps you get the most value from Sales Layer by supporting onboarding, training, and ongoing account guidance.

They typically help with:

• Platform training and guidance to help you use Sales Layer effectively.

• Integrations guidance and sharing relevant documentation. If you need a more specialized service, they can recommend official Solution Partners.

• Keeping you up to date on new platform features. Updates are also published in the Support Center’s Updates section.

• Helping coordinate support and technical questions, and when needed, trying to prioritize your request.

• Account management related to your contracted service, such as changes to parameters, plan adjustments, renewals, and possible upsells.

Communication and response times

• Customer Success typically responds within 1 to 3 business days, depending on availability.

• Communication is usually via email, plus scheduled video calls for training and periodic check-ins.

• Periodical meetings, often Quarterly Business Reviews, may be held to monitor progress and ensure the project is on track.

Out of scope for Customer Success

Customer Success does not provide:

• Direct work inside your account as a managed service.

• Channel setup and direct implementations (web, e-commerce, etc.).

• Platform customization.

• Support for third-party developers who are not official Solution Partners.

Account types: direct and indirect customers

When you sign a contract with Sales Layer, your account is typically one of these types:

Direct customer

You contract directly with Sales Layer as a SaaS provider. Your plan usually includes:

• A dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) allocation for training and account management.

• A package of support hours, provided through the support system included in your plan, depending on your PIM plan type.

Indirect customer (Solution Partner)

Your contract includes services delivered through a Solution Partner, who acts as the main point of contact for training and customer management.

In this case:

• The Solution Partner manages onboarding, training, and day-to-day support based on what was agreed.

• The Solution Partner communicates directly with Sales Layer for account-related matters such as parameter changes, renewals, and upsells.

• Sales Layer supports the partner with questions related to the account.

• Partners may also provide additional agreed services such as consulting, integrations, and PIM setup.

Customer Support

What Customer Support does

The Customer Support team focuses on technical help and incident diagnosis. They typically have greater availability to respond to inquiries and will prioritize issues based on severity.

Support aims to:

• Help you resolve questions by guiding you to the right documentation when available.

• Diagnose issues when something does not behave as expected.

• Classify incidents and prioritize them by criticality.

• Confirm resolution once an incident is fixed and released.

Key definitions

• Business hours: Regional hours of operation excluding national holidays. 08:00 AM to 06:00 PM CET.

• Incidents: Critical, Major, or Minor.

• Support Center: The online documentation portal, updated regularly with platform information.

• Response time: Time from submitting a support ticket or live chat message to the first non-automatic response.

• Support services: Support provided via Support Ticket or Live Chat according to your contracted plan, including an annual support-hours package.

Support service limits and how hours are deducted

Support services are provided according to your contracted plan. Plans may be adjusted over time to maintain service levels, without reducing the overall quality of assistance.

Your plan includes training and project guidance, but it does not include professional services such as consulting or integrations. If you need those services, a Solution Partner agreement may cover them separately. Sales Layer can also introduce you to official specialized partners.

How support hours are used

Each account has a package of support hours defined in the contract. Hours are deducted in the most favorable way following these rules:

• Sales Layer will always aim to guide you to Support Center documentation when possible, so your team can become autonomous using Sales Layer as a SaaS platform.

• When a support conversation is opened, a minimum of 15 minutes is deducted.

• Incidents are not counted as support hours, so they are not deducted from your contracted support-hours package.

Incident classification

Support classifies incidents based on severity and business impact:

Critical

• Data loss with no possible recovery using available backups.

• The client cannot access the PIM and it affects all users.

• High risk of incorrect data reaching e-commerce with significant operational impact and no workaround.

Major

• Core platform functions are affected or disabled.

• Platform use is severely degraded.

Minor

• Core functionality is not behaving as expected.

• No major impact on overall usability.
  
  

Support evaluates risk and prioritizes incidents based on the nature and impact of the issue.

Out of support scope

Some topics are not fully covered by Sales Layer support, including:

• Client-built formulas: Support can confirm whether the logic works, but does not provide full consulting on custom formula design.

• Third-party service integrations: Support can validate that data exports correctly through the connector, but does not cover third-party platform behavior.

• Performance issues caused by the customer’s internet or hosting or provider environment.

• Use cases and custom modifications that fall outside standard PIM operation documentation.

Support response times and channels

First response time depends on your account type. “First response” refers to the first non-automatic reply during business hours, excluding national holidays.

• Enterprise: First response within 2 hours. Live chat during business hours. Average response is typically less than 5 minutes.

• Premium: First response within 12 hours via ticket or email during business hours. Average response is typically less than 4 hours.

• Starter or Connect provider accounts: First response in less than 1 business day.

• Solution Partner accounts: Support is primarily provided by the partner. In some cases, you may also contact Sales Layer via the platform ticket system, but response times may vary based on support agent availability and the partner’s role as first-line support.

Recommended approach when contacting support

1. Search the Support Center first to see if the answer is already documented.

2. If you cannot find it:

   • Use Live Chat, if included in your plan and available during business hours, or

   • Submit a Support Ticket through the PIM platform.

3. For more technical issues, submitting a ticket is usually best so the support team can investigate properly.

How support handles tickets and live chat

• Responses to open chats and tickets are provided during business hours (08:00 AM to 06:00 PM CET).

• Live chat response time during a conversation can vary depending on the queue and the investigation required.

• First-time responses follow the response times described above.

For each inquiry, Sales Layer support typically:

• Redirects you to documentation if the answer is already available in the Support Center.

• Performs diagnostic work if you provide enough detail to replicate the behavior, including steps taken and expected result.

• Confirms whether the platform behavior is expected or not.

• If the issue is an incident, informs you and prioritizes it based on criticality.

• Follows up on progress and confirms resolution once it is released.

Best practices

• Before contacting support, collect clear details: what you did, what you expected, what happened instead, and whether it affects all users or only some.

• If the issue is urgent and impacts operations, explain the business impact and whether there is any workaround available.

• Use Live Chat for quick guidance when included in your plan, and use Support Tickets for issues that need investigation or tracking.