Categorize support tickets in a spreadsheet
A helpdesk export lands in a sheet every week. Three columns triage it: who needs an answer today, what each ticket is about, and how upset the customer is.
The three formulas
=HUNCH(A2:A500, "Does the customer need a response within hours, not days?")In Excel: =HUNCH.ASK(A2:A500, "Does the customer need a response within hours, not days?")
=HUNCHPICK(A2:A500, "billing: charges, invoices, refunds|bug: something is broken or crashes|question: how-to or pricing question|feedback: praise or suggestion, no action needed|other")In Excel: =HUNCH.PICK(A2:A500, "billing: charges, invoices, refunds|bug: something is broken or crashes|question: how-to or pricing question|feedback: praise or suggestion, no action needed|other")
=HUNCHSCORE(A2:A500, "How frustrated is the customer?", "calm|annoyed|angry|furious", "label")In Excel: =HUNCH.SCORE(A2:A500, "How frustrated is the customer?", "calm|annoyed|angry|furious", "label")
The category list uses a colon to describe each option. Descriptions sharpen the pick when two options could overlap, like billing and question.
Real outputs
| Row | A | B | C | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ticket | Urgent? (0–1) | Category | Frustration |
| 2 | Our whole team is locked out since this morning, we have a client demo at 2pm. Please call me. | 0.97 | bug | angry |
| 3 | I was charged twice for the March invoice. Can you refund the duplicate? | 0.35 | billing | calm |
| 4 | The export button does nothing on Safari. Works in Chrome. Not urgent. | 0.10 | bug | calm |
| 5 | How do I add a second admin to my workspace? | 0.40 | question | calm |
| 6 | This is the third time I am writing about the same bug and nobody replies. I am done. | 0.52 | bug | angry |
| 7 | Loving the new dashboard, small thing: the date picker ignores my timezone. | 0.39 | bug | annoyed |
| 8 | Great support last week, thanks. Everything works now. | 0.12 | feedback | calm |
The locked-out team is 0.97 urgent and angry; the Safari button, which the customer marked "not urgent", is 0.10. Sort by column B and the morning queue writes itself.
Why "other" is mandatory
A pick formula must choose something. Without an other option, a ticket about a partnership request gets forced into billing or bug and quietly pollutes your counts. With it, the odd ones collect in one place you can read on Friday.
Export the same columns every week and keep the questions identical. Then a pivot on category by week is a real trend, not a change in wording.
Questions
Which helpdesks does this work with?
Can it route tickets automatically?
Is customer text stored?
Run it on your own column
Copy the template (or use the Excel add-in), paste your key, point the formula at your data. Every formula here has its Excel spelling underneath. 100 rows free to start, then $29 for 5,000 rows. Credits never expire and there is no subscription.
Reference: HUNCH · HUNCHPICK · HUNCHSCORE
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