Watch: How to answer franchisee support tickets from HQ in SalesThumb (0:46)
The Support tab in HQ Connect (/app/hq-connect — the old /app/support link redirects there) is where your shop opens and tracks tickets with HQ. It only shows tickets from your own shop — HQ works these from a separate queue view on their side.
Opening a ticket
Click New ticket (top right) to open the compose panel — clicking it again collapses the panel if you change your mind, and there's also a Cancel button inside the panel itself. Fill in:
- Subject — a free-text field (the placeholder suggests something like "Web booking page bug").
- Category — Operations / how-to, Software bug, Supply chain, Royalty / billing, Marketing fund, or Other. It defaults to Operations / how-to, so if your issue is really a bug or a billing question, remember to change it.
- Priority — Low, Medium, or High. Defaults to Medium.
- Description — a larger text box ("Describe what's going on. Screenshots welcome.").
- Attachments — click Attach screenshot / photo (or drag images onto it) to add up to 5 images. Each shows as a thumbnail you can open or remove before you submit. Replies on a ticket can carry attachments the same way.
The Submit ticket button stays greyed out until both Subject and Description have text in them — Category and Priority never block you, since they always start with a value. The panel itself tells you exactly what to expect once you submit: "Submitted right away — HQ sees it next time they check their queue." There's no live chat here; it's a queue, not an instant-reply channel. After it goes through, the compose panel closes and resets back to its Operations / how-to + Medium defaults, ready for the next ticket.
Tracking status and response time
Three tiles sit above your ticket list:
- Open tickets ("Awaiting reply") — counts everything that isn't Resolved, which includes both Open and In progress tickets.
- Avg response ("Time to first HQ reply") — shown in minutes if it's under an hour, or in hours to one decimal place otherwise (e.g. "45m" or "2.3h"). If there's no data yet, it shows an em dash.
- Resolved (lifetime) ("Quick turnaround") — a running count of everything HQ has marked Resolved. A ticket you reopen stops counting here until it is closed again.
Below that, the All / Open / Resolved tabs filter the same list — Open mirrors the "Open tickets" tile, so it bundles In progress tickets in with true Open ones.
Each row in the list shows the ticket number, subject, a status badge (Open, In progress, or Resolved) and category badge, an optional one-line preview of your original description, who it's assigned to (or "Awaiting assignment" if HQ hasn't picked it up yet), and a "last activity" time — this is measured from the most recent reply if there's been one, or from when you opened the ticket if there hasn't. Click Open on any row to go to the full ticket thread.
The three stat tiles always render, even with zero tickets (all showing zero, with the avg response tile showing an em dash) — it's only the tabs+list area below that gets replaced with a simple empty state and its own Open ticket button to get you started.
Reopening a resolved ticket
If a ticket was marked Resolved and the problem comes back, you don't have to start over. Open the ticket and click Reopen ticket in the box at the bottom, optionally typing what changed first. Any member of your shop can do it, not just the person who opened the ticket.
The ticket goes back to Open, your note (if any) is added to the thread, and HQ's owners and admins are emailed — or SalesThumb Support, if your shop has no HQ. You can reopen a ticket for 14 days after it was closed. After that, or if SalesThumb Support closed it as spam, the page asks you to open a new ticket instead; mention the old ticket number in it so the history can be found.