Today, nearly every business uses a ticketing system. Whether you’re looking for a help desk ticketing system or need one to deal with high volumes of customer support requests, these systems are critical for efficiency and communication.
In this comprehensive guide, we will define what a ticketing system is and provide an overview of the different types available. This article will explore the benefits of using a ticketing system and how to choose the right one for your business. Let’s get started!
What is a ticketing system and help desk software?
Ticketing systems are an increasingly important tool in customer service. These software solutions process and catalog all customer interactions. It also allows teams to route requests accordingly while obtaining resolutions as quickly as possible.
Help desk software is an essential tool for answering customer support inquiries. This system includes tracking tickets, integrating email services, and reporting incidents requiring attention from management or technical experts.
How does a ticketing system work?
Step 1: The customer sends a request, which generates a new ticket with an ID. The ticket is recorded as a problem, question, task, or incident on the task board.
Step 2: When AI receives a ticket request, it automatically routes it to the most qualified agent equipped with knowledge and skills.
Step 3: Customer support personnel do their job on a query or assign it to someone who can resolve the problem. Meanwhile, tickets become forums for communication between customers and company representatives.
Step 4: The ticket has been resolved but is not deleted. They contain valuable data that can be used to improve your customer success program. Software for ticketing apps also offers analytics and metrics for performance insight.
Step 5: The customer is notified that all actions have been completed.
Why do you need a ticketing system?
- To stay organized:
When you’re trying to solve several problems without a system to map an action plan, it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning. An organized solution will help you overcome this challenge and increase productivity. A ticketing system that AI powers organize support tickets based on priority. This allows your support team to be more productive, which means faster customer response times.
- To Consolidate interactions in one thread:
Customers expect to be able to relate to customer support reps’ past purchases and interactions with the company. Unfortunately, half of the consumers complained that most agents rarely had context for solving problems efficiently.
The best ticketing systems are designed to work with the apps you use. This will help you consolidate all communication into a unified thread for customer support.
Customers can change channels while resolving an issue without starting all over when they use a ticket number. With a different agent, the communication continues from the original ticket.
- Queue and assign requests:
As a result of the priority system, tickets are organized in a hierarchy with higher-priority tasks at the top. This usually means low-priority support tickets aren’t resolved on time, leading to high turnaround time and service level agreement violations.
Using a first-come, first-serve basis makes it easy to manage support requests and ensures no customer requests go unresolved.
- To improve communication and collaboration:
Ticketing systems allow agents to collaborate and communicate with each other, which can help resolve a ticket faster by allowing multiple agents to contribute to the resolution.
But a ticketing tool that integrates with your knowledge management solution and email service will help support teams find answers quickly, without leaving the chat.
- To Generate reports with KPI data:
Using online ticketing systems, you can track the status of your support tickets and see how many of them get resolved. You can also find out how many tickets violate your SLA agreement and when it takes you to resolve a ticket. These metrics give you a sense of how to improve your customer experience.
Here are some things to look for when choosing a ticketing system:
- Fits business goals:
When choosing a ticketing system, it is important to consider the organization’s needs and identify any inefficiencies or frustrations. Make sure you consider any business goals the tool will need to address and find solutions that help achieve those.
- Intuitive interface:
The first thing to consider when selecting help desk software is whether a team of volunteers can use it. Does the software allow for changes without requiring IT assistance? Does it have a clear and intuitive interface that allows users to find the information they need quickly and easily?
- Support across multiple channels:
To ensure your business stays visible to customers, it’s important to use a ticketing system that integrates with multiple platforms.
A variety of contact channels lets customers reach you in different ways, allowing you to track support questions from various channels and merge them into one ordered line.
- Multiple language support:
You should avoid alienating customers who don’t speak English by only providing support in English. To prevent this, you should provide support in multiple languages to satisfy all customers regardless of their location.
- Collaboration features:
Customer support conversations can span multiple shifts and days. A ticketing app that keeps your internal team on the same page so conversations don’t get lost in the queue is a great way to help your company be more efficient.
Collaboration features such as collision detection, mentions, and saved replies enable support staff to pick up the conversation from where a previous rep left off.
- Search-friendly:
Look for ticketing systems with a robust search function because it’s easy to find tickets by priority and the rep assigned. Support teams should be able to find tickets by filtering queries, escalations, and other issues. They can also label products, features, and other areas that need attention.
- Security features:
To ensure the security of your customer-facing software, look for solutions that provide message encryption and role-based permissions. Two-factor authentication is also a must, as are virus scanning and SSL encryption for cloud-based ticketing solutions. You may also consider IP restrictions to prevent unwanted persons from gaining access to your backend systems.
- Scalability:
You’ll need a ticketing system that scales with your team to keep growing. It should offer API access and workflows that enable the automation of repetitive tasks as support volume grows.
If you’re considering ticketing, here are some questions: Will you need to upgrade to a higher plan to enjoy the features we’ve mentioned? Does the cost of your next plan align with your budget? How much more does it cost when you add additional team members?
Make your customer support easier with the Metro Help Desk
The best ticketing systems are easy to use, keeping you organized and efficient. They are scalable, secure, intuitive, and integrated with your existing tools.
Although an all-in-one solution might be appealing, you’re better off choosing a specialized ticketing software that combines the core function with Metro Help Desk for knowledge base features so your agents can find what they need without wasting time.
