How many times have you come in on a Monday morning, checked your email, and then instantly wanted to go crawl back in bed after seeing tons and tons of unanswered emails? How many times has someone emailed you and then emailed you again and again, thus adding to your clutter? How many times have you needed to find something in your email and taken forever to do so?
If any of the above are applicable to you and your business—you need a ticket system.
So, what exactly is a ticket system?
It is an email management tool that takes those inbox-cluttering emails and organizes them in such way that your head won’t explode. Here’s what happens. Say you don’t have chat (if you don’t, you should consider adding live chat to your site) or you’re unavailable, and a customer needs to ask you a question. They are directed to a simple, fully customizable web form where they can send you an email.
You can then tag emails, filter them, assign them to various employees, and keep your customers in the loop the entire time. You can set the system to send them an automated message once they submit a ticket, and customers are updated as progress is made on their issue. Additionally, agents can collaborate on tickets to ensure that issues are resolved smoothly, quickly, and non-repetitively.
An email-ticket management system eliminates the redundancy that typically comes from a lack of communication and allows your workforce to be used more effectively. No more forwarding an email 30 times and CC’ing everyone on it- just plain, simple collaboration. Once tickets are resolved they can be marked as such and you can move on to the next. Additionally, administrators can track ticket progress to ensure that customer inquiries and issues never go by the wayside.
The benefits to the customer are obvious.
They are kept entirely in the loop about the progress of their issue, and since multiple agents are collaborating to fix their problem, the customer is getting superior results than they would though a traditional email.
SPAM filters
Now don’t get me wrong SPAM filters are GREAT for your personal e-mail accounts; however, if your settings are too high, you may be missing out on legitimate e-mails. Just imagine your customer e-mailing you time after time, getting more and frustrated that you are not responding. You are going about your day oblivious to the fact you are about to get blasted on a forum, receiving a chargeback, and losing a customer. Not because you did anything but because you did nothing. Or vice versa you receive the e-mail and are just plugging away at their issue, but every one of your responses is gobbled up by their SPAM filter, and they think they are being ignored. With a support ticketing system their ticket is right there and houses all their replies as well as yours.
The Line system
The beauty of a support ticketing system is until those tickets are answered they are like little reds flags with a countdown timer on them. When you login, you will not be in danger of not knowing which ones you have already replied to and who is still waiting.
Computer or e-mail crash
If you and a client develop a rapport over an issue in January, your computer crashes in March, then in June they are back asking for that information again, you are in trouble. Many times when the computer crashes the e-mail is gone and you have to start back up from scratch. With a ticketing system, you can just pull that ticket right up and viola there is all of the information.
Accountability and Training
A support ticketing system holds you accountable. When you login, you can see exactly who said what and when. If one person on your staff is giving out misinformation, that is an excellent tool for training purposes. You can actually pull up their responses and show them exactly where the mistake was made and what they can do differently.
Time Management and Trending
Many support ticketing systems give you the ability to enter the amount of time worked for each ticket. This way, you can login at any time and see how much time is spent on what. If you see a trend that product XYZ has a ton of support and the others are all about the same, you may want to give XYZ an evaluation. You can also develop a FAQ around the common questions.
All on the same page
If you have multiple staff members that work on the accounts, by giving them the access to the support system, they can read the posts of the previous staffers and know exactly what that client is being told. No he said she said.
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