What is a ticket system?
A ticketing system is fundamentally a centralised location to manage customer service or support issues within a business. They allow a direct point of contact between your team and your clients should any support issues arise and provide communication between both parties until the matter is resolved. The goal of implementing these systems is to maintain a dialogue between the clients and the business whilst addressing any problems with any products or services. With everything neatly organised and easily accessible by employees, it keeps response time lower, whilst also increasing customer satisfaction by having a quick point of contact for them to reach out to, ultimately helping increase brand loyalty.
How does this work?
Works by creating a document or a ticket with the purpose of recording interactions on support cases as well as monitoring any resolutions offered. All communication between the two parties is typically logged in a database so it can be referred to at any point. Support tickets are typically defined by two statuses: open and closed. The first of these means the ticket is live and still needs addressing. The next would be 'closed' indicating support has been given and a satisfactory resolution has been reached. It is not uncommon for ticketing systems to be able to prioritise the urgency of the matter and allocate resources accordingly.
Why you should use a support ticket system
- A centralised location for everything
- Enhanced collaboration
- Automatic alerts
- Generate valuable data
- Records coherent logs of actions
- Ticket tags
- Resolutions are recorded
- Queue systems
- Client Portals
- 1 point of contact
- More accessible triaging
- Powerful integrations
- Supports in training
1. A centralised location for everything
Using ticket management software can offer you a centralised location to access any information on customer tickets making it quickly easy to pull up the relevant records in a pinch. When you run a business that offers customer support, it can be easy to get overwhelmed by switching between many different platforms and applications to get the information you need, having it all ready in one place shortens this process significantly.
2. Enhanced collaboration
As it becomes easier for employees to triage support cases due to the help of third-party software, this leads to enhanced collaboration within your organisation. Having easy access to each team members support cases, means one employee can seamlessly pick up a support case started by someone else.
3. Automatic alerts
Automatic alerts and reminders can be set up and are triggered by rule-based actions. i.e customer responds or opens a ticket, priority tag added to a ticket or if the matter was resolved. This means much of the process is routed through automation freeing up valuable time for your employees to focus on your clients.
4. Generate valuable data
You will generate valuable data by recording these interactions, which can be invaluable in training. Furthermore, you can use this data to generate meaningful reports helping inform future business decisions. This data can stretch across marketing too, enriching your contacts.
5. Records coherent logs of actions
Using a ticket system records coherent logs of issues and the chat history between both parties should these need to be referred to for any reason. Having electronic records of every action performed by your team, also makes it significantly easier to locate and correct mistakes if needed.
Typically, ticketing systems should have optional ticket tags allowing you to focus on priorities and allocate resources where necessary. These allocations can be streamlined as well by implementing automation into the process meaning your operations run smoother, as well as removing the manual processes which presents the risk of human or data entry errors.
7. Resolutions are recorded
In business, you never know when you might have to refer to a previous conversation with a client, therefore having clear records of previous interactions and resolutions between customers can make it much quicker in future cases should they be having the same issues.
8. Queue systems
Tickets are logically added into queue systems keeping response times as low as possible and reducing frustrations caused by prolonged customer support waiting times. Tickets are clearly labelled as open or closed and updated in real-time avoiding any confusion between cases
9. Client Portals
With the most powerful systems, there is the possibility for client portals, allowing customers their own log-in to their system meaning they can view invoices, download pdf, or even place orders leading towards self-service which ultimately lowers costs when supporting customers and generally leads to higher customer satisfaction due to the extra transparency.
Having an accessible point of contact will build relationships with clients over time aiming to increase customer retention and brand loyalty to your business. Furthermore, from the client's perspective, trust and good faith is built whenever they have a good interaction with your support team. When someone mention's your business name, you want their first thoughts to be positive.
11. More accessible triaging
With triage between team members being more accessible, it allows employees with different knowledge bases of information to each input on possible resolutions easily. This collaboration can be invaluable as a fresh pair of eyes can often shine the light on different perspectives and potential resolutions.
12. Powerful integrations
With powerful integrations, you can manage requests from multiple platforms from email to social media and more. Depending on the software you opt to choose, will depend on your options here. Our own CRM is capable of integrations to Office 365, Google Mail, Microsoft Outlook, and more, merging all of your daily applications into one seamless experience.
13. Supports in training
Ultimately, using an organised ticket system will lead to much more efficient support training since you have a library of resolved cases to use as examples within training as well as real examples from real clients to showcase whilst training staff members.
What's the next step?
Zigaflow's powerful CRM has the power to streamline your ticketing solution. We encompass many of the advantages named above with even more in the works. Take advantage of our centralised system to enhance your team's collaboration, and efficiency, as well as have the power to implement automation to take your workflows to the next level. Customer service is often the backbone of your front-end operations, and you should treat it as such by streamlining your processes as much as possible. If you would like to find out more about how Zigaflow can transform your business processes, get in touch today for a free demo.