Help desk support can become incredibly overwhelming when an organization expects faster response times and an effective ticket management system is not set in place. When help desk requests build up, it overwhelms the help desk support agents, increases the amount of time customers have to wait, irritates customers, and ultimately leads to your company losing business. All of this can be avoided by keeping your ticket management system structured in an efficient manner. So where do you start? Here are 4 helpful tips that will make it easier for you to improve your ticket management system, alleviate the stress put on help desk support agents, and make your customers happier.
1. Define the Priority of Your Tickets: One of the easiest ways to keep your ticket management system organized is by defining your support tickets by priority. Start paying attention to the different types of support tickets you receive and which ones are similar. After that, you can begin prioritizing your tickets accordingly and assigning specific help desk support agents who are best able to help the customers with their help request. Keep in mind that there is no one way to categorize your support tickets. You could separate them by type of issue, product type, or by the customer. It’s also a good idea to segment your help tickets by department as some departments may be more critical to business operations than others.
2. Equip Your Support Team with the Right Resources: A business can’t expect their help desk support team to do a great job if they don’t have the tools and resources to do their best. If you want to experience faster response times and resolutions, you need to make sure that your help desk support agents have two important things: the right tools and the right information. The more knowledgeable your support agents are, the easier it will be for them to quickly and effectively resolve a customer’s problem. In addition to knowledge, you need to make sure your customer support agents have all the tools they need. Such tools would include information on the following: something that shows them the due date on the ticket (the date that the problem needs to be resolved by), the level of priority, the ticket status, and ticket categories.
3. Make Sure the Ticket Requests Provide as Much Description as Possible: It is difficult to deliver support when the support ticket doesn’t provide much detail about the problem and other important elements. Whenever a support ticket is being delivered from one support group to the next, descriptive information including client and order IDs, names, and phone numbers should be provided. If possible define specific fields for these data points and make them mandatory. This will create consistent data that will be reportable, and all groups involved will know where to find this critical data.
4. Implement a Plan for Self-Service: Self-service is becoming increasingly more popular with businesses and it's gotten to the point where the majority of customers with a help request now expect that business websites have a self-service strategy. Not only is self-service efficient, it can save your business a substantial amount of money. Self-service is an excellent solution for businesses who notice repeat problems customers are having and repeat questions that are being asked. If you are getting the same tickets regarding the same problems multiple times, then you will save time, money, and resources by allowing customers to resolve the problem on their own. This starts with building a system that asks the customer one question at a time and ultimately leads them to the solution which would be found in a knowledge base. Reserve your person-to-person help desk support for customers with problems that require higher levels of support.
Are you interested in learning more about how outsourced help desk support can help streamline your operations and increase your efficiencies? We invite you to speak with our team of help desk experts.
