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As your business grows, can your customer support system grow with it? Customers expect instant responses to their questions, they want consistent interactions that don’t require them to repeat the same info to every person they talk to, and they want support options that will allow them to help themselves first.
In fact, 86% of consumers expect their conversations to move seamlessly between channels, agents, and chatbots. In other words, they want support that recognizes them and meets them where they are. For that, you need the right support resources, especially as your business attracts more customers.
In this post, we’re going to talk about an often-overlooked element of customer support: your ticket management system. We’ll answer the questions, “what is a support ticket” and “what is a support ticket system?” We’ll look at the benefits of a desk ticketing system and of using bots and automation for faster, more consistent responses. We’ll also talk about features and what to look for when selecting a support ticket system.
What is a support ticket, anyway?
Support tickets, customer service tickets, and help tickets are all the same thing – a way for your team to accept inquiries, track them, and process them in your service portal.
Taking a call, text, or chat, answering it, and moving on to the next message is no longer acceptable. There needs to be a digital history that your team can access when the customer contacts you again, especially if they interact with someone else, to improve the customer service experience.
Where do support tickets come from? Support tickets can be initiated from anywhere that your customers can contact you, including:
- Chatbots on your website
- Emails
- Facebook Messenger
- Instagram direct messages
- Live chats and chatbots
- SMS
- Voice calls
- Your customer support portal
Not to get too deep, but support tickets are also a way to gain insight into your customers’ needs, worries, and hopes. With the right support ticket system, you can go beyond the basics of answering questions to a higher level of understanding your customers.
That’s because support ticket systems collect data from your customer interactions. When a client sends an inquiry, thereby opening a support ticket, you’ll begin to create a history of the things that they want to know about. You’ll know what products and product families they are interested in.
You can use this data to better understand their needs, and you can even tailor your messages according to those needs. You’ll begin to deliver what they want in a way that feels intuitive and takes some of the pressure off your support team.
Benefits of a support ticket system (happy customers and more)
Solve problems, and gather data
As mentioned above, when you collect data about your customer interactions, you’ll have a better understanding of their needs.
Provide an omnichannel approach to customer support
When you have a support ticket system, it’s critical that all your communications and related data filter into one inbox.
When you manage support questions all from one place, your sales team can spend less time researching the history of an inquiry, and more time finding a solution that will please your customers.
Use a ticket system to provide 24/7 support
When you're overwhelmed with help tickets at work, a customer service system that provides 24/7 support can lighten your load.
We all just want to get things knocked off our lists. Employees and customers are busy and don’t have a lot of excess time to get things done. If a customer has a question, they want to find an answer whenever it’s convenient for them.
Discover trends
When you use a support ticket system, the data you collect will help you discover trends that can be addressed.
If you’re constantly asked the same question, you can add a section in your FAQs to cover that topic. Or you can review your website to find out how to make the information that you provide easier to find. Maybe it’s already there but you’re not using the same words that consumers are searching with, and a few adjustments would help them find it.
Automate repetitive tasks
Automated chatbots can read a ticket, categorize it, and possibly even solve the issue. And if they can’t solve it, they can at least get the ball rolling so your support team doesn’t have to spend so much time on the basics.
What to look for when choosing your support ticket system
There are many support ticket systems available. When you’re trying to find the right one for your business, focus on how your business will use the information that it gathers.
Here are some things to consider when looking for a system:
- Consult with the team who will be using it. At the very least, have your team in mind. Do they all work remotely? Will they be able to collaborate on the same support tickets? Sometimes it takes more than one interaction to solve a problem, so if the customer contacts you again, is the information accessible by everyone?
- What do your customers need? How do your customers want to contact you? Does the system fulfill those needs?
- What is your budget? Prices for support ticket platforms vary based on a lot of things. While I don’t think you can put a price on having superior customer support, every business has to find the platform that fits their budget.
- Is it flexible and scalable? Will the system be able to grow as your company grows? If you add new team members, can they fit right in, or will you have to subscribe to a larger plan?
- Does it integrate with your apps? What apps do you need it to integrate with? Does it line up with what you’re using? How about your CRM?
- Is it easy to implement? Can you subscribe and connect? What are the user reviews? You want something that is easy to set up.
- What is the help desk software type? You can have on-premises or cloud-based. Both have pros and cons. If you have stringent security requirements, installing an on-premises system and a server to handle it might be required. But you’ll also need an IT professional to manage it. On the other hand, a cloud-based system will allow anyone on your team to access it from wherever they’re working.
Implementing your support ticket system can be simpler than you might expect. It’s just an easier way to get inquiries and respond to them as your business grows. The right system will help your team on the response side and can help you improve your overall customer satisfaction rating.
Want more inspiration for improving your customer service? Learn more about using Trengo for support ticketing.
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