IT Helpdesk Ticketing Systems- definition, meaning, importance & benefits

Want to know what all the fuss about the importance of IT helpdesk ticketing system is?

Here’s an example:

I entered my office today after a weekend of workation at cousin’s place. Some folders I needed were back at my home and some got left behind at my cousin’s. Had to rush to and fro and co-ordinate with a bulk of couriers to ensure safe and timely delivery. The pile of pending work kept on piling high, no matter how hard I raced to cover lost tracks.

Clearing away the backlogs, struggling to keep up with time, and making up for those lost moments impact my performance as an individual and also as an asset to my team. While my subordinates have to wait till the documents arrive and tasks can further be carried out, my seniors have to wait for a report from me.

How irresponsible the character stated above sounds to you?

For an answer, a lot!

Now imagine all of the above to be true about your documents and files. You have created them all though are now lost over the same machine in different locations. You are having a tough time tracing them. Your major tasks depend on them. The customers are waiting for a reply.

The agents are busy searching for an appropriate answer, correct channels, and best-suited platforms. The customers are busy waiting for your response and shortly after that; they are now searching for your alternatives.

With helpdesk ticketing software all such information, historical data, stats, figures, ratings, feedback, comments, logs, transactions, etc are assembled at one single place. So now whenever your team needs any documents, files, data figures, or has any such requirements, they just have to log in at one central platform, type in the needed, obtain results, read and disseminate them to users/callers, and curtains down fellas!

Essentials to a good IT helpdesk ticketing system

1. Omnichannel support

A good ticketing system has great adaptability and can function smoothly over all platforms. Complaints can pour in from any channel as the customers use devices like smartphones, laptops, desktops, and wearable.

2. Contextual content

Presence of contextual content organizes solutions and articles by problems and is cross referenced with the scenarios that are reasons for their origin. Tying up content in context helps the agents in finding them better. Scripting knowledge in a contextual format ensures consistency over all platforms even in cases of complex technical issues.

3. Multi channel support

A customer can reach out to you and your support staff at any point in time. This requires enabling a 24×7 support system. If the issue is resolved via self-service channels or using automated systems like AI chatbot, AR/VR/MR, etc. the burden of solution does not fall on an agent but in case the issue needs an expert’s supervision, knowledge base definitely, must be continuous, smooth, and consistent to be integrated over all channels. This facilitates not just ticket raising but also resolution on very same platform, through the same channel.

4. Snap resolution

It is no news that your customers do not want to stay put when it comes to resolution. It clearly states their one major ask- speedier resolution. The customers, before introduction of 2G might have even been happy on resolution within an hour; the introduction of 4G as a general network practice though has raised the stakes among other things.

With solutions going virtual and customers scattering out, even work has become workation in recent times. Resolution speed can be as quick as 3 seconds!

Yes, your agents, with a proper ticketing system, have the tickets poured in at one central platform, get assigned to concerned customer executives, have their solutions searched and ready for dissemination via AI intent recognition and keyword match, and finally disseminate the solution.

How can your customers benefit from IT helpdesk ticketing system?

The customers, on such quick, apt and suitable service quality are bound to be happy and satisfied. They, on their own, shall like to get involved with your evolution into better and give you a competitive edge.

Technical queries are actually infamous for consuming the biggest piece on graph in terms of manpower, expertise, research, product refreshments, and much more engaging a lot of resources and time.

Do you know the practical benefit of a good IT helpdesk ticketing software and how it benefits your agents, customers, and organization on multiple levels, in terms of scores, metrics, ratings, and beyond?

Here’s a time capsule:

By the time you were busy reading the bold sentence above, an agent in a contact center might have disseminated solutions on 3 customer issues closing at least one of them on the spot while a smartbot could have engaged with 6 such issues disseminating solution to at least 5 of them and still using NLP and keyword recognition to form query in binary and find the most relevant solution.

That’s still not all your ticketing software can help you with.

Benefits of IT helpdesk ticketing system

An IT helpdesk ticketing software can be integrated over any channel thus being functional on all mobile apps, desktop softwares, websites, self help desks, agent support, and backend office support.

The agents can raise a ticket, sort through the issues, recognize exact solution, create intuitive knowledge, check practical applicability of the solution, and disseminate any information securely both internally and externally to people associated.

These systems can even be integrated to your CRM base fetching all information related to a lead and their journey as a customer including all interactions. These interactions are recorded on form of logs stating the issue, date, time, rating, solution, agent on record, feedback, etc.

Tools to enhance ticketing process

Knowledge creation is a complex process that aims at making understanding and use simple for the visitors. While your employees, associates, and agents might be trained visitors, your customers aren’t. Creating consolidated and consistent knowledge for the non technical user diaspora is quite a challenge. These users have with a wide array of demography to be addressed as well.

Mentioned below are some tools that make Knowmax your best bud while setting up your integrations and knowledge base over your ticketing system:

1. Decision tree workflow

A guided chart branching out gives a schematic appearance to both the problem and its solution. This makes a quick scan possible for the user. All they have to do is start with addressing the primary issue. Steps after this are mere question-answer format. Each question is a probable cause scenario and the answer to that question decides if or not the conversation is going incorrect direction.

Answers with similar outcomes do not have to be repeated and entered. They can simply be connected via nodes on various levels. The statement marked ‘final’ is the outcome that will decide whether that problem is solved or if it still has loose ends to be covered.

2. Visual guides

When a series of images are used, it almost becomes comic series, just snippets instead of animated drawings. A study by MIT shows that human brain can see, capture, and process an image in a short time span of just 13 milliseconds. When a solution is presented as a series of images, the users merely have to look at them, follow the commands on their own devices, and the problem is solved. Knowmax has a ready repository of over 1800 devices on its user cloud. Imagine the simple time we are making you travel to!

3. FAQs

FAQs are a list of the questions that have been asked the most number of times by any user. All such keywords used, solutions implemented, and problem faced are derived from various conversation records and exported as a report. This report is then used to understand the most difficult part of using a product or what confuses a major part of your customers. It could be the process of shipment, payment, refund, tracking, repairing, or any other issue. If it hits highest on your analytics dashboard, it means the following:

• The issue requires attention of product experts and must be mended
• The customers have a problem executing those steps and might require tutorial mode guidance if possible

Until one of the two are implemented, showcasing such issues on top of your FAQ chart helps customers locate the problem and arrive to a conclusion.

Conclusion

An IT helpdesk ticketing system is more than what it seems to be on face. It is a digital assistant for an agent throughout their cycle. It helps right from the point of raising a ticket to search for its solution. For the SMEs, it helps them it create relevant knowledge articles and make them short as well as intuitive for a quick study and speedier dissemination reducing AHT and increasing FCR, CX, CSAT, etc.

Originally published at https://knowmax.ai on December 14, 2020.