Managing and resolving customer requests and incidents is paramount for enjoying sleek internal operations and a well-functioning business. Modern-day customers expect a lot from customer support teams, particularly when it comes to speed and immediate problem resolving.

According to Microsoft’s “Global State of Customer Service” study, 90% of Americans use customer service as a factor when deciding whether or not to do business with a company, with quick resolution time listed as the top factor in good customer experience.   

And in order to meet customers’ demands for fast resolution times, companies need to incorporate a sound ticketing system for customer service to drive fast, consistent, excellent service. Such a system can help your business fast-track customer support issues, prevent incidents from repeating, improve team collaboration, and deliver outstanding support—all from a single tool. 

However, incorporating a robust ticketing system in your customer service efforts won’t get the job done on its own. Your customer service agents are also a massive part of the equation because they will need to adopt all ticketing system best practices and get on the same page about prioritizing, responding to, and following up on every ticket to improve the overall customer experience with your brand. 

So, how do you successfully implement a ticketing system within your existing customer service department and improve the service you provide to your customers? In this blog post, we’ll do the heavy lifting for you and explain step-by-step how to implement a ticketing system for improved ticket management and happier clients. But first, let’s see what a ticketing system for customer service is and what it can provide for your business.

What Is A Ticketing System For Customer Service? 

A ticketing system for customer service is a software solution that manages all incoming customer inquiries, requests, questions, and customer problems regarding your business offerings or services. Such systems are designed to convert every support request into a singular ticket and make the entire customer support faster and easier through ticket management, automation, improved team collaboration, and other essential features.

With the implementation of robust ticketing software for customer service, among other things, you’ll be able to: bring all customer support requests from different channels on a single platform, assign tickets to experts and track the tickets’ progress, consolidate multiple inboxes into a shared inbox that all your representatives can easily access, track and measure key support metrics, capture customer feedback and improve your support operations, and more.

Why You Should Implement A Ticketing System In Your Company? 

Each forward-thinking organization needs to have a sophisticated ticketing system for customer service implemented to efficiently manage the lifecycle of every customer request, right from the moment it’s captured through to the time it gets settled. Besides the obvious reasons for providing better customer support and experience, the successful implementation of a ticketing system will help you to: 

• Improve team collaboration: A ticketing system for customer service can make your agents and supervisors collaborate to manage and resolve complex customer issues all from a shared dashboard. 
• Save time and money: With an implemented system in place, you and your customer service professionals can avoid wasting time on dull, repetitive, manual tasks and achieve more with an automated workflow powered by artificial intelligence and its subdivisions (machine learning, natural language processing, deep learning). At the same time, the increased productivity and reduced ticket volume can help you cut operational costs. 
• Achieve improved customer satisfaction with reliable support: As nowadays, each customer demands a fast resolution of their issues, ticketing system software can help you provide 24/7 dedicated customer support and deliver memorable experiences.

Implementing A Ticketing System In 7 Easy Steps 

As we already stated, each forward-thinking company must adopt a robust ticketing system for customer support in order to diligently manage all technical issues and requests coming from clients. Below, we’ll explain the implementation process of ticketing systems in 7 easy steps. 

Determine Your Goals 

Before you decide to implement any software solution, first, you need to understand "the why" of adopting it. And for having a smooth ticketing system for customer service implementation, setting attainable and clear goals is crucial. 

Of course, every company's primary goal would more or less be the same - to offer outstanding and reliable support to customers. Nevertheless, it would be best to keep more detailed goals in mind, like resolving the maximal number of requests and the first contact or lowering the time it takes your customer support agents to resolve a customer issue. 

After you have defined your goals, you can plan a course of action to achieve them. It's also imperative to document, share, and receive feedback for these goals with the concerned members of your team, in this case, your service representatives, so that everyone is on the same page from day one.

Understand Your Customers’ Expectations And Main Pain Points 

To better serve your customers by implementing a robust ticketing system, you need to deep dive into their expectations and identify their main pain points first. Because if your customers expect your customer service department to offer a viable solution within half an hour, addressing their concerns beyond this time frame can lead to a poor experience. 

To comprehend the common concerns of your customers, you have to uncover their expectations and address their main pain points by asking them questions like:

• Are you comfortable interacting with a human customer service representative, or do you prefer using self-service solutions? 
• Are you willing to wait if your issue is escalated to the concerned agent or department? 
• How easy was it for you to register your request with our service? 
• How can we further improve our customer support processes, in your opinion? 

After a while, by uncovering more customer service challenges and successfully solving them, you can alleviate customers’ pain points and provide a wholesome customer experience through your ticketing system that exceeds their expectations.

Onboard And Train Your Customer Service Agents 

Prior to implementing a ticketing system, you will have a crucial in-house question to answer—how many people will you need in your customer support team? The answer to that will largely depend on your existing user base and the number of customer service tickets you’ll typically receive. 

Once your personnel needs are taken care of, you will need to make your agents well-versed with all the fine details of the implemented ticketing system. For that reason, you should set aside time and budget to educate your support agents on the software through regular training sessions organized by the provider and help them develop the necessary skills, knowledge, and confidence. In the end, a well-trained team is what can take you closer to achieving the goal of having delighted customers.

Create Predefined Rules For An Automated Workflow 

In order to improve the efficiency within your ticketing system for customer service and save time, you will need to automate as many processes as possible within your ticketing management workflow. 

For example, you can use it to automate the ticket assignment feature of your ticketing system to assign tickets to available representatives automatically. You can also select to assign tickets automatically to relevant agents who are the most capable of handling them. Or, you can set predefined time rules that perform the desired action after a certain period has passed, like inserting a time rule that automatically shares a feedback email with clients right after their customer service request has been resolved.

Develop A User-Centric Knowledge Base 

As we move forward in time, modern-day customers are obviously getting more and more comfortable with the idea of helping themselves instead of waiting for someone else to help them resolve the issue they’re having with a company. So, by providing customer service channels like self-service knowledge bases, you can considerably reduce the ticket volume and minimize costs on the go. 

When creating your knowledge base as part of your ticketing system, ensure that it’s optimized for mobile devices, as most customers seek help and search for their queries using their smartphones. In addition, make searching easy by structuring popular self-help guides or articles at the top, regularly updating the content, and taking feedback from your users.

In the end, if a majority of customers approach your support team by filling out customer service tickets to seek help with basic or common questions, taking the time out to close down such similar tickets can overburden your employees. Thereby, to save time, you can develop a pool of canned responses or a knowledge base that can be easily accessed using your ticketing system for customer service.

Target The Right KPIs 

To run effective customer support operations, you constantly need to track and improve key customer service metrics. So, by utilizing the reporting capabilities of your ticketing system, you can gauge the overall effectiveness of your customer support agents and discern the areas where you need to improve. 

To do that, you can track key performance indicators or KPIs like the average response time, first contact resolution, and overall customer satisfaction. Metrics will not only define your ticketing system’s success but can also be used to create a sense of accountability among your team members. In addition, scheduling automated reports on these metrics can help your personnel stay on the right track.

Test Run Your Ticketing System For Customer Service 

Last but definitely not least, the ticketing system setup is not complete without running multiple functionality tests. The goal of testing your ticketing system is not to find bugs or make the system better but to reduce risks by eliminating problems and getting your team well-acquainted with the system’s interface. 

Stay patient and give your team enough time to explore all the system’s features. This will allow them to adjust to new software and customize their workflow before going live. Moreover, you should share sample tickets with your personnel and ask them to resolve them within a constrained period to check if the training procedures were fruitful.

The bottom line is that the success of your customer service operations ultimately depends on how well-trained and versed your team is with the tools they use every day. Once you test run your ticketing system and everything seems fine, you are now ready to go live and resolve customer support requests in a flash. 

Final Words 

When success knocks on your company’s door, sales suddenly start pouring in, and your team grows, you’ll probably get overwhelmed with customer support requests from your customers. 

A powerful ticketing system for customer service will allow you to stay on top of all customer requests and resolve them as fast and efficiently as possible. To implement one, ensure that you follow the steps mentioned above and give your team and your customers an innovative tool at their fingertips to make their jobs and the process of getting customer support easier and more enjoyable.