If you work in customer service, from time to time your customers will have problems and complaints. Responding in an efficient and timely manner is key to customer satisfaction.
If your business has good customer service, you are much more likely to get new customers, you’re more likely to retain old customers, and they’re more likely to spend money.
That said, if you have a large business, keeping track of all of those questions and problems and your own responses can be a nightmare. After all, seeing as response time is so important, you need to organize communications between customers and service reps.
You need to create some kind of order, so nobody gets left behind or forgotten. One way to ensure satisfactory customer service, besides using a high-quality data collection and customer feedback tool such as Responsely, is to use a ticketing system. Let’s discuss what ticketing systems are, how they work, and their benefits.
What is a Ticketing System?
In essence, a ticketing system is a customer service and management tool. This software or app is used to organize and deal with customer requests, questions, complaints, and any communication between a business and its customers.
Ticketing systems organize customer complaints and questions to make it easier and more efficient for the customer service reps. It’s all about streamlining the customer service experience to create the best possible experience for customers while also making the process easier for businesses.
How do Ticketing Systems Work?
Ticketing systems are relatively simple, which is one of their main attractions for customer service. They work by allowing customers to create a ticket – a file containing the queries or problems they face. More often than not, customers can select from various predetermined questions or problem categories and usually write a little piece detailing the query.
Once this has been done, the customer submits the ticket to the ticketing system. The ticket is shared with both the customer service rep and the customer who submitted the ticket (generally via email). This way, both the service rep and the customer can view the ticket to ensure that no details have been missed or misconstrued.
More often than not, at least with the good ticketing systems, there will also be some form of triage. Triage is a system that dictates the importance of the query, with the most critical questions and issues being put at the front of the list. However, this is not always the case.
Either way, at some point, the customer service rep will begin to work on the issue, and sometimes customers will be informed when the service reps start working on their issue. The open ticket can be used for back-and-forth communication between the service rep and the customer.
The ticketing system will log all communications to alert both parties of such. Once the issue has been resolved, the customer or the service rep (usually the service rep) will close the ticket, thus bringing the process to completion.
The Benefits of Ticketing Systems
There are three main benefits of customer service ticketing systems, so let’s take a quick look.
Organization
The main benefit of ticketing systems in customer service is that of organization. This is a great way to keep track of all customer queries and complaints and organize them to make sense, particularly in terms of response time and when the ticket will be dealt with. Tickets can be prioritized in terms of urgency; the most pressing issues need to be dealt with in a timely fashion.
Accessibility
Another benefit that ticketing systems bring to customer service is accessibility. Ticketing systems keep everything in one place, which means that the customer service rep and the customer have easy access to the tickets and, therefore, all necessary information.
Communication
The other benefit is that ticketing systems make it easier to communicate. Here we mean that it is easier for reps and customers to communicate, but there is more to it than that.
If a ticket needs to go through multiple dispute levels and various people need to be called in to deal with it, a ticketing system allows all involved parties or people to communicate efficiently.
Conclusion
While ticketing systems are not new, they are beneficial, both for customers and businesses alike.
