You’re committed to external customer service, but what about the internal service your employees are receiving? Recent help desk data reveals it takes teams 24-hours on average to respond to support tickets.
Does this stat seem a little high to you?
You’re right. Twenty-four hours is a long time for both customers and employees. That’s why more companies are optimizing their ticket management systems to enable faster resolutions.
Microsoft-first technology helps small and midsize companies (SMBs) deliver rapid support to multiple departments. For example, managers can generate unlimited custom request forms for any issue. Microsoft-friendly help desk tools leverage machine learning and AI to streamline support issues and reduce response times and, in some cases, prevent tickets from even being created. This dynamic improves self-service support, without weighing the help desk down with highly repetitive requests.
But even with these powerful tools, you need a ticket management solution that can take advantage of toolsets/investments and enable better customer and employee experiences.
Learn more in this beginner’s guide to ticket management systems.
Ticket Management Basics
Ticket management is critical for every help desk team.
Simply put, the ticketing system manages all support tickets. Tickets document the issue, creating a record of interactions and resolutions. You can also think of it as a massive communication pipeline.
Help desk departments analyze ticket management data for re-occuring request themes, resolution times and the best delegation and operational balance. Next, analysts visualize, interpret and suggest data-driven solutions to improve both employee and customer satisfaction.
Some tickets resolve in one interaction. However, many support tickets are escalated to designated team members. The escalation process has a direct impact on support response times.
Here’s a basic rundown of simple ticket management interactions:
Ticket Management in Action
Suppose a user fills out a general request form on a company’s website or an employee fills out a support request for a software bug. These actions create an instant ticket, triggering a support thread within the ticket management system. Both the user and support agent can see the ticket on their end. There are a few ways communication between support agents and users is carried out.
Email Tickets
You’re probably most familiar with email ticketing systems.
In this scenario, a user sends a support request through a contact form. The request generates an automatic email confirmation. As the support agent updates the thread, the user receives email updates and a resolution confirmation.
This method works well for customers and general inquiries, but it’s not quick enough for employee support, especially in fast-paced work environments.
If an employee is helping a customer and needs internal support, they can’t wait around for an email. Fortunately, there are real-time ticketing solutions.
Live Chat Ticketing
The next delivery method is live chat.
Instead of filling out a request form, a user types a request directly into a live chatbox. This action also generates an instant ticket; both parties can see the ticket details on their screens.
Instead of updating the user via email, the support agent delivers real-time support in the chatbox. For simple requests, you can use AI chat bots that pull answers from your own knowledge base.
Conversational Ticketing
Ticket management also affects business operations. You can’t have stellar customer support without excellent workflow. This point leads to the next approach: conversational ticketing.
Conversational ticketing improves internal company workflow by delivering quick support through communication platforms like Microsoft Teams. More than 90 percent of companies use MS Teams, driving the demand for new Teams-friendly ticketing solutions. Conversational ticketing decreases resolution times for employees, improving productivity and work quality. It also feels more personable and human.
Leveraging all of these solutions gives you a way to deliver exceptional omnichannel support to staff and customers.
More Benefits of Conversational Ticket Management
As your company grows, so do demands and needs surrounding support requests.
Conversational ticketing can help you manage a higher volume of customers and workload as you grow and build your team. For example, you can add help bots in MS teams streamline workflow in your communication platform. This method is good for general employee inquiries.
When a user asks a question, the bot can provide instant answers. You can set trigger words and phrases for the bot, like “employee manual,” “company network issues” or “bug error.” Or you can use natural language processing (NLP), which recognizes phrases and context in speech and redirects accordingly. Once triggered, the bot directs the user to a resolution.
AI bots can also fetch other team members for fast ticket resolutions. This method works best with a massive knowledge base of pre-written answers.
AI-based ticketing, also known as self-service support, empowers employees to resolve their own requests, which effectively reduces time and improves production. AI solutions also generate less ticket volume.
Of course, some employee support tickets require more involved help. If the AI-based virtual assistant can’t provide the answer, it can generate a ticket. That’s where a live chat agent, or support analyst, comes in.
Live agents provide personalized support with more details, walking employees through problems step-by-step. This is a good method for complex and emergency issues.
How Does Conversational Ticket Management Work?
Are you ready to experience the benefits of conversational ticketing?
First, watch a Tikit demo to see the ticketing platform in action. You can also add it to MS teams now to get started right away.
Tikit leverages best of breed AI to perform ticket deflection and promote resolution as fast as chat to improve IT and employee interactions. This approach is effective in both remote and on-site workplaces.
The process is simple and straightforward.
An employee types a question into a MS teams chat, triggering a response from a virtual assistant, HelpBot. Using natural language processing, HelpBot will serve answers sourced from the knowledge base and other resources. If the employee resolves the issue, the issue is completed without ticket creation. If the employee needs more help, a ticket is created and escalated to the right contact.
Solutions like Tikit provide a process to track chat and ticket data for data-driven decision-making, along with a reporting structure.
Create Better Support Experiences
Are you ready to reduce response time, empower employees and make decisions with the data you are collecting?
Experience the benefits of a Microsoft-powered ticket management system and conversational ticketing. Go a step further with Tikit and provide exceptional employee support from any location.
Have any questions?
Check out our demo and knowledge base to learn more, or experience Tikit for yourself right now!
