A ticketing system is a software application used to track and manage customer requests or issues. Ticketing systems are commonly used by IT departments, customer service teams, and other organizations to organize, prioritize, and resolve reported problems or inquiries. An effective ticketing system centralizes support and service tasks into one system of record and provides visibility for both customers and staff.
Benefits of Using a Ticketing System
There are many benefits to using a ticketing system for managing customer issues and requests:
- Improved organization and tracking – With a ticketing system, each customer request is documented in a ticket with a unique ID number. This makes it easy to track the status of issues and makes sure nothing falls through the cracks.
- Increased visibility – Managers have an overview of all open tickets and can track metrics like ticket volume, resolution time, and customer satisfaction.
- Enhanced collaboration – Multiple agents can work on a ticket, share information, and see the full history in one place.
- Prioritized workload – Tickets can be categorized and assigned priority levels to make sure the most important issues are addressed first.
- Accountability and reporting – Ticket performance, individual workloads, and productivity can be measured and analyzed.
- Improved customer satisfaction – Customers have transparency into the service process and can check statuses online.
- Central knowledge base – Previous tickets provide solutions that can be reused for faster resolution times.
- Automated routing and escalation – Rules can send tickets to the right agents and escalate based on urgency.
With these capabilities, a good ticketing system provides structure, accountability, and efficiency to customer service and IT support teams.
Common Features of Ticketing Systems
While ticketing system software can be customized to fit an organization’s specific needs, most share some standard key features:
- Web-based interface – Agents and customers can access and manage tickets from any internet-connected device.
- Email integration – Many systems let users create tickets by email and communicate via email right within the platform.
- Automated ticket creation – Tickets can be opened manually by agents or customers, or automatically generated from alerts or system monitoring tools.
- Custom forms and fields – Forms can be configured to capture key data for each type of ticket or request.
- Contact database – Stores contact information for all customers.
- Reporting and analytics – Provides metrics and insight on ticket activity and performance.
- Agent collaboration tools – Agents can comment on tickets, @mention each other, share attachments, and more.
- Business rules and automation – Rules can route tickets to the appropriate agents or groups, trigger notifications, send reminders, escalate urgent issues, and more.
- REST APIs – Allow integrating and syncing the ticketing system with other applications.
- Customer self-service portals – Let users view open tickets, submit new requests, and check statuses online.
With this standard feature set plus robust configuration options, most organizations can find a ticketing system that matches their needs.
Types of Ticketing Systems
There are a few main categories of ticketing system software designed for different use cases:
Help Desk Software
Help desk ticketing systems are designed for IT service management and internal technical support. They focus on efficiently tracking, prioritizing, and resolving employee IT issues like hardware problems, software questions, login issues, and more. Popular help desk tools include:
- Zendesk
- Freshdesk
- JIRA Service Desk
- ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
- BMC Remedy
- Cherwell
- SysAid
Customer Service Software
Customer service ticketing systems focus on managing all customer-reported issues, feedback, and queries across channels like phone, email, chat, social media, and more. They optimize the customer experience with features like:
- Omnichannel support
- Customer portals
- SLA tracking
- CSAT surveys
- Knowledge bases
Popular customer service desk tools include:
- Zendesk Support
- Salesforce Service Cloud
- Freshdesk
- Intercom
- Zoho Desk
- HappyFox
Shared Services Platforms
Shared services platforms cater to both internal and external service needs. They provide flexibility to manage different types of tickets and support customers and employees from one system. Some examples are:
- JIRA Service Desk
- Zendesk
- Freshdesk
- Teamwork Desk
- Vision Helpdesk
Who Uses Ticketing Systems?
Many different departments and industries use ticketing systems to improve service processes:
- IT departments – For internal help desk and tech support tickets.
- Customer service teams – For managing customer inquiries and issues.
- Legal – To track client requests and billing.
- Facilities – To manage maintenance requests.
- Finance – To handle internal budget requests.
- Healthcare – For patient inquiries and complaints.
- Higher education – To manage student and faculty requests.
- Retail and ecommerce – For customer orders, returns, and feedback.
- Telecoms – To support customers with account issues.
- Government – For constituent services and non-emergency requests.
Any organization that fields inquiries,complaints, or service requests from internal or external users is a good fit for a ticketing system.
Ticketing System Workflows
Ticketing systems structure service processes into workflows. Here is an example of a common workflow in a ticketing system:
- A customer submits a ticket via email, customer portal, chat, or phone.
- The ticket lands in a general queue visible to the service team.
- An agent picks up the ticket, communicates with the customer for additional details if needed, and investigates the issue.
- If they can resolve the issue, the agent replies to the customer via the ticketing system and closes the ticket.
- For issues that require escalation, the agent assigns the ticket to a specialist team.
- The specialist works the ticket, looping in the customer and agent as needed.
- Once resolved, the specialist closes the ticket, which alerts the customer.
- A customer satisfaction survey is automatically emailed to the customer.
- The agent reviews the survey response and any agent or specialist comments before archiving the ticket.
This creates structure around the service process and makes sure nothing falls through the cracks. Business rules can further automate parts of the workflow like notifications, escalations, and follow-ups.
Ticketing System Reporting
Robust reporting is one of the key advantages of using a ticketing system. Managers can leverage ticket data to uncover insights like:
- Ticket volume and backlog
- Average time to resolution
- Resolution rates
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores
- Frequency and types of issues
- Which agents have the fastest/slowest resolution times
- How many tickets are overdue
This data can help identify pain points in service processes as well as opportunities for improvement. Many systems provide customizable reports and even let users create their own reports.
Selecting Ticketing System Software
Important criteria to consider when selecting a ticketing system include:
- User experience – The system should be intuitive for agents, admins, and customers.
- Mobile access – Important for letting agents manage tickets on the go.
- Reporting and analytics – Robust built-in reporting is key.
- Email integration and notifications – Critical for quick, seamless communication.
- ITSM vs CRM features – ITSM capabilities like SLAs, change management, and asset tracking or CRM features like omnichannel, portals, and CSAT for aligning with use cases.
- Customization and scalability – Match current and future needs.
- Integration capabilities – For connecting with other tools via APIs.
- Security – Ensure adequate data protection.
- Budget – Have a clear understanding of pricing and total cost of ownership.
When evaluating options, it helps to get hands-on with free trials to test the platform’s capabilities directly for your specific use case.
Benefits of Ticketing System Automation
Automation capabilities help ticketing systems streamline workflows and improve efficiency. Some key benefits include:
- Faster response times with automated ticket creation and routing.
- Fewer missed SLAs with automatic escalations and reminders.
- Greater consistency across customer interactions when using canned responses for common inquiries.
- More timely notifications to customers via automated updates.
- Reduced workload for agents by automating repetitive tasks.
- Higher customer satisfaction with automated post-resolution outreach.
- Improved data accuracy with automated parsing of ticket details.
- Increased ability to scale support without adding staff.
The right mix of automation and personal service is key for maximizing efficiency while still maintaining the human touch.
Ticketing System Integrations
Top ticketing systems provide APIs and out-of-the-box integrations that allow connecting the platform with other business applications. Common integrations include:
- Email – Integration with email services like Outlook, Gmail, and Exchange for creating tickets via email.
- Chat tools – Integration with live chat platforms like Intercom, Drift, or Zendesk Chat.
- CRM software – Sync customer data bi-directionally with CRM systems like Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics.
- SIEM tools – Ingest alerts from security products to automatically generate tickets.
- Monitoring tools – Feed in alerts from DevOps monitoring systems.
- Identity management – Integrate with solutions like Okta or ActiveDirectory for access control.
- Business intelligence – Connect with BI tools like Klipfolio, Tableau, or Power BI to visualize ticket data.
- Accounting – Extract billing and resourcing data to integrate with accounting systems.
Integrations allow ticketing systems to fit seamlessly into the existing software ecosystem for more streamlined processes.
Conclusion
With the ability to track, organize, manage, and analyze customer requests and issues from creation to resolution, a quality ticketing system is an invaluable tool for providing efficient, measurable service. Key capabilities like automated workflows, robust reporting, and integrations help IT service desks, customer support teams, and other business units deliver excellent experiences at scale.