Quality customer support is a concern for any website that provides customer support. If your website does not take advantage of the benefits of a ticketing system, you may be facing problems as your business grows with problems directly related to disorganization. This can have a direct impact on your reputation with customers.
As your business grows you may want to put a support plan into place to handle customers along with their problems, questions and need for quality support. Even if your operation is currently small enough to make this manageable through phone or email contact, it is easier to implement this type of system and plan now so that it can be expanded with anticipated business growth.
Using A Support Ticketing System
A support ticketing system a way to help manage customer support. This helps keep customers happy and returning to your website. Some of the ways a support ticketing system can help your business include:
1. More Efficient Time Management – Not only will a support ticketing system allow you to track tickets for repeat problems, it allows you to monitor time spent and keep your business operating efficiently. This becomes important as your business grows and communication needs grow with it. By tracking similar problems and questions you will be better able to set up a FAQ for customers rather than manually answering the same question multiple times. Tracking commonalities also gives data to assist in setting up a Troubleshooting Guide or knowledgebase for customers. These tools give near instant access to answers to common questions.
2. Tracking Communications – You can avoid frustrations with customers by tracking communications as well. If your business has grown large enough to have multiple people handling these queries, it allows everyone involved to view the communication history and to avert potential misunderstandings.
3. Managing Business Emails – While initially it may be easier to manage support problems via email, as your business grows, handling these problems manually can quickly escalate into a momentous task each day. Server difficulties can make emails inaccessible or deem them lost forever unless a remote backup is performed often. Support ticket systems store your emails automatically and help you keep them organized so you are better able to handle customer issues and concerns without risk of losing important business.
There are several systems on the market to be considered when shopping for Support Ticket Systems.
Here are 5 that stand out as favorites in the industry:
eStreamDesk – Provides a self-service area for clients including discussions and knowledgebases for quick answers to common problems. As a web-based ticket tracking system, it provides email management and also allows customers to track support tickets and their status.
OTRS – With the benefit of being an open source system, OTRS is useful for enabling multiple support staff to track customer inquiries and problems. It is useful for the management of processes such as Support Center, IT Service Management and Help Desk.
Request Tracker by Best Practical – Another open source tracking system, Request Tracker is written in PERL. Useful for customer service, it tracks workflow, bug tracking and help desk ticketing, etc.
Kayako Resolve – Available as Software as a Service (SaaS), this tool can be hosted on a server or used via download. It provides a means for customer contact 24/7 and offers an automated ticket filtering and routing option.
osTicket – This open source support ticket system pulls all tickets coming from web-based forms, phone and email, then stores them in a web interface. This allows you to easily manage, store and organize all requests.
As your business grows you may want to put a support plan into place to handle customers along with their problems, questions and need for quality support. Even if your operation is currently small enough to make this manageable through phone or email contact, it is easier to implement this type of system and plan now so that it can be expanded with anticipated business growth.
Using A Support Ticketing System
A support ticketing system a way to help manage customer support. This helps keep customers happy and returning to your website. Some of the ways a support ticketing system can help your business include:
1. More Efficient Time Management – Not only will a support ticketing system allow you to track tickets for repeat problems, it allows you to monitor time spent and keep your business operating efficiently. This becomes important as your business grows and communication needs grow with it. By tracking similar problems and questions you will be better able to set up a FAQ for customers rather than manually answering the same question multiple times. Tracking commonalities also gives data to assist in setting up a Troubleshooting Guide or knowledgebase for customers. These tools give near instant access to answers to common questions.
2. Tracking Communications – You can avoid frustrations with customers by tracking communications as well. If your business has grown large enough to have multiple people handling these queries, it allows everyone involved to view the communication history and to avert potential misunderstandings.
3. Managing Business Emails – While initially it may be easier to manage support problems via email, as your business grows, handling these problems manually can quickly escalate into a momentous task each day. Server difficulties can make emails inaccessible or deem them lost forever unless a remote backup is performed often. Support ticket systems store your emails automatically and help you keep them organized so you are better able to handle customer issues and concerns without risk of losing important business.
There are several systems on the market to be considered when shopping for Support Ticket Systems.
Here are 5 that stand out as favorites in the industry:
eStreamDesk – Provides a self-service area for clients including discussions and knowledgebases for quick answers to common problems. As a web-based ticket tracking system, it provides email management and also allows customers to track support tickets and their status.
OTRS – With the benefit of being an open source system, OTRS is useful for enabling multiple support staff to track customer inquiries and problems. It is useful for the management of processes such as Support Center, IT Service Management and Help Desk.
Request Tracker by Best Practical – Another open source tracking system, Request Tracker is written in PERL. Useful for customer service, it tracks workflow, bug tracking and help desk ticketing, etc.
Kayako Resolve – Available as Software as a Service (SaaS), this tool can be hosted on a server or used via download. It provides a means for customer contact 24/7 and offers an automated ticket filtering and routing option.
osTicket – This open source support ticket system pulls all tickets coming from web-based forms, phone and email, then stores them in a web interface. This allows you to easily manage, store and organize all requests.
Brian Flores is a writer a Los Angeles web hosting company. You can follow him on Twitter @BrianAFlores
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