Essential help desk ticketing software requirements

Overview

Organizations need to have effective systems in place for handling customer complaints in a timely manner, while offering a viable solution to their issues. This has led many companies to include a help desk in their operations that can answer customer queries and complaints, and connect the customers to the right team member, to get them the support they need.

However, a manually operated help desk is inefficient, frustrating for customers to use, and is prone to bottlenecks and log jams. This can hurt your relationship with your customer base as they do not feel heard, and can’t obtain the help they need. 

Help desk ticketing software offers solutions to all of these issues. This system allows customers to make their complaint, which it will then turn into a ticket, organize it into the right category, and send it to the appropriate team member to resolve it. This allows your help desk to operate with more efficiency and accuracy at a lower cost than a manual system. 

In order to effectively implement a help desk ticketing software system, you need to meet certain criteria. These requirements allow you to integrate this software into your customer service operations, which will reduce some of the burden placed on your support agents, while improving your customer experience.

Continue reading for a rundown of the requirements you need to meet to effectively include help desk ticketing software in your operations.

What is help desk ticketing software?

Help desk ticketing software is a system allowing customers to file complaints to an organization. The ticketing software will turn complaints into tickets, categorizing complaints, allowing them to be viewed and routed to the appropriate customer service representative to find a resolution. This system simplifies and streamlines the customer service process through a centralized, easy-to-use platform.

Ensuring timely, effective and organized customer support service is an integral component of running an organization.

A help desk ticketing software system can allow your customers to get the help they need, or to voice their concerns, even if they can’t get through to a support agent right away. The system will allow customers to submit their own support tickets outlining their issues, and the system will ensure it reaches the right person to find a solution.

Why is help desk ticketing software important for your business?

Help desk ticketing software is vital for your business. These systems offer advantages across your customer service process, like improved efficiency, increased transparency, organizational clarity, and reduced labor costs. 

As a result, implementing a help desk software system can cut your costs, improve your customer relations, and make your customer support agent’s lives much easier.

Benefits of help desk ticketing software

A help desk ticketing software system can offer a number of amazing benefits to your company. Implementing an effective system can allow your organization to improve efficiency, enhance customer service and foster trust amongst your customer base. This can help your business to scale and grow, without disrupting your customer services or harming trust with your consumers. 

Here are some of the top benefits of help desk ticketing software when used correctly in a business: 

Increased customer service efficiency

One of the biggest advantages of help desk ticketing software is that it streamlines and standardizes the customer service process. By automating support requests, it eliminates much of the manual work associated with managing tickets. This allows customer service teams to handle more issues in less time.

With a ticketing system, customers can independently submit tickets 24/7 using a web form or mobile app. This gets customer issues logged right away rather than needing to wait for an agent. Tickets are then automatically routed to the correct agent or department based on tags or priority levels. Agents have a centralized portal where all new, in-progress and closed tickets appear. This saves time spent searching between different channels like email and phone calls.

Automation also reduces duplicative work. 

For example, when a customer submits critical complaint tickets, the software can automatically generate a ticket to the appropriate internal team for resolution. Standard form replies and knowledge base articles can be linked to common ticket types to speed up resolving basic issues. 

Tracking is automated too - tickets are updated in real-time as their status changes.

Teams no longer have to spend as much time on administrative tasks. More time can be focused on direct customer communications and problem-solving. As a result, customers get faster responses and resolution times since queues are organized and prioritized allowing companies to support more customers with fewer resources.

Improved accuracy

Ticketing systems improve accuracy throughout the customer service process. Forced fields and drop-downs ensure tickets contain all relevant details upfront. Things like the The system logs and records the customer name, contact details, product or service affected, issue description, and any previous communications.

Standardized templates provide a framework for agents to document tickets. Through this standardization, key information isn't missed between handoffs. 

Historical notes, attachments and audit trails make past customer interactions easily accessible. This provides agents with rich context to resolve new issues correctly.

Automated routing matched to agent skills prevents tickets from falling through the cracks. The right agent is notified immediately through their personalized dashboard. 

On top of this, all communication is centralized and standardized in one place, improving clarity, which can lead to more accurate resolutions.

Reporting and analytics give leadership visibility into errors. Issues causing repeated tickets are more accessible to identify from patterns. Misallocated tickets point to gaps in routing rules or a lack of training in your customer support agents. 

Teams address systemic problems and continuously improve intake, triage, and resolution processes over time through data. 

Overall, fewer mistakes translate to a better customer experience.

Enhanced customer satisfaction

Satisfied customers are more likely to purchase again and recommend a business to others. Help desk ticketing software enhances the key drivers of customer satisfaction.

Customers have a consistent self-service experience through web or mobile portals. Usability is improved through FAQs, guided workflows and real-time status alerts. Issues can be logged 24/7 without waiting on call center hours. Self-sufficiency is empowering for customers.

This transparency builds trust - customers see when tickets are received and have visibility into their progress. Standard updates keep them informed until resolution. Automated escalation rules ensure priority issues don't fall through the cracks. 

As a result, waiting feels purposeful instead of frustrating.

Agents have instant access to complete customer histories. Context allows for more helpful, personalized conversations that save repetition. Resolutions draw from knowledge bases tailored to individual customer needs. Consistency between agents is improved.

Tracking within the system creates accountability. Service level commitments can be made and measured centrally. Root causes of service gaps are apparent from reports. Corrective actions keep satisfaction climbing over time.

With streamlined handling, issues are resolved quickly to keep your agents productive. Less wasted time on hold or waiting translates to a positive experience for your customers, even for routine queries. 

Companies develop loyal, long-term customer relationships with a delight-focused approach supported by software after effectively implementing help desk ticketing software.

What requirements should you have for your help desk ticketing software?

In order to implement an effective help desk ticketing software system that actually benefits your customer service agents, you need to meet certain requirements. 

Here are some important prerequisites to consider when implementing a help desk ticketing system: 

Features to increase agent productivity/experience

Including features in your help desk ticketing software to increase your agent productivity is vital for optimizing your customer service operations. One simple way of achieving this is by adding short term deadlines to all tickets. This ensures complaints are handled promptly. You can also incentivize your agents by setting benchmarks of how many tickets they need to resolve per shift, and then you can offer perks or bonuses for agents who consistently meet their benchmarks.

You should also consult your support agents when installing the system and after it is up and running to identify inefficiencies or issues they may have when using it. Open communication allows you to identify bottlenecks and optimize your operations.

Finally, you should also ensure that your team members are well-versed in using the system and have received adequate training so they are aware of the benefits of the software and how they can best use it to improve their performance.

Strong AI/automation features

In order to get the most out of a help desk ticketing software system, you need to effectively leverage AI and automation features. Automation features can automatically categorize tickets, and then send them to the appropriate team member. 

For instance, a customer files a complaint about not receiving a product. The automated features in the system then log the complaint and route it to a member of your delivery customer support team, who can then resolve the issue in a timely manner. This is all done without any human input.

Automation can also resolve some issues automatically after receiving a complaint. Automation is capable of handling repetitive tasks, and data entry and can find routine resolutions based on the instructions you give the system when installing it. 

Automation and AI can greatly reduce the labor costs involved in running your customer services, while also improving efficiency in your help desk ticketing software.

Live chat/chatbot features

Live chat systems allow your customers to get real-time instant responses from your customer service agents. This can streamline communications between your agents and customers, which will foster trust in your brand by allowing your team to rapidly respond to complaints. 

You can also leverage AI chatbots to automatically reply to customer queries and complaints, freeing your agents to deal with more complex issues. 

Integration with a variety of platforms

Integrations is essential for optimizing your operational efficiency. Integrations allow you to seamlessly combine features from the various platforms, applications, and software systems you use in your operations. Integrating your help desk ticketing system with other systems can ensure that you have more clarity over your operations. 

For example, a customer files a complaint with the ticketing system which routes the ticket to the appropriate agent. The agent receives a notification on their company Slack account, through an integration. This ensures your team gets notified about the status of tickets, ensuring the ticket is resolved in a timely manner. 

Strong data analytic/reporting capabilities

Reporting and data analytics allow businesses to gain actionable business data to optimize processes and correctly allocate resources during strategic planning. Your help desk ticketing system can collect data showing why your company receives the majority of its complaints, allowing you to take steps to remove the issues and improve your offerings to your customer base. 

Data analytics can also highlight how your customer services operation functionality. You can collect data on where issues are slowest to be resolved, or you can identify and then remove bottlenecks that are slowing down your operations. 

You can also use data analytics and reporting to see which team members resolve the most, or the least, tickets, giving you insights into individual agents’ performance. This, in turn, allows you to assist some of your staff who are struggling, or who you should consider for an upcoming promotion. 

As with all business operation systems, having ongoing data and reports allows you to optimize processes to maximize efficiency, and reduce redundancies, while also offering you key information on how to improve your customer relations, as well as your goods and services. 

Security features

It is extremely important to keep customers' personal details safe when they come to you with questions or issues. You need to implement cybersecurity best practices like multi-step logins and limited access controls to ensure only the right team members can see the right information and to ensure that no one can access sensitive information they should not have access too.

Cybersecurity measures that you use to keep your customer’s data safe include requiring strong passwords, and requiring regular updates to passwords. You can also introduce 2FA for two-factor authentication as standard. This can require users to use a verified phone number or email address along with passwords to prove their identity. 

You also need to ensure that only appropriate team members can access any personal or sensitive information regarding your customers. For example, only customer support agents who resolve payment issues should be able to see your customer’s payment details. Similarly, only support agents who resolve delivery issues should have access to your customer’s delivery address. 

You should also consider encrypting information shared within the system. Encryption prevents unintended viewers from reading information, and instead only allows intended viewers to access information. This can prevent hackers or bad actors from accessing sensitive data, even after hacking into your system. 

Ticket management

Effective ticket management is crucial for a successful help desk ticketing system. The software must robustly capture, prioritize, route, track and report on issues through their full lifecycle. Customers should have multiple convenient channels to submit tickets which automatically import into the central database. Required fields, timestamps, priority levels and custom tagging allow for streamlined categorization and filtering.

As tickets enter, automated rules intelligently route them to the appropriate team or agent queue based on configurations like product, issue type, urgency and skill match. High-priority tickets trigger SLA alerts, while less critical issues sequence by due dates. Escalation paths notify supervisors if response/resolution times are exceeded. Agents have clear workbench views of their full ticket load with collaboration tools.

When solutions are identified, agents document permanent resolutions directly on tickets, building a knowledge base over time. They can bulk update status, select resolving reasons, link to supplementary information and set follow-up reminders before closing. Supervisors review, approve and reopen tickets until full resolution. CSAT scoring provides customer feedback.

Reporting capabilities are essential for monitoring KPIs like volume, backlog, SLAs and handle times. Dashboards with data visualizations keep stakeholders informed. Custom reports filter by parameters like product and channel to identify inefficiencies and trends. Security roles restrict report access appropriately. With robust ticket management, issues follow a consistent, measurable process from initiation to closure.

How Freshworks help desk ticketing software can meet your business needs?

Freshworks offers a comprehensive help desk ticketing software solution that checks all the boxes for modern organizations' requirements. Their cloud-based platform provides full features to streamline and optimize customer service workflows.

To drive agent productivity, Freshworks includes time-saving automation like rules-based ticket routing, prioritization, and categorization. Automated triggers notify teams of urgent escalations, while collaborative inboxes and internal chat enable seamless handoffs. Customizable agent collision detection prevents duplicative work on the same issue.

The AI-powered chatbot, resolver bots, and knowledge base equip customers with self-service desk resources for faster resolutions of common queries. This offloads repetitive customer requests from live agents. The AI also provides conversation insights to continually refine your knowledge bases.

For omnichannel support, Freshworks unifies all customer conversations from email, phone, chat, social media, and messaging apps into one universal inbox. Agents get complete context with timeline views of past interactions, regardless of channel. They can work cases to resolution directly within the platform.

Advanced reporting surfaces real-time analytics across metrics like response times, resolution rates, and handle times. Role-based dashboards align with operational decisions. Teams can measure the impact of process improvements through historical trends and forecasting capabilities.

Security is prioritized with data encryption, audit trails, granular access permissions, and compliance certifications like GDPR and SOC 2. Integrations sync Freshworks with leading CRM, collaboration, and business intelligence platforms for cross-functional visibility.

With its intuitive interface, automated intelligence, unified conversations, and powerful insights, the Freshworks help desk solution empowers teams to deliver seamless, efficient customer service experiences at scale. It has a robust yet customizable capabilities to address the unique requirements of organizations across industries.