The Best Ticketing software IT helpdesk
Tickets, phone calls, malfunctioning equipment, and people whining… IT support evolves at breakneck pace, and if your IT staff is going to handle or to manage everything with Outlook, for example, your business might be wasting a lot of money.
When you combine an email client with the industry’s high pay, you’ll find yourself in a scenario where you’re “throwing money down the toilet.” A single tech support case may cost anywhere from $2.93 to $49.69, and if you provide tiered IT assistance, the cost will likely quadruple every time an issue is escalated.
Ticketing software for call center business
In summary, it’s ideal to assist your IT support personnel in becoming more productive. You’re presumably aware that the solution to this problem is an IT ticketing system because you’re reading this post. That is correct. This type of software can save up to 670 hours of work each year.
In general, an IT support ticketing software automates manual activities and assists IT personnel in managing the lifetime of each request.
Ticket management is at the heart of an IT support ticketing software, as the name indicates. When a new case is filed, the system produces a ticket and adds all necessary customer and incident data to it. Advanced tools for asset management, IT change management, network diagnostics, issue and incident management, and other tasks are available in some systems.
When your IT department also serves as a customer service department, the language becomes even more perplexing. Most IT ticketing software, fortunately, can be utilized for both employee and customer assistance. As a result, you may get away with misusing the phrase.
What to Look for in an IT Ticketing System
It’s critical to think about both your customers’ demands and your agents’ workflow when choosing a helpdesk ticketing system. Because not all systems have all of the capabilities you need, you may have to use a combination of tools to get the results you want.
Here’s what to look for when selecting IT ticketing software in general.
Options for self-service
Knowledge base from other sources
For customer assistance, an external knowledge base offers a rare win-win-win (yep, that’s a triple win) situation. Customers are happy to fix difficulties on their own, which decreases ticket volume and total support expenses for your organization.
An external knowledge base may be used to post customer FAQs, product and service updates, and troubleshooting instructions, among other things. Customers may browse by category or search the knowledge base, which helps you avoid creating tickets while keeping them satisfied since they can get the information they need quickly.
Internal knowledge repository
Because it allows workers to service themselves, an internal knowledge base helps your IT team operate more effectively. Your busy users will enjoy being able to quickly locate the answers and guidance they require.
Agents can benefit greatly from an internal knowledge base when dealing with support inquiries. It can hold standard operating procedures (SOPs) for dealing with requests, as well as how-tos, technical documentation, and best practices.
You can utilize a third-party knowledge base if your helpdesk ticket software does not include one.
Smart mailbox that is unified
The capacity to produce helpdesk tickets from multiple sources, such as email, live chat, social media, phone calls, and so on, is one of the most important aspects of an IT ticketing system. Your team will be more productive if there is a single dashboard to see and handle all incoming tickets.
Here’s what you should be able to accomplish with a unified inbox:
- Manually create tickets
- For frequent concerns, use fast pre-populated templates.
- When the end-user reports an issue, send her an automated response that allows her to respond.
- Files to be attached
- To add context, keep all previous talks in the same ticket.
- Enable agents to participate on a ticket, for example, by writing internal comments
Automation
Most ticketing systems enable you to set triggers and rules to modify ticket status, priority, category, and other ticket properties automatically. Some even allow you to create unique processes, which eliminates the majority of manual effort. The following is an example of how this works in practice.
Assume your ticketing system software allows you to create rules for auto-triaging and auto-prioritizing tickets based on email address, subject line, ticket type, and other factors. You may set up a rule to tag any issues that come from a certain email address (for example, an important client or a C-level executive) and allocate them to your most knowledgeable IT support staff.
Companies that need to attach a unique set of products and services to each client would benefit from automation (e.g. MSRs).
Security
Customer information is frequently linked to support tickets, and passwords are exchanged, among other things. Your sensitive data should be protected by ticketing system software.
To remove all potential risks, some businesses choose on-premise installations. Some people prefer ticketing systems that are hosted in the cloud. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but security is a problem in both instances.
Some key security aspects to look for in an IT helpdesk include:
- IP controls are in place to guarantee that only your employees have access to the back end.
- Encryption of messages to safeguard critical information
- Within your company, you may utilize access control to define user groups and rights.
- Virus screening is performed to guarantee that no potentially dangerous file attachments are transmitted.
- For cloud-based solutions, SSL URL encryption is required.
Management of incidents and problems
Managing an incident is similar to putting out a fire. The issue is first detected and recorded, then diagnosed, and lastly resolved as quickly as feasible.
The capabilities you require are accessible in nearly all ticket management software, as seen in the incident management lifecycle below.
Problem management, on the other hand, can be a little more difficult. It’s all about figuring out what caused one or more events and taking steps to avoid them from happening again. If you need to manage problems, you’ll need an IT support system that lets you do the following:
- Analyze incidents and look for patterns.
- Identify concerns that are duplicated or reoccurring.
- Determine the future hazards associated with the current occurrence.
- Analyze data from outside sources like as suppliers, partners, and the internal developer team, among others.
Insights
In IT support, speed is crucial, which is why most teams have SLAs (Service Level Agreements) that they must adhere to. As a result, analytics and insights are an important part of ticketing software.
The ideal ticketing software will show you how your team is performing in relation to your SLAs right away. It will give you real-time information on agent performance, such as the number of tickets closed, the average time it takes to handle issues, and so on.
Furthermore, ticketing software software should allow you to collect customer input and assess customer satisfaction, whether through NPS surveys, CSAT surveys, or other methods.
Integrations
Integrations with other applications will be a major factor in your search for a service desk ticketing system if you operate in a large company. Here are a few examples of when this could be required:
- Integration with your CRM may provide you with a more complete picture of your customers, including their purchase history, online surfing behavior, likes and hobbies, and more. Your IT support staff will be able to give tailored help with this information.
- Integrating with your IT asset management system can assist you in identifying problematic equipment that needs to be fixed or replaced, allowing you to better manage problems.
- Software bug fixes can be prioritized by integrating with your issue tracking system.
Scalability
You might wish to think about scalability while picking service ticket software.
Will this strategy work when your firm expands?
If your squad multiplies or triples, how much will it cost?
The maximum number of user accounts, data storage capacity, and the number of teams and clients you can handle on the same platform are just a few of the top scalability issues. Keep track of how the pricing changes as your team expands.
Compliance
Last but not least, rules and standards must be considered. You’ll need a HIPAA-compliant support desk if you work for a healthcare firm. If your organization is required to follow ITIL, you’ll need a help desk solution that complies with the ITIL standards.
As a result, it’s a good idea to write down any rules or laws that your company must follow and include them in your IT ticketing software checklist.
Let’s go over some recommended practices before we look at the top ticketing systems on the market.