A survey by Aspect Software found that companies that adopted an omnichannel strategy to customer support saw a 91% increase in their one-year customer retention rate.

This promising statistic displays the unique selling proportion of a ticket management software – which is – no matter where your customers contact you from, a Ticket management software will grab a hold of those inquiries.

What is a ticket management software?

A ticket management software lets you manage, assign and prioritize tickets arriving from phone calls, emails, chats and social platforms in one dashboard. Once an enquiry is captured it is converted into a ticket and then assigned to a support agent in your team.

What are the five essential features of ticket management software?

Omni-channel Thread Unification

Let’s assume your company sells shirts online. Jack buys a shirt from your website, realizes he isn’t happy with the size and decides to return it. He raises a return request via email. He waits for a few hours, gets impatient and sends you a facebook message.

Now Jack has raised two tickets about the same issue. Ticket management software would notice that both the queries are coming from the same customer. Instead of creating two separate tickets, the software would unify both these queries into one ticket. When the agent opens that ticket, under ticket history he would find that Jack has contacted him twice from different platforms telling him he wants to return his shirt.

Customer Ticketing History

When a ticket arrives into the omnichannel ticket inbox, upon clicking it – the CRM opens a new window. This window is populated with details about the customer. You would see the customer name, his contact details, his ticket number, the platform from which he contacted you and information about past tickets as well.

The benefit of this window is that if an agent resolved a ticket raised by a customer a few months ago about a particular issue and the same customer contacted you about the same problem again, you can view past ticket history of the customer in the 360 degrees tab, giving the agent presently handling the ticket a context on what the issue is.

Here he would see what the issue was, what the resolution was and can then proceed to assist the customer.

SLA Matrices

While setting up the ticket management software, you can assign a specific SLA for each department. An SLA is a time period within which a ticket must be resolved. If the ticket remains unresolved post this period, the CRM auto assigns it to higher management.

So if a company has ten departments. The admin can create;

1- Separate folders for each department

2-  Assign a separate SLA for each department.

What then happens is, as soon as a ticket is raised, when an agent opens the ticket, an SLA timer begins ticking. The agent’s goal then – if he chooses to accept it – is to resolve this ticket within the give SLA period.

Keyword-based Query Assignment

The software can also auto label tickets as High priority queries. To give the CRM an idea of what queries would qualify as high priority tickets – you can add specific escalation related keywords in the folder section for each department. So this is how the flow works;

1 – You set up a folder for a particular department. This folder would collect tickets and assign it to a specialized agent who can resolve queries related to this niche.

2 – While setting up the folder you can add keywords related to escalations. For example, if you were setting up a folder for the returns and refund department – you would add keywords like “Refund and return”. As soon as a ticket arrives with these keywords, the CRM labels it as a high priority escalation and assigns it to your support team.

Agent Productivity Reports

To maximize the effectiveness of your call centre operation, the CRM lets you generate reports on your most important metrics. You can access reports on agent productivity, calls made vs those attended, pending tickets vs those closed, SLA reports and much more.

These reports are available in a graphical form or any other format that you prefer. Ticket management systems usually have 100’s of formats that can be viewed. These reports would show you the exact number and percentages of tickets resolved, SLA’S missed, FCR’S and average call handle times among many others.

These reports can help you optimize your support operation to ensure that your customers remain happy and continue to purchase from you.

Conclusion

Ticket Management systems are ideal for companies dealing with 100’s of tickets on a daily basis. When an agent responds to a customer immediately, he is more likely to remain faithful to your brand. The software ensures that no tickets are missed with the Omni-channel inbox helping you connect with your customer when and how they want.