What is a Ticketing System and How Does It Work?
Ticketing systems are now widely used in companies and this thanks to the recognized importance of their integration into the corporate IT infrastructure.
A Ticketing System is a tool that can revolutionize the way you handle customer inquiries and significantly improve the quality of support. With a Ticketing software it is possible to monitor customer requests (tickets) in a structured way by assigning the ticket to the operator who will take charge of the request and establish its processing priority. The implementation of this tool goes beyond customer requests. It can be used for the management of internal employee requests, i.e. support on PC malfunctions, printers, software, requests for leave in adminstrave use etc.
Difference between Ticketing System and Help Desk System
The difference mostly lies in the broader meaning that is usually attributed to Helpdesk software compared to that of Ticketing software, let’s try to explain.
A Ticketing System mainly focuses on the process of creating, assigning to teams and monitoring support tickets, i.e. on ticket management and tracking. In general we use to consider a Ticketing System as a part of a Help desk software which in turn provides a wider set of features such as process automation, Reports and SLA (Service Level Agreement).
In summary, we can say that there is no real difference between the two definitions. It is mostly a distinction in terms of the breadth of functions that is usually attributed to a Help Desk System. The difference between Help Desk Software and Service Desk Software, on the other hand, is different.
Uses and application Areas of a Ticketing System
We have already mentioned the handling of customer requests (i.e. Ticketing System for Customer Support) and the internal employee requests of both a service and technical character (Ticketing System for Service management and IT Help Desk). Furthermore the following issues can be listed:
- Bug tracking: use of tickets to report (and thus trace) software and application malfunctions to the IT department.
- Change management: using standardized and properly documented procedures for all modifications and changes made by users to systems or processes.
- Knolewdge management: FAQs, guides and user manuals can be updated in real time and made available to users.
Key Benefits of implementing a Ticketing System for Support teams
Implementing a Ticketing System simplifies the process of managing customer inquiries, promotes internal collaboration, and enables Support teams to deliver quality services. We can summarize the advantages in 4 points:
- Organization: Tickets can be allocated and assigned to specific team members, and their progress monitored. The various team members are free to comment and update tickets, working in unison to resolve customer issues in a timely and efficient manner.
- Traceability: The status of each ticket, tracking of response and resolution times, everything is tracked to have a clear picture of the overall performance of the support team. This results in a reduction of errors and a timely corrective measures to be taken.
- Priority: Each ticket can be assigned different priorities based on urgency and importance. This allows the support team to focus on critical requests and ensure adequate response times.
- Definition of SLAs (Service Level Agreement): formal definition between customer and supplier of service levels: response and resolution times as well as existing responsibilities between the two parties.
- Analysis and Reporting: whether you use the software’s internal reporting or proceed by integrating the system with other Business Intelligence and advanced reporting tools the importance of having data centralized in a single point and being able to consult it is a key point and an additional reason for adopting a ticketing system in a company.