Ticketing systems are centralized, streamlined platforms to help your IT team resolve issues, but it’s still up to you to optimize those systems so you can resolve tickets as quickly as possible.
What steps can you take to improve response times and ultimately make your end users happier?
Choose the Right Software
The right IT help desk software can make it much easier to resolve those tickets faster. With superior functionality, better design, and access to more tools and resources, your employees can hasten their approach to issue resolution.
In fact, better software can help you in a number of different ways:
- Save time for staff members. Better help desk software can save time for staff members in several capacities. With more intuitive design and learnable features, staff members spend less time wrestling with the platform and more time harnessing its full potential. They can utilize automation and features like canned responses to reduce the manual effort they need to expand. They can also log records and close out tickets faster.
- Improve information accessibility. Better software platforms also improve information accessibility. When an employee has a question or if they get stuck on solving a specific problem, they can turn to a knowledge base or reach out to a colleague to get an answer. Information is readily available, so issue resolution is never artificially slowed down.
- Streamline communication. One of the secrets to faster help desk ticket resolution is streamlined communication. When customer service agents can freely talk to each other, and quickly chat with end users who create tickets, they find resolutions in record time. Not all platforms are conducive to this, but the ones that excel confer many benefits.
- Provide visual insights and direction. How fast are your tickets being closed? What patterns do you see emerging? The right help desk platform can help you measure your progress and identify potential issues. For example, you might notice that one employee is slower than the others at closing tickets, or you might see a drop in ticket resolution speed on certain days of the week. Once you realize these patterns are in effect, you can take action to combat them.
If you’re currently dissatisfied with your IT help desk software, or if you suspect that software functionality is interfering with issue resolution speeds, it’s time to start shopping for an upgrade.
Provide Ample Training and Education
Employees perform better when they are provided with ample training and education. Don’t just assume that your employees have everything they need to do the job; take the time to mentor them, make them familiar with the platform, and give them the tools and resources they need to succeed. In addition to equipping them with better resources for closing tickets, this can boost morale and improve employee retention.
Issue Regular Patches
General software patches are issued for a number of reasons, such as adding features, fixing bugs, and improving security. It’s important to issue these patches regularly if you want to improve the average user’s experience. If you stay on top of fixing bugs when they emerge and you keep your platform as streamlined and functional as possible, you should see far fewer tickets from your users – and much simpler tickets to resolve.
Create a Customer Knowledge Base
Educated customers are easier to serve than unfamiliar ones. That’s why it’s important to create a customer knowledge base. When customers create tickets and ask questions from an informed perspective, they pave the way for much faster resolution.
Collect More Initial Information
You don’t want the ticket creation process to be protracted or cumbersome, but it pays to collect as much information as possible up front. When users submit data like the type of bug they’ve encountered and what they were doing when they experienced it, your help desk employees will be much better equipped to address the problem.
Reward Fast Response Times
With the help of an employee recognition program, you can reward your fastest and most efficient ticket closers. This is especially powerful if you combine it with motivational goals. Set a target for your employees to achieve, and give them a reward for achieving it, such as a cash bonus, a free lunch, or little perks like a designated parking space.
Identify Weak Areas (and Improve Them)
Always take the time to identify weak areas in your ticket resolution processes. When you notice slow resolution times, analyze the root cause. There are hundreds of little things that can slow down ticket resolution speed, so it’s on you to figure out what they are and find little fixes for them.
Improving your ticket resolution speed isn’t something that happens overnight. But with a better platform, better training and education, improved rewards, and other optimizations, you can make your customers happier and save time on the back end.