Best Ticketing Software
Buyer's Guide
If your organization handles a large volume of support requests, then you know that lost tickets, delays in issue resolution and inefficient workflows can be major issues. Ticketing software can prevent these issues from ever arising, by automatically categorizing and routing your tickets.
Ticketing software is an essential tool that supports the day to day functioning of help desk departments. It enables customers to communicate their complaints and organizations to record and organize these complaints. This helps customer service teams address your customers’ concerns in a systematic and efficient manner.
This guide will take you through the ins and outs of ticketing software — its benefits, deployment methods, basic features and more. Let’s dive in!
Executive Summary
- Ticketing software is a help desk tool that supports the day to day functioning of help desk systems by recording, organizing and categorizing customer complaints.
- Ticketing software ensures streamlined ticket tracking, faster issue resolution and improved collaboration, which, in turns, helps organizations achieve customer satisfaction.
- AI integration through chatbots and sentiment analysis, omni-channel support and self-service are some of the upcoming trends in this category.
- What Is Ticketing Software?
- Deployment Methods
- Primary Benefits
- Implementation Goals
- Basic Features & Functionality
- Advanced Features To Consider
- Current & Upcoming Trends
- Software Comparison Strategy
- Cost & Pricing Considerations
- The Most Popular Ticketing Software
- Questions To Ask Yourself
- Questions To Ask Vendors
- Next Steps
- Product Comparisons
- Additional Resources
What Is Ticketing Software?
Ticketing software is a help desk tool that converts support requests submitted by customers into trackable tickets, making it easier for agents to view and respond to them. It also records, organizes, categorizes and tracks support tickets from submission to resolution, which helps in maintaining a streamlined customer support workflow.
A recent report by Zendesk showed that support ticket volume has increased across all channels. In fact, some channels, like Whatsapp, show an increase of up to 370%! With customer satisfaction at stake, ticketing software has become indispensable in handling these large ticket volumes.
Tools like automatic ticket routing, ticket pipelines and ticket history help streamline the flow of tickets for timely issue resolution. Additionally, automating key processes and repetitive tasks reduces the risk of human error and allows agents to spend more of their time with customers.
Types of Ticketing Software
Ticketing software is not always one-size-fits-all. Depending on the kinds of issues you’re resolving you may need different tools.
The main two types of ticketing software deal with internal needs, like IT, and external issues, like customer support. If your team is mostly resolving IT or software-based issues and bugs, you’ll need a ticketing system for IT teams. If your tickets are mostly queries and complaints from customers, you’ll need a customer service-oriented ticketing tool.
Here’s how these two types compare.
Ticketing Systems for IT Teams
If you’re running an IT desk that mostly troubleshoots software issues and bugs, then you’ll need a ticketing system that’s suitable for IT teams. Tools like bug tracking, remote desktop access, incident management, change management and problem management tools are must-haves for these kinds of ticketing systems. These ticketing systems are an integral part of ITSM.
Ticketing Systems for Customer Support Teams
These ticketing systems are designed for customer support and servicing teams. They handle queries and support tickets from customers, providing an interface for customers to interact with your company’s representatives and get their queries resolved.
Deployment Methods
Ticketing software can be installed on-premise, or you can choose a SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform that provides cloud infrastructure. Both of these deployment methods have their advantages and disadvantages.
On-premise
On-premise deployment entails installing a physical copy of the software on your system, which means that the software can only be used on site. Because of this, on-premise deployment is not suitable for remote help desk systems.
The advantage of this type of deployment is that it’s usually a one-time purchase, rather than an ongoing subscription. This also means, however, that maintenance becomes your responsibility, and you may need to purchase software updates and version changes separately.
Cloud-based
Cloud-based deployment, an increasingly popular deployment method, stores app data on a cloud so it can be accessed from anywhere with a reliable internet connection. This makes it ideal for remote work.
Maintenance is handled by the vendor, reducing your level of responsibility. Because of that, a disadvantage of this model is that any server issues or problems on the vendor’s side can cause your systems to go down as well.
Cloud-based ticketing software platforms are usually subscription-based, which makes them a recurring cost. Software updates and other maintenance costs are generally included in your subscription plan.
Primary Benefits
Let’s look at some of the main benefits of ticketing software and how it can help you successfully manage your help desk system.
1. Productivity
In 2022, Hubspot found that, despite customer expectations having risen, only 50% of companies have empowered their teams through help desk, knowledge management and collaborative tools.
Streamlined ticket tracking helps your agents avoid confusion and save time. Ticketing software organizes support tickets as they come in according to type and priority, and automatically routes them to the most appropriate agent. Agents access tickets through user-friendly, consolidated dashboards that support collaboration. This helps teams manage each ticket better, and avoid issues like lost tickets or duplicate responses.
By monitoring each ticket’s progress towards issue resolution, ticket histories also increase accountability. This is a useful tool for agents as well as supervisors, providing insight into the quality of your customer support.
2. Faster Issue Resolution
The Hubspot survey also found that getting an immediate response when contacting a company was an important priority for 90% of customers.
A streamlined ticketing workflow can greatly improve your team’s efficiency. AI-based tools like chatbots can be used to automate repetitive tasks and facilitate your customers’ first contact with your help desk system. With these tasks covered, agents can allocate more time and resources to customer handling, speeding up issue resolution.
Categorizing tickets by priority with the software also helps teams find and address urgent tickets quickly. Collaborative tools enable agents to work together to address complaints and provide the best possible resolution.
3. Better Communication
Encouraging collaboration and teamwork within your organization is a great way to both boost morale and increase the quality of your customer service. Ticketing software supports this through its user-friendly interface and pre-built collaboration tools.
The software offers team inboxes, creating a shared inbox for your agents for incoming tickets and queries across multiple communication channels. Team dashboards also contain helpful information like customer profiles and ticket histories, so agents have all the information they need to address your customers.
4. Increased Customer Satisfaction
According to a PWC report, 32% of customers cited poor customer service experiences as their reason for switching brands. Even one bad experience can hurt a customer’s perception of your business. High-quality customer service is paramount for customer retention.
In addition to helping teams achieve faster and more comprehensive ticket resolution, ticketing software also supports multiple communication channels, consolidating tickets from each into one unified dashboard. According to Zendesk, 93% of customers will spend more time with companies that offer support through their preferred communication channel, so it’s important to meet your customers where they are. For more information, see our Ultimate Zendesk Review.
Implementation Goals
Before you select and deploy any ticketing software, it’s a good idea to make a list of your implementation goals. Improved customer experience and smoother help desk operations are some common goals, though your own goals may differ according to your company’s needs and industry requirements.
To get you started, here’s a list of some basic implementation goals to strive for:
| Goal 1 Track tickets from submission to resolution | Ticketing software tracks, records and monitors the journey of support tickets from submission to resolution. It not only provides customers a medium through which to communicate their complaints, but also handles the background processes, supporting timely resolution and complete customer satisfaction. |
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| Goal 2 Maintain efficient issue resolution workflows | Efficient and systematic workflows are essential for any business operation. For help desks, streamlined issue tracking and resolution is part of this workflow. Ticketing software organizes tickets by type and priority level, automatically allocates tickets to available agents and maintains records of each ticket’s history from submission to resolution. This keeps your help desk system organized and ensures smooth operations. |
| Goal 3 Monitor customer service quality | In addition to ticket tracking tools, ticketing software also provides agent performance monitoring and reporting tools, which can provide insight into the overall quality of your customer support. Tracking agent performance, both across teams as well as on an individual level, helps your company maintain consistent quality customer support experiences across the board. |
| Goal 4 Improved collaboration | Collaboration improves performance. When teams can rely on and consult each other, they feel more connected to their workplace, and can address customer complaints more comprehensively. Features like shared inboxes, ticket sharing and ticket splitting enable teams to work collaboratively on tickets. |
| Goal 5 Better analytics and reporting | Customers’ needs are ever-changing, and keeping up with them is no easy task. Analytics can help you understand what customers want, where you fall behind and how you can best service your customers. Ticketing software comes with custom dashboards, dynamic data visualizations and automatically generated reports to give you insight into your customers’ experience. Taking customer feedback into account can help you strategically improve your support experience. |
Basic Features & Functionality
| Ticket Tracking | Track tickets from submission until resolution. You can maintain an activity log or ticket history for each ticket to record all actions performed by agents, including adding or removing tags, marking spam and more. You can also create and manage ticketing pipelines to track ticket stages and progress over time. |
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| Search, Sort and Filter Tickets | Organizing and managing tickets makes it easier for agents to view and work on them. Use built-in tools for searching tickets, sorting them in ascending or descending order, and filtering tickets based on channel, type, ticket status and other relevant tags. |
| Automatic Ticket Routing | Automatically assign tickets to support agents based on set criteria, like ticket type and priority level, predefined ticket distribution rules, such as round-robin, ring to all, random assignment or max utilization. |
| Custom Tags | Tags help you categorize tickets according to type of issue, priority level, ticket status and more. You can customize tags and labels according to your organizational needs. |
| Priority Setting | Different tickets may have different priority levels. For example, you may want to prioritize an urgent repair request over a product exchange request. Priority setting allows you to prioritize the ticket as urgent, high, medium or low based on its content, requester or importance. Support teams are automatically assigned higher priority tickets first, ensuring urgent requests are answered in a timely manner. |
| Ticket status | Monitor the progress made on tickets without having to go through the ticket history and conversations. Statuses are set by agents as open, on hold, escalated or closed to show how close a ticket is to being resolved and whether escalation or more intervention is required. |
| Linked Tickets | Though most customer service requests can be resolved by one agent, sometimes requests have multiple components and require more personnel involvement. Linked tickets support collaboration by creating sub-tickets within a main ticket, breaking it down into multiple tasks and assigning them to individual teams. |
| Shared Tickets | Agents can share the ownership of tickets with other team members, allowing others to work on the ticket and view its progress. If an agent is struggling with a request, this tool allows more qualified personnel to easily step in. |
| Ticket Merging and Splitting | Sometimes a customer may submit multiple tickets about the same issue, or multiple tickets through different channels. You can merge these tickets into one thread, avoiding potential confusion and miscommunication from multiple tickets. There may also be cases where a customer submits two different support queries through the same ticket. You can split the ticket into two and assign them to different teams in order to ensure both requests are addressed. |
| Ticket History | Follow the history of a ticket from submission to resolution. You can access an activity log of all actions performed on the ticket by agents, including adding or removing tags, marking spam tickets, status updates and more. Ticket histories can be used for archival and record-keeping purposes, as well as to monitor performance. Supervisors can use them to check how long it took for an agent to resolve a particular ticket, what steps were taken and other relevant details. |
Advanced Features & Functionality
| Agent Collision Detection | In fast-paced environments with high ticket volumes, it may sometimes happen that two different agents attempt to respond to the same ticket. Agent collision detection alerts agents when they open a ticket that another agent is already working on. This prevents confusion and duplicate responses, saving time and resources. |
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| Convert Ticket Replies to Knowledge Base Articles | If you’re receiving the same support query again and again, you can create a knowledge base article to answer it so that future queries about that issue can be redirected to that article. You can also cut down on the time and labor of writing knowledge base articles by converting your support agents' responses into knowledge base articles. |
| Convert Multi-channel Conversations to Tickets | Offering omni-channel support means dealing with multiple support requests across multiple different channels. Bringing these queries together on one unified platform helps ensure no support request is missed. You can convert all customer emails, chat conversations, critical issues raised in community groups or forums, and phone calls into tickets. These tickets are then categorized accordingly and routed through to the right agents. |
| Customer Segments | Different categories of customer may have different needs. You can categorize customers based on their subscription plan, region or location, types, industry and other criteria, and manage these categories accordingly. Segments also help you offer more personalized customer service. |
| AI Integration | AI tools can help you reduce agent workloads and free up valuable resources . Chatbots can be used to address common or relatively simple issues, and route customers to agents as needed. AI also simplifies processes through automated ticket categorization and routing. Tickets are categorized by ticket or issue type, assigned a priority level and then routed through appropriate channels to the right agents. Additionally, AI tools, like sentiment analysis, can read and analyze the tone of a ticket and suggest appropriate responses. |
| CRM Integration | Integrating with common CRM software, such as Salesforce, PipeDrive and SugarCRM, and with collaborative software, like Slack and MS Teams, helps you provide a more comprehensive customer servicing platform and simplifies information sharing and reporting. |
Current & Upcoming Trends
Customer needs and demands can be incredibly dynamic, especially in the ever-changing digital landscape. Keeping up with shifts in technology is essential for customer retention.
Failure to keep up with the times is one of the leading causes of previously successful companies losing their market share. With that in mind, let’s look at some of the latest trends for ticketing software.
1. AI Integration
AI tools, like chatbots and AI-based self-service, are becoming increasingly popular. With the rise of generative AI and tools like ChatGPT, AI is becoming more and more life-like. But can it replace human agents completely?
While one-third of people surveyed by PWC said that they value interacting with a human over AI, a report by Zendesk shows that 69% of customers are happy to deal with AI for simpler queries. Responsible use of AI, alongside human agents, can help organizations greatly improve customer experience.
While chatbots are some of the more obvious examples of AI usage, the true value of AI lies in more complex tools, like ticket sentiment analysis and automated organization methods.
Sentiment analysis analyzes a ticket for sentiment-based keywords, helping to determine how the customer feels, and then suggests appropriate responses. AI-based ticket categorization and routing can be used to organize tickets, assign them a priority level and route them through appropriate channels to the right agents.
2. Personalized Customer Service
66% of customers surveyed by Salesforce said that they expect companies to treat them as unique individuals and offer personalized customer service. However, only 34% feel that companies do that. Personalization can make customers feel more valued, which in turn boosts their loyalty to your business.
Data gathered from customer interactions can be used to create customer profiles and tailor services to customer’s needs and preferences. This can be as simple as offering support through a customer’s preferred communication channels. The PWC report mentioned above found that 82% of customers are willing to share some personal data in exchange for personalized service.
But personalization should be balanced alongside responsible use of customer data. Data privacy and security are still major concerns for consumers — around 47% of people surveyed by Cisco in 2021 said that they had switched companies in the past due to privacy concerns. Transparency regarding the data you collect and how you use it can go a long way in winning the trust of your customers.
3. Omnichannel Ticketing Support
Customers today interact with brands on a variety of different platforms. It’s no wonder they expect to receive support through the channels of their choice as well. Omni-channel support ensures that your organization has a presence everywhere, and enables customers to reach out to you more easily.
93% of customers surveyed by Zendesk said that they would spend more time with companies that offered support through their preferred communication channels.
Additionally, according to a Salesforce report, top performers in the customer service industry are 7.6x more likely to offer outstanding omni-channel support than their underperforming counterparts. This shows that omni-channel support is one of the most critical trends determining success in customer service in recent years.
4. Self-Service Tools
According to Zendesk, 89% of customers prefer to find solutions to their problems online without having to contact anyone. Many customers like the convenience of self-service tools, especially for issues that are relatively minor. It’s no wonder that according to a Forbes article, self-service was one of the top emerging trends in 2023.
Self-service options, like community-based ticketing support and knowledge bases, can both help customers efficiently and reduce the workload on your help desk teams, freeing up time and resources. McKinsey found that 65% of business leaders cited self-service tools as a major factor in helping reduce ticket volumes.
Community-based ticketing support relies on creating communities for customers to interact with each other, as well as company representatives, to find solutions without having to go through customer support. In addition to helping individual customers, this also creates a permanent resource for other customers to reference in the future.
Similarly, knowledge bases are collections of articles, usually answering frequently asked questions (FAQs), that act as online guides or user manuals for customers. Customers can figure out how to use a product or service, or troubleshoot common problems without the need for agent support.
Software Comparison Strategy
Now that you have a sense of what ticketing software does, how do you find the right solution for your company?
The first step is to determine what your company needs. What challenges are you currently facing in customer support? How do you want the ticketing software to address them?
Drawing up your specific requirements can make a good foundation for your search. If you need help, try our requirements template as a starting point for this.
You’ll also want to consider factors like the size of your organization and the volume of tickets you handle on a day to day basis. The software you choose should be able to handle this ticket volume, and offer options for scaling as your organization grows.
Once you’ve narrowed down your options, make a list of potential vendors and start reaching out to them. Be sure to ask them any questions you might have about the software before making a purchasing decision. Some vendors also offer free trials, so you can see how the software functions in your workplace before you commit.
Cost & Pricing Considerations
Several factors can affect the cost of a ticketing software. One major consideration is the deployment method. On-premise software is usually a one-time cost, while cloud-based software tends to use subscription models. If you decide to go for the former, check whether the cost of updates and maintenance is included with the one-time payment, or whether you would need to pay separately for version upgrades down the line.
Cost can also vary depending what features you need. Most vendors offer multiple pricing tiers, with fewer features available for cheaper versions. A program with basic functionality may not cost a lot, while a more advanced version will likely be more expensive.
The Most Popular Ticketing Software
Software selection can often be quite overwhelming. With so many options out there, where do you even start? Well, here’s a helpful list of the best ticketing software, based on the research of SelectHub analysts, to put you on the right track.
Jitbit
Jitbit is a multilingual ticketing software for help desk systems. It offers features like ticket routing, a knowledge base, ticket filtering and categorizing, canned replies, an auto-responder, file attachments and asset tracking. Jitbit caters to small, medium and large businesses.
Real-time ticket tracking and management with Jitbit. Source
Happyfox
Happyfox is a ticketing platform that can integrate with your website and email to collect, categorize and route customer support requests in the form of tickets. With multilingual knowledge bases, omni-channel support, a best-in-class ticketing system and AI integration, Happyfox offers an extremely comprehensive ticketing and customer service platform.
Viewing ticket histories on Happyfox. Source
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a cloud-based solution for ticket management and issue tracking, with tools like omnichannel customer engagement, quick query resolution and automatic appointment management. It’s easily customizable, with options for agent roles, ticket forms and portals, and allows users to manage identity and information access for better data security.
Viewing and responding to a ticket through Freshdesk. Source
TeamSupport
TeamSupport is a B2B customer support and ticketing solution. It includes features like customer distress index, omni-channel support, agent rating, and ticket tracking and management. A customer-focused platform that provides detailed, insightful customer profiles, it allows organizations to build stronger relationships with their clientele.
CSAT tracking with Teamsupport. Source
Vision Help Desk
Vision help desk is a customer support and ticketing tool that offers a fast, secure and user-friendly solution for ticket tracking and support. It collects customer requests from across communication channels and consolidates them on a unified interface. Vision also offers a free platform for use by NGOs and charity organizations.
Vision helpdesk ticket management dashboard. Source
Questions To Ask Yourself
To guide your search, ask yourself these questions:
- What’s our budget?
- How large is our organization and what’s our typical ticket volume?
- Do we require only basic tools or more advanced features?
- Do we have any industry specific requirements?
- Do we need remote agent support?
Questions To Ask Vendors
Use these questions as a starting point for conversations with vendors:
About the Software
- Is it compatible with my existing CRM?
- Does it require extra plug-ins or third-party integrations?
- Does it offer data analytics and visualization tools?
- Does it offer self-service tools like knowledge bases?
- What kind of data security measures does the software offer?
About the Vendor
- Do you offer 24/7 support?
- What kind of maintenance services do you offer?
- Do you offer onboarding and training resources?
- Have you worked with companies in my industry?
- For on-premise software, is the cost of updates and maintenance included in the price?
Next Steps
Ticketing software can simplify your day to day operations and help you ensure no customer is ever left dissatisfied.
We hope this guide helped you understand the benefits of ticketing software and what to consider when comparing different products. Still feeling overwhelmed? Try our free software comparison report to get in-depth insights into top software leaders, and find the solution that helps you serve your customers even better.
Product Comparisons
- Freshdesk vs, Jitbit
- Teamsupport vs, Vision Help Desk
- Happyfox vs, Jitbit
- Freshdesk vs, Teamsupport
- Happyfox vs, Vision Help Desk
Additional Resources
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