Best Email Ticketing Systems
Buyer's Guide
A recent report by SuperOffice found that 62% of companies fail to respond to customer service emails. That means that potential leads, querying about a product or service they’re considering, aren’t getting answers. Worse, it means that customers in need of help aren’t getting the service they deserve.
When you run a business that receives a large volume of service requests, it’s hard to make sure no one falls through the cracks. That’s where email ticketing systems help. They organize service requests into a centralized, easily searchable database, so you can ensure that every customer gets the attention they need.
Ready to take your help desk services to the next level? Read on to find out how an email ticketing system can help you serve your customers even better.
Executive Summary
- Email ticketing systems consolidate all customer communications in a single, unified interface.
- They store all interactions in a unique ticket thread, even when a customer is transferred to a different agent.
- Agents can collaborate with each other more easily using internal messaging capabilities, transferring and escalating tickets, private notes and more.
- Ask the vendor any questions you have about the software before committing to a solution.
What Is Email Ticketing System?
An email ticketing system is a platform that allows you to convert customer emails into tickets, making communication with customers easier to manage. It sorts and organizes these tickets in a central place, so you can trace conversations, track resolution status and ensure all customer queries are adequately resolved.
Consolidating customer contact into tickets also helps your agents work together effectively. The system can automatically delegate tickets to the most qualified agents. It also provides tools, like internal messaging and private notes, for collaboration, reducing the possibility that a ticket will get held up because an agent is overwhelmed or stumped.
We all know that customer service can make or break a business. Providing excellent customer service is about more than just being present on the other end of the line — it’s also about listening to and learning from customers, so that the same issues don’t come up time and again. Email ticketing systems not only streamline communication, but also provide a way for you to collect, and learn from, valuable customer feedback.
Let’s discuss some of the ways your business can benefit.
Primary Benefits
1. Better Communication
The unified inbox makes it easy to ensure your agents never miss a customer query. Each message creates its own unique thread, with the entire conversation history recorded for reference. This allows your agents to respond to customers more thoroughly, without needing to scrape previous chat records or search in various locations to hunt down relevant information.
2. Efficiency
Email ticketing systems automatically route messages to agents based on predetermined rules, and sort tickets based on priority and query type. That way, you can ensure that the agent receiving your customer’s query is the best-suited to handle it, and that urgent messages receive priority.
3. Happier Customers
A recent report by McKinsey & Company shows that 71% of customers expect personalized experiences from businesses — and 76% are frustrated when they don’t get it. Streamlining your communications gives your employees more time to focus on actually talking with your customers, so they feel heard and understood.
You can also gain greater insight into your customers’ needs using built-in analytics tools, to hone in on and address recurring issues across your customer base.
Key Features & Functionality
| Shared Inbox | All incoming emails are stored in a centralized inbox with shared access. Agents can tag emails by priority and topics, respond to threads and collaborate on complex tickets. |
|---|---|
| Email Delegation | Managers can assign incoming emails to specific agents. Agents are notified of assigned tasks in real time. |
| Collaboration | Tools like private notes support team communication and allow agents to keep comprehensive customer profiles. These notes appear alongside email threads, making it easier for agents to stay on the same page and handle transferred tickets. |
| Automation | Automatically route tickets to the appropriate agents with tags like keywords, query type and priority. For instance, you can assign emails containing the word “accounts” to agents who handle finances. The round-robin assignment feature distributes emails equally among active team members. |
| Collision Alerts | This feature prevents agents from sending duplicate or conflicting responses to client queries by notifying them that someone else already responded. |
| Email Categorization | Use tags to automatically filter and categorize emails based on predefined conditions, like query type, customer type, department and more. |
| Reporting and Analytics | Track key agent performance metrics, like average resolution time, first response time and CSAT score through reporting and analytics. You can also view top performers and identify agents who need additional training. |
| CSAT Surveys | According to a recent Customer Service Benchmark Survey Report, “41% of support professionals say CSAT score is their team’s most important metric.” The best way to improve this score is through collecting and analyzing customer feedback. The software allows you to automatically send CSAT surveys to your customers when they’re most likely to respond. A quick, single-question sent at the end of an interaction can help you gather valuable feedback and gain insight into how satisfied your customers feel. |
| Email Templates | Streamline how you address the most common queries with email templates. This saves your team time and ensures your customers get consistent, quality responses. |
Software Comparison Strategy
Now you have a sense of the basic capabilities of an email ticketing software. But, when it comes to actually picking a solution, where do you start?
The most important step is to analyze your company’s specific needs. Ask your staff, from agents to upper management, where they think your weak points are. You might also want to consider any customer feedback you’ve collected, to see where your current customer support falls short of their expectations.
You can also look into the solutions your competitors and peers are using, or read online reviews from other companies in your industry to get a sense of what comparable businesses use.
If this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry — we’re here to help! Our comparison report cuts out some of the hard work for you by narrowing down the options and giving you side-by-side comparisons of many leading solutions.
Cost & Pricing Considerations
The biggest factor determining how much an email ticketing system costs is how you choose to implement it. Cloud-based deployment generally comes with ongoing subscription fees, based on the number of users. On-premise options may involve a one-time or recurring license fee, depending on the provider.
Some other factors that may affect cost are:
- Add-on features
- Training
- Maintenance
- Version upgrades
- Customization
- Data migration
The Most Popular Email Ticketing Software
While there’s no across-the-board rule to say what software is best for you, the best place to start your search is with the industry leaders. This list of the most popular email ticketing solutions is a good place to start!
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a cloud-based solution that centralizes business communications in a single inbox, allowing users to sort, assign and track customer queries in real time. It provides customization tools, so businesses can adjust agent roles, ticket templates and widgets based on specific needs.
A preview of a dashboard. Source
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud offers omnichannel customer support, ranging from emails to live chat. Its intelligent chatbots can be programmed to emulate brand voice, respond to common queries with pre-written templates and automatically route customers to the right agents when necessary. The software integrates with Dropbox, Mailchimp, GetFeedback and more.
Dashboard preview. Source
Zendesk
Zendesk is help desk software that sorts, tracks and prioritizes support tickets based on predefined, customizable rules. Its built-in intelligent routing helps expedite resolution time, organize ticketing queues and ensure customers are sent to the best agent for their needs.
Customer Spotlight box. Source
Questions To Ask
To help clarify what your business needs, ask yourself guiding questions like:
- What’s our budget?
- How many employees will use the software?
- Where does our current customer support fall short?
- What deployment method works best for my company?
- Do we have any industry-specific requirements?
Use these questions as a starting point for conversations with vendors, to learn more about the vendor and software:
- What communication channels does the software support?
- How well does it integrate with other programs?
- Do you offer 24/7 support?
- How user-friendly is the software?
- Is the software scalable?
In Conclusion
Your customer service is a direct reflection of your business. Your agents are the first people customers interact with — and, sometimes, the last, if they have a bad experience. Email ticketing systems help ensure you always put your best foot forward, by giving your employees the tools they need to address every customer query with care.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, check out our comparison report, and take one step closer to serving your customers even better.
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