If you want to have an efficient customer support system, you need to find ways to improve resolution times. Addressing clients’ concerns as soon as possible will improve your brand’s reputation while also increasing customer retention rates.
Given that this is such an important matter, we’ve decided to create a guide that outlines some of the best tricks for boosting support ticket resolution time. Hopefully, you’ll implement some of these into your daily workflow!
1. Minimize Wait Times
Long wait times are a killer for any call center. Customers easily get irate after having to wait for more than ten minutes, which is why your main task should be to expedite the process. Here are a few common issues that lead to prolonged waiting:
- Late assignments cause one of the biggest bottlenecks during the process, which is why all tickets need to be assigned to agents as soon as they arrive. We suggest you get software that will automatically assign tickets based on agents’ availability and priority
- There are also many situations where poor collaboration leads to long wait times. You need to introduce an internal communication system where agents can tag each other and share notes
- You also have to be aware of clients’ responses. Sometimes, users might have additional questions or might seek a different answer. If you’re not tracking responses, you might not be aware that the ticket still exists, leading to poor customer experience
- When using several tools and communication channels, you need a central system that will track the ticketing process. The software will include data about the customer as well as their inquiry. That way, you can streamline everything without having to hop between several programs
- Many teams struggle due to delayed client responses. Because of that, you need to follow up with each user after handling the ticket. That way, you’ll know if they’re satisfied with your assistance or if they need something else
Long wait times are the biggest issue for customer support teams. By introducing better policies, you can address most of these problems without incurring any additional expenses. Furthermore, having a streamlined process will also make life easier for your team as they won’t have to go back and forth with customers.
2. Use Automation
Relying on AI-powered service desk is the best way to streamline the entire process and alleviate burden on your human team. By implementing artificial intelligence software, you can effectively double and even triple your output, without increasing the number of errors. As such, AI solutions allow your team to focus on complex tickets that might require human assistance.
Among other things, an AI-powered service desk allows you to:
- Assign tickets
- Parse emails
- Escalate unresponding tickets
- Send updates
- Receive notifications
Ideally, you should look out for software that has as many features as possible, and that gets regular updates. Make sure that the tool has various settings and configuration options so you can utilize a solution according to your business needs.
3. Prioritize Tickets
While all tickets require resolution, that doesn’t mean they’re equal in terms of priority. Some of them have to be resolved immediately when a customer is in a rush. That being said, your expected resolution times will also change based on the priority and type of ticket. For example, a downtime ticket will have higher priority than a feature request inquiry.
Placing all these tickets into different categories will make everything easier. You can separate inquiries based on their complexity and nature, putting the right people on the job. Among other things, this type of system will ensure you never skip critical tickets.
We suggest you implement custom statuses for each ticket so there’s more transparency. Your team will be aware what’s happening with each inquiry and how much time they have to resolve the issue. Among others, custom statuses ensure there’s no overlapping between agents.
4. Implement Self-Service
With the previously mentioned AI software, you can easily implement a self-service option. Given that most inquiries are rather repetitive and revolve around a small number of questions, you can simplify the work by allowing users to seek out answers by themselves.
In fact, most clients will tell you that they’d much rather resolve the issue themselves than wait for a person to help them out. That way, you can alleviate some of the work from your busy team and allow them to focus on complex tickets. Here are some tools you can use for this process:
- AI-powered chatbots interact with users in a similar way as human beings. As the name implies, they can chat with customers and give them answers to any question by tapping into their internal knowledge base. Given that this software relies on artificial intelligence, its performance gets better over time
- Similarly, clients can use knowledge bases and FAQs. Here, they can read articles about common issues and learn more about the optimal ways to use products and services
5. Create Better Workflows
Even if you cover all the points on this list, there might be situations where you struggle to finalize tickets. In many cases, lack of efficiency has to do with a lousy support workflow. These workflows serve as a predefined series of steps your agents have to undertake to properly respond to tickets. As you can presume, skipping any step can lead to a complete disaster and slow resolution times.
For example, most companies will use a system where you first receive a ticket, then assign priority and assign agent. Customer support workflows are rather straightforward and they don’t require much tinkering with.
Conclusion
If you want to hasten ticket resolution times, you’ll need to create efficient workflows and improve other internal procedures. Modern customer support teams are also reliant on advanced software as it allows them to cut resolution times, especially for repetitive questions.
By following the instructions in this article, you’ll also be able to simplify your internal processes and improve your overall customer experience.
