Prioritizes requests to reduce ticket turnaround time.
Improves collaboration and communication across teams.
Generates reports to gauge areas of improvement for users.
Zoho CRM
IT Ticketing Systems
IT Ticketing software allows your IT department to track and consolidate support requests from your team in one easy-to-manage location. This type of software is extremely common, and goes by many different names: incident management software, incident tracking software and trouble ticket software are just a few examples.
Top Recommended Products
Products most recommended by our advisors over the past 30 days.
Top Recommended Products
Products most recommended by our advisors over the past 30 days.
Competitive advantages of IT Ticketing Systems
Compare All IT Ticketing Systems
Zendesk Sell
Zendesk Sell
Zendesk Sell (formerly Base) is the web and mobile-based customer relationship management application that allows B2B and B2C sales professionals to manage sales, track leads and engage proactively with customers from anywhere. Th...Read more
Maximizer CRM
Maximizer CRM
Maximizer CRM is an integrated CRM solution that can be installed both on premise and in the cloud. It features sales management, marketing automation, customer service and support and business productivity tools....Read more
NetSuite CRM
NetSuite CRM
With a strong emphasis on sales and marketing automation, customer support and partner management, NetSuite CRM+ is a comprehensive, Web-based client relationship management system for small and midsize businesses. ...Read more
Claritysoft CRM
Claritysoft CRM
Claritysoft is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solution designed for midsize and large enterprise businesses. It offers sales automation, customer service and support, marketing automation and social CRM withi...Read more
Creatio CRM
Creatio CRM
Creatio CRM is a no-code powered suite of high-end products for marketing, sales, and service automation to automate the entire customer journey with a maximum degree of freedom. •Marketing Creatio - a ready-to-use platform to ...Read more
TeamSupport
TeamSupport
TeamSupport is a post-sale award-winning customer support software company built specifically for the unique needs of B2B (business-to-business) technology-enabled companies within the computer software, hardware, information tech...Read more
Software pricing tips
Read our IT Ticketing Systems Buyers GuideSubscription models
- Per employee/per month: This model allows you to pay a monthly fee for each of your employees.
- Per user/per month: Users pay a monthly fee for users—normally administrative users—rather than all employees.
Perpetual license
- This involves paying an upfront sum for the license to own the software and use it indefinitely.
- This is the more traditional model and is most common with on-premise applications and with larger businesses.
Rated best value for money
CloudBlue PSA
CloudBlue PSA
CloudBlue PSA is a hybrid professional services automation (PSA) solution that helps cloud-based managed service providers and software companies of all sizes to manage their business operations. The solution can be deployed eithe...Read more
SalesOutlook CRM
SalesOutlook CRM
SalesOutlook's Outlook CRM is a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) and email marketing system that embeds into Microsoft Outlook. Our Outlook CRM automatically syncs all customer data at one place. All files and ...Read more
Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based CRM ecosystem for small, medium and enterprise organizations, with a focus on Sales, Field Service, Customer Service complete with strong integrations with Microsoft’s other Office 365 offer...Read more
Popular IT Ticketing Systems Comparisons
Buyers Guide
Last Updated: January 19, 2022
As a business, you use a range of digital systems. To ensure the smooth functioning of these systems, you need a support team to resolve IT issues such as system bugs and software glitches.
You can help your support team be more effective at their job by investing in an IT ticketing system. IT ticketing software automatically assigns incoming IT requests to the right service desk agent, helping your support team tackle IT requests from employees as well as customers.
This guide will help you better understand the role of IT ticketing systems. It’ll explain how they fit into a general IT services management strategy, as well as what to consider when purchasing an IT help desk ticketing system.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
What is an IT ticketing system?
Common features of an IT ticketing system
What type of buyer are you?
Key considerations when purchasing an IT ticketing system
What is an IT ticketing system?
IT ticketing software allows your IT department to track and consolidate support requests from your team in one easy-to-manage location. This type of software is extremely common and goes by many different names. Incident management software, incident tracking software, trouble ticket software, IT helpdesk software, and helpdesk ticketing system are just a few examples.
Though there can be slight functional differences, all of these systems typically serve the following purposes:
- Assign individual case numbers, or “tickets,” to each problem or issue reported by an end user.
- Help process that ticket by assigning it to the support agent or department whose responsibility it is to address the particular problem it identifies.
- Track the progress of the ticket as internal teams work toward a resolution.
- Coordinate the work of different teams and the end user or customer, based on the ticket’s level of priority.
- Provide a centralized, real-time view of the problems customers are having.
- Offer insights into developing problems and help companies plan for future service needs.
Tracking the status of customer support tickets in TeamSupport (Source)
Common features of an IT ticketing system
While IT ticketing systems come in a variety of industry-specific platforms (more on those below), there’s a group of core features common to most. These include:
| Ticket creation | Allows tickets to be created by employees (or, occasionally, end users) to initiate a service request. Some platforms can automatically create tickets from emailed service requests. |
| Ticket ownership | Maintains a record of each ticket’s ownership status, showing which agents have previously collaborated on it and which party is ultimately responsible for its resolution. |
| Automated handling | Ticket ownership is updated and (re-)assigned automatically, based on a company’s specific workflow and predetermined conditions. |
| Policy enforcement | Ticket policy enforcement helps make sure employees follow company policies and procedures. For example, it ensures they’ve completed all the necessary steps before opening, closing, or reassigning a ticket. |
| Knowledge base | A knowledge base is a centralized repository of information that agents can refer to, learn from, and add to when handling tickets and collaborating with co-workers. |
| Reporting and analytics | These tools measure the company’s ticket processing and provide insights into, for example, changes in ticket volume (which may suggest problems with a product) or the productivity of employees working on different types of tickets. |
| Custom fields | The ability to add custom fields to IT tickets lets companies tailor and expand the system’s capabilities to their own specific needs, the needs of their industry, or the needs of customers. |
What type of buyer are you?
To make the right software purchase decision, you need to understand which buyer group you belong to and the group’s key concerns. Most buyers belong to the following categories:
- Small and midsize businesses (fewer than 1,000 employees): These buyers are usually looking for an affordable solution that serves as a ticket management system for resolving employee or customer queries regarding IT issues. A cloud-based IT ticketing system with a low monthly or annual subscription fee is an ideal option for these buyers.
- Enterprise buyers (1,000+ employees): These buyers are usually looking for a full-suite helpdesk ticketing system that comes with advanced functionality, such as the ability to add custom fields to tickets. They also need a system that offers integration capabilities with tools such as human resources (HR) software for faster tracking and assigning of tickets.
Key considerations when purchasing an IT ticketing system
There are many different kinds of IT ticketing systems available on the market. To find the right one for your business, keep these considerations in mind:
- Niche ticketing management needs: IT ticketing systems are often bundled with other software applications and suites. However, a niche ticketing system can be beneficial for certain business use cases. For instance, if you’re a software development company then a bug tracking solution, which offers ticketing functionality, can be your choice for servicing customer tickets.
- Employee service vs. customer service: If you’re looking for a ticketing management system to manage service requests from only employees, then help desk software can be useful as it bundles an IT ticketing system. But if you want a ticket system to help your customer support team handle customer issues effectively, then using customer service software would be a better choice.
- Total cost of software ownership: The cost of IT support ticket software can rise when you want more features, such as live chat and a self service portal, besides ticket management. There can also be additional costs for services such as priority customer support, training, and user onboarding. Clarify all such costs during vendor discussions, so there aren’t any last-minute surprises.
Note: The application selected in this article is an example to show a feature in context and is not intended as an endorsement or a recommendation. It was obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.