In today’s business environment, it is essential to deliver fast and effective customer service. This is because a positive customer experience is key to attracting—and retaining—clients. In order to be able to provide quality customer service, it’s essential for businesses to be able to track all customer issues, including requests and complaints, in a central repository, so they can be managed and resolved in the best way possible.
This is where issue tracking software can help. To that end, we’ve put together this guide to help buyers understand what issue tracking software is and how it can benefit their business. Here’s what we’ll cover:
What Is Issue Tracking Software?
Common Features of Issue Tracking Software
Benefits of Issue Tracking Software
Common Buyers of Issue Tracking Software
An issue tracking solution offers end-to-end ticket management for service related requests. This includes capturing customer service requests and complaints, categorizing them and distributing them to the right people so they can be resolved most efficiently. In addition to solving customer queries, issue tracking software records all the customer requests, which can then be used by organizations to identify areas for improvement in the quality of their products and services.
Most issue tracking solutions offer some or all of the following functionality:
| Ticket management | Allows users to create customer issue tickets based on the specific customer request. |
| Assignment management | Using data from the ticket fields, an issue management solution assigns the tickets to the right people based on their availability and area of expertise. |
| Task management | This functionality allows users to create task lists directly from the issue tickets. This allows users to track the status of their requests from ticket capture to close. |
| Knowledge base | Maintains records of all the customer tickets in a central location. The resulting knowledge base is useful for agents, who can use the database to search for and find answers to previously resolved customer queries. |
| Dashboard | Allows customer service managers to track the status of their requests in the form of charts and graphs. This helps users track the performance of all customer service agents in a single place. |
| Issue auditing | This functionality helps users perform audits on past issues based on a defined criteria. Such criteria may include agent name, time and types of requests. |
| Escalation management | This feature allows users to record and update the status of tickets requests. |
Issue tracking solutions are gaining popularity in the market as more and more businesses have started focussing on improving the quality of their customer service. Below are some of the most common benefits of using an issue tracking solution.
Automated issue capture. An issue tracking solution allows users to capture customer requests using different methods such as online forms, phone calls and emails. Online forms allow users to capture customer requests using custom fields, which helps them to categorize tickets and route them the most appropriate customer agents.
Automated alerts. When handling a large number of customers queries, there is always the chance that some of the requests will slip through the cracks. Automated alerts help solve this problem. Once a ticket is created and assigned, agents receive automated reminders via email and text messages that keep them updated on the status of customer requests in real time until the issue has been resolved.
Customer database integration. Help desk agents often need to refer to customer information during their calls. These details are also required while validating the customer calls and identifying the issue tickets. Many issue tracking solutions integrate with an organization’s customer relationship management (CRM) software in order to provide easy access to customer data.
Knowledge base. An issue management solution allows users to create a centralized knowledge base for handling customer queries. Users can design knowledge base to list the answers to the most popular customer queries at the top so customer agents can easily find and refer to them during calls.
Customer feedback. An issue tracking solution enables customers to share feedback after an agent has answered their query. This data can be analyzed to improve the quality of customer service.
Identifying opportunities for new features. Customer feedback and complaints can also be used by software and web developers to identify and fix bugs and to help organizations identify what new additions to add to their products and services. For example, if a lot of users request integration with a popular third-party solution, software developers may consider adding that functionality.
Content creation. Issue management systems record all customer queries in a central location. Companies can leverage this data to understand common customer challenges and create content accordingly, such as FAQ sections or guides.
Continuous improvement. Businesses need to continuously evolve their products and services in order to retain their existing customers and acquire new customers. Analyzing customer complaints and requests is a valuable way to identify key problems and determine areas for improvement.
Most buyers of issue tracking software fall into one of the following two buckets:
Small and midsize businesses: SMBs typically have fewer than 50 employees. The biggest concerns among the buyers in this segment are pricing and the lack of a dedicated IT department. Buyers in this segment often choose to evaluate cloud-based software, which generally offers a lower initial cost, as well as a subscription-based pricing model and ease of use for non-technical business users. Cloud-based software also allows users to store their data in the cloud and eliminates the need to maintain expensive in-house servers and databases.
Large businesses: Businesses of a larger scale many use a number of existing software systems, such as CRM and accounting software. In order to ensure the optimal use of these systems, buyers should evaluate issue tracking systems that can integrate with existing software. A well-integrated system that connects all customer data enables users to access a wide variety of customer information, which can help speed issue resolution and lead to greater levels of customer satisfaction.
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