Ticket system
What is a ticket system?
A ticket system gives every customer question a number, an owner and a status. That sounds administrative and is exactly what stops questions from getting lost.
In short
A ticket system is software that records every customer question as a ticket with a unique number, an owner and a status, so the question runs through a fixed lifecycle from arrival to resolution. It differs from a shared mailbox in having statuses, assignment and a response-time timer attached.
Which statuses do you actually need?
Five statuses suffice for nearly any team: open, in progress, waiting on customer, waiting on third party and resolved. The two waiting statuses are the most important, because they determine whether your SLA timer is right and whether you can see where work is stalled.
More statuses means more moments where someone picks the wrong one. Start small and only add one when you have a question the existing five can't answer.
When a shared inbox is no longer enough
With two people sitting next to each other, a shared mailbox works fine. It starts to slip once questions run for several days, once a question has to pass another department, or once you want to know how long something was open. At that point you're missing the status and the timer, not the mail function.
A second signal is duplicated work: two colleagues starting on the same email because nobody saw the other was already on it.
What a ticket system doesn't do
A ticket system records and distributes, but doesn't answer. The question gets a number and an owner; looking up the order, checking the policy and composing the answer remains human work as long as no customer data and knowledge are attached.
That explains why teams introducing a ticket system do gain overview and rarely gain less work. The overview is real, but the number of actions per question doesn't change because of it.
Where it goes wrong
Too many required fields
Every required field when closing a ticket is time per conversation, multiplied by your volume. Ask only for what you actually use in reporting; fields nobody reads cost you days per year.
Treating internal alerts as tickets
System notifications and newsletters landing in the queue pollute every number you base on it. Filter them out before they get a number.
From shared inbox to ticket system
Keep the same address
Customers shouldn't have to learn anything. Connect your existing mailbox instead of introducing a new address.
Start with five statuses
Open, in progress, waiting on customer, waiting on third party, resolved. Only add something when you have a question these five can't answer.
Agree who assigns
A system that distributes, or a person who does it in the morning. Both work; agreeing nothing doesn't.
Only start the SLA timer once statuses are right
Without waiting-on-customer you measure waiting that isn't yours, and the first number is unusable straight away.
After a month, look at the topics
That's the return a shared inbox never gave you: knowing where your questions come from.
What to do this week
Look at how many statuses you use today and how many were genuinely used in the last month. If a status stays virtually empty, remove it. If waiting-on-customer is missing, add it: that's the status that makes your response-time number honest.
What this looks like in a system
In Cuego a ticket is the conversation plus the customer around it. On arrival, topic and urgency are determined and the ticket is assigned, with the order and customer history right there. The SLA timer pauses on waiting-on-customer. From the ticket you can create a task, a return or an appointment, so the action after the answer doesn't stay in someone's head.
Ticket systemRelated terms
Shared inbox
A shared inbox lets a team work in the same mailbox. It works well until questions start running longer than a day.
Read onHelpdesk
Helpdesk is the collective term for the desk where questions and reports arrive. The term covers both a team and the software, and that confuses matters when choosing.
Read onTask management
A task is the work left over after you've answered the customer. That work usually sits in someone's head, and there it's invisible.
Read on