IT admins, help desk technicians, and support staff members are constantly bombarded with service requests. Involving everything from routine maintenance to more complex tasks, the IT department is always busy maintaining company productivity. Without efficient help desk software to assist in the creation, routing, and tracking of support requests, among other functions, support specialists can struggle to efficiently resolve requests and may regularly face challenges while ensuring the business engine is running smoothly. Here are the top seven common barriers to manually creating and managing help desk tickets.
- A lack of a centralized system for submitting tickets can cause miscommunication.
Your IT support staff receives daily requests for service through multiple channels, including email, phone, social networks, and in person. Without a centralized system for requests, tickets get lost in the fray. A centralized portal automates the process and takes human error out of the equation.
- There’s no standard for ticket creation.
Each time an IT support staff member creates a help ticket manually, he or she has to get unique information from the end-user. Manual help ticket creation requires the provision of detailed information about the asset in question, as well as the problem, which can be a source of frustration for end-users who aren’t tech-savvy, and the specialists who are trying to gather information. On the other hand, a ticket management system can allow end-users to simply click an icon related to the problem (hardware, software, etc.) and submit the request. Asset management tracking functionality gives the IT department a complete history of the asset, including previous problems.
- Manual tracking procedures are inefficient.
Without an automated ticketing system, IT staff must manually assign tasks based on expertise and track the status of the request in spreadsheets, which leads to lags in communication or, worse yet, redundancies and lost productivity.
- Ticket resolution techniques create delays.
Technicians use a variety of techniques to manage and resolve asset issues, from setting up remote sessions to generating reports for management. Manually translating raw technical data into reports that make sense to management is time-consuming and hinders productivity. Managing asset information through spreadsheets requires technicians to slog through data before beginning work on an issue.
- Communications aren’t streamlined.
With manual ticketing, technicians lack a single channel to communicate with end-users about the status of a ticket. Without streamlined communications, time lags can affect both user experience and customer satisfaction. Automated processes send updates to keep end-users in the loop about estimated resolution times, even sending alerts when an issue takes longer to resolve than expected.
- Manual ticketing creates redundancies.
Before closing out tickets, IT technicians must manually update the troubleshooting information to all tickets. Without a centralized system to link similar incidents and requests together and store troubleshooting details, techs start at square one each time a new request comes through. A help desk tool has asset data functionality and a knowledge base to speed up the resolution of future issues.
- End users must work to be in the loop.
To check on the status of a ticket request, end users need to manually visit the IT support team or contact them to learn about progress. With help desk software, automated emails to the end user at each stage of the process helps ensure efficient communication and satisfaction.
IT groups around the globe rely on centralized ticketing systems for a variety of reasons: simplifying service requests, managing IT assets and inventory, change management, knowledge base management, generating performance reports, and SLA management. Intuitive help desk software can help IT specialists spend less time on menial tasks and more time troubleshooting issues that require specialized expertise.
Simplify Your Ticket Management with a Help Desk Tool
With quality help desk tools, your IT department can maximize its efficiency and let your business perform at its best:
- A centralized online ticketing portal allows end-users to submit requests in just a few clicks.
- Standardized ticket creation automates delivery of requests via email, eliminating repetitive tasks.
- Automatically assign tickets based on predefined inputs, so requests are assigned based on specific expertise.
- Manage all assets with asset history functionality, initiate remote sessions and quickly generate asset performance reports.
- Create automatic ticket acknowledgment and send email communications regarding the status of a request, enhancing end-user satisfaction.
- Link multiple tickets together by issue or history to create faster resolution time in the future.
- Get metrics on technician performance and average status resolution time to guide training and spot trends over time.
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