What if you could throw your tech issue directly into the helpdesk's to-do list?
Just as you get your coffee brewed and work tunes cranked up, you hop into your company’s system to get some work done. Whoops, it looks like the system is down due to some unforeseen issue. Your first instinct is probably to throw an email at your organization’s helpdesk or pick up the phone. What if you could bypass all of that rigamarole and actually have your issue on your helpdesk’s to-do list already? Thanks to innovations in user-end ticketing systems, this is now a reality. “But why should I go through the hassle of logging in and typing out my issue when I can just rattle off an email?” In this piece, we’re going to look at four reasons why ticketing systems are the most efficient way to get your problem solved in less time.
1. Helpdesk ticketing systems are much efficient than emails or phone calls.
There’s a good chance that you’ve dealt with helpdesks before — whether the issue was severe or you just locked yourself out the company web portal. You type out what you feel is an extremely detailed account of your problem and hope it reaches the right person. What you don’t see on the other end is that your email then has to pass through several different people until it reaches its most appropriate location. Your problem is copied down into a task management system, and hopefully, you provided all of the necessary details needed to remedy the issue.
While all of this is happening, you’re left twiddling your thumbs and hoping that your message in a bottle reaches help. Where ticketing systems shine on the user end is your ability to bypass the game of communication hot potato and instantly drop your issue in the lap of the person who can best help you. Using a ticketing system can be as easy as following the prompts, clicking “submit”, and receiving a confirmation message that your request has been received by helpdesk agents.
2. Helpdesk ticketing systems guide your requests.
Virtually raise your hand if the following scenario happened to you: you send an email out for IT help only to receive requests that you provide additional details. These details can range from software version numbers, what browsers you’re using, to other various information you didn’t think to mention.
This back and forth leaves you yelling at your inbox, frustrated that it is taking so long to have your issue addressed. Had you been using a helpdesk ticketing system, there’s a better chance that all of this information would have been requested in the service request form you would have filled out in the first place.
3. Helpdesk ticketing systems allow you to track the progress of your issue.
With the dramatic increase in online shopping in recent years, we enjoy knowing where our purchases are in the shipping process — from purchase to delivery. In a similar fashion, knowing the progression of our IT remedies help us plan for the rest of the day, week, or longer.
With that being said, emailing a helpdesk service just to see where they are in process of fixing your problem means more time keeping you posted and less time spent fixing your problem. However, modern ticketing systems typically allow for fairly granular details about the state of an issue. Frequently, you’re provided a tracking number and see the ongoing progression of your request — no additional email or phone call necessary.
4. Helpdesk ticketing systems may help you fix the issue yourself.
On the popular British TV show, “The IT Crowd”, one of the main characters in a company’s IT department habitually answers the phone, saying “IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?” In many instances, the problems we feel are overly complex are problems we can actually fix ourselves.
Many helpdesk ticketing systems, in addition to being ways of submitting helpdesk tickets, can provide valuable resources that provide helpful troubleshooting tutorials so we can fix issues ourselves. Clearing your cache, restarting your computer, using a different browser — these are all issues that any normal computer user can do, but waiting for helpdesk agents to reply to our email can eat up precious time in our day.
