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One of the biggest problems faced by companies who don’t have computerized customer service systems is keeping track of issues. This causes confusion as people try to find and solve problems and customers wait impatiently for effective solutions. Solving these problems is surprisingly simple. It’s just a matter of good organization.

An online issue tracker takes care of all of the problems that surround customer service at companies who haven’t implemented anything of this nature. Here are a few of the ways using one will make your help desk far more efficient and effective:

• Improved general organization. Without tracking, it’s hard to know just what’s going on. Issues end up being lost in the shuffle, get sent to the wrong people, or simply suffer from the tragedy of the commons. By implementing tracking, it’s easy to see which issues are present and where they are along the path to being solved.
• Issues can be assigned to specific people. This practice creates “ownership” for each issue. The owner of an issue is responsible for seeing to it that it gets solved, and if a solution doesn’t happen, corrective action can be taken. By assigning responsibility like this, the tragedy of the commons is eliminated.
• Delays in solutions can be spotted. One of the biggest complaints about customer support is how long it can take to get a response or a solution. An issue tracking program can flag tickets that have gone a long time without being solved. This makes it easy to implement a program to escalate these tickets to the top of the to-do list.
• Organization can be done with finer granularity. When an issue first hits the help desk, the first job is to direct it to the right person. Help desk software makes this easy thanks to drop-down lists that let customers choose the proper department themselves. Once this is done, the issue automatically appears in that department’s queue and can be assigned to a specific person. If the customer selects the wrong category, good programs will allow the receiving department to reassign it to the proper one.
• Customers can see some of what’s going on. This eases much of the nervousness and stress of needing help. With a good incident tracking system, customers who have submitted tickets can log in and see if their tickets have been read, any updates the company has posted, which department or person ended up handling the ticket, and more. When customers have this information, they are far less worried and will generally be more patient.
• Internal tickets can be created. These tickets are originated within the company to make records of internal issues, updates, and processes. This allows the company to keep track of tasks that could otherwise fall to the wayside. The tickets’ records will also show who did what, so it’s easy to untangle any confusion that has arisen.
• Ongoing issues are easy to spot. When help requests aren’t tracked, it’s hard to see the big picture. Subjective opinions of what is important then hold sway, and these opinions may not accurately reflect the facts. This is because any one person may get more tickets of one type than another for reasons unrelated to overall issue prevalence. With good help or service desk software, it’s easy to spot larger trends in issues and find out which ones are the most common on a company-wide basis. Then, appropriate updates can be made to provide a global fix for these recurring problems.
• Increased customer satisfaction. Thanks to efficiency increases, improved transparency, and better attention to solving ongoing issues, customer satisfaction with your company will grow. Once this happens, you don’t just keep your current customers longer, but attract new ones. Therefore, your bottom line will increase as your own costs go down.

Thanks to the huge number of benefits offered by the issue tracking capabilities of modern help desk software, many companies have already implemented it for their online operations. The current generation of this software goes even farther, and allows tickets to be created based on calls and emails. This allows all support tickets to be handed through a single interface so that none get lost. Follow latest trends for IT help desk software in 2016 to know how help desk software is changing the customer service.

The ability to handle tickets from a wide variety of sources doesn’t just make modern software convenient for customers. It prevents the confusion that used to arise when customers used multiple channels to try to resolve a single issue. Just a few years ago, such events would cause two or more separate departments to try to fix the same thing. This would cause these departments – who didn’t even know that other departments were involved – to end up working at cross purposes. With everything unified, this won’t happen. Everyone can work together without interfering with or undoing each other’s efforts.

To learn more about modern help desk software, service desk software, or online issue tracking solutions, take a look at Vision Helpdesk. Our solutions are tailored to meet the specific customer service and support needs of your company. You’ll enjoy clearer operating procedures, faster ticket resolution, and more customer satisfaction. On top of that, you’ll find that your internal costs decrease because your service staff will be able to resolve more issues in the same amount of time.

Just check out our site to see our software solutions or give us a call to discuss your needs. We’ll be glad to help you achieve all of the benefits of modernization.