Ticketing: Basics, Problems, Best Practices, Top Systems & More

You’ve probably faced it when a client sent 17 Slack pings, 5 emails, and a WhatsApp note. That’s too good for just a single request! And the worst part is, there is no clear owner, priority, or resolution time. Well, the reason for such disorder is the lack of solid ticketing. 

So, today, we’ll explain the core of ticketing, how it works, where it usually fails, and best practices. Plus, you’ll get a brief understanding of the top ticketing systems that you can use to simplify the process from ticket submission to resolution.

What is Ticketing?

Ticketing is when a client submits a ticket for a service request, bug issue, or revision through a digital ticket that contains details, attachments, and a priority level. It helps an agency to track, manage, and resolve any issues from submission to resolution clearly.

Most of the agencies adopt a ticketing system to handle requests of multiple clients simultaneously. Hence, the agency can solve issues and maintain smooth client communication.

In case you’re working on improving client interaction, checking how to improve client communication can help you and your team.

How Ticketing Systems Work?

Let’s walk through how a basic ticketing system —

• Ticket Creation: Clients create a ticket regarding requests, issues, new tasks, etc., with a ticket number so that you can track it easily.
• Assignment: Assign tickets to the appropriate team member according to their skillset and availability.
• Priority Levels: Set priority for each ticket, like low, normal, high, based on the emergency and importance.  
• Communication and Collaboration: Teams and clients communicate within the ticket to share updates and get any key information.
• Tracking and Updating: Track the status and progress of the ticket from the member and update the ticket’s status.
• Resolution: Assignee understands the issue, gets to the root, finds a solution, and implements it to resolve the ticket.
• Reporting: Inform the client after the team finishes solving the issue, and close the ticket.

What are The Biggest Problems with Ticketing?

Most ticketing systems come with solid functionality, but the following issues sometimes slow down the whole work process.

Clients Not Using the Ticketing System

One of the major problems is that clients don’t use the ticketing system. Instead, they prefer emails, WhatsApps, or calls to explain their issues, complaints, or requests. Besides, when they use multiple tools, it creates confusion, misunderstanding, and misinterpretation on the agency’s end.

Hence, teams end up doing repeat work, an endless revision cycle, and approval takes forever.

Vague or Incomplete Ticket Descriptions

Another key issue with this system is getting unclear or incomplete descriptions from the client. Agencies often get tickets saying, “make the logo timeless,” “the colors are not vivid,” etc. As you can see, there is no context in the ticket.

In this case, you spend hours asking follow-up questions just to understand, let alone resolving the ticket. And most importantly, this issue occurs when —

• The ticket doesn’t include fields to add subject, description, attachments, etc.
• Clients have no idea what information they must include and how

Lack of Clear Ownership

The last issue with the ticketing system is unclear ownership. No one clearly knows who needs to handle which ticket. As a result, tickets just hold up in the repository.

Meanwhile, clients keep messaging to know updates on the status of their tickets. And this constant checking creates mental stress and confusion for all, from PM, QA, designers, to devs.

Key Features Every Agency Ticketing Needs

The following features are important for agencies when it comes to ticketing and keeping everything working smoothly.

Centralized Ticket Repository

An agency handles a lot of tickets. So if they spread across different platforms, issue tracking becomes way more stressful. That’s why you need ticketing that keeps all the tickets in one place and shows —

• Who created the ticket
• When the ticket was created
• Which tickets need clarification, review, or approval
• The status of the ticket, like ongoing, hold, done, etc.

It helps you to get a quick view of all the tickets without opening each one manually. Hence, you can quickly assign teams and resolve issues before they start to pile up.

File Attachment Support

It takes endless time to check every comment, screenshot, and note just to get the context of a ticket. That way, it becomes time-consuming and hard to hand out every ticket.

When ticketing allows adding files, it helps clients to show the exact thing they need. Meanwhile, teams can view files, get context, and track versions. Plus, it also lets you see when clients add any attachments.

Thus, you and clients both move forward while staying on the same page without jumping between tools.

Priority Management

Priority management is basically setting up clear priorities for each task from low to high. That way, each assignee can understand which tickets need to be resolved quickly and which can wait.

Besides, clear priorities alsohelps all the members to see whether a high-priority ticket is resolved quickly or is taking more time. In that case, PM, dev, designer, or even QA can come forward to resolve the issue. 

Internal Notes and Team Collaboration

A system for ticketing should allow the teams and clients to share comments within a ticket. That way, team members can chat with clients and ask for any related context, screenshots, logs, etc. In the meantime, team members can collaborate with each other to solve the ticket. 

Hence, it removes the back-and-forth of emails, WhatsApps, and calls to understand, get context, and approval. Also, it saves time from rereading endless comment threads just to find a specific chat.

Reporting and Analytics

It’s one of the helpful features that helps you to stay informed about the tickets. You get to see how many tickets there are, the issue dates, new tickets, and the pending. From there, you can easily draft a plan to handle the tickets and resolve issues without any delays.

Besides, a simple dashboard automatically reduces mental pressure and minimizes the chance of error that comes from manual checking.

Best Practices for Agency Ticketing Implementation

When you’re implementing ticketing, follow the best practices to make it as efficient as possible —

• Set Clear Ticket Submission Guidelines: Inform clients how to create a ticket, add a description, and attachments without relying on different platforms. Meanwhile, each ticket should have a clear owner, assignee, priority, and deadline.
• Define Priority Levels: Each ticket must have a clear priority level from low, lowest, normal, high, to highest. That way, teams can understand what’s important now, what can wait, and what needs review. And that too, without reading comments after opening each ticket.
• Set Assignee: Like priority, each ticket needs a clear assignee so that the responsibility for every support request is clear. It prevents team members from doing guesswork and enables them to start working immediately.
• Use Internal Notes for Team Coordination: Internal notes are very important for team collaboration without disturbing others. Involved team members can guide the process, share context, and even assist fellow ones without involving others. 
• Monitor Resolution Times: When you monitor resolution times, it helps you to analyze the efficiency. You can identify types of tickets that take time to resolve, repeated tickets, bottlenecks, and team efficiency. Thus, it helps you to work on the improvement areas. 
• Request Client Feedback: Most importantly, make it a habit to ask for feedback from the client after each ticket resolves. In this case, you can either share a Survey Form or just ask on WhatsApp. Their feedback will help you to optimize the ticketing system.
• Delete Resolved Tickets Regularly: As soon as you resolve a ticket, delete it from the repository. Otherwise, they’ll just pile up in your dashboard for nothing, which will just waste your time and attention. 

What are the Best Ticketing Systems? Top 5 Options

When it comes to ideal ticketing systems, you’ll find tons of options out there. Some are exceptional in terms of features but not that intuitive, while some are friendly but lack important features.

So, here are our 5 picks that check all the boxes. And for now, we’ll be brief about them so that you don’t get overwhelmed.

Agency Handy

Even being an agency management software, Agency Handy integrates a seamless ticketing system. It helps agencies to handle service or support requests, complaints, and reviews efficiently. 

Now, Agency Handy’s ticket allows to —

• Add subject, description, and file attachments to the ticket.
• Set assignee, priority, and status of the ticket.
• Add a time log to show how much time was spent.
• Internal chat box for teams and clients separately for collaboration.
• Add a filter based on client, status, assignee, service name, and priority.
• Delete the ticket as soon as it gets resolved.

If you look at the system, all of these minimize the queue, simplify issue tracking, and reduce revision cycles. Thus, you can resolve tickets and keep clients satisfied without needing to rely on other tools.

EngageBay

EngageBay is mainly a CRM that integrates a free ticket system. It mainly takes requests from all your customers and gathers them in a single dashboard.

Plus, its Service Bay is a part of the ticket system, which is a unified inbox for all clients’ queries. EngageBay also offers to —

• Automate assignee, close tickets, and send notifications to teams.
• Use a macro to answer repetitive tickets with the same responses.
• Make a support group as per departments, skills, or issues.

Ultimately, it improves ticket resolution efficiency while reducing manual effort.

Zendesk

When it comes to client service systems, Zendesk comes ahead with its integrated ticketing system. It mainly handles interaction with AI-driven tools that include —

• AI agents to resolve interactions across email, messaging, voice, and social.
• Automated directing a ticket to a different agent.
• Omnichannel support to manage tickets from different platforms.
• Pre-defined replies to reply coommon client problems.

Hence, Zendesk’s AI helps to resolve tickets quickly, reduce support costs, even when you’re low on manual expertise.

Zoho Desk

Another AI-driven support system is Zoho Desk, which simplifies the ticket system. You can use it to handle customer requests and even automate repetitive tasks from a web or mobile app effortlessly.

With Zoho Desk, you can —

• Create and assign a ticket to an agent while adding priority.
• Communicate with clients on the Social tab to create tickets manually.
• Automate or manually upgrade or downgrade the urgency of tickets.
• Track the ticket to analyze the progress of resolution.

So, if you’re planning to let the AI handle all service requests or queries, Zoho Desk is your go-to.

HelpDesk

If you’re looking for a simple yet efficient cloud-based system, Raiseticket is a great option. In fact, it’s a free helpdesk that simplifies service requests and communications between clients and agency teams.

Here’s what you’ll get from HelpDesk —

• Assign tickets to agents or teams with notes, files, and statuses.
• Track the performance of an agent and the resolution rate.
• Integrate Office 365 to offer support through portals and email.
• Receive event-triggered automated alerts via Slack, Email, and Microsoft Teams.

Regardless of HelpDesk being free of cost, it enables you to deliver efficient, optimized, and successful ticket resolution. 

How Agency Handy Approaches Ticketing

The approach of Agency Handy towards ticketing is pretty straightforward. It centralizes the ticketing system, where you can see all the tickets in a clean dashboard. 

Plus, clients can easily create a ticket with a description and attach files to give context. Later, you can assign, set priority, filter, and delete a ticket after resolution. Most importantly, each ticket integrates a messaging box to chat with the client and team members without conflict.

Everything is placed neatly so that you can reduce ticket counts, resolve support requests fast, and build trust.

Difference Between Ticketing vs Helpdesk vs ITSM

Last but not least, many people get mixed up with ticketing, helpdesk, and ITSM. Since we’re talking about the ticketing system, you should have a clear idea of where each fits. Thus, you’ll be able to utilize a system properly.

Aspects	Ticketing	Helpdesk	ITSM
Primary purpose	CaptureTrackResolve requests or issues	Fix user problems quickly	Match IT services with business goals
Ownership	Depends on the assignment and rules	Clear agent ownership per ticket	Defined roles, process owners, and governance
Tool	Simple ticket system	Help desk software	Full ITSM platform
Metrics focus	Ticket statusPriorityTurnaround	Resolution timeTicket volumeSLAs	Business impactService HealthROI
Users	AgenciesSupport teamsClients	IT support teams and end users	IT leadersService managersEnterprises

Final Words

When you use ticketing, clients can submit requests with context, descriptions, and avoid repeat issues. Meanwhile, it helps you to understand the issue, set clear ownership, priorities, and resolve tickets promptly. In this case, a ticketing system can save time, minimize stress, and result in quick resolution.

That’s where Agency Handy stands out. It centralizes the ticketing into a simple dashboard. Every client gets a client portal to submit their issues with a proper description and file attachment. Plus, the agency can view all the submissions, assign owners,and  set priorities for a quick solution. 

CTA: Try Agency Handy for free and streamline ticketing

FAQs

What is the difference between a ticketing system and a help desk?

A ticketing system allows to submit and resolve a service or support request via digital tickets. On the other hand, a help desk takes a broader approach to client support that includes ticketing, live chat, phone, and a knowledge base.

Can ticketing systems handle requests from multiple clients?

Yes, agency targeted ticketing system can handle requests from multiple clients using dedicated client portals. Clients use their own portal to submit their requests, and the agency views tickets from all the clients in a unified dashboard.

What is SLA in ticketing systems?

Service Level Agreement or SLA is the predicted time for response and resolution for a ticket as per priority levels. Here, a ticketing system trace the SLA compliance by analyzing the time from creation of a ticket to first reply and last resolution.