Emails are our go-to for most of our written, professional digital communication – and for good reason. It’s the most widely used format where just about everybody uses it one way or another. It’s easy to default to this form vs calling because, simply, a call is just not in the cards at that very moment. Now whether the recipient is diligent on checking and responding to their emails is another story, and my points today reflect specifically on support requests vs emails themselves and why it’s critical not only to thirteen05 to handle most requests via the ticketing system but is arguably a good habit to get into for most services out there.
Here at thirteen05, we use HESK Help Desk on our website’s support page (thirteen05.com/support), a simple web-based ticketing system that allows easy support requests to be sent in via simple forms to fill out. From there, our team has access to the admin portion, which can manage, track, and communicate on any ticket sent. Another nifty feature is that we can see if you’ve seen our responses. Yes, we’ll know if you read our response and forgot to get back to us. It’s ok, we forgive you. It allows us mainly to keep all of our clients’ tickets in one place and organize and prioritize them efficiently.
Now, to the points on why this is the preferred method of support requests vs emails sent. First off: Those emails can quickly and easily get lost in the shuffle of everything else. While we certainly do our best to avoid that by any means, it happens from time to time. We’re power-users when it comes to how many incoming and outgoing emails occur, and while we might have seen something come in from you, it may already have dropped down to the bottom of our inboxes by the time we’re able to respond. My argument to stick with the ticketing system is that it only holds requests and no other clutter, resulting in our team being able to respond and monitor which tickets are new/ongoing, etc. Plus we check and address them as often as we can, almost every workday morning if possible.
Second: It keeps “threads” simple and clean. When you submit a ticket it keeps you updated via email notifications where you can jump right into the ticket via links. You can even bookmark these links for the duration of the ticket if you’d like, which I recommend for quick access. Jumping into your ticket’s link gives you a nice, reverse chronologically ordered list of sent messages on both sides of the table without the clutter that emails can create.
Finally: both sides of the table have a point of reference if you do decide to call and follow up with us. We even recommend sending in a quick ticket and giving us a call shortly after in the case of urgent, time sensitive requests so we’re on the same page on both fronts. Again, all for the sake of organization and making sure nothing is being missed.
We understand if ticketing systems get neglected. We’re all human, and sometimes a call or email is just the best way to approach communication. Though, again, when it comes to support requests, let’s stick with the ticketing system as much as we can so we’re all as organized as possible. Let’s stay efficient together!