Ticketing system plan
Posted by MisterPuffyNipples@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 34 comments
Greetings!
I’m just a helpdesk grunt who’s looking to help his boss. Our team hasn’t been creating tickets consistently and 95% of our users call us. Now I know the obvious answer is ask the users to create a ticket. Without going into excruciating detail, that might be tricky
So my question is, does anyone have ideas on making ticket creation for users simple? I know that doesn’t make sense so let me explain
Our users aren’t going to make tickets and our helpdesk can’t realistically keep track. I hoped there was a way to automate calls into tickets but there isn’t—at least not with our system
Is there a very basic survey style system where—for example a user goes to a generic Teams channel, selects from a list of common issues and hits send. That’s all they should have to do because beyond that we are asking for problems.
This way, we receive a generic message about their issue giving us a way to keep track while not putting the full burden onto either side
Thank you in advance!
OkayArbiter@reddit
Most ticketing systems can intake tickets via email. So just route your main help email (if it exists) into your helpdesk. Then the user gets a response back that way, but you have it organized as a ticket.
MisterPuffyNipples@reddit (OP)
What if most users exclusively call? Emails sent to our helpdesk do get automated into Teams messages which is helpful. But we mostly get calls
RagnarStonefist@reddit
Great question, u/MisterPuffyNipples .
Our Zendesk automatically makes tickets when people call in with a log of their call. Perhaps your system can do something similar? Otherwise you're just gonna have to get used to making a ticket every time for them.
MisterPuffyNipples@reddit (OP)
Yeah when the ticket issue was first brought to the teams attention I suggested zendesk for that exact reason. Sadly, it’s too expensive
God I wish we could use zendesk
DuckDuckBadger@reddit
I assume voicemails are sent as attachments to mailboxes. You could just forward the voicemail to the help desk. It’s not as sophisticated as having it automatically transcribed but it could work.
DesignatedControvert@reddit
Zammad is free and can do this too
sryan2k1@reddit
You make the ticket with them on the phone.
vogelke@reddit
...and take your time doing it. Sooner or later, even the slow ones see that it might be faster to make the ticket themselves.
tankerkiller125real@reddit
Or just set the phone to repeat a message like "Due to high demand we are unable to take issues by phone call, please create a ticket via email@domain.tld or helpdesk.domain.tld"
Mister_Brevity@reddit
You ether stop answering the phone or make them go through the process of submitting a ticket while on the phone with you, being slow about it so it’s glaring apparent that the phone is no longer the path of least resistance. This requires management buy-in and support to handle complaints. This is a culture shift and takes a while. You will have employees that want to be the good guy and help over the phone - those employees will need to have conversations with IT leadership to make it clear that there are processes that will be followed if they want to remain a part of the team.
Expensive_Plant_9530@reddit
If they call, you either tell them “create a ticket then call us back”, or YOU create a ticket for them right then and there.
thewunderbar@reddit
This is a policy decision. you lay out why phone support does not work, with actual facts. Talk about how things get missed when they're not properly logged, etc. That's the most important thing. You need to be able to say, with provable facts, that "our ability to help everyone will increase by X if we stop taking support requests over the phone" (for everything but actual emergencies, of course)
You are searching for leadership/management buy in. It has to come from leadership.
TerrorToadx@reddit
Then you create it..
fnordhole@reddit
I would stop dialing a number that didn't answer.
itskdog@reddit
"We no longer take calls below a P2, please log a ticket".
Palmovnik@reddit
Say there is a week long call outage to service desk and that they need to create an email
binaryhextechdude@reddit
To focus on the phone call side of things for one minute. In my office every phone call becomes a ticket without question. Things need to be recorded or it’s impossible to get anything done. Where else do you write the user’s name and contact details? Their asset ID? Where do you save screenshots or error messages? All things you need to be able to actually resolve an issue?
binaryhextechdude@reddit
So right now you have 90% of your issues through calls I would focus on getting your Service desk creating tickets and working from them
quangle12@reddit
If you want to meet your colleagues where they’re at, you can try building a voice agent to answer the call & create a ticket using something like n8n or ElevenLabs.
N8n would have a lot more integrations, but would likely require that you’re using a modern ticketing system. If zendesk was a no from upper mgmt you can try pitching something cheaper like SparrowDesk they have a free tier.
ihaxr@reddit
Do you have SharePoint? You can create a simple list that will allow this.
The main thing is to keep it stupidly simple at first. Auto populate their name, add a couple of radio buttons to choose generic issue with a text field to enter a note.
You can create a folder for completed items and just move them there when they're completed
You'll be able to slowly grow the features if it works out (add a open/closed status that is hidden from the users, add an assigned to field, a priority, list alerts, etc...
vistathes@reddit
A different take from what most people would think. I would pitch the idea of creating a dispatch roll if the company is large enough.
We found that having somebody covering the phones and making tickets to assign to other people makes that whole process a heck of a lot more efficient. Granted you will need a ticketing system like Connectwise PSA with the ability to put tickets on someone's board, but I truly think everyone hates waiting on the phone queue, and divvying up the responsibility of taking calls and taking action on the work makes everybody more happy. Even if it takes a good amount of structure to get right.
BWMerlin@reddit
If users call then it is your responsibility as helpdesk to create the ticket for the user. This is a core part of being helpdesk.
Do this while on the call with the user and enter the details as you gather them.
BadSausageFactory@reddit
ai sitting on a teams channel that provides links to helpdesk articles, and will gather basic info and open the ticket for them so i can do triage or send it to a vendor. I get a ticket and users get minimal interaction.
Due_Peak_6428@reddit
At the end of the day all you need is a ticket system which logs the customers name, subject, time entry, and a note entry. This is all someone on helpdesk wants to be doing at the end of the day. Anything more just feeds the egos of managers and creates Data which doesn't need to exist and slows us down.
gethelptdavid@reddit
Callers gonna call. Let me know if you need help grabbing those calls and triaging or even knocking out the frontline stuff. Good luck!
Sasataf12@reddit
Zendesk (and I'm sure others) will create tickets from calls.
If your system can't do that, then you'll need to create the ticket yourself while on the call with the user.
Pristine_Curve@reddit
Email support is the simplest method to open a ticket 'helpdesk@company.com' with automated responses when the ticket is assigned/updated/closed. Add that if you don't have it already.
Who are they calling? Individual IT people? Immediately discourage calling individuals. That's an unsustainable practice out of the gate. Funnel them into a specific phone for the helpdesk. Whoever is manning phone duties is told to create a ticket for every inbound call. Call-in support is expressly limited to ticket creation/information gathering and < 5min tasks (e.g. password lockout).
The result should be that you either email to create a ticket or call to create a ticket, but in either case a ticket is created before work begins.
Xelopheris@reddit
Set expectations and SLAs. If a user calls to log a ticket, if it isn't P1, you don't solve it over the phone. As long as calling in gets them to the top of the backlog, users have an incentive to call in instead of creating a ticket.
Expensive_Plant_9530@reddit
Okay so honestly this is a management issue on both ends:
Also, make tickets easy to submit. Don’t create too many fields or make it complicated.
Warm_Share_4347@reddit
All ticketing systems are offering these capabilities. For the end user experience you can have email@, teams bot or portal. For teams bot, not all are equal, so I recommend to test it well because a lot are just notif and not actual matching behavior of teams. If helpful, siit has a good MS Teams bot
The_Koplin@reddit
The 1st step we took was to set policy and expectation to a ticket.
However users absolutely hated the system we had because it was a webpage, with like 20 "required" fields and lots of places for users to do things like choose a priority or go down rabbit holes that didn't work for anyone! I suggest you avoid that and make opening a ticket easier then calling.
To solve this issue we looked at a few systems and settled on JitBit a basic email to ticket system(it has more depth but we didn't need it). Users only have to interact with email (there is a website but its not required except for the technician side) and now anyone just sends a helpdesk@example.com message and it converts to a ticket, with a number and tracking etc. If there are key words we have it auto assign to a specific group that handles specific things. There is also an app for your device for the cases where you are running around a building an someone pulls the 'while you are here'. You can put the ticket in for them and move on or addressed it and its documented for the rest of the team.
Helpdesk staff have a list to work from, management can see reports of who is doing what, and overall if the same issue or people keep poping up we can focus on fixing the issue or training staff etc.
I would personally add a bit of friction to the phone system to make it less convenient (Press x, please hold etc.) and I would take away any other tool like direct extensions to focus users to the ticket system. No ticket = no help. (policy) A little bit of grumping and adjusting and now 95% of our ticket load comes in as a basic email.
Users have no friction as long as email is working and thats been pretty reliable. Also when a comment is made in the ticket system, it emails the user so if they just 'reply' then the ticket system gets it and everything is in a managed spot. If phones are a must, then just task a staff member to be a 'reception' person and create the ticket for the caller.
It doesn't matter what system you use as long as you use it! The key is to make it easy for the user, they don't have time, don't know what an error message is etc. Once they create the ticket there is room to grow the system.
TheEvilAdmin@reddit
Create a policy and have management approve it. Then you can let users know that if there is no ticket, it can't be worked on. That you are currently working on other support tickets currently. If they need help, they can submit a support ticket and someone will get to it in the order it was received depending on how critical it is.
MisterPuffyNipples@reddit (OP)
What if most users exclusively call? Emails sent to our helpdesk do get automated into Teams messages which is helpful. But we mostly get calls
thewunderbar@reddit
Most ticket systems have an email intake, so if a user emails whatever a support address is, it goes into the system. It needs to filter into a ticket system somehow, if submitting to helpdesk@domain.com is what works for users, do it.
And at the end of the day, don't use the "it's tricky" as an excuse. Either you have a policy in place that support requests must go through the ticket system, or you don't, and deal with those consequences.
There's no real silver bullet around that. You either force people to use a ticket system, or you don't have a ticket system.