The Effective Approach to Sorting Zendesk Tickets Through Automation

Ever have that moment when you log into Zendesk on a Monday morning and are greeted with a flood of tickets lined up for your attention like fires demanding to be extinguished urgently one after another?

Not every ticket holds the weight; some may seem more significant during the early hours of the day.

“The issue is with sorting tickets “

Many small companies and new businesses traditionally manage ticket prioritization in a certain manner; an individual. Typically, the first to arrive at the workplace. Reviews each new ticket and determines its level of urgency, distinguishing between what needs immediate attention and what could be addressed later on.

When you receive around 20 to 30 tickets per day in the early stages it might be effective, to some extent; however, as your business expands, this manual sorting process can turn into quite a challenging task.

You might find yourself in a situation where significant customer concerns linger in the queue for hours as your team handles password reset requests instead of addressing them promptly or, worse still, miss out on a crucial bug report from your most important client due to it being overshadowed by numerous feature requests.

A Clever Approach for Efficient Prioritization.

Zendesk’s automation tools come in handy when you’re looking to keep your sanity intact. You have the option to establish rules that will sort and rank tickets based on criteria, without manual intervention.

Imagine having an intelligent assistant by your side 24/7 that is capable of categorizing every incoming ticket with precision and efficiency, never skipping a beat.

Establishing priority guidelines that truly deliver results.

It’s important to establish guidelines grounded in business outcomes rather than focusing solely on what comes across as urgent, in an email subject line.

Using an approach to prioritize customers is effective for many businesses as it’s important to provide quicker responses to enterprise clients compared to free trial users based on their level of importance. You can establish guidelines that flag tickets from high-value customers as urgent automatically.

Classifying the type of problem is quite impactful in this scenario. For instance, when reporting a system outage it should be prioritized immediately over something, like a password reset request, which can afford to wait a bit longer.

Time-sensitive terms play a role in identifying truly pressing matters, such as issues, with functionality, accessibility problems or data loss incidents that require immediate action.

Directing inquiries to the individuals.

Smart automation not only assigns priority levels but also directs tickets to team members capable of resolving them effectively.

Direct any concerns to your team concerning billing inquiries to the finance department and general questions to the frontline support staff. This will streamline the process. Reduce unnecessary ticket shuffling between different departments.

Impact on Businesses

Getting the prioritization of tickets correct can have an impact on your entire operation.

Your support team feels less stressed when they focus on tasks in sequence. Customer happiness ratings increase as pressing problems are handled promptly. Moreover, you can rest easy at night knowing that your system will detect any issues that may arise.

The noticeable enhancement in response times is quite remarkable to witness. As opposed to everything being piled up in a backlog of tasks waiting to be addressed slowly over hours, urgent matters now receive attention promptly within minutes instead of waiting for extended periods.

Team productivity improves when your support team can focus on one type of issue without having to switch contexts between different types of problems.

When valuable customers feel assured that their concerns will be addressed promptly, it enhances customer loyalty. Ensures their satisfaction.

“The Consequences of Making Mistakes”

When ticket prioritization goes awry, your loyal customers may begin seeking alternatives.

Charging a client £5000 monthly and making them wait three days for a reply while handling queries from customers paying £50 per month is simply not business practice.

Additionally, your customer service team experiences quicker burnout when they are consistently putting out fires than following a structured approach to addressing issues in a prioritized manner.

Advanced Techniques in Automation

Once you’ve mastered the essentials of it all in place and organized well, there are some automation techniques that can take your Zendesk configuration to the next level of effectiveness.

When it comes to handling customer inquiries through the system we use at work, escalation workflows play a crucial role by automatically increasing the priority of tickets that haven’t received attention within a specific timeframe.

Customer satisfaction indicators may highlight accounts with declining satisfaction scores to allow for outreach before they pose a risk of churn.

When linked with your CRM system, Zendesk can effortlessly access customer data,  contract specifics, and support plan particulars to enhance decision-making and prioritization processes.

The great thing about automated prioritization is that you can customize it to fit the way your business operates.

Different SaaS companies may focus on subscription plans. How much they are used, while e-commerce firms might consider the value of orders and delivery deadlines when setting their priorities and service-based businesses could prioritize based on project schedules and client agreements.

The goal is to establish guidelines that align with your business needs and objectives instead of relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.

Bringing It to Life, in Action

Establishing automation is a part of the challenge; you must actively track the effectiveness of your rules and make adjustments according to tangible outcomes.

Keep an eye on indicators such as the average time taken to respond based on priority levels and customer feedback ratings, alongside the frequency of manual ticket reprioritization occurrences. If you find yourself frequently overriding the automated system’s decisions, it might be a sign that your rule settings require some adjustments.

Frequent rule assessments assist in identifying scenarios and adjusting standards as your business progresses over time. Adaptations that were effective with a customer base of 100 may not be as successful when dealing with 1,000 customers.

It’s important to listen to the feedback from your team, as they may notice things that automation might overlook, especially when it comes to supporting staff.

Ensuring the prioritization of tickets goes beyond just streamlining your support team’s workflow (although it certainly helps with that). It’s crucial to ensure that your business is able to respond to customers in a manner that’s logical and beneficial for both parties involved.

If you’re feeling exhausted from dealing with ticket management every morning and are keen on implementing effective automation solutions for your business operations that truly deliver results. We’re here to assist you in finding the right solution.