Support Ticket Prioritization
In this topic, we discuss the steps to create a priority ticket system for the operational workstream, different prioritization strategies to consider, and best practices for prioritizing & responding to service requests.
As discussed in Value Streams, organizations need to move customer requests outside of the product roadmap/development workflows into their own workstream that is executed based on predefined workflows so that they can manage product development of the target solution in a predictable and reliable manner. In this topic, we discuss the steps to create a priority ticket system for the operational workstream, different prioritization strategies to consider, and best practices for prioritizing & responding to service requests.
Prioritizing service requests with a priority support system
When a customer has a service request, they need to know how it will be handled and how quickly they can expect a response. Setting and meeting expectations builds trust and loyalty with your customers.
The level of support a customer receives and the urgency of the issue determine how quickly a team responds to a request.
Here are steps for ranking service requests using a priority support system:
- Segment your customer base and request types. This will help you to align priority levels with pricing and ensure that all customers are receiving the level of support they need.
- Offer an option to purchase support as a product. This can give customers who need a higher level of support the option to pay for it.
- Create priority levels with specific guidelines for categorizing and servicing each support ticket. This will help your team to quickly identify and respond to urgent issues.
- Automate the categorization process. This will save your team time and ensure that tickets are categorized correctly.
- Use Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) to ensure every customer is accounted for and response time consistency. SLAs define the level of service that customers can expect, including the response time for different priority levels.
- Consistently re-evaluate your process based on common requests, response time, and CX scores. This will help you to ensure that your priority support system is meeting the needs of your customers and your business.
By following these steps, you can create a priority support system that helps you to deliver a better customer experience and improve customer satisfaction.
Source: How to Rank Customer Service Issues Using Priority Support
Prioritization Strategies
Services teams use prioritization strategies to support more customers as businesses grow.
Customer strategies:
- Account-type prioritization: Prioritize customers based on their account type, such as enterprise customers or high-paying customers.
- VIP status: Prioritize customers with VIP status.
- Customer category: Prioritize customers based on their category, such as new customers or customers experiencing critical issues.
- Customer personas: Prioritize customers based on their personas, such as power users or casual users.
Request strategies:
- Emotional/severity prioritization: Prioritize requests based on their emotional impact on the customer or the severity of the issue.
- First-come, first-served: Prioritize requests based on the order in which they are received.
- Skill-based prioritization: Prioritize requests based on the skills of the support team members. This is also known as "triaging."
- Urgency based on ticket information using artificial intelligence: Use AI to analyze ticket information and determine the urgency of each request.
- Pick and choose: Support teams may choose to prioritize certain types of requests over others, depending on their resources and priorities.
Operational strategies:
- Plan or package-based: Prioritize requests based on the customer's support plan or package.
- SLA or contract-based: Prioritize requests based on the customer's SLA or contract.
- Allow and optimize custom fields: Allow customers to specify custom fields in their support tickets, and use these fields to prioritize requests.
Successful support teams use a combination of these strategies to ensure that all customers receive the support they need, regardless of their account type, VIP status, or the type of request they have.
Additional tips for prioritizing customer support requests:
- Consider the impact on the business. When prioritizing requests, consider the impact on the business as a whole. For example, a request from a customer who is experiencing a critical issue may have a greater impact on the business than a request from a customer who is having a minor issue.
- Be flexible. Be prepared to adjust your prioritization strategies as needed. For example, if you are experiencing a high volume of requests, you may need to prioritize certain types of requests over others.
- Communicate with your customers. Let your customers know how you are prioritizing requests and how long they can expect to wait for a response. This will help to set expectations and build trust.
By following these tips, you can create a customer support prioritization system that helps you to deliver the best possible experience for your customers.
Sources:
Best practices for customer support prioritization
Prioritization
- Use consistent and clear criteria that align with your service level agreements (SLAs), business objectives, and customer expectations.
- Avoid subjective judgment that may bias your decisions or cause disputes.
- Avoid overlapping or ambiguous categories that may cause confusion or duplication.
Design
- Design a workflow or "recipe" for your IT employees that delegates differently prioritized tickets evenly and efficiently.
- Adapt workflows to changing priorities that may affect your service delivery.
- Define support ticket levels using metrics, topics, and sentiment.
- Implement tiered support workflows to ensure tickets are assigned/fulfilled according to need.
- Roll out self-service features to reduce support tickets and empower your customers.
Management
- Prioritize and categorize your tickets based on predefined criteria, workflows, and rules.
- Track and report your performance and outcomes.
- Understand the issue and how it affects the user and company to determine response time.
- Optimize the reassignment process when support reps get tickets with issues that can't be solved by them, but require tech support.
- Communicate and explain any changes in a timely manner to your customers or stakeholders, and manage their expectations and feedback.
- Use service tools for management and continuous improvement.
Continuous improvement
- Help you identify and implement any improvements.
- Provide adequate training and skills to enable teams to perform their tasks effectively and efficiently.
- Identify repeat issues so you aren't wasting extra time on things that your team has already handled.
Summary
By following these best practices, you can create a customer support prioritization system that helps you to deliver the best possible experience for your customers.
Additional tips:
- Be flexible and adaptable. Be prepared to adjust your prioritization strategies as needed, based on factors such as the volume of requests, the severity of issues, and the impact on the business.
- Communicate with your customers. Let your customers know how you are prioritizing requests and how long they can expect to wait for a response. This will help to set expectations and build trust.
- Use technology to your advantage. There are a number of tools and technologies available that can help you to automate and streamline your customer support prioritization process.
By following these tips, you can create a customer support prioritization system that is both effective and efficient and helps you to deliver the best possible experience for your customers.
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