Providing fast and seamless assistance to customers is the key to improving your customer support team’s performance. Helpdesk systems can assist in achieving this goal by addressing user queries promptly.

 

However, there is an aspect that must be taken into account: even though customers expect a quick response to every type of issue (and you would like to provide one), it is often not possible to manage all requests satisfactorily. This is because the volume of requests can become very high, making it impossible for the customer support team to respond to all of them with the same promptness. That’s why it’s important to establish priorities in ticket management within the company.

 

Tickets can have four priority levels: urgent, high, medium, and low. The prioritization will depend on the severity of the issue to be resolved and, therefore, its scope.

 

Let’s see how to assign priorities in ticket management using a functional system and how to implement it using software like Freshdesk.

Ticket Management: Why Is It Important to Assign a Ticket Priority?

Customers are becoming increasingly demanding with companies, especially when they need to resolve an issue. According to the “Global Customer Care Industry: Trends, Consumer Shifts, and Challenges” study by GoodFirms, 70.4% of respondents chose another company due to poor customer service they experienced.

 

This is precisely why it’s important for a company to invest in efficient customer support. Efficiency also involves proper priority management.

 

We understand that every customer is important to a company, and it can be challenging to establish the ideal timeframe to respond to the same request. Technology can come to your aid in assigning priorities in ticket management.

 

Establishing a system for assigning priorities in ticket management allows you to create a functional workflow, preventing the customer support team from individually assessing the importance of requests. In fact, the process can be automated with helpdesk systems like Freshdesk to provide a fast and seamless user experience.

How to Assign Priority to Helpdesk Tickets?

The criteria for prioritizing certain tickets over others depend on the nature of the issue, the communication channel, and the customer.

 

There are five main methods to prioritize customer requests:

 

1. FIFO (First In First Out) Method: This method simply prioritizes customers based on the order in which they submitted their request to the company. While it’s a basic system, it can be functional when dealing with a low volume of tickets to manage. However, it has its disadvantages because it doesn’t consider requests that may be more complex to resolve, thus extending response times.

 

2. Manual Prioritization: This involves assigning priority directly to the agent. This can be done with Freshdesk, which has a manual assignment system that allows agents to prioritize requests.

 

3. Process Automation: This is undoubtedly the most advanced approach to priority management and involves the complete delegation of assignment to a helpdesk system like Freshdesk. In Freshdesk, you can define assignment rules that allow the tool to automatically prioritize requests. This way, you can save time and focus on customer service.

 

4. Classification by Type: This approach involves creating specific request categories that will be classified by type. Classification can be done manually or automatically, as established in Freshdesk’s assignment rules.

 

5. SLA (Service Level Agreement) Method: Finally, priority can also be established based on service level agreements or SLAs. 

 

Why Choose Freshdesk for Prioritization?

Prioritizing customer requests is crucial for improving the efficiency of your customer support. For this purpose, you can rely on the support of Freshdesk, which provides customer support software for companies to achieve their goals.

 

If you want to learn more about Freshdesk’s omnichannel support, start by requesting your free consultation with our experts.