What is the different between a ticket management system and a Helpdesk? This is a question, often invariably asked on various discussion forums. Following paragraphs narrate a little account on this.
Let’s start with the help desk. A Help Desk software is the system which provides an interface to the helpdesk resource support person and so helps him in handling the issues related to products or services offered by an organization. Such a system provides for organizing the information that the helpdesk already contains about the products and services, along with the details of interactions between support users and the end users. Here, the end users are usually either external customers or internal employees in an organization. The interactions can occur through various modes such as, electronic mails, instant chat messengers, websites, social-media or on phones, among others.
In the technology-driven corporate world of today, the significance of a software for helpdesk tasks can never be underscored. Gone are the days when you could manage the customer issues manually- whether using pen and paper, or at the best using spreadsheet software. This was not only time consuming, but also prone to errors. Now, considering the speed and scale of the incoming issues, it’s not easy to be handled manually. So an automated system is the need of the day. Here, at the same time, you can store huge business data at one place, and also can provide authorization to their access restricted only to key personnel. This way, vital information for your organization are completely secured. Furthermore, as we mentioned previously, helpdesk professionals regularly receive customer requests and enquiries from variety of modes like- email, phone calls, chat, phone message text, and even social media. Needless to say, this makes their tasks intricate. For this, usually, a modern help desk solution use the collaborative platforms, such as Microsoft SharePoint.
Now, what’s a ticket management software? It is essentially a cornerstone to the helpdesk management. It helps mediating between the helpdesk resource and the end users by means of the ticketing system. A ticket is usually defined as a report on specific issues raised by an end user, the current status, and any other essential data associated to it. Now, as a ticket contains the key information related to any customer issue, it can be used in organizing the information of entire enterprise in a proper manner. A good ticketing solution helps creating a knowledgebase from where the relevant information can be fetched, whenever needed by any support user to resolve any other issue. This way, it helps you create a Centralized Information System.
A ticket contains updated status- the date and time when it was raised, action taken on it, and when it was closed. Thus, it enables the helpdesk system in tracking and monitoring the data easily and quickly. At the same time, it turns out to be a great metric, which can be used to measure the performance of support users responsible for handling the issues. Further, it helps you in prioritizing the organizational workflow in an effective way. It keeps the log of various issues to be handled by support users in your organization, and they can be categorized depending on the type of the issue, user profile, availability of support users etc. If an issue requires multiple users from different departments, a suitable workflow can be designed to resolve that particular issue. And, if the similar issue comes again, the same can be used automatically by the system. This way, the system enhances the productivity of the entire organization in a great way.
In a nutshell, Help desk and ticketing management system are inseparable in a true sense. They usually work in a collaborative manner with the ultimate objective of achieving the highest level of satisfaction to the users- both external i.e. customers, and internal i.e. employees. MetaCaseDesk is a SharePoint based solution, which has been designed to achieve the same objective effortlessly.
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