What is Support Ticket Volume?
Support ticket volume is the ticket numbers that customer support teams get during a specific period.
It can be a request from a customer or a question that requires help from customer support.
This metric indicates the total number of conversations. It can count every engagement and conversation a support team is involved in.
Another relevant term, which is ticket deflection, is a concept that is when a business uses a knowledge base and customer portal to answer customer questions when the support team is not around.
Why You Should Pay Attention to Support Ticket Volume
Support ticket volume numbers matter as they indicate the response times and query numbers. High ticket volumes can result in longer response times and customer frustration.
According to Zendesk's customer service statistics, half of the customers will change to a rival company following a single negative encounter, while 80% will make the switch after encountering multiple unfavorable experiences.
A significant 64% of consumers find themselves unable to obtain assistance or resolve their issues using their current service provider's customer service.
Zendesk also reports that 75% of clients are prepared to invest more money in purchasing from enterprises that offer them a favorable customer experience.
Seeing these statistics related to customer service, managing ticket volume properly, and reducing it can be useful in quicker resolutions and satisfied visitors who can be loyal customers in the end.
By resolving your customers' problems quickly, you can form better relationships with them.
You can follow certain ticket deflection strategies to reduce average ticket volume or properly manage your support queries.
The ideal scenario is having low ticket volumes and solving customer problems quickly, so reducing average ticket volume is crucial.
Paying attention to your support ticket volume can help improve your customer success process, reduce customer service response time, and gather valuable feedback.
12 Strategies to Reduce Support Ticket Volume
If you want to reduce support ticket volume, you can utilize specific strategies. We have listed 12 strategies to reduce customer support ticket numbers so that you can select among them to provide a smoother customer experience.
1. Create a Knowledge Base
A knowledge base, which is a library of information related to a product or service, can be included in your website. Thanks to the knowledge base, your visitors can explore information related to your business to find answers to their questions.
You can create a help center that includes different categories related to your product or service and provide useful information in your knowledge base.
That way, people can check these details before getting in touch with your customer support, resulting in reducing your ticket volume.
Also, you can redirect people to your knowledge base during onboarding to make their experience more seamless and smoother.
2. Provide Support with Chatbots & AI Bot
Chatbots are extremely useful in reducing your support ticket volume, as they can save time and energy.
They can make your support team's job easier since they are available 24/7 to answer questions, resolve minor issues, and even reduce potential support tickets before they escalate.
Apart from these, most AI chatbot tools provide solutions like talking to a human agent during the chat so that people can get help from the customer support team if needed.
From answering common questions to providing step-by-step assistance, chatbots and AI bots are the solutions to keep your support functioning smoothly.
You can use an AI bot like LiveChatAI to create your AI-powered bot. That way, you can create your own AI bot that answers questions based on your knowledge base.
LiveChatAI allows you to combine live chat and AI bot, making your customer support team's job smoother. It also includes a feature for collecting emails during the conversation to help you reach your customers via email and expand your email list.
3. Offer Omnichannel Support
Offering omnichannel support can be an excellent way to solve your customers' problems and interact with them properly. Your customers could reach out for help through their preferred channels like email, chat, or social media.
Omnichannel support ensures that your customers are met with a consistent and seamless experience across every platform, reducing the need for them to submit tickets due to confusion or unresolved issues.
It's about being where your customers are at every step of their journey and making their support experience a breeze.
You can create support accounts on social media and answer your customers' questions quickly.
That way, your audience can also see your answers to certain questions and get better insights into their own questions, which can reduce support ticket volume.
Apart from these, offering support through email is another effective way to solve problems quickly.
4. Build Online Community or Forum
Building an online community or forum is another strategy that saves you time and energy. Your customers gather to exchange insights, share experiences, and offer solutions.
You can help your customers to assist each other, minimizing the need for repetitive support tickets. That way, your support team can focus on tackling the more complex challenges.
Don't forget to include a search bar on your community or forum so people can search specific keywords for their problems to find answers quickly. You can also use community management tools to manage your online community properly.
Apart from creating a place where your customers can interact and solve problems, you can also assist them in your community or forum by replying to their questions.
Being present on your community page can be beneficial to form stronger relationships and build solid relationships with your target audience.
5. Categorize Support Tickets
Categorizing support tickets can help you get organized and find certain tickets quickly. You can prevent possible chaos by sorting incoming queries into categories that can be found easily.
By categorizing tickets based on themes or issues, you can also get insights into your customers' most common questions and pain points. That way, you can create a roadmap for proactive solutions.
Seeing what people struggle with and how often a question is asked can provide valuable information.
You can also include the number of times a question is asked or a ticket is submitted for a certain issue to see the need to prioritize improvements for these areas.
This approach not only fuels faster ticket resolution but also helps your customer support team to tackle recurring issues. Thanks to this method, you can quickly find solutions to questions without getting lost.
6. Prioritize Based on Urgency
After you categorize your support tickets, you can also prioritize them based on their urgency. By handling tickets according to their urgency levels, you ensure that important topics can receive swift attention while less time-sensitive matters wait in line.
This helps you manage your support team's resources effectively and prevents minor concerns from taking so much time. By providing support first to urgent issues, you can also prevent your customers from leaving your product or service.
Depending on your support ticket volume and the queries you get, you can create a system to indicate the urgency of specific issues and follow them up.
7. Include Automated Responses
Automated responses can save you so much time and reduce support ticket volume.
By incorporating automated responses, you can provide a seamless support journey even before your team dives in.
This provides immediate reassurance and quick answers to customer questions. You can create a list of questions and their answers and show these to people who write for you to get support.
These questions can be frequently asked questions or relevant to your products or services' latest updates.
By including the possible answers to these questions and automating the responses, your customers can get a better first impression of your business.
8. Collect Feedback & Improve Based on Support Inquiries
As you get support tickets, you can collect feedback from your customers.
By carefully listening to the questions, concerns, and suggestions that customers bring forth, you can get valuable clues for refining your products, services, and support resources.
This addresses pain points at their source and empowers you to offer solid solutions.
At the end of your support chat, you can ask your customers whether they found your solutions helpful or not. Also, you can ask their opinion in their own words and collect valuable feedback.
This feedback can be related to your customer support process or to your product or service overall. Try to write quick, straightforward questions and include multiple answers to collect feedback quickly.
9. Merge Tickets of the Same Customer
Your customers can register multiple support tickets if they want to resolve urgent problems or are impatient about solving them. As customers register various tickets, your ticket number can quickly increase.
By merging tickets of the same customer, you can prevent your ticket numbers from increasing.
Also, seeing the conversation with the same customer in one place can help you provide better insight.
If there is a ticket that needs to wait and needs time to be resolved, merging tickets of the same customers can make your job so much easier.
10. Intuitive User Interfaces and Onboarding
Simplicity is the key, and providing intuitive user interfaces is the crucial part of it.
By designing intuitive user interfaces and seamless onboarding experiences, you can minimize the chances of customers getting lost in your product.
The fewer moments of confusion, the fewer tickets you'll see. If your product is full of bugs or non-intuitive pages, you will experience high support ticket volumes.
Focus on providing the best user experience to your customers, and you will see that your support ticket volumes are decreasing.
Aim for a product or service where users instinctively navigate, which is the power of an exceptional user experience.
11. Use Customer Support Tools
Customer support tools are created to streamline the work of support departments.
Using software designed to streamline, enhance, and expedite the support process can be helpful in reducing support ticket volume.
You can use tools like a robust ticketing system, a comprehensive knowledge base platform, or an intuitive CRM tool.
By harnessing their power, you can save time and elevate the customer experience efficiently and precisely. Also, these tools can be used for smoother support operations and collaborations.
Your customer service team can collaborate using these tools, which can reduce the support ticket volume of your business.
Apart from these, you can also get an insight into your response times, ticket volumes, and many other metrics.
12. Include FAQ Section
Including a frequently asked questions section on your website can be a valuable way to reduce your support ticket volume.
Once visitors land on your website and start scrolling through it, they can explore your frequently asked questions to find a solution for their answers.
You can include a dedicated FAQ section for different topics to offer a treasure map to your visitors. Apart from these, you can also include the most common questions on your onboarding process and help your visitors.
Explore: 16 Eye-Catching FAQ Page Examples That Can Inspire You
Wrap Up
We explained the strategies to reduce support ticket volume with this comprehensive guide. Pay attention that it's not just about saving time and resources; it's about building stronger relationships and getting loyal customers.
By embracing knowledge base resources, interactive chatbots, using customer support tools, and more, you're not just solving problems but preventing them beforehand.
Keep in mind that it's an ongoing process that needs continuous improvement and optimization. By regularly monitoring the results and keeping track of key performance indicators, you can reduce support ticket volume and improve customer support.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Reducing Support Ticket Volume Important?
Reduced support ticket volume is critical for a variety of reasons. High ticket volumes can result in longer response times, dissatisfied customers, and overburdened support employees.
By employing ticket deflection tactics, you can increase customer happiness, optimize resource allocation, and create a more seamless support experience for both customers and the support teams.
What is Ticket Deflection?
Ticket deflection is the proactive measures taken to prevent support tickets from reaching the support team.
It involves providing customers with self-service resources, automated solutions, and proactive communication, allowing them to find answers to their queries independently without creating a support ticket.
What Metrics Should I Track to Measure Ticket Deflection Success?
You should track specific metrics to achieve success in ticket deflection.
Key metrics to measure ticket deflection success include reducing overall ticket volume, the deflection rate (percentage of tickets prevented through deflection strategies), response times, and customer feedback on self-service resources and chatbot interactions.
These metrics provide insights into the effectiveness of your deflection efforts.
What Role Do Chatbots Play in Reducing Support Tickets?
Chatbots play a significant role in reducing support ticket volume by providing instant assistance to customers.
AI-powered chatbots can answer the most common questions, guide users through troubleshooting steps, and even resolve simple issues.
This prevents customers from creating support tickets for routine matters, decreasing the overall ticket load.
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