We plan for certain ticket spikes, such as during the holidays or an upcoming sale. But an unexpected spike can snowball into a massive inbox of unanswered support tickets. When this happens, it’s critical to have a plan for providing timely solutions to customers. Here is a list of 7 ways to reduce ticket backlogs that have gotten out of control.
1. Set expectations with customers
The best thing to do is be open with your customers so they aren’t left wondering if you care about their inquiry. Set up auto replies to instantly let customers know you received their message, you are aware of the delay (with reasons, if applicable), and what the expected response times are.
Use this opportunity to thank them for their patience. Also, it gives you a chance to remind them that reaching out multiple times could further the delay. Doing this will put customers at ease and reduce the amount of duplicate volume generated by the backlog.
2. Turn off live channels or reduce live coverage hours
During backlogs, impatient customers may reach out several times through multiple channels. This additional volume tends to overwhelm live channels, preventing agents from serving customers effectively.
Reduce live coverage hours or disable chats and set a voicemail notification. Inform customers that live support is currently unavailable and how they can reach you via email. Be sure to include an estimate of expected response times (see #1).
3. Create specialized teams & priority queues:
Specialized agents typically work faster by focusing on specific issues repetitively rather than bouncing between different issues. Set up priority queues to capture urgent tickets and assign a small group of specialized agents to these queues. Use queue filters to remove non-urgent requests and get the backlog organized for the majority of agents, while your specialists address time-sensitive issues.
4. Set up rules & automation
As with priority queues, set rules within your help desk to automatically close out spam and other ‘noise’ tickets. This means your agents don’t spend their working hours sifting through these to get to real issues.
Integrate automatic processes such as a return portal and chat bots. Automating solutions to common issues eliminates the need for customers to contact an agent to get a resolution. Also, you can provide general information such as order numbers or tracking status.
5. Merge / batch similar tickets
Customers who haven’t received a prompt response are likely to reach out again, which creates duplicate tickets and artificially inflates volume. Additionally, it results in duplicate efforts if multiple agents attempt to solve the same issue.
Solve these issues together by using a rule to group tickets from the same customer and merge those tickets. Newer help desk platforms even pre-merge these replies by grouping them as ‘conversations’ that tracks any customer outreaches in one place.
6. Get some extra help
No matter what you do to mitigate backlogs, sometimes volume is simply too much for current staffing levels to handle. It is quite costly to hire new employees in such a short period of time, but you can bring in a partner such as wrrk to help out.
Allowing existing employees to handle more intricate solutions and outsourcing the ‘generic’ volume to external agents gets you the help you need without the cost of hiring additional staff.
7. Bulk close / Mass reply
If a backlog is completely unmanageable, older than relevant, or most of the issues have since been resolved (by orders shipping, restocked inventory, etc.), ‘wipe the slate’ by closing tickets in bulk and sending a mass reply to all customers with tickets older than a set threshold.
Make sure your reply contains a sincere apology, a description of any solutions already provided, and guidance letting customers know how to reopen their ticket if the provided solutions didn’t address the issue they have. It also helps to include a coupon code or gift card as a token of appreciation.
While this last method is typically for ‘worst case scenarios’, it can be quite effective when used to proactively address a known issue such as supply chain disruptions or other major shortages/outages. In fact, with a proper help desk setup you can incorporate several of these tools now to prevent backlogs in the first place!
