How To Write A Great Support Ticket

Communication breakdown is inevitable in life, especially when dealing with complex technical issues. Writing an effective support ticket can be challenging, but there are certain guidelines you can follow to make the process less frustrating and time-consuming for both you and your IT support team. In this article, we share tips and best practices to help you write a successful support ticket.

1. Stay Calm

Staying calm is critical to getting through your web emergency. According to Chris Bradley, keeping a clear mind and following a systematic approach helps the support team handle a wide range of high-pressure situations at Website Pipeline. When you remain calm, it also helps your support team stay calm, resulting in a win-win situation.

2. Focus on the Details

Providing as much detail as possible from the very first time you reach out with a support request can help your issue get resolved more quickly. Don't wait for your support representative to ask questions; give them the information upfront, and you'll get much better results. When crafting your initial support ticket, consider the following details:

• When did you first notice the problem?
• Have any updates been applied to the software in question or related software recently?
• If your issue involves ERP integration, have you changed large amounts of data in your ERP recently?
• Have you made any changes in your Content Management System (WebDriver)?
• Can the issue be replicated on multiple computers or mobile devices?
• Is the problem happening in one browser or all of them?
• Do you see any specific error messages?

3. Articulate and Communicate

The subject line or brief description is the most important part of any support message you write. It's the first thing the support staff will see, and it gives the entire request context. A poorly written subject line wastes valuable space with redundant wording and punctuation, and gives no context. A good subject line can still convey urgency while explaining why an issue is so important right off the bat.

In the full description or message body, include as much information as possible, such as:

• Use a list or bullet points for easy communication
• Highlight your request in a list near the beginning of your description
• Describe what you're seeing and what you think is malfunctioning
• Provide information on what you expect to be seeing
• Include the following information, if possible:
• Browser version being used when the issue arose
• Operating System (Windows, Mac)
• Provide the specific time and date the issue started happening
• Always provide the web address/URL of the page with the error if possible
• If it is an issue with a specific customer, always provide the username and/or account number of that customer
• If you are experiencing a pricing issue with an e-commerce item, provide information on:
• Which product
• What price you're seeing
• What price you should be seeing
• What customer is being impacted (pricing may vary by account for some B2B buyers)
• If you are experiencing an issue with shipping calculations, provide information on:
• Which shipping method is having the issue
• What the rate should be
• When all else fails, take a screenshot, which can sometimes communicate a situation better than any written explanation.

4. Follow Up

Ticket response times can vary depending on the platform you’re making your request on, and the urgency of your request vs. others in the queue. Be patient, and know that you have done your due diligence in getting the issue resolved by following steps 1-3.

Some good rules of thumb for following up:

1. The average first response time for a reasonably busy IT support facility should be less than 2 hours. Of course, this time may go up or down depending on ticket volume or unexpected emergencies from another customer.
2. If you’ve submitted a support ticket and haven’t heard a response in over 24 hours, chances are the team has an extremely high ticket volume, or less likely is the off-chance your request was never received! It is perfectly ok to reach out after 24 hours to check in with your provider and make sure you are in the queue.
3. For those really urgent issues that may arise from time-to-time, you won’t have that kind of time to wait. A quality support team should be responding to emergency tickets in 30 minutes or less.

• Most IT support teams will have an option for you to select "My live website is down" or something similar on the ticket submission form which will inititate an emergency response within 30 minutes or less. If the form does not have that option, and you are not sure what the best way to submit an emergency request is, contact your support team for specific instructions.

5. Be nice - it’ll get you far!

Showing gratitude is a lot more powerful than you think. Remember, Tech Support Representatives are people too, and more than likely you’ll end up working with the same individual again in the future - so keep it friendly if you want them on your side ;)