Top 8 features for an MSP Ticketing System

Choosing an IT ticketing system for managed service providers (MSPs) that meets your specific needs can be difficult. Because the industry is flourishing, there is a lot of choice—but not all IT help desk ticketing tools are created equal. Choosing a ticket management software solution is critical for your MSP because it is one of the primary contact routes between your clients and your company.

Consider the following eight tips to help you choose the right ticketing tool for your MSP:

1. Easy ticket creation

An IT ticketing system for MSPs can help them create tickets quickly in a variety of ways. Some ticket management software packages, for example, may include a specialized “Quick Ticket” capability. Customers may be able to fill a few quick facts and submit a ticket in a matter of seconds because of this.

This is significant because customers may be discouraged from submitting an assistance request if they need to fill out a form with several fields. The goal should always be to make the process of submitting a ticket as simple as possible. Customers will grow frustrated before they’ve even had a chance to contact one of your IT support representatives if the ticket creation process is confusing or overly difficult. Naturally, this increases the likelihood of client frustration.

Similarly, it is critical that your IT specialists can create tickets with just a few clicks, since having technicians go through a laborious ticket creation procedure can slow them down and divert their attention away from resolving client issues. Ideally, the ticket management you use will allow support staff to create a ticket from any screen.

2. Ticket creation through email

In addition to allowing for quick ticket production, the IT ticketing system you select should offer a variety of ticket generation methods. An email-to-ticket creation utility is one way to accomplish this.

Email-to-ticket generation can automatically transform email correspondence between clients and IT support technicians into tickets. By automatically collecting the content of the email communication in the generated ticket, this is a very effective way of creating tickets, saving technicians time, and ensuring they have access to all relevant facts.

3. Time management

Time monitoring is a very important function for a variety of reasons. To begin, time tracking aids in the generation of performance metrics for each of your IT support specialists by measuring the amount of time they spend on each ticket. 

This feature may also have an impact on your training efforts. If your IT support personnel, for example, is taking longer than expected to do specific duties, it may be time to update their training in those areas. Some IT help desk ticketing systems can even automatically compute, and update payment information based on recorded time and associated service fees, simplifying invoicing and saving time.

4. Custom ticket status tags

Although customizable ticket statuses appear to be a simple tool, they can have a major impact on your team’s productivity. Custom tickets allow you to organize tickets to meet your specific needs or preferences, as well as identify popular or prevalent concerns. Certain IT ticketing systems use these tags to automatically offer knowledge-based articles to clients, allowing them to fix minor issues on their own.

5. Priority view

When technicians log in to the IT ticketing system, the way a tool displays tickets to them is critical to how organized and productive ticket resolutions are. Look for a technology that provides a priority view as soon as an IT support team logs into the platform. Priority view should present the tickets allocated to the technician, the tickets that are overdue, and the tickets that are in process in descending order of significance. 

6. Detailed ticket information

The ability to add information to a ticket or have it automatically updated with the necessary information enables technicians to correlate all relevant customer knowledge with the appropriate issue. This means that everything they need to handle the problem should be contained within the ticket itself, saving technicians time wasted searching for customer information, old emails, and recordings of earlier communications.

7. Capacity for integration

Although interaction with other tools is not a required feature of good ticket management software, it may be quite beneficial in assisting MSP success. Remote assistance software, for example, can be an excellent supplement to IT ticketing systems. Integration with an all-in-one remote monitoring and management application can improve the service delivery of your help desk by better supporting other capabilities such as patch management and network device monitoring.

8. Accessible via mobile

Even with the best remote assistance tools, your technicians will occasionally need to spend time at customer sites to provide hands-on support. Technicians need quick access to the expertise and information available in their help desk and billing system to be effective in the field, which is why it’s important that your IT ticketing system includes a mobile application. A native mobile app that is compatible with both iOS and Android devices will allow technicians to access their help desk from their mobile device from anywhere they have an internet connection while on the road. Hopefully these tips have provided you with some insight into what to look for when selecting ticket management software. It can be difficult to find the perfect IT ticketing support desk products that check all the necessary boxes.