The ticket machine at the deli counter is one of the most underrated inventions of everyday life. Nobody has to elbow their way forward, nobody gets forgotten and the staff know exactly who is next. The ticket says nothing about what you want, but it makes sure you are seen.
A ticketing system does the same for customer questions, only with a far better memory. A ticketing system is software that receives customer questions, turns them into tickets with their own number and keeps track of status, owner and history until each one is resolved. It is used in customer service, support and for internal requests, and in Swedish it goes by the rather longer name ärendehanteringssystem.
Why is a shared inbox not enough?
It is enough for quite a while, which is exactly the problem. Most teams start with a shared address like info or support, where three colleagues read the same emails. That works nicely until two of them reply to the same email on a Friday afternoon and nobody replies to the next one. Nobody knows who has taken what, and the question of whether anyone answered the customer from Thursday becomes a fixture at the Monday meeting.
Then the customer calls, because no reply came. The call goes to whoever happens to pick up, and it is not in the inbox. The next time the customer gets in touch, the email is in one place and the call in another, and nobody has the full picture. A shared inbox is built to receive messages, not to keep track of cases.
What does a lost case actually cost?
More than you might think, because the cost is spread over lots of small moments. A forgotten email becomes an irritated call, the call becomes a new email, and suddenly a simple question has taken up three people's time. It rarely shows in any single week, but over a year it adds up to a considerable amount of duplicated work.
- The customer repeats themselves: Without a history, every contact starts from scratch.
- Work gets done twice: Two people answer the same question while another one is left lying.
- Nothing can be measured: Without tickets you cannot track response times, first call resolution or how many questions actually come in.
- Knowledge lives in people's heads: When the person who knows the case is on holiday, the rest of the team is left without answers.
Not to worry, this can be fixed without anyone having to memorise the entire inbox.
How does a ticketing system work?
A ticketing system works by turning every incoming question into a ticket that is followed from first contact to resolution. The ticket gets a number, a status and an owner, and all communication is gathered in the ticket's history. This is how the flow looks in most systems:
- The customer gets in touch: By email, chat, web form or phone, depending on which channels the system handles.
- A ticket is created: The question is registered automatically with its own ticket number.
- The ticket is sorted: It gets a category, a priority and an owner, either a person or a group.
- Someone takes care of it: The agent sees the full history and replies in the same flow.
- The ticket is closed: Once the question is resolved, the ticket is closed and everything remains for follow up.
It sounds undramatic, and that is the point. A good ticketing system means nobody has to remember anything the system can remember for them.
Who needs a ticketing system?
Anyone who receives more questions than one person can keep in their head, or where more than one person answers. That covers customer service and support, but also internal IT support, property management with fault reports and HR teams fielding questions from employees. What they have in common is that questions arrive through several channels and need following up over time.
To be fair, not everyone needs one. A solo consultant with five emails a week will manage perfectly well with an inbox. But once customers email, chat and call, it becomes important that the phone is included, because otherwise calls drop out of the history. We have written about how the channels fit together in omnichannel customer service, and we untangle how ticketing relates to a contact center in contact center vs helpdesk.
How ticket management works in Lynes
In the Lynes contact center, ticket handling is built in, and the phone is a natural part of it:
- Ticket management: Calls, emails and chats automatically become tickets with their own ticket number, in the same interface and with the same history. With AI switched on, calls are transcribed and tickets are labelled, so everything can be searched afterwards.
- Views: Combine filters for status, latest activity, channel and assigned agent, save the selection as a view and share it with the team. A team leader might, for example, build a view of unanswered tickets in a particular channel.
- AI Coach: A built in assistant in the ticket that suggests replies based on your knowledge base and can summarise the ticket as an internal note, so whoever takes over understands the situation straight away. The AI is built into Lynes and developed in house.
Back to the Friday afternoon and the shared inbox. In Lynes every question has a number and an owner, the customer's call sits in the same history as the email, and at the Monday meeting it is enough to open the view of unanswered tickets.
Frequently asked questions about ticketing systems
What is the difference between a ticketing system and a CRM?
A CRM keeps track of the customer relationship, such as contact details, deals and contracts. A ticketing system keeps track of customer questions and problems until they are resolved. The two complement each other, and many companies connect them so that whoever handles a ticket can also see who the customer is and what they have bought.
What is a ticket in customer service?
A ticket is a question, problem or request from a customer that is registered and followed up until it is resolved. A ticket usually has its own number, a status and an owner, and all communication about the question is gathered in its history. That lets several people work on the same question without losing the thread.
Do small businesses need a ticketing system?
Not always. With few questions and one person answering, an ordinary inbox is often enough. But as soon as several people share the questions, or customers get in touch through several channels, it becomes hard to keep order without tickets. At that point even a small business saves time when every question has a number and an owner.
Can phone calls become tickets?
Yes, in systems where telephony is built in or integrated. A ticket is then created when the call comes in, and the call lands in the same history as emails and chats. In the Lynes contact center, calls automatically become tickets with their own ticket number. That means what was said on the phone is still there when the customer gets in touch again.
TL;DR
The ticket machine makes sure nobody is forgotten in the queue, and a ticketing system does the same for customer questions, with a memory for the whole history. Every question gets a number, a status and an owner, and whoever answers can see what has already happened. The more channels and colleagues involved, the more it matters, especially once the phone is included.
If you want to see how ticket handling works in practice, it is all on the page about the Lynes contact center. Queue tickets included, in digital form.
