Narrative 10: Assignment Rules - Streamlining Ticket Management
Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series
Narrative 10: Assignment Rules - Streamlining Ticket Management
In the complex world of customer support, a flood of incoming tickets can hit the help desk in seconds. Businesses must do more than solve problems. They need to manage tickets quickly, consistently, and smartly to maintain customer trust and keep operations running smoothly.
Old manual assignment methods struggle under this pressure. They can lead to backlogs, mistakes, and uneven work for agents. Forward-thinking organizations utilize layered assignment rules that rely on automation and intelligent routing algorithms. These systems consider factors like agent skills, real-time workload balancing, topic tagging, sentiment analysis, and urgency. This approach changes ticket management from a chaotic response to a proactive system.
What is Ticket Bombardment?
Ticket bombardment refers to a situation in customer support where a large number of support tickets are submitted in a short time. This surge can overload support teams, making it hard to handle and respond to each ticket appropriately.
Every day causes
Product Issues
A common bug or issue with the product or service can lead to a surge of ticket submissions from users simultaneously.
Misinformation
Miscommunication or a lack of information about changes can lead to confusion, resulting in multiple tickets for the same issue.
Promotional Campaigns
Launching a new feature or running a promotional campaign can increase the number of customers seeking help or clarification.
Downtime
Technical failures or system outages can lead to an increase in support requests as users seek assistance.
Types of Assignment Rules
By using ticket assignment rules, organizations can manage incoming requests more effectively, preventing any single team member from becoming overwhelmed. This ensures that tickets are resolved efficiently and everyone on the team can contribute without stress.
Consider implementing a direct assignment rule to streamline ticket allocation across the entire organization. This method enables tickets to be assigned directly to agents, groups, or teams, regardless of the department to which they are assigned. For example, if a ticket concerns an order or delivery issue, it should naturally be directed to the team that handles such inquiries. A support admin can set up the rule to look for keywords like "orders," "delivery," "shipment," and "consignments." This way, tickets related to those topics will automatically be sent to the appropriate department, ensuring that the right agents, who are trained to handle such matters, can step in and provide assistance.
On the other hand, round-robin assignment rules work differently. These are focused within a specific department and distribute tickets evenly among team members. Imagine a group of agents all handling support requests; it wouldn't be fair for one person to receive all the tickets while others have none. With round-robin, when a new ticket comes in, the system assigns it to the least busy agent first. There's even an option for support admins to set a cap on the number of tickets a single agent can manage at one time, keeping workloads balanced and ensuring no one feels overwhelmed.
Then we have a skill-based assignment, which takes it a step further. This method not only looks at the agent's workload but also their expertise. If a ticket requires technical assistance, it seeks to find someone knowledgeable in that area. For example, if a customer from a specific country needs assistance and there's an agent fluent in their language, the system will prioritize that agent to handle the ticket. This way, customers receive help from someone who truly understands their needs.
With an Assignment Rule configured, each incoming ticket is checked against predetermined criteria and assigned to the most appropriate agent, resulting in advantages such as immediate attention, a lower backlog, and increased efficiency.
Benefits of Assignment Rules
- Load balancing
- Skill matching
- Better priority handling
- Multiple types of assignment options
- Notifications for transparency
Auto-close tickets
Auto-close tickets are essential during busy periods because they help prevent system clutter, keep agents focused on active issues, and maintain smooth workflows.
When a help desk faces a surge of tickets, often due to major incidents or product problems, many tickets can stay inactive or unresolved for days. Auto-close automatically closes tickets after a set period of inactivity. This reduces the backlog, allowing agents to focus on tickets that truly require assistance. It also keeps the ticketing system organized and current, improves response times for urgent cases, and reduces stress for both agents and customers.
Ultimately, enabling auto-close during busy periods prevents inactive tickets from accumulating. This helps teams focus on addressing genuine support needs and maintaining a productive support environment.
What is Ticket Scheduling?
Ticket scheduling is a process in Zoho Desk that helps organize and prioritize incoming support requests. By scheduling tickets based on urgency, complexity, and available resources, support teams can more effectively manage their workload. This method helps prevent ticket bombardment, which occurs when a support team is overwhelmed by a sudden increase in tickets.
Automation as the foundation
By creating clear assignment rules that balance direct, round-robin, skill-based, and priority-based methods, organizations can succeed in the fast-paced world of modern support. Automatic ticket closure, detailed scheduling, and data-driven prioritization help keep support operations running smoothly. This approach empowers agents and ensures that customers receive genuine care, even when faced with a high volume of tickets.
Please stay tuned for more in the Desk behind-the-scenes series.
Regards,
Kavya Rao
The Zoho Desk Team
Also, read:
Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system (BTS Series)
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