Best Self Service Deflection Strategies for Tickets to Improve Customer Satisfaction
Ticket deflection involves offering customers the option to serve themselves through self-service tools such as chatbots, knowledge base and FAQs. This results in reduced tickets and enhanced customer satisfaction. In this blog, we’ll cover some of the best ticket deflection strategies, how to measure their performance and a few examples of successful ticket deflection.
What to take away from this?
Ticket deflection strategies such as knowledge base, chatbots, digital adoption platforms and community forums enable customers to serve themselves thereby reducing support tickets and enhancing customer satisfaction. Customers can either solve their queries through these options or can ask a real customer support agent to do it for them which results in a lower backlog and an easier to manage load for support teams.
Ticket deflection strategies can be measured by deflection rates, the number of customers engaging with various self-service content, and chatbot success rates. These metrics can be used to evaluate performance and make improvements.
Some of the common pitfalls when implementing ticket deflection strategies – avoiding customer frustration, striking a balance between automation and human interaction and constant tracking of metrics to ensure the ticket deflection strategy and customer satisfaction succeeds.
Introduction
Customer satisfaction is at the heart of every successful business. Every organization adopts various measures to provide top-notch customer support to their clients. In this ever-changing domain, comes the need for ticket deflection strategies, as a valuable tool that facilitates effective support, enhanced customer satisfaction and optimal resource utilization. Updating customers about the status of a ticket or any important changes that occur on them reduces the necessity for them to keep contacting support, repetitively, and helps increase customer satisfaction.
It is a win-win strategy where the business not only supports an efficient customer support system but also saves on valuable resources and helps improve the bottom-line.
What is Ticket Deflection?
Ticket deflection as a term, trended in customer support quite lately. It is a practice that allows customers to seek solutions to their queries, independently and results in reduced tickets. This improves the efficiency of the customer support team and organizations can utilize the saved resources to tackle complex queries. Ticket deflection can be achieved through various strategies that will be discussed throughout this blog.
What is Ticket Deflection?
At its very core, ticket deflection is a process that helps customers self serve and get their queries resolved without even opening a ticket. Customers answer their questions themselves by using tools like chatbots, knowledge base or FAQs. When the solution to a customer’s query is displayed in any of the self-service channels, they can easily access it and if they have their questions answered from the displayed solutions, it results in lessening the number of tickets generated for your support system.
Improves customer self-service option
Reduces support costs
Enhances customer experience without compromising on service quality
Lowers the ticket volume which translates into fewer tickets, payroll savings and a manageable workload for the existing employees.
Customers get the flexibility of self-service which leads to empowerment and job satisfaction. Customer service teams and support teams can concentrate on resolving complex customer queries that need personalized attention and thereby improve their productivity and job satisfaction.
How to Measure Ticket Deflection?
To accurately measure the performance of ticket deflection strategies, businesses should look at deflection rates and ratios. Some of the metrics that help in this process include – the number of views on posts in the self-service portal and the number of support tickets. For example, the ticket deflection ratio is the number of self-service interactions divided by the total number of support tickets. A high ticket deflection ratio suggests customers are finding answers to their queries by themselves.
Other metrics like chatbot task completion rates help in estimating how effectively customers are able to get their tasks accomplished with automated responses, contributing to overall service success.
What are the tools for ticket deflection?
There are various tools that play a crucial role in this empowerment of your customers. A knowledge base serves as a database of FAQs and articles that customers can easily search and find the answers to their queries. Chatbots display customer responses in a conversational manner which reduces the number of customer support tickets generated.
Community forums allow customers to interact and share knowledge to solve their queries which in turn lowers the volume of tickets. Digital adoption solutions provide in-app guidance to customers and enable them to find answers to their questions without opening a ticket. These tools help in ticket deflection, allowing customers to resolve issues on their own without needing the assistance of a customer support agent, by leveraging various self-service features.
Knowledge Bases
Easily, the most important tool for any ticket deflection strategy is the knowledge base. It is essentially a centralized location for customers to get support documentation and find answers to their queries. A knowledge base consists of articles, FAQs and how-to guides that are easily searchable and regularly updated. Knowledge bases with features like images, GIFs and videos provide customers with precise information while keeping them engaged by avoiding heavy explanations.
Other features like a no-code editor and an integrated search bar in knowledge base software can improve user experience and make self-service options more accessible.
Chatbots
Artificial intelligence and machine learning-based chatbots are taking the customer support space by storm. These virtual assistants leverage the power of instant personalized assistance to customers and use data from customer interactions to improve their responses, thereby reducing the need for a customer service agent.
Chatbots can also be used to update customers about the status of their tickets thereby reducing the necessity for them to keep contacting support, repetitively.
When chatbots are integrated with knowledge bases, they empower organizations to deliver accurate and timely solutions to customers queries 24*7. The advancements in natural language processing only add to the capabilities of chatbots to resolve customer queries in a more human-like manner.
Community Forums
Peer-to-peer support on community forums allows customers to share a common platform to interact and share knowledge to solve common queries. This can have a tremendous impact on the volume of tickets as customers can get their queries answered by others who have faced similar problems, without approaching the support team.
It is important to ensure that the knowledge shared on forums is accurate and regularly updated as outdated knowledge can increase customer annoyance.
Digital Adoption Platforms
Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) offer in-app guidance to customers and users to help them navigate software applications without direct support. Some of the advantages of DAPs include:
In-app embedded support
Interactive walkthroughs
Users can learn complex features on their own
Customer support tickets are reduced or eliminated.
Saas companies have used DAPs successfully to improve user satisfaction and in the process, implemented ticket deflection.
Practices to implement ticket deflection
To enjoy the benefits of ticket deflection, it is necessary to follow certain best practices that help optimize self-service tools and resources like the ones mentioned below.
Creating a knowledge base
Investing in smart chatbots
Promoting self-service
Collecting valuable customer feedback
Following these practices ensures that customers have a hassle-free experience when looking for solutions on their own, resulting in fewer tickets, improving customer satisfaction, and fostering customer loyalty.
Creating a Knowledge Base
One of the most important parts of a successful ticket deflection strategy is creating a knowledge base. It should offer a plethora of information ranging from articles to video tutorials catering to different types of customers. Knowledge bases that are updated regularly with new product information and solutions to new issues, ensure that customers trust the organization enough to get reliable information from it.
The knowledge base should have a categorization of the topics and include elements that provide a better user experience like visuals to make customers inclined towards self-service.
Investing in Smart Chatbots
Smart chatbots are saviors for any support team. They can easily tackle simple queries on their own and if needed, redirect complex queries to an assigned customer support agent, thereby maintaining the balance between automation and personalized customer support.
AI-powered chatbots that are integrated with CRM systems can help businesses offer a more personalized experience by adapting to the history and preferences of individual customers.
Promoting Self-Service
Promoting self-service channels and resources like knowledge base and FAQs can encourage customers to adopt them. Businesses can highlight the facilities of self-service on their websites and communicate the same to customers with possible incentives. This can improve adoption rates and customer satisfaction.
This would not just empower your customers but also reduce the load on your customer support team.
Collecting Customer Feedback
An effective way to improve ticket deflection strategies is to collect and analyze customer feedback. Facilities to implement feedback collection tools and regularly analyzing the data can help companies identify areas to improve and optimize their self-service resources.
This process would enable companies to optimize FAQs and other self-service tools according to customer preferences and expectations, thereby improving their efficiency in ticket deflection.
Challenges and Risks in Ticket Deflection
There are certain challenges and risks associated with ticket deflection. Implementing ineffective strategies can increase customer frustration if the self-service resources are incomplete or buggy. User forums with outdated information can lead to customer annoyance which in turn affects customer satisfaction, highlighting the importance of maintaining an effective support site.
Proactively updating customers about the status of a ticket or any important changes that occur on them, reduces the necessity for them to keep contacting support, repetitively.
Also, organizations can miss out on detecting complex customer queries if they rely heavily on automation and avoid human interaction.
Avoiding Customer Annoyance
Customer annoyance can be avoided by ensuring that the self-service resources do not appear buggy and are easily understandable by the customers. A responsive customer service team that works in conjunction with the customer support team can jump in through customer service software when the customer seems stuck and offer help.
This would prevent customer annoyance from escalating to customer dissatisfaction.
For example, FAQs and knowledge bases should be comprehensive and clear to provide customers with necessary information without approaching support.
Balancing Automation with Human Interaction
There should be a fine balance between automation and human interaction to ensure the success of any ticket deflection strategy. Automated systems must be capable of detecting when the customer’s query needs personal attention and escalate accordingly.
This would ensure that a majority of the tickets are deflected but the ones that require support are accurately addressed.
Continuous Monitoring of Metrics
For effective maintenance of a ticket deflection strategy, it is important to continuously monitor essential metrics. Support teams can make informed decisions about optimizing their ticket deflection strategies by analyzing the data.
Data from customer interactions can help in identifying the working and non-working aspects of the implemented strategies.
Examples of Successful Ticket Deflection
Ticket deflection in action is a testimony to its effectiveness and success in real-world scenarios. Companies across industries from e-commerce to SaaS have implemented tools that have not just reduced their volume of support tickets but also improved their customer experience.
E-commerce Sector
Chatbots have the potential to disrupt the customer support sector in e-commerce. An online retailer implemented smart chatbots that displayed instant shipping information to customers from the knowledge base.
This resulted in a 25% decrease in the number of support tickets and provided a superior customer experience.
SaaS Sector
A leading SaaS company reduced its support tickets by a whopping 45% by implementing a well-structured and comprehensive knowledge base. This improved customer satisfaction and made the support process effective and efficient.
Telecom Sector
Companies in the telekom sector have also reaped benefits from ticket deflection by implementing community forums. A leading telecom provider implemented community forums to enable their customers to interact and help each other solve their queries.
This resulted in a significant drop in the volume of support tickets.
The company also enhanced FAQs on their website which enabled them to effectively handle routine queries from customers.
Trends in Ticket Deflection
In the near future, ticket deflection strategies will witness a major transformation. With continuous improvements in AI and machine learning and the adoption of natural language processing, the way self-service tools operate will change drastically.
It is estimated that by 2025, 60% of customers will search for answers from 3rd party sites. Therefore, the importance of ticket deflection strategies will only increase in the future to manage effective support while catering to customer requirements.
Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning
AI and machine learning based tools can scale up the capabilities of ticket deflection strategies in the future. AI copilots will reduce cost per ticket and agent turnover by efficiently handling the growing volume of customer queries.
This would not just improve the resolution time for customers but also provide a more satisfying work environment for support agents.
Natural Language Processing
Natural language processing (NLP) will be another area of focus for ticket deflection strategies in the future. AI-powered chatbots with NLP capabilities can deliver more human-like interactions and provide a better self-service experience to customers.
This would enable advanced chatbots to understand complex queries from customers with higher accuracy.
Omnichannel Support
Ticket deflection strategies will be integrated with omnichannel support in the future to provide a consistent experience across different customer touchpoints.
By synchronizing customer interactions, businesses can avoid the generation of duplicate tickets and offer the same response whether the customer contacts them through email, mobile or social media.
This comprehensive approach is necessary to meet customer expectations in the increasingly hyper-connected world.
Conclusion
To conclude, ticket deflection is an important aspect of modern customer support that offers mutual benefits to organizations and customers. By adopting appropriate tools and practices, organizations can reduce the volume of support tickets and at the same time, provide customers with a sense of self-sufficiency.
As we move forward, the game of customer support will be changed forever with the adoption of bleeding-edge technologies and integration with omnichannel support. Embrace these strategies and you’ll be on your way to creating a customer support system that’s both efficient and satisfying.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ticket deflection and why is it important for customer support?
Ticket deflection is important for customer support because it reduces the number of support tickets by enabling customers to find solutions through self-service resources, thus improving efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Why is ticket deflection important for customer satisfaction?
Ticket deflection improves customer satisfaction by providing quick and easy access to solutions, reducing wait times for support, and empowering customers to resolve issues on their own. This leads to faster resolutions and a more efficient support system.
How can AI-driven search functionality enhance ticket deflection?
AI-driven search functionality can enhance ticket deflection by providing more accurate and relevant search results, helping customers find the right information quickly. It can also suggest related articles and resources, increasing the chances of customers resolving their issues independently.
What role do chatbots play in ticket deflection?
Chatbots play a significant role in ticket deflection by providing instant responses to common queries, guiding customers through troubleshooting processes, and even escalating more complex issues to human agents if necessary. This helps to handle routine inquiries efficiently and reduces the workload on support teams.
