Picture this, you’re super excited to complete your campaign or check how everything’s doing.
Things are going pretty smooth until suddenly… something unusual stops you in your tracks. It may be an error message. An SSL issue. Your leads haven’t been added to your autoresponder.
You browse through our resources but sadly, you didn’t find an answer. So you resort to writing a support ticket. That’s where we come in to help.
But as much as we’re ready to handle your support ticket, sometimes, we’re unable to provide a quick solution.
Why? The ticket doesn't really describe the issue you're experiencing. We feel your frustration but at the same time, we want detailed information.
Writing a clear and detailed support ticket speeds up the process. It saves us a lot of time in going back and forth and as a result, we can help you be on your way to reaching your goals.
How to Write the Perfect Support Ticket
Here are five helpful tips to follow when writing a support ticket:
1. Don’t panic.
Before you write a support ticket, try to stay calm. You might find this piece of advice silly, but staying calm helps you to explain your issue in a systematic manner. When you do, it also allows us to solve the problem as efficiently as possible.
2. Write a concise subject line.
The subject line is the most important part of your support ticket. Why? Because it helps in telling us right off the bat what your concern is.
Here are two subject lines. Which one do you think is the best?
- Need help ASAP!!!!
- Need help! I got charged a monthly fee
Without a doubt, subject line B is the best. Both subject lines show a sense of urgency, but the subject line B also reveals the context of the message.
Concise subject lines are short and direct to the point. These are the subject lines that help us help you address your issue right away. Also, when you describe the problem in the subject line, it makes it easier for us to prioritize it, especially if your issue is severe.
3. Use the correct category.
Another way that we can prevent frustration on your part is by providing different problem categories you can choose from.
Choosing the category that best identifies the nature of your problem allows us to route your ticket to our team members who specialize in this. We’ll know right away whom to assign your ticket to based on their related skillset.
4. Give a full description of your problem.
Now comes the meat of your support ticket. We can’t stress this enough.. The more details in your support ticket, the better we can help.
You see, a lot of people want help but fail to include the necessary information needed to make the rest of the process seamless. We may not need every single detail, but we definitely need you to include the right ones.
Here’s what a detailed and honest description should include:
- Brief introduction of yourself - It really helps to know who we’re dealing with. Be sure to include your full name and email address that’s connected to your account.
- Your end goal - What did you want to accomplish before the issue happened? An example would be, “I was about to [end goal] when [problem]...”
- Technical details - Basic details include the web address or URL where the error occurred, the device you used, and your operating system and browser version. If you don’t know yours, you can check https://supportdetails.com/. Here’s an example:
- Time and frequency of the issue - Your issue may have happened in the morning, evening, and it may have happened more than once. We have logs, so make sure to specify the time it first occurred and if the issue persisted.
- Whether you tried to fix the issue - If you took the initiative to troubleshoot the problem, what steps did you take? Did you try the app on a different computer to see if it works? What was the result?
5. Add a screenshot or screen recording.
To back-up your description, we would greatly appreciate if you uploaded a screenshot or screen recording showing the issue. Visuals can speak louder than words.
You’ll want to make sure that your visuals elaborate the description.
It’s very simple to take a screenshot or screen recording. For Mac, you can use press Shift-Command (⌘)-5 and select the right option. Check https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208721For Windows, take screenshots by pressing “Windows + Shift + S.” If you want a screen recorder that works for both Mac and Windows, we recommend using Loom. It’s reliable, simple-to-use, and comes with internal audio so you can explain your issue while recording your screen. You can get it for free.
Additional Tips to Remember
As you can see, submitting a support ticket that gets results doesn’t have to be hard. Before you get started, here are some more advice to keep in mind:
1. Keep your issue in support.
Most of our customers use social media on a daily basis. So we’re not surprised when people leave complaints on our Facebook page. While this may seem like a fast and efficient way to get your issue resolved, it isn’t. Here’s why:
- Your message can get lost in a sea of posts, making it hard for us to respond to your concern right away.
- Some things cannot be discussed on social media. If it’s something that risks your privacy, we’ll still have to ask you to take it to support.
2. It’s fine to reach out after 24 hours.
Know that we’re always doing our best to ensure timely responses. The last thing we want is to keep you waiting.
However, there are certain instances where we handle a very high ticket volume, which explains why we might not be able to tackle your request in 24 hours. If this is the case, please do check your ticket status.
We’re also okay with you contacting us in private (message) in social media to confirm that you’re in the queue.
Rest assured that we’re working hard to be more productive while providing the best customer support.
3. Don’t create more than 1 ticket for the same issue.
Last but not least, avoid creating duplicate tickets for the same issue. Duplicates will only delay the process. Instead, check your ticket status.
Conclusion
It’s easy to blame service providers for a bad experience -- and as a service provider, we understand where you’re coming from. Truth is, we’re thankful that you chose us and that motivates us to be the best.
However, to be the best in solving your problem, we also need you to help us by writing a good support ticket. Remember that we’re humans too. Let’s keep our communication proactive and positive.
What are your thoughts on this article? Feel free to leave a comment below. We’ll be happy to hear them!