Ticket Prioritizing

[Guest]

Just a random idea that popped into my head, but I think it would be nice for us to be able to set priorities/severities on our tickets, rather than a time-based thing. For example, I have a problem with some text missing that isn't affecting anything really, and that ticket's been open for a few hours. Just recently (a few minutes ago) I discovered that nobody can register on my board, and that ticket's obviously several hours behind in the queue, but infinitely more important, and it would be nice to be able to flag it as such so it gets attended to first.

[Lindsey_]

Something like that should be possible with IP.Nexus.

;)

[Brandon D]

I know it's not ideal, but you could always close your other insignificant ticket until your other one is resolved. In the scheme of things though, one easy ticket isn't going to push back your other one by any significant amount of time.

[edit] And do you know how many people think that their ticket should have the highest priority? ;)

[Guest]

[quote name='Brandon D' date='17 July 2009 - 06:12 PM' timestamp='1247879579' post='1828142']
I know it's not ideal, but you could always close your other insignificant ticket until your other one is resolved. In the scheme of things though, one easy ticket isn't going to push back your other one by any significant amount of time.

[edit] And do you know how many people think that their ticket should have the highest priority? ;)

Oh, no, I wasn't talking about prioritizing them over others' tickets, just my own.

That would make a good solution, but I can't re-open them. :P

[Lindy]

There was a time when we had a "ticket priority" field that allowed the customer to assign a "High", "Medium" or "Low" -- would you believe that most customers selected "High?" :lol: Using your example, you would likely select "High" as well and if I were you, I too would consider the inability to register a high priority. Then again, the next 10 people who have database errors or are completely offline will also select "high." There's no fair way to prioritize as everyone's issue is critical to them at the time, understandably so. We've also tried having staff prioritize, but unfortunately, it takes longer to go through the tickets and prioritize than it does to just answer them.

We typically have these topics crop up after a major release and it's understandable. In spite of increased staffing and resources, we are a little slower than usual just as any company is during the weeks following a major release. Although we state up to 48 hours, anyone who has been a customer for a while can tell you that responses can be as quick as a couple of minutes. We pride ourselves on providing prompt service and once the rush is over, things should return to normal. In the meantime, we thank you for your patience. :)

Of course, if you have any other suggestions as to how we can fairly and accurately prioritize support requests, I'm all ears. Unfortunately, we've had limited success in the past.


Edit: I just noticed you mentioned prioritizing your own tickets. We can check into the feasibility of this.

[Wolfie]

Lindy, what about something where the user can check off a list of things that match their problem..


A few like there where the person can choose what best matches their problem (similar to the list you have but could be after they have submitted the ticket the first time and before the final submit. "None of the above" could be pre-selected and would cover things like low priority items. Obviously it's hard to cover all high priority items, but if there are 3 for high priority that are generic enough to cover a wide range (but specific enough to eliminate false positives) then that could potentially help prioritize some of the tickets.

Obviously the ones marked "None" might benefit from a fast review by a staff member to see if it's a high priority so it can be bumped up in importance, while leaving the rest of the tickets alone, but no system is perfect.

Hope something in this post is of some use, be nice if it helped to improve the ticket times, even if only a little bit. I've generally never needed to submit a ticket for problems on my boards before, but I can imagine how the customer must feel when it is an important issue and every minute seems like forever.

Please choose from the list what best matches the issue you are having.

( ) Is your board offline, inaccessible or giving errors?

( ) Are you having a problem getting into the AdminCP?

( ) Has your board been hacked, attacked or in some other way compromised?

( ) etc

( ) None of the above.

Picking the wrong item from the list can cause delays in your ticket.  If you are unsure of what to pick, then pick none of the above.

[Joshua Hina]

[quote name='.Wolfie' date='18 July 2009 - 06:16 AM' timestamp='1247894196' post='1828240']
Lindy, what about something where the user can check off a list of things that match their problem..


A few like there where the person can choose what best matches their problem (similar to the list you have but could be after they have submitted the ticket the first time and before the final submit. "None of the above" could be pre-selected and would cover things like low priority items. Obviously it's hard to cover all high priority items, but if there are 3 for high priority that are generic enough to cover a wide range (but specific enough to eliminate false positives) then that could potentially help prioritize some of the tickets.

Obviously the ones marked "None" might benefit from a fast review by a staff member to see if it's a high priority so it can be bumped up in importance, while leaving the rest of the tickets alone, but no system is perfect.

Hope something in this post is of some use, be nice if it helped to improve the ticket times, even if only a little bit. I've generally never needed to submit a ticket for problems on my boards before, but I can imagine how the customer must feel when it is an important issue and every minute seems like forever.

Interesting idea. Though IPS ticket response times are decent; at times i would compare them to a web hosting company (2 - 4 hours during business hours depending on the issue, 6 hours at night again depending on the issue) On weekends it is only normal to have a lessened response time because of less staffing then again when it comes down to it no companies support services will ALWAYS be fast as Lindy stated above with a major release comes wait time; its just like if a data center got a large batch of servers and a massive influx of orders; that would increase ticket response times due to the fact that techs are working on getting those servers up as well as trying to deal with client support issues on top of their other tasks.

Please choose from the list what best matches the issue you are having.

( ) Is your board offline, inaccessible or giving errors?

( ) Are you having a problem getting into the AdminCP?

( ) Has your board been hacked, attacked or in some other way compromised?

( ) etc

( ) None of the above.

Picking the wrong item from the list can cause delays in your ticket.  If you are unsure of what to pick, then pick none of the above.

[tranceandy]

[quote name='.Wolfie' date='18 July 2009 - 06:16 AM' timestamp='1247894196' post='1828240']
Lindy, what about something where the user can check off a list of things that match their problem..

Please choose from the list what best matches the issue you are having.

( ) Is your board offline, inaccessible or giving errors?

( ) Are you having a problem getting into the AdminCP?

( ) Has your board been hacked, attacked or in some other way compromised?

( ) etc

( ) None of the above.

Picking the wrong item from the list can cause delays in your ticket.  If you are unsure of what to pick, then pick none of the above.

[pisaldi]

[quote name='.Wolfie' date='18 July 2009 - 07:16 AM' timestamp='1247894196' post='1828240']
Lindy, what about something where the user can check off a list of things that match their problem..



I think that it's CPanel that has a hel system like that and if you don't find the answer in the sugested help, you can leave the question...

And this could reduce the volume of work for tickets...

But there would be another work, which would be making good and huge databases of explanations and videos of lots of frequently asked questions... :thumbsup:

Please choose from the list what best matches the issue you are having.

( ) Is your board offline, inaccessible or giving errors?

( ) Are you having a problem getting into the AdminCP?

( ) Has your board been hacked, attacked or in some other way compromised?

( ) etc

( ) None of the above.

Picking the wrong item from the list can cause delays in your ticket.  If you are unsure of what to pick, then pick none of the above.

[Mark]

We have recently introduced a few internal changes to the ticket system that has enabled us to better prioritise tickets :)