Answering your first ticket

From opening a ticket to sending a reply and setting a status, with the two decisions that matter most along the way.

From opening a ticket to sending a reply and setting a status, with the two decisions that matter most along the way.

Answer a ticket

1. Open a view on the left and click a ticket.
2. Read the whole thread, not just the newest message. Customers often answer a question three messages up.
3. Check the context panel on the right for their earlier tickets. Recurring problems need a different reply from new ones.
4. In the composer, make sure you are on Public reply and not Internal note.
5. Write your answer, or apply a macro and edit what it inserts.
6. Set the assignee to yourself if it is not already.
7. Set the status, then click Submit.

The two decisions that matter

Public or internal

The composer remembers which tab you used last. Before every send, look at it. An internal note sent publicly is embarrassing; a public reply left as a note means the customer waits for an answer that never arrives.

Which status

• Open when the ball is with you.
• Pending when you have asked the customer something and are waiting.
• On-hold when you are waiting on a colleague or supplier.
• Solved when the customer's problem is dealt with.
• Your first week as an agent: what you need to know

Getting this right is not bookkeeping. Automations, SLAs and reports all read the status, so a queue full of tickets left on Open because nobody changed them makes every figure wrong.

Before you send

Read it once as the customer. Does it answer what they asked, or what you assumed they asked? Does it say what happens next? Two questions, ten seconds, and they prevent most follow-up tickets.

See also

• Public reply or internal note: when to use which
• The ticket statuses: new, open, pending, on-hold, solved, closed
• What a macro is and when to make one
• Your first week as an agent: what you need to know