Support Center

Support Center Agent Best Practices - Documentation

Support Center “Agent Best Practices” 

Let’s start with the basics:

 

The Queue and Ticket Assignment

 

**Keep an eye on the ticket queue.

 

Tickets that come in via a Service Request will be assigned to a Group and sometimes a specific Agent via the workflows.

 

If a ticket is assigned to your Group, but unassigned to an Agent and you are going to start working the ticket, these are the steps you should use:
 

1. Assign yourself as the Agent on the ticket before doing anything else.
   1. This can be done from the queue, as such…

 

 

**NOTE: If you assign a ticket to yourself you will not get an email notification. If a workflow or other agent assigns a ticket to you, you will receive an email that a ticket has been assigned to you.
 

 

 
 
 

 

 

Use of Views:

 

Views can be a valuable tool in sorting through and managing your tickets. You can create views to see only your tickets or keep an eye on all tickets for your team, if necessary.

 

Default views are a good place to start. 

 

 

 With any view you can start to tweak the filters to get to the perfect set of views for you.

 
 Most agents can only see tickets in their assigned Group(s), which gives you a head start. From there, I would recommend starting with status of “All Unresolved”. This ensures that you can always see tickets even if they are set to “Pending” or “On Hold”. Then, depending on the scope of what you need to see, I suggest Agent or “Me” and “Unassigned”. I encourage you to test the different filters available and possibly set up a few different views. Have fun with it!
 

When you change a filter and want to see the change in your queue (temporarily), the “Apply filters” button in the lower right corner will change from faded to dark blue.

 

Once you click on the “Apply filters” button, the view name in the upper left hand corner changes from this to this

It gives you a couple of options. The check mark allows you to Save As a different view name. In most cases, agents are not allowed to save a view for anyone other than “Myself”.

 
 
 

The x allows you to clear the filters that you’ve initiate and reverts your view back to the original settings.

 

 

 

Features in the Queue:

 

A few features to point out above the right corner of the queue.
 
 
 

The Filter icon allows you to close the filter window to give your view a little ore real estate on the page.

 

 
 The < > icons allow you to navigate through additional pages of tickets if you have more than one page. An added note: The support center currently only supports a view of 30 per page.

 

 

The up-arrow icon will take you to an Export Tickets screen, should you ever need to export tickets for you or your team. There are limitations on the timeframe for exporting outside of the past 30 days.

 

Go to tickets and get your options set they way you want them to be. Agents, Dates, etc.

Then click on export.

 

You can select date accordingly and export. Once exported, you will receive a message in the upper right window as seen below. In your inbox, you will receive an email with link to the download.

 

Another set of features to be aware of in the view is related to the density of the view and the order of your columns. The only columns you are not able to change are the first 2.
 
 

 

Changing to the compact view happens in real-time, so you can see that change before you decide to keep it. On the left side of the window, you can select your columns. On the right side, you can change their order. Be sure to click Update to make it official. One important thing to note about this feature is that is applies across the board to all your views, not individually to each view.

 

One additional mini pop-up you may see near the top of your queue throughout the day will look similar to this:
 

 

The FreshService page does not auto-update, so this is telling you that there has been 1 new ticket and 2 tickets have been update since the last time you refreshed your page. When you are inside a ticket and then come back to your queue, it will be a fresh queue.

 

 
 
 

 

 

The View from Inside the Ticket:

 Now it’s time to look inside the Ticket (from an Agent Perspective):

 

Let’s get acquainted with the various features and options.
 

The blue ‘Tickets’ link will take you back out to your queue. Now is a good time to mention that if you watch multiple queues simultaneously, you can have each open on its own tab.

 

 

There are two different types of tickets that you may see in the queue; INC- (incidents) or SR- (Service Requests). Incidents are created when someone uses the generic ticket form and SR’s when a Service Request is used for submission.

 

 

The Eye icon will be red and rotating if someone else is viewing the same ticket. If you hover over the eye, the name of that person will appear. If there is more than one person viewing simultaneously, a number 2 will appear on the rotating red eye. If someone else is responding or adding a note inside the ticket, the pencil icon will turn red and rotate.

 

 

 

 

 

The colored ticket symbol under the eye and pencil will match the color of the ticket’s priority, which you can see in the ‘Properties’ window on the right side of the ticket screen, compared to the options available in the drop down menu.

 

 

 
 

 

Back up to the top, in the right corner is a series of options, seen here…
 

 
 If you want to watch someone else’s ticket or you want to set another agent to watch your ticket, you can click on the star. It will be limited to Agents that have access to tickets for that Group.

 

 

One of the newer features is the Edit button. You can now change the Subject, Requester, Department, and Description of the ticket from this pop-up window. You can
 also add attachments without having to create a note. Brilliant!

 

 

This could come in handy if a team member leaves the company before a ticket is resolved, or the subject could benefit from some clarity. 

 

 

The Reply button drops down to reveal Reply, Forward, and Add note, which are also all available at the bottom of the ticket Conversation window.

 

 

The Associate drop down has options that we are researching but have not yet implemented. Most Agents may not ever need this feature. There are options there to associate your ticket with a Project, Problem, or Change in the Support Center.

 

 

The Discuss button opens a discussion option that allows you to discuss the ticket in question, but I have found that ‘Add note’ accomplishes the same thing and adds those discussions on the main ‘Details’ page.

 

 

The ellipsis opens up another series of options that you may find helpful at some point. I would say that the options here to Merge, Add time, and Print will likely be the most used.
 
 

 

The arrows allow you to navigate through the previous and next tickets in your queue. 

 

 

 

 

 

Ticket Information:

 

Now let’s take a little time with the right side of the screen where the ticket properties reside.

 

 

 

Ticket status, priority, and any applicable SLAs will show in this upper corner. As of right now we only have SLAs set up for Value Add tickets. This will change at some point in the future. If you are not familiar with the terminology, SLA is Service Level Agreement, and it sets a deadline for ticket handling. For example, our Value Add tickets have a 2-hour turn around and then warnings and escalations are sent out to specific team members.

 

Next is the Requester Information.

 

 

Below that is the Properties window. 

 

 

You should familiarize yourself with the options available to you here.

Note: Properties is also collapsible should this ever be helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If the Group is Facilities, then the Category should be Facilities and "I need help from" should also be "Facilities". Please make sure they all align for reporting purposes. *Note: Groups that do not utilize the basic ticket will not utilize “I need help from”. Here is a sample below:
 
 

 

It is good to fill out these fields as soon as possible after being assigned the ticket. Not all Groups have all three levels for Category, Sub-Category, and Item, but if all 3 levels are available, all 3 are required.
 

 
 
 **NOTE: It is especially important to complete these two sets of dropdowns if your department uses them for reporting purposes, but best practice, in any case, since reporting is done on a company level for the leadership team.

 

 

 Now let’s get to the heart of the ticket:

 

 

Communication inside the ticket will be key in most cases to a successful outcome, although it may not always be necessary to have a dialogue with the requester.

 

Reply should be used to communicate with the requester and CC should be used when you feel others on the requester’s team may need to know. If you send a reply to inquire additional information or review by the requester, then I suggest you put the ticket in ‘Pending’ Status.  Emails automatically go out after a ticket has been in ‘Pending’ status for 24 hours, giving requester additional 24 hours to respond before a ticket is systematically ‘Closed’. 

 

While speaking about Status. During the working of a ticket, if it ever becomes necessary to reach out to a third party, such as Yardi for assistance, you may put the ticket in ‘On Hold’ status.

 

Three things will happen when the requester responds back, if a ticket is Pending; The Status will change to ‘Open’ for that ticket, the Agent will receive an email stating that the ticket has been re-opened and will include ay dialog from the responder, and ‘Requester Responded’ will appear in the State column of the ticket queue. Note: State will only show if you have opted to use it as one of your selected columns. It is part of the default settings, but you have the option to remove this column from your View.

 

 

We learned about these options earlier when discussing Views.

Let’s take a look at some other options available when sending a message to the requester:

 

 

The paperclip is an industry-standard symbol for attachments. You can click here to attach a document, video clip, or screenshot.

 

 

The book icon represents the Knowledge-based articles in this software system. From here you can attach a link to an article in the knowledge base or attach the entire article, depending on the circumstances.

 

 

Then we get to the Canned responses. This will pull up your personal canned responses or others saved by your Group Admin to be used by the team.

 

 

More about communication…

 

Forward is available but may rarely be used. I have used it to forward a reply when I forgot to include someone, but not often.

 

If it is only necessary to communicate when the issue is resolved via the Resolution box, then here are some best practices.

 

1. Avoid using technical notes and terminology that may not make sense to the end user. 
2. Provide a summary of the solution without a ton of detail.
3. I suggest use the “Add Note” for additional technical notes that may help another Agent with the solution down the road. 

          

 

‘Add Note’ should be used to communicate to other Agents or to leave more technical notes or attachments related to the resolution.

 

Just a note: You can copy other Agents on the Reply or Forward Correspondence, but you cannot add anyone other than Agents to the Notes. Also, when just adding a note or attachment to the ticket, there is no need to add anyone.

 

Canned Responses are an integral part of any communication with the end user. They are especially useful when repeatedly sending the same message as a response. 

 

As part of the Admin menu, all Agents have access to create custom, canned reports.
 
 

 

 

 

 

Let’s Resolve or Close a ticket now:

 

First it’s good to understand the difference between the two.

 

When you use the Resolve status, it will send a link to the Requester for the Customer Satisfaction Survey. The system gives them 24 hours to respond and the it will automatically change the status to ‘Close’, so that will always be the end result. If you use the ‘Close’ status it will close the ticket and not send out the Customer Satisfaction Survey. How you or your department choose to utilize these options is up to you.

 

I suggest making a sequence of events a habit.

 

1. If feedback to the requester is required, that is the best place to start.
    
    
2. If attachments or notes are required to add to the ticket, do that next.
    
    
3. Then head over to the ‘Properties’ and work your way down.
    
    
4. Change the status to Resolved or Closed.
   1. Once you change this field to Resolved or Closed, all the required fields will be marked with a red asterisk (*).
       
       
5. Category would be the next field on the way down. Some departments have a series of 2 or 3 levels, including Sub-Category and Item.

Here are some samples:

          This option has 2 levels:

          

          Where this series only has one level:

          
 

This option has 2 levels:
 

Where this group has only 1:
 
 

1. From there you can skip down to the ‘Resolution’ field and provide a summary of the resolution. I will reiterate, if you have already sent correspondence to the requester with information about the resolution, the ‘Resolution’ should just be a brief summary. No sense in the end user receiving the same information twice.
    
    
2. Tags would be next. These can be very important as another way to identify tickets down the road, and are also useful for reporting.
    
    
3. Once all of the required fields have been filled out, you can click on the dark blue ‘Update’ bar at the bottom.
    
    
4. Last but not least, is the Time entry field. For some departments this is not required, but in the event that you do track this time, clicking on the field, 
    
    
    
    drops down to reveal the ‘Add Time’ button:
    
    
    
    Clicking on the ‘Add Time’ button opens up a pop-up window where you can enter your time. 
    
    
    
    This can be done in one of two ways; you can simply enter your time in hour segments (15 minutes is entered as 00:15 or :15) in the Hours box or you can start the timer when beginning and end timer when done.

 

 

 

 

 

Additional Tips and Tricks:

 

URL switcheroo: Here is an easy trick to take you from the User side of the Support Center over to the Agent side. 

 

This is the User side URL:

 

 

If you remove the end of the URL and click ok it will take you to the Agent side.

 

 

It will always bring you in initially to your Dashboard.

 

Just as easy to switch over to the User side if you need to put in a ticket.

 

In the upper right corner of the window click on your Initial Circle.

 

 

It will provide you these options. Click on the View Support Portal to go to the other side.

 

 

 

I hope this was helpful to you.

If you have additional questions about this material or your role as an agent, please use the following link to fill out a Support Request for assistance.