Abstract
This chapter gives a short overview about the idea of trouble tickets in general and trouble ticket systems in specific. A short example shows the advantages of using a ticket system.
The following example describes what a trouble ticket system is and how you can save time and money if you use such a system in your company.
Let's imagine that Max is a manufacturer who produces video recorders. Since programming video recorders is very complex, Max gets many mails from customers who need help with the devices. Some days, Max has not enough time to answer all mails so that his customers have to be patient until they get an answer. Some customers don't want to wait that long so they write a second mail with the same question. All mails containing support requests are stored in only one inbox file. The requests are not sorted and Max answers the mails with a regular email program.
Then the developers Joe and John have to help Max answer the mails because Max can't reply fast enough to all the messages. Since Max, Joe and John use the same system with the same inbox file, they all access the same inbox. Joe and John don't know that Max often got two identical requests from a desperate customer. So Joe answers the first and John answers the second mail of the customer, both with a helpful hint on how to solve the problem. The customer receives two different answers, and Max does not know what John and Joe wrote. Max neither has an overview about the replies of Joe and John nor does he know all the problems the customers have had with the video recorders nor which problems occur very often nor how much time and money he has to spend for customer support.
At a meeting, a colleague tells Max about trouble ticket systems and that they can solve Max's problems with the customer support. After looking for information on the Internet, Max decides to install the Open Ticket Request System (OTRS) on a computer that is accessible from the web by both his customers and his employees. Now, the customer requests are no longer sent to Max's private inbox but to the mail account that is used for OTRS. The ticket system is connected to this mailbox and saves all requests in its database. For every new request, the system generates an auto-answer and sends it to the customer so that the customer knows that his request has arrived and will be answered soon. OTRS generates an explicit reference, the ticket number, for every single request. Now, the customers are happy because they receive a quick response to their requests and it is not necessary to send a second message with the same question. Max, John and Joe can now login into OTRS with a simple web browser and answer the requests. Since the system locks a ticket that is answered, no message is edited twice.
Let's imagine that Mr Smith makes a request to Max's company and his message is processed by OTRS. John gives a brief reply to this request but Mr Smith has an additional question so he replies to John's mail. Since John has other things to do, Max answers Mr Smith's message. The history function of OTRS makes it easy for Max to read both Mr Smith's first message and John's response so that he is able to write a more detailed reply to Mr Smith. Mr Smith does not know that two different people were involved in the communication, he is happy about the solution for his problem that arrived with Max's last reply.
Of course, this is only a short overview about the possibilities and features of trouble ticket systems. But if many customer requests (mails and phone calls) must be handled by different people, a ticket system can help to save time and money. A ticket system helps you to structure your support or help desk environment and you can define work flow processes. The communication between customers and companies will become more transparent which results in more effectiveness for both customers and support staff.