As a small software business, we understand that when starting, keeping things simple is crucial. Most businesses start by using email as their support channel, which can serve as an effective communication channel when you start. However, as your company grows, your support system needs to evolve. What works as a straightforward channel for a few requests quickly becomes overwhelming as your team expands.
The Problem with Email for Growing Teams
Simply put, email is a one-person game. It’s your inbox, your responsibility, and only you can access it. But as your team grows or your software product becomes more complex, the requests often change from “I’ve forgotten my password” to the dreaded “I’ve just spotted a bug”.
Trying to juggle the requests by yourself can lead to impatient customers and a rush to reply. You employ more people to answer requests, and you begin CC’ing or forwarding emails to your team, hoping someone will address the most urgent issues. However, this can create lengthy email threads and confusion among team members.
Shared Inbox to the rescue?
At this stage, most businesses then turn to a shared inbox, where everyone can log in and see the requests. But what if someone’s already responded, or two team members end up giving different answers to the same request? Additionally, what if one team member is sick, and another must step in, sifting through emails to find the information needed to assist?
The problem is that the team member who initially handled the request has more context because they have been working on it longer. However, they are unable to determine whether a quick fix is possible, as everything the other team members did remains invisible to them. If they shared that through the same email thread, then now you have one conversation containing a mix of customer-facing and internal comments.
Collaboration doesn’t thrive through email. It’s hard to track if your customers’ requests have been handled, and emails are easy to lose or forget about, especially when there’s lots of requests. Customers end up confused, and things get messy because no one likes to repeat themselves. All these issues cause stress for your team, and your customers can tell.
So how can Issuebear improve your team’s productivity?
Unlike email, Issuebear displays all the information your team needs in one place, as each support request shows the requestor, assignment and status. This provides your team with an overview of what stage the ticket is at and whether someone on your team is already handling it.
To help you prioritise tickets, each one has an Urgency and an Impact score, which are combined to create the ultimate priority. If you offer your clients a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that you’ll answer tickets within a certain timeframe, then the next target date will also be shown. With email, you could maybe flag them, or label them, but it’s challenging to get the transparency your team needs.
Team members can easily watch any ticket, allowing them to stay informed without needing to communicate directly with the customer, or needing to be cc’d into every email thread on which they require assistance. Ever replied to a customer email and forgotten to copy in the project manager? Not an issue when they can just add themselves.
To solve the problem of multiple team members replying to the same ticket, Issuebear will even warn them that somebody already has the ticket open – avoiding those team collisions. Clearly defining ownership of each ticket creates a less chaotic experience for both your team and your customers.
When your team is handling multiple support requests, constantly searching through tickets to find the important ones can get messy. That’s why being able to refine and save your searches makes such a difference.
Issuebear lets you search on all the ticket details and return them in the order that makes the most sense (newest, highest priority, most important customer) and save that as a custom queue. Queues give your team a clearer way to organise and manage support requests without wasting time scrolling through emails or guessing who’s handling what.
Conclusion
Email may work for small numbers of support requests, but it quickly becomes inefficient for teams managing multiple customers. Confusion over responsibilities and limited search options can slow down response times.
Utilising a support tool designed specifically for your team can save your company time and money. Issuebear provides customisable search features, organised queues, and clear ticket statuses, allowing teams to manage requests more effectively and deliver better support.
If you’re tired of the mess and want to save time while keeping things organised, it might be time to make the switch.
