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| Automatic Ticket Generation from E-mail Best Practices |
Best Practice: Automatic Ticket Generation from E-mail
On the surface, e-mail sounds like a highly efficient way to have your customers submit service and support requests. The client types in the problem, presses "send," and - bingo! - you've got it. Unfortunately, if not handled correctly, service and support requests coming in by e-mail can become a time-wasting nightmare.
Here's why. Although e-mail travels from your client to you with incredible speed, once it gets to your support mailbox, nothing happens until someone reads it, creates a ticket from it (this usually involves cutting and pasting from the e-mail), and assigns it to an engineer or technician for resolution. Because there is both manual labor and personal attention involved, the process can result in delays, support requests falling into the cracks, errors in transcription, and unhappy clients.
Fortunately, there is a better way.
The Fast Road to Handling E-mail Service and Support Requests
If you are currently using e-mail as a method for accepting service and support requests, or if you would like to, there are now tools that will allow you to quickly and automatically generate tickets from e-mails to your support e-mailbox.
It involves the use of a third party software package called Email2DB from a UK company called Parker Software (www.email-2-db.com). The cost is $165 to $495 depending on the version you buy.
E-mail2DB is a tool that converts e-mail messages into database records. It parses e-mails, looks for patterns in the e-mail messages and converts them into information fields. When properly set up, here's what it will do for you:
- E-mail2DB pulls e-mails from your support e-mailbox (support@yourcompany.com)
- E-mail2DB parses the e-mail for information such as the "from" e-mail address, subject, and body.
- E-mail2DB then creates an outgoing e-mail to addticket@autotask.net with the parsed values.
- Autotask picks up the e-mail and creates a ticket in your Autotask. (You need to set this up using Autotask's Add Ticket E-mail Service API.)
- The message is then routed and escalated according to the workflow rules you have set up within Autotask.
- As an option, a confirming e-mail can be automatically sent to the customer who requested support.
The entire process happens almost instantaneously and without your intervention. It is, without a doubt, the fastest, easiest way to handle service and support requests that come in through e-mail.
Two Ways to Proceed
There are two ways to put this powerful tool to work for you.
If you wish to do it yourself, click here to download the document "Setting Up E-mail2DB" and follow the step-by-step instructions it contains. You will have to purchase E-mail2DB from Parker Software, and configure it using our API commands.
A second option is that Autotask's Professional Services Group will do the complete set up for you - from installation to configuration and testing and including purchasing E-mail2DB - for a fee of $1,000. We will need access to your server where the functionality (a Service) will be running from, username and password of your support mailbox, details on your SMTP server like IP address or name, details for your IMAP Server (or Exchange Server with IMAP turned on). Once we have the necessary information, we should be able to complete setup for you within 48 hours. To contact Autotask's Professional Services Group, please call (518) 720-3500 x 1318.
Since so many people today prefer to communicate via e-mail, accepting service and support requests via e-mail is certainly the smart thing to do. Now, make it the efficient thing to do, by setting up this best practice: automatic ticket generation from e-mail.
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