We all know at least one person whose “tracking system” consists of scattered piles of sticky notes and loose notebook pages.
Or maybe you are this person.
While this tracking system may work for some tasks, it is highly inefficient.
Imagine if your managed IT service provider (MSP) told you that they kept track of all of their customers’ service tickets this way.
You’d be horrified.
Spreadsheets and flagged emails may be a step up from a sticky note filing system, but they still are inefficient and create room for human error. And, in the case of managed IT services, that error could mean losing your service request submission.
This is why MSPs, including The KR Group, use a ticketing system. By automating the service request process, it creates order in what could otherwise be a chaotic system.
The ticketing system allows all service requests to be collected and queued for resolution.
We’ve answered just about every question in the book about submitting service request tickets. We know answering these questions preemptively puts our customers at ease about the contract and sets the precedence for clear communication.
Some of these questions include:
- How do I submit a ticket?
- What information does an MSP need?
- What happens when I have multiple issues at once?
- What is the response time on tickets?
- When should I follow-up on a ticket?
With the answers to the above questions, you should feel confident about requesting IT support before you even need it.
Additionally, you can set this document aside for later as a quick reference when you do need to fill out a service request ticket.
Submitting a service request ticket
Submitting a service request ticket is how you let your MSP know you need them to look into a problem within your IT environment.
There are multiple avenues to accomplish this.
All of The KR Group’s managed IT services customers have a desktop client to submit service request tickets and view any ongoing ticket’s status.
However, many customers prefer to email their requests instead. This method also generates tickets on your MSP’s service board.
The KR Group’s managed IT services team’s first preference for sending tickets is an email. Our second preference is a desktop client submission while a phone call is our third preference unless it’s for an emergency.
Ultimately, we encourage you to find the method that works most consistently for you and your users.
Either way, these requests will automatically generate a ticket on our service board. The network operations center (NOC) manager will review them and pass them onto an engineer capable of addressing your problem.
The exception to using your preferred method is for after-hours and daytime emergencies. If an IT issue halts production or has an associated security risk, you should call in your service request to alert an engineer as soon as possible.
By calling in, the on-call engineer will see there is a service request without having to log in to their desktop in the middle of the night to check the service board.
Providing problem details with service requests
Along with notifying your MSP when there is a problem, you’ll also need to include details when you submit, email, or call in the service request.
Of course, you’ll want to explain the symptoms of the issue briefly and when it started. It’s tremendously helpful if you provide us additional details, such as:
- How many people are affected?
- Have there been any changes to the affected machine?
- Is there a temporary workaround?
- What job function is lost?
- Who should we contact with follow-up questions?
These details help us determine how to triage your service request ticket and what resources to allocate to resolving it.
Submitting tickets for multiple issues
It’s not unusual for you to experience two or more IT problems at once, all of which you’ll need to submit a service request ticket.
This means one problem per ticket. When you submit individual tickets, your MSP can better manage incoming service requests.
For example, your tickets may have different priority levels. Since we’ll first address the higher priority issue, this allows us to close out this ticket and keep the other one in the queue.
We can then see that while we’ve resolved one ticket, there is still an outstanding request they need to address.
In simple terms, this allows us to address your tickets one at a time and create a clean and efficient workflow on our end.
Expecting resolution for service request tickets
The entire goal of using an MSP to monitor and maintain your IT is to have a highly-available, highly-knowledgeable resource to address your problems.
We — as well as our customers — are confident of our ability to resolve the issue, a common question we get asked is how long until we can fix the problem.
There is no definite way to estimate how long it will take us to resolve your IT issue for many reasons:
- Not all IT problems are created equally.
- MSPs prioritize service requests from all customers based on the impact of the issue.
- Response times can vary based on how busy your MSP is.
Your MSP should always confirm they’ve received your ticket and keep you updated on if there are any delays in the resolution.
Generally, your MSP can quickly address your problem but keep the above points in mind.
Following up on submitted service request tickets
Of course, if something changes on your end regarding your IT problem or it’s been a day or so since you’ve submitted a ticket, you’re always welcome to follow up.
This can provide insight into what the MSP is dealing with on their end. MSPs are still generally reluctant to give an estimated time of when they’ll resolve your issue because of the fast-paced, ever-changing nature of IT.
As a courtesy, we ask you to reach out over email only once a day for general IT requests. This allows us to directly resolve IT issues instead of answering questions about when we’ll start working on the problem.
However, if your request is regarding an emergency, we encourage you to call every hour if you haven’t heard back from us after initially submitting your request.
Using best practices for ticket submissions
One of the leading factors for businesses turning to a managed IT service provider is the desire to have a highly-available, highly-knowledgeable partner who can address their IT issues.
In fact, you’ve probably been caught off-guard by a sudden IT problem, and it’s left you frantically trying to repair the problem on your own or find an IT consultant who can quickly address your issue.
When you work with an MSP, you won’t be stuck in that panic. Still, having a contract with an MSP isn’t an excuse not to plan for when you need to call in IT support.
When it comes time to submit a non-emergency ticket, send an email or use the desktop client. If needed, you can also enter the request over the phone.
The ticket should include details of the problems, the magnitude of the impact, and who to contact for follow-up questions. Keep each ticket centered on one issue.
Once you submit a ticket, your MSP triages it and will get to it as soon as possible. However, if you have any concerns, you can follow-up daily.
You should follow many of the same practices for an emergency service request ticket, except these should always be called in. You can also follow-up more frequently if you haven’t heard from us.
While there are many factors to consider when submitting a service request ticket, there are even more that your MSP is handling internally. For insight into how The KR Group works with managed IT services customers, check out our free e-guide.
