A Guide to Using A Google Ticketing Tool

A Guide to Using A Google Ticketing System for 2025

Google Workspace doesn't have a ticketing system built in, but you can create your own DIY ticketing system using Google Forms and Google Sheets. Get out your duct tape!

Jessica Malnik

Last updated: December 2, 2024

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7 mins read

I’ve seen it happen time and time again. Businesses grow, and suddenly their customer support process starts to buckle under the pressure. Incoming emails pile up, customer tickets are missed, and frustrated customers are left waiting for answers. What starts as a small issue quickly snowballs, impacting customer experiences and, eventually, your bottom line.

Managing your customer support process can feel overwhelming. How do you make sure every request gets resolved? How do you delegate work so your team can stay on top of support while improving customer satisfaction?

The solution lies in a Google ticketing system.

By turning Gmail into a powerful, organized system for managing support, you can streamline your workflows, track customer tickets, and empower your team to deliver exceptional service.Here’s how you can get started.

What is a Google ticketing tool?

The term “ticketing tool” refers to an app, program, or software that serves as a help desk for customer support issues.

While Google Workspace, formerly known as G Suite, is a powerful suite of tools for communication and productivity, it doesn’t include a built-in customer support ticket system for managing customer support requests. Companies relying on Gmail to handle support often find themselves needing additional tools to manage customer support tickets and organize workflows effectively.

While Google suggests using tools like Google Meet and Google Chat for live customer interactions, these options lack the ability to track ongoing customer support requests or maintain a structured system for resolving issues. Additionally, tools like Google Drive may be helpful for sharing files, but they don’t provide the features needed for basic ticketing—such as tracking the status of tickets from creation to resolution or assigning tasks to team members.

If you are using a Gmail account to field incoming customer support requests, a ticketing tool would help you manage and track these issues from the time they are received to the time they are resolved.

These tools integrate with Gmail to add structure to your customer support tickets, helping teams assign tasks, track the status of each ticket, and ensure issues are resolved efficiently. By bridging the gap between Google’s communication tools and the need for organized workflows, a ticketing tool turns Gmail into a lightweight help desk for managing customer support operations.

Why do you need a Google workspace ticketing system?

There are many reasons why your business needs a ticketing system to manage customer support requests in your Gmail inbox. Some of these reasons include:

More responsive customer support. If you use a ticketing system, every incoming request will be immediately assigned to someone on your team, which means the customer will receive a response quickly. If you don’t, response times may vary. Sometimes, a request may sit in your inbox for days before someone notices it has not been addressed.
Creates a better experience for the customer. You may need to exchange multiple emails with a customer to resolve a specific request. If you are using a ticketing tool, you can ensure that every email from this customer goes to the same member of your team. This way, the customer won’t have to explain the issue over and over again every time someone new gets added to the email chain. This creates consistency and improves the entire experience for the customer.
Keeps customer support requests organized. Using a workplace ticketing system will make it easier for your team to keep track of incoming requests. This will prevent requests from slipping through the cracks.
Turns customer support into a team effort. As your company grows, it can become increasingly difficult to manage customer support efforts on your own. Using a ticketing system allows you to get other members of your team involved. You can assign tasks to your team to ensure everyone is handling their fair share of the workload.
Prevents duplicated efforts. If you aren’t using a ticketing system, you won’t have any visibility into what your team is working on. As a result, you may end up working on a support request that someone else is already in the process of resolving. Not only is this a waste of time, but it can confuse customers who may receive multiple responses from your team. A ticketing tool can prevent this problem by providing transparency and visibility into what your team is working on.

As you can see, using a Google ticket system to manage your customer support requests in Gmail can benefit both your customers and your business.

Different ways to build your own Google ticketing system

Since Google Workspace doesn’t provide a native ticketing tool, many businesses explore ways to build their own DIY ticketing systems. Here’s an overview of three common approaches:

Method	How It Works	Pros	Cons
Google Forms + Spreadsheets + Scripts	Use Google Forms for ticket creation, Google Spreadsheets for tracking, and Google Scripts for automation.	– Free to use – Accessible for anyone with a Google account – Familiar tools for teams	– Complex to set up and prone to errors – Requires manual work for every ticket – Involves switching between multiple programs – Lacks essential features like reporting, templates, and notes
Google Groups	Use a shared Google Group as a collaborative inbox where team members can respond to and manage incoming support emails.	– Easy to set up – Allows collaboration – Familiar Gmail interface	– No ticket tracking or assignment capabilities – Minimal automation – Limited to basic email functionality
Keeping	A lightweight Gmail add-on that transforms Gmail into a ticketing system. Offers ticket assignment, tracking, and automation while keeping everything in Gmail.	– Seamless Gmail integration – Includes automation, templates, and reporting – Easy to use	– Paid tool (requires a subscription) – It might be overkill if the founder is still handling all customer support themselves

How to create a DIY Google ticketing system with Google Forms

Because Google does not have its own ticketing tool, some businesses choose to create their own system instead.

For example, some customer support teams use Google Forms, Google Spreadsheets, and Google Script to establish a DIY ticketing system. Here’s how each incoming customer support request would be handled using this system:

When a customer support request arrives in the shared Gmail inbox, you would need to open Google Forms to start a new ticket for the request.
Then, manually enter the data from the email into the Google Form.
You can assign the task to another team member by choosing their name from a dropdown menu on the Google Form.
Email the ticket number and other details about the request to the appropriate member of your team.
The team member will then need to open Google Spreadsheets to see all of the information about the request that you manually entered into the Google Form.
After researching the issue, the team member will need to communicate with the customer via email to reach a resolution.
Once the issue has been resolved, the team member will need to go into Google Forms to manually close the ticket.

How to create a Google ticketing system with Google Groups

If you’re looking for a basic way to manage customer support tickets, Google Groups’ Collaborative Inbox can be a simple solution. While not a full-fledged ticketing system, it allows teams to assign, track, and resolve customer support requests collaboratively.

Here’s how to get started:

Log into Google Groups.
Select the Create group button at the top left corner.
Enter the details for your group, including its name, email address, and description. Click Next to proceed.
Configure your privacy settings to control who can join, post, and view conversations. Then click Next.
Add team members by entering their email addresses.
Click Create group to finalize the setup.
Now your Google Group is ready. The next step is to enable the Collaborative Inbox functionality.
Log back into Google Groups and select the name of your group.
In the left-hand navigation menu, select Group settings at the bottom.
Scroll down to the Enable additional Google Groups features section and check the box for Collaborative Inbox. Then, save your changes.

Why Google Forms and Google Groups fall short for most businesses

While DIY solutions like Google Forms + Spreadsheets + Scripts or Google Groups may seem appealing due to their low cost and accessibility, in my experience, they often fail to meet the needs of growing businesses.

Here’s why:

It is too time-consuming. Every customer support request must be manually entered and tracked. This not only slows down your team but also increases the risk of errors, such as missing tickets or inputting incorrect information.
The setup is overly complex. Using Google Forms and Spreadsheets as a ticketing system requires technical expertise, including knowledge of Google Scripts to automate workflows. Without it, even small mistakes in setup can render the system ineffective.
There is a lack of basic features. There are no basic reporting, templates, internal notes, and ticket assignment features, all of which are critical for scaling customer support operations effectively.
It works best with low ticket volumes. While these systems may work great for smaller ticket volumes, once you have hundreds of new emails and a few support reps, it is common for things to get missed and customer experience can begin to decline.
There are limited collaboration tools. While Google Groups enables a shared inbox for customer support tickets, it doesn’t offer advanced features like ticket tracking, automation, or detailed reporting, leaving teams without the tools they need to work efficiently.

Why Keeping is the best Google ticketing solution

Unlike DIY systems, Keeping integrates directly into Gmail to provide an all-in-one solution for managing customer support tickets. It eliminates the need for multiple tools and provides the functionality businesses need to scale all within a familiar Gmail interface, including:

Task assignment: Turn every email in your shared inbox into an assignable task. You can quickly delegate tasks to other members of your team to ensure everyone is pitching in to help with customer support requests.
Status updates: Keep track of every issue in your shared inbox by changing the status to Open, Closed, or Pending.
Notes: Use the notes feature to provide background information on a specific request, or follow up with a task.
Collision detection: Keeping will tell you when someone is already working on a request so you don’t waste your time duplicating their efforts.
Reporting: Keeping gives you access to data on incoming customer support requests so you can evaluate how well your team is performing.
Templates: Create custom templates that contain answers to the most frequently asked questions. Then, share them with your team so they can insert them in emails with the click of a mouse.

For most businesses, the time saved and the improved efficiency of a tool like Keeping far outweigh the cost. Instead of patching together a complex DIY system, investing in a professional solution ensures your team can focus on what matters most—delivering exceptional customer support. Start your free trial today to see for yourself why Keeping is the best Google ticketing tool.

Jessica Malnik

Jessica Malnik is a marketer and copywriter who has been featured in the WSJ, The Next Web, Wynter, Social Media Examiner, SEMrush, HubSpot, SXSW, MSN UK, among many others. She's a widely regarded expert in customer service and customer experience (CX).