5 Absolutely Best Email Ticketing Systems on the Market Today

True fact: Email is still a popular way for customers to get in touch with customer service teams.

Whether they have a question, issue, or problem, customers want a fast and efficient way to communicate their inquiry that enables them to go about their business while they wait for an answer. 

For you, this means that you may need to implement an email ticketing system, and in this guide, we’ll help you pick the right one for your business.

But first, let’s take a deeper look at what an email ticketing system actually is. That’s because such knowledge will make it easier for us to review various email-to-ticket systems and platforms available on the market today. 

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So, without any further ado…

What is an email ticketing system?

An email ticketing system is a software tool that allows you to manage incoming emails and turn them into tickets.

The fundamental feature of this tool is that each ticket is trackable from being opened to resolution, and is usually assigned to a particular agent who has responsibility for that ticket. 

Here’s what a typical email ticketing system looks like.

What are the most common features found in an email ticketing system?

Beyond the ability to convert any incoming email into a support ticket, email to ticket platforms also allow you to:

Collaborate on ticket resolution

Email ticketing systems offer collaboration features for agents working together to resolve customer emails. The best solutions will include the ability to tag other agents, and post comments internally, so support agents can communicate silently behind-the-scenes while still offering a streamlined and professional experience to customers.

Prioritize tickets and mark emails as urgent, etc.

Most email ticketing systems will allow you to prioritize your support tickets so you can see which emails need urgent attention and which ones can wait. This prioritization system is important for high volumes of emails with a wide range of different issues that need to be dealt with. Agents can easily see which ones need attention.

Track the status of each ticket

Tracking whether a ticket is open, pending or closed is a key feature of email ticketing systems. You can see at a glance how many open tickets you have and also view how many tickets have been closed within a given time period.

Assign tickets to agents

A big part of collaborating on emails is assigning tickets to particular agents who then have ultimate responsibility for resolving them. Any agent included in your system can be assigned a ticket and then that ticket will appear within their own personal inbox where it can be dealt with.

Report and analyze the performance of your support team

As we’ve touched upon, email ticketing systems offer reporting capabilities for analyzing the performance of customer support teams. You can track your key metrics and generate reports for the benefit of management or any other interested parties. You can see how performance has evolved over time and calculate the resources you need to provide effective service.

Automatically route tickets to relevant agents

Automations mean you can automatically route customer tickets to the right agents or departments for faster resolutions. You set up rules once and they operate every time a new ticket comes in, saving you vast amounts of time in not having to perform manual processes.

How is an email ticketing system different from a regular email provider like Gmail?

Well, Gmail is an excellent tool for managing personal emails, but it has some serious pitfalls when it comes to dealing with high-volume, high-pressure customer support emails. 

That’s why teams turn to email ticketing systems. They offer a more robust way to manage your customer service emails and turn them into tickets, which can then be tracked and resolved by your agents. 

It’s important to consider an email ticketing system since email is such a popular way for customers to get in touch with businesses. 

What are the best email ticketing systems? 

Now you’re fully convinced of the value of email ticketing systems, here are the top solutions out there that can help you manage customer requests with fewer headaches. 

#1. Keeping

Keeping is a dedicated email ticketing system for Gmail, as we’ve previously mentioned. When you adopt Keeping, you need to look no further for a tool that helps you manage all your customer emails in one place. All of your agents can use Keeping to keep track of and resolve any incoming emails that are turned into tickets automatically. 

While simple to use, Keeping has many advanced features, such as automations and reporting, which are key parts of any effective ticketing system. Internal comments and tagging mean that your team is never lost when collaborating on a ticket. Collision detection stops multiple agents from working on a response to the same ticket, resulting in a more professional experience for customers. 

Keeping is designed specifically for teams who want to take their customer service to the next level and avoid emails falling through the cracks. With Keeping, you’ll have full visibility into who is resolving customer tickets, making sure you deliver effective resolutions on time and within budget. 

Reporting and automation mean Keeping is a top choice for customer service teams that want to improve their workflows. 

#2. Gmelius

Gmelius is another email ticketing system for Gmail that allows your team to collaborate on email. It takes the innate limitations of email and turns it into a tool for working together on customer service inquiries. It’s especially useful for teams who were previously using shared passwords to log into their Gmail account, adding an extra layer of safety and security. 

#3. Zendesk

Who hasn’t heard of Zendesk? Many customer service teams use Zendesk to manage a range of customer service channels, including as an email ticketing system. Zendesk offers powerful integrations with your favorite customer service tools such as Mailchimp and Slack for faster workflows. 

Zendesk allows you to track, prioritize and solve customer service tickets, including support for channels such as messaging, social, and self-service. One advantage of Zendesk is its scalability, supporting teams of one all the way up to the enterprise. Zendesk grows with you as you expand your customer service operations. 

#4. Help Scout

Help Scout is another email ticketing system that allows you to manage customer inquiries from your shared inbox. It gives customer service agents a simple user experience that allows them to treat customers as fellow humans, not ticket numbers. It’s easy to see which tickets are open and assign them to the relevant team member. 

Help Scout supports email, messenger, and chat, allowing you to bring multiple customer service channels into one place. A built-in self-service help center enables teams to deflect more tickets with useful content that helps customers without human intervention. Detailed reporting gives you insight into the performance of your customer service team. 

#5. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is great if you want a fully-fledged ticketing system for your team. Equipped with the basic features such as ticket tracking and the ability to assign tickets to team members, you can also take advantage of Freshdesk’s extensive AI features, such as the deployment of chatbots to serve your customers. 

You can see the history of your interactions with customers so your agents never lose vital context, no matter which agent is handling the case. Collision detection tells you when a particular agent is already working on a ticket and prevents other agents from duplicating work. SLA management helps you set deadlines for ticket responses and keeps customer service standards high. 

Why use an email ticketing system?

In case you’re not convinced, there are several reasons why businesses should consider using email ticketing systems for their customer service teams. 

Helps you manage emails efficiently

As we’ve touched upon, incoming emails can be difficult to handle. You might forget whether a particular email has been replied to or resolved, and emails start slipping through the cracks. It takes longer to deal with incoming emails, and customers are kept waiting as agents struggle to arrive at effective resolutions. With email ticketing software, all these problems are solved and customers are happier. 

In short, email ticketing systems offer extra features that help you manage customer email more efficiently. 

Saves time with automations

Another useful feature of email ticketing systems is the automations that you can set up to help you handle incoming emails. If an email contains certain keywords, for example, that email can be tagged and even assigned to a particular agent or department. Naturally, removing the need for manual processes saves you even more time and helps you deal with a higher volume of email more effectively. 

When you use automations, agents spend less time on busy work and more on helping customers. 

Enables teams of agents to work together

One reason that businesses feel the need to adopt email ticketing software is to enable teams of agents to work together. Collaboration features such as assigning tickets, tagging teammates, and internal comments means agents can communicate behind the scenes on tickets that require multiple parties to resolve. This collaboration is kept invisible to customers so all they see is an email response providing them with a solution. 

Email providers are typically geared towards a single person managing the email, while ticketing systems enable groups to work collaboratively from a shared inbox. 

Helps you analyze customer service performance

Regular email tools have no ability for you to analyze your customer service performance such as number of tickets received, first response time, or number of tickets resolved. Without tracking these vital metrics, your business will have no idea if your customer service team is effective or whether you need more resources to support them. Email ticketing systems overcome this problem with reporting. 

Compiling and sharing reports is an important way to keep your team moving forwards, and increase customer satisfaction. 

How do you raise a ticket in an email?

Raising a ticket in an email with an email based ticketing system is very simple – you simply wait for the email to come in and the ticket is created automatically. Once you have set up the email ticketing system with your support email address, the system converts each new email into a ticket. The ticketing system populates certain fields based on the content of the email and then it is up to the customer service agents to decide how to handle it. 

If you have set up routing rules, the ticket is then sent to the appropriate agent or department. The advantage of the email ticket is a more formalized approach to handling customer inquiries within one centralized system. Usually, a new ticket is automatically designated as “open”, which means it requires action to be taken on it. 

Agents who need to deal with your open tickets will need to log into your email ticketing system to view the tickets. 

How do I email a help desk?

For a customer who wants to email a help desk, you would typically look for the contact email on the company’s website. This email is typically something like support@company.com and it will send the email as a ticket to the customer service department. For customers using email to a help desk, the process is almost identical to using regular email. 

One of the main differences between regular email and emailing a help desk is you may receive a confirmation email that your ticket has been received. Sometimes this will contain information such as your ticket ID which you can use in future correspondence about your issue. 

Customers who want to email a help desk can simply use their own email service provider to compose and send the email. They don’t need any special software to do so, which makes email ticketing systems very accessible for customers looking to contact support. 

While the back end of your ticketing system looks different to the agents working on tickets, all customers will see is a regular email. 

Does Gmail have a ticketing system?

Gmail does not have a native email ticketing software that you can use to manage customer service emails, but there are integrations available that turn Gmail into an email ticketing system. One such tool is Keeping, which is a customer service ticketing system that sits on top of Gmail and you can use it to manage your emails. 

The advantage of Keeping is that you don’t have to leave your favorite email tool in order to use your new ticketing system. Keeping’s features work from within Gmail’s interface to give you the ability to manage your emails. So while Gmail doesn’t have its own ticketing system, it’s relatively easy to turn Gmail into one using extensions such as Keeping. 

Teams already using Gmail will want to stay within their customary tool while benefiting from the power of a robust ticketing system. The simplicity of Keeping is one of the key reasons that teams use the software to manage customer inquiries and deliver exceptional service. 

If your team is already used to using Gmail then it’s one short step to adopting Keeping for customer support. 

Wrapping up

Customer service teams using email ticketing systems are able to take their service to the next level. They are poised to help more customers in a shorter space of time and offer a better standard of support when the stress is taken out of email management. When you use a tool like Keeping, you are able to focus on the customer instead of wondering whether this issue has already been dealt with or who is responsible for what. 

The great thing is, Keeping works directly inside Gmail so your team barely has to change their workflow when upgrading their tool. All the familiar features are still available, as well as new ones which are geared towards customer service that Gmail does not currently offer. When you adopt Keeping, your customers will never notice a thing as the transition happens silently and invisibly. 

Businesses can no longer afford to neglect the customer experience as standards are being raised higher than ever. When a customer emails your business, customer service teams must jump into action to ensure the inquiry is dealt with promptly and effectively. To achieve this, an email ticketing system is absolutely essential.