There is a way to reduce the ticket backlog, but it doesn't involve changing your helpdesk

It is nothing to do with the ticket system you're using. That is the lazy excuse. Shiny tool syndrome tells you that changing the system will fix your issues.

If you want to understand the health of your operation, go and work on your support desk on a day like today.

Customer support is often not the root cause of issues. They're like the pain you get in your calf because your hip is tight - Everyone over thirty who has tried to run knows what I'm talking about!

Progress is made by finding a cure for your health problems. Sometimes we need to manage pain, but we risk masking real problems and then when they develop fully, we can't cope, and disasters happen.

There are common root causes that you can resolve by designing the operational flow to deliver them:

📦 Accurate customer delivery promises on product pages

⚡️ Automated replacements or refunds for quality issues.

💬 Moving common customer issues off free-form workflows that require people to sort through into dedicated workflows.

📊 Analyse quality issues by the supplier and close the feedback loop. This includes feedback to the design team. I am blown away by how little customer feedback lands with designers compared to software product teams.

😡 Cancelled orders due to overstocks because you don't have the correct buffers or integration issues around inventory.

🚚 Incorrect addresses because you don't have an address checker installed.

You can hire more people and write all the macros in the world, but the truth is you need to write down your problems, organise them against their operational workflow, identify the steps end to end and design a better way.

Often a better way is 'Just Works'; that might be enough.

- Thanks, Oliver

Oliver Rhodes

Oliver Rhodes

Bruton