How to train clients to use the system

[Ulysses]

Our clients are so used to phoning up or emailing me personally, that not one has so far used the support ticketing system.

 

How can I train them, in the nicest possible way, to use the system. Ignoring stuff that is not via the support system is not an option. Anyone have any good ideas.

[Adamski]

Well when people email me directly I also create a new ticket and then relpy to the ticket.

 

When they ring if it is at all possible to email them the answer I do - again from within WHMCS as when they reply to that it gets piped.

 

It's a tricky one isn't it

[PPH]

We slow down any responses to regular email addresses and ask that they use the ticket system in the future as it will provide faster response time as more support personnel receive the ticket and tickets are checked and responded to more often than regular emails

[trine]

Both of these are extremely useful suggestions

 

Years ago, when we started ticketing for any support related issues, we would simply open a ticket. Low and behold, people caught on quite quickly when they saw an response to support in their email inbox!

[generic]

i find that people like the ticket system, especially when they can go back and see old ticket, etc.

 

I just politely tell them in new signups and in my manuals that support tickets are first line of support.

 

You could politely remind them when they call that you would prefer support tickets so you could document the issue better and there is a record of the incident.

[Ulysses]

All good ideas. Thank you all

[Iceman]

For what its' worth... here's what we try to do. But it will depend on your buisness operations/structure.

 

- A "Sales/Admin" person answers the phone . Unless the problem is urgent we request that the client visit support.ourdomain.com and fill out a support ticket.

 

- Support via the website gets all the details needed to help solve the problem efficiently and in WRITING.

 

- We find that when someone makes a little effort to express their problem in writing so that someone else can understand it, there is a very high probability that "silly questions" are figured out for themselves.

 

- Any email sent direct to us (without creating a Support Ticket) is always replied to BUT not as high a priority as a Support Ticket. We also include in the email reply something like:

Please submit future New Support Requests via:

http://support.ourdomain.com

This will ensure requests are not overlooked.

 

- It's amazing how many people use our support ticket system now, and even those that insisted on constantly calling us. In fact 99% of our clients say that having everything in WRITING is by far the best way to handle support issues.

 

- Obviously we do not just do Email support, but if and when required, we will ring them.

 

Cheers,

Paul

[SpookedOut]

I just tell my clients politely that we prefer to use the Support Desk as it's going to provide them with faster support which compared to my personal email accounts etc doesn't really offer.

[Veus]

So Iceman you dont just use piping instead?

 

Im debating whether to use piping, obviously restricting it to customers only. However this would mean they need to use the same email every time.

[Iceman]

Hi Veus,

 

Actually no, not yet. But we are looking into it.