What Is a Slack Ticketing System?

A Slack ticketing system uses the communication tool as the basis for accepting and creating help desk or customer support tickets, as well as for maintaining status updates, allowing for escalation, and ensuring your agents resolve the issue within an acceptable timeframe. 

With an estimated 65 million monthly active users across the world, Slack is a popular choice for performing workflows such as ticketing. This type of ticketing workflow centralizes a company’s support processes and allows for collaboration within a tool that colleagues use throughout the working day. 

Uses for a Slack ticketing system

Here are some examples of how organizations use Slack ticketing systems: 

• IT support: The IT department can manage technical support requests like software glitches and hardware malfunctions by inviting tickets created in Slack and tracking the progress of each case. 
• Customer service: External users can easily alert companies to problems and receive speedy responses. Agents can collaborate internally on Slack to find the right solution for an issue and interact externally with the customer during the process. 
• HR and admin requests: HR teams can handle requests like time-off applications, policy questions, and even private or sensitive issues—all within a dedicated Slack ticketing channel designed for efficient management.

How ticketing works in Slack

There are a number of ways in which a help desk can work in Slack. The most basic is simply to have a channel where colleagues can find pinned policy documents and knowledge base articles, alert IT to issues, and discuss the solutions. However, a more efficient and organized approach is to create a ticketing workflow.

Ticketing in Slack usually involves finding a Slack integration created by an established ticketing system provider. This allows companies to manage their ticketing processes within Slack, using the advanced features that the provider offers. There are systems in place to accept, deflect, escalate, and manage user support tickets, as well as a range of other features. 

External users post a message in an organization’s Slack Connect channel to start a ticket, while internal users use the existing internal Slack workspace to raise their issues. From there, the business can utilize a series of automations to move the ticket through the system until completion. 

Key features of Slack ticketing systems

All Slack ticketing systems are different, but here are some important features that companies often look for when deciding on how to use Slack for support ticketing.

Ticket creation

The most obvious feature is the ability to create support tickets quickly and easily. With a Slack ticketing system, users should be able to create a simple Slack message in the right channel to raise their ticket. 

Ticket tagging

Tagging tickets helps you manage them more effectively. For example, you can let your team know whether the ticket relates to hardware or software issues. You can also add a tag displaying the type of issue, the area of expertise needed to handle the issue or the level of priority assigned to it. 

Intake channels

The ticketing channel will provide you with a choice of Slack channels through which you can accept tickets. Even if you want to manage tickets in a private channel, you can still create them through public channels and then move over to your private channel. Many systems also allow you to work through direct messages. 

Real-time notifications

It’s important for both the agent dealing with the ticket and the user who created it to be able to keep track of the progress of the issue. This is why real-time notifications are key. They can tell the user when the issue is escalated, when it is delayed, and when the company needs more information, for example. For the agent, an alert when there is a deadline to respond is helpful in maintaining service level agreements (SLAs) and customer satisfaction.

Automations

In order to reduce the workload on the support team, being able to automate some aspects of the workflow is helpful. For example, when a user mentions certain keywords that relate to a simple fix, the automation could send them an easy-to-apply solution that saves a human agent from having to spend unnecessary time administering. Another use of automation is to send messages on specific topics to agents with in-depth knowledge of that area. 

Comprehensive performance reporting

Only by analyzing performance can companies improve the workflow of their ticketing system. The right platform will provide detailed reports and analytics on such metrics as ticket resolution times and common ticket issues. This helps you identify areas for improvement and additional training and makes it easier to understand when you may need to expand your team.

Benefits of using a Slack ticketing system

• A more streamlined workflow, all within the same app, saves time for agents and reduces the chances of issues falling through the cracks. Automation reduces manual tasks and improves consistency of service. It is also easier to track, search, and audit tickets.
• Many people spend their entire day in Slack, meaning that issuing tickets is intuitive and they are more likely to be picked up and resolved than by using a third-party tool. As users are usually online within the app, they can respond to requests for additional information more quickly, shortening the time it takes to resolve a ticket. It is also universal in many organizations, meaning all employees can access support and stay up to date with their case. With an external tool, they might not have access to updates. 
• Internal communication and collaboration are improved by using a tool like Slack, which is designed for that purpose. This real-time communication can reduce misunderstandings and encourage quicker problem-solving. 

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