What is a CRM ticket system (and the best solution for your team)?
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In today’s customer-focused landscape, businesses must handle customer data efficiently and quickly address concerns to keep things running smoothly.
But how do you stay on top of both processes?
A coordinated CRM ticketing solution can help by merging customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities with sophisticated customer service tools. Having both functionalities in one place lets you streamline your operations – from tracking interactions to tackling complex customer issues.
You can take one of two effective approaches: opt for a combined CRM and ticketing system or integrate two dedicated solutions.
In this article, we’ll dive into what a CRM ticket system offers and what features you should look for in a solution. We’ll then explore which approach may be best for your business.
What is a CRM ticket system?
A CRM ticket system is a platform that combines a CRM with a help desk ticketing tool. It lets you manage customer information and access your customer service tickets in one place.
Merging the two tools gives support agents a comprehensive view of customer interactions, increasing efficiency. It also links ticket information to contact and lead information so salespeople are always in the loop.
Keeping customer service and sales teams on the same page helps you enhance the customer experience and streamline processes.
How does a CRM ticket system work?
When you use two separate solutions for CRM and ticketing, you have to switch between them to deal with customer requests.
Say a new support ticket pops up in your ticketing system. The support agent can read it there. They’ll then have to pull up the customer profile in the CRM to find the relevant customer information to deal with the inquiry.
Here’s where a combined CRM ticket system can speed things up.
A combined CRM ticket system makes customer data available within the ticket. Agents and salespeople won’t need to search for information elsewhere or ask other team members to clarify things.
What are the benefits of a combined CRM ticketing solution?
Merging CRM and ticketing functions helps you build and maintain strong customer relationships. Here’s how:
Main benefits of a combined CRM ticketing solution | |
|---|---|
| Central customer data storage | All customer information – including sales data, communication history, customer feedback and support tickets – live in one place. That means salespeople and customer service agents are always up to date and working off of the same information. |
| Improved customer service response times | Easy access to complete customer profiles allows customer support teams to address issues more quickly. Faster response means reduced resolution time, keeping customers happy throughout their lifecycles. |
| Better customer service experience | Access to detailed customer profiles enables support teams and sales reps to provide more personalized and effective solutions. |
More helpful insights from your data | Merging data from sales and customer service gives you deeper insights into your customers’ behavior. Knowing what your customers want helps you improve decision-making and tailor interactions to their preferences. |
Having outlined the clear benefits of a combined CRM ticketing solution, we move on to our next question: what’s the best way to merge them?
Do you need a combined CRM ticket system?
If you want to simplify your tech stack and lower operational costs, a combined CRM and help desk ticketing system offers an all-in-one solution. That said, combined CRM ticketing solutions often lack the robust functionality of dedicated solutions.
If you need comprehensive customer and sales pipeline management, a dedicated CRM with an integrated ticket system may be your best bet. Key reasons to consider this option include:
Main benefits of CRM-ticketing integration | |
|---|---|
| More robust features | Combined solutions don’t always offer in-depth functionality. Integrating dedicated systems ensures you get the best of both worlds with elements like deeper sales and marketing features (e.g., campaign management) or advanced ticketing workflows. |
| Customization and scalability | Dedicated tools are flexible. They let you customize and scale features to fit your processes. For instance, you can tailor a CRM to intricate sales cycles and modify your ticketing systems to fit different support structures. |
| Easy integration of your favorite tools | Advances in integrations and API technology have made it easy to seamlessly align CRM and ticketing solutions. They let you combine the software you know meets your requirements. |
| Better innovation | Specialized CRM and ticketing systems hone in on specific needs. The innovation and product development teams behind each solution can focus on adding the latest proprietary technologies and features – rather than spreading out resources between toolsets. |
Regardless of which path you take, ensure you can implement all the CRM and ticketing features you need.
What to look for in a CRM ticket system
Each company’s needs are unique to its specific processes. Where do you start when researching CRM and ticket system requirements?
Here are some core features and functions to consider in your search for an effective combined system for your business.
Key CRM features
Here are the most important elements of a CRM system.
Contact management: Store, track and manage customer information with ease. Contact management capabilities of a CRM may include cloud-based access, customizability and automatic syncing with other tools and data sources.
Sales pipeline management: A CRM should act as sales management software. It helps you track the stages of your sales process through the customer journey, from initial contact to sale. It also lets you optimize your sales pipelines with custom fields and forecast sales accurately.
Lead management: Your CRM enables you to track leads and nurture them from prospect to paying customer. For example, it might offer tools for generating leads (e.g., web forms) and keeping up communication (e.g., a website chatbot or live chat tool).
Workflow automation: A good CRM system can automate repetitive tasks like data entry and follow-up email messaging. Workflow automation saves time and reduces the risk of data entry and management errors.
Reporting and analytics: Your CRM should generate reports and analyze your performance data and metrics. Automated reports and insights can help you improve your processes and guide strategic decision-making.
Depending on your needs, you may also want a CRM that includes a mobile CRM app, a high level of customizability, marketing automation tools and email integration.
Key ticketing system features
Below, we list the most vital features of a ticketing system.
Ticket management: Ticketing systems primarily enable support teams to create, track, manage and resolve customer support tickets. The best ones let you categorize tickets, prioritize the most important ones and assign tickets to specific team members.
Automations: Look for automations that make customer support more efficient – like the option to set up rules that automatically route incoming tickets to the appropriate support agents. Many tools also let you send automated responses to common questions.
Multi-channel support: Your ticketing software should handle tickets from various channels including email, social media, SMS and live chat.
Knowledge base integration: Some ticketing solutions have built-in knowledge base and FAQ capabilities. These self-service features can speed up support times by helping customers resolve issues on their own.
Service-level agreement (SLA) management: SLAs ensure that you resolve support tickets according to set standards and time frames. A management feature requires customer service agents to follow these agreements to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.
Other important features of a ticketing system might include a user-friendly interface, security and compliance features and integration capabilities.
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The top 5 CRM ticket system solutions
In this section, we list the best five CRM and ticketing system software solutions you can use to maximize your team’s efficiency.
Before we delve into our four top picks for dedicated ticketing systems, let’s consider a smart alternative that maximizes all-around functionality with minimal feature loss.
1. All-in-one CRM ticket system with Pipedrive integrations
If you want to link your sales and customer service efforts without losing important features, your best choice is a powerful CRM like Pipedrive with the right ticketing system integrations.
Pipedrive’s cloud-based sales CRM conveniently integrates with many popular tools – including top helpdesk and ticketing solutions like Zoho Desk, Freshdesk, HappyFox, Help Scout and SupportBee.
Opting for Pipedrive and its integrations gives you a sales CRM and ticketing solution that can adapt to your unique business processes. The combination lets you:
Streamline sales management with Pipedrive. The CRM’s intuitive, visual sales pipeline gives your sales reps a clear overview of deal positions so they can prioritize tasks accordingly
Enhance customer support through integrations. Integrating Pipedrive with helpdesk software lets you manage support tickets directly within the CRM interface. You get access to the robust customer data relevant to each request, ensuring there are no silos across sales and support data.
Customize your platform to meet your needs. Pipedrive’s highly customizable platform lets you add custom fields, pipeline stages and specific workflows. You can also access a growing collection of over 300 tools to personalize features and functionality.
Scale your CRM ticketing system with your company. Pipedrive and its integrations offer scalability, letting you upgrade your plan or add functionality as your business grows
Combining Pipedrive with a powerful ticket management tool can be a flexible, scalable and effective way to enhance customer interactions and streamline your business processes.
2. Help Scout
Help Scout is a customer support solution that streamlines customer interactions, with features including powerful ticketing functionality. The tool also comes with light CRM capabilities.
Help Scout enables support teams to manage customer inquiries, feedback and service requests from one centralized platform for smoother communication.
Key features
Shared inboxes for collaborative customer support
Automated workflows for ticket routing and assignment
Robust reporting and analytics tools for tracking key metrics
Conversation threads to provide context to customer inquiries
Detailed customer profiles with a history of interactions
Many integrations to enhance CRM functionality
Pricing
Help Scout has three plans with per-user pricing.
Standard: $20 per user per month with two shared inboxes, one knowledge base, automated workflows and more.
Plus: $40 per user per month with everything in Standard, plus more shared inboxes, knowledge bases and advanced features.
Pro: $65 per user per month. Includes everything in Plus as well as added security and scalable features for large teams.
Who is Help Scout best for?
Help Scout primarily suits small and medium-sized businesses in need of improving their customer service processes. The software also integrates with Pipedrive to sync customer support data with a more powerful sales CRM.
3. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a versatile cloud-based software with robust help desk features. It can also function as a simple CRM platform.
Freshdesk caters to businesses of all sizes that want to streamline their customer support operations but don’t specifically need a sales CRM.
Key features
Omnichannel shared inbox for team collaboration on support requests
360-degree customer view
Ticket routing and assignment capabilities
Customizable workflows to streamline customer service processes
Automation tools for setting up predefined workflows to resolve tickets faster
Reporting and analytics to track support metrics and team performance
Pricing
Freshdesk’s customer service platform has four plans.
Free: provides integrated ticketing and ticket dispatch, analytics and collaboration tools
Growth: $15 per user per month. Includes everything in the free plan plus automation, integrations and more customer support functionality
Pro: $49 per user per month. Has all Growth features plus advanced automation, round-robin ticket routing and segmentation
Enterprise: $79 per user per month. Comes with full Enterprise offerings as well as unlimited products, remote work capabilities and more
Who is Freshdesk best for?
Freshdesk caters to small and medium-sized companies that want to enhance their customer support, especially after-sales service. The software’s strengths lie in effective ticketing and support features more than its basic CRM functionality, so sales teams might prefer an all-out sales CRM.
Note: Freshdesk integrates with Pipedrive, meaning you can sync customer data between both platforms to get the most out of your sales CRM and ticketing solutions.
4. Bitrix24
Bitrix24 is an all-in-one platform that combines tools for CRM, ticket management, project management, communication and team collaboration.
The tool replaces all your SaaS solutions with a single hub for managing tasks, customers and projects all at once.
Key features
Comprehensive CRM components including lead management and pipeline visualization
Automated routing for customer inquiries
Project and task management features like shared calendars, Gantt charts and Kanban boards
Internal and external communication tools across chat, email, social media and more
Pricing
Bitrix24 offers four plans, each at a flat monthly fee.
Basic: $49 per month for up to five users. Carries most collaboration and project management features within a light CRM toolset.
Standard: $99 per month for up to 50 users. Includes everything in the Basic plan together with marketing and online documentation features.
Professional: $199 per month for up to 100 users. Has everything in the Standard plan plus added CRM, automation and HR functionality.
Enterprise: $399 per month for up to 250 users. Includes the maximum features for CRM, project management and collaboration – with support for multiple branches.
Who is Bitrix24 best for?
Bitrix24 is suitable for small and medium-sized businesses in search of a single solution to manage diverse business processes. While the tool is adaptable to many industries, smaller organizations that require basic ticketing and CRM features may want to consider something simpler.
5. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is an omnichannel customer support platform with basic CRM capabilities. The system works to manage customer interactions more efficiently.
LiveAgent combines real-time communication tools with a traditional ticketing system in one platform.
Key features
A universal inbox that combines email, phone calls, social media messages, knowledge base tickets and real-time live chat messages in one place
Robust ticket management system for distribution, updates and tagging
Automations for ticket routing, escalation and other workflow processes
Full customer profiles that store all customer information, interactions and preferences
Customizable knowledge base to provide self-service for customers
Detailed reports and analytics to get insights into performance, customer loyalty and customer retention
Pricing
LiveAgent offers four pricing tiers.
Small business: $9 per user per month. Provides three email accounts, ten departments, one knowledge base and customer service features.
Medium business: $29 per user per month. Includes everything in the Small business plan plus additional accounts, call center support and SLA rules.
Large business: $49 per user per month. Includes everything in the Medium business plan with increased account and rule limits.
Enterprise: $69 per user per agent. Provides everything LiveAgent offers including enterprise-focused features, priority support and a senior account manager.
Who is LiveAgent best for?
LiveAgent meets the needs of companies looking for a feature-rich service tool that can handle high ticket volumes across multiple channels. It provides basic CRM functionality, so companies wanting more powerful CRM features may need to integrate another platform.
Final thoughts
CRM ticket systems blend customer relationship management with ticketing support, helping you improve your customer service. While these systems offer convenience, integrating specialized CRM and ticketing solutions can provide more robust features to address specific needs.
To find the best option for your business, consider what features you can’t do without.
Ultimately, a complete CRM integrated with top ticketing tools can give you the best of both worlds: building an efficient customer platform tailored to you.
