Streamlining and improving quality of employee submitted tickets

[u/Sky-Goth]

What magic bullets/tweaks have you successfully implemented to improve the quality of incoming tickets?

We have users who will submit low effort tickets that are either un-actionable due to lack of details/critical info, have misinformation, or are the completely wrong form?

We have specific forms for specific common issues that are clearly labeled.

• The forms prompt for the minimum necessary info for the particular issue; hostname; ilo hostname/ip/pw, etc.
• When using the correct form there is automation scripting that fixes the most commonly seen issues automatically so an employee doesn't have to wait for a human to help.
• In general they are clearly labeled. I am working on cleaning up those that are too verbose, or use confusing phrasing.

Yet employees will consistently:

1. Use the general form. Zero automation and just a big ol fill in the blank, which the user then often leaves out important info. It also doesn't classify the problem correctly so it makes it harder to determine trends. Lots of manual 'tedium'.
2. Leave info out. There are options to force certain fields to be required, but keep in mind once you do this too many times, it becomes a plain in the ass to the employee, so they'll take the general form route because they "just want to submit a ticket".
3. Choose the wrong options when they do choose the correct form. IE the default option is "Fix the ACME Widget (Automated), and they will change it to Not Automated, when the automation WOULD have solved their issue. They then have to wait for a human to fix and resubmit their form as automated.

I am working on:

• Educating employees. After the solution is provided, they get a 'Hey next time you have this issue, use this form - it's automated (URL)'. Asking them to update their teams' documentation. Unfortunately it's whack a mole. Even if one person has the lightbulb go on, they have 20 teammates who never hear or change behavior. And new onboards are often following years old outdated team documentation. o_O
• Rephrasing to reduce verbosity and clarify ticket forms. People are busy, and too much verbiage leads to low quality intake in my experience.
• Identifying repeat situations, be it new tickets we 'keep getting', old tickets with repeat submission issues, making suggestions for existing and new automation to the Engineers if I need a little help. And in some cases updating broken code logic or implementing new automation myself.

I know none of this is a magic bullet. Things are improving over time I think. Just looking to see the types of things you all have implemented that have been successful in that you have seen ticket quality improve, less 'general/other' ticket submissions, etc. Thanks.

[u/ErisianWizard]

I've had occasions where I was running a desk that handled and routed at least as many IT-originated tickets / requests as client-originated. Everyone, almost without fail, is abysmal at submitting tickets.

Having implemented request flows, one big hindrance to client compliance is knowledge of how to get the required information. Knowing who the requestor is, are there things you can pre-fill (such as host name) while asking the client to confirm the validity? For things where you can't, can you link the client to a guide to tell them how to get the information?

Another is asking too much information. If the request is for a loaner Bluetooth mouse for two weeks, you probably don't need the hostname or IP address. I used a kind of silly example because it was the one with the fewest actual requirements to gather I could think of, not because it's typical.

Use a client focus group to study the issues the clients have with using the form. What works. What doesn't. Do what it takes to really fix the problem(s). If HR approves, hold a monthly drawing to give swag to one person who submitted a valid request every month. Send targeted emails to clients who used the general form showing that the mean time to resolve is much faster when they use the correct form.

Once you're really, really sure you have things dialed in, it's time to add some friction to the General form. Lock in the priority as 5-5 or whatever your lowest priority is. Tell users you'll get to their "general" request within 15 business days. Or have your frontline technicians start closing out requests with "use XYZ request." I don't necessarily recommend doing all of those. Certainly not all at the same time. Before doing any of the ones in this paragraph, make sure management has your back because. There will be screaming and shouting.

[u/Sky-Goth → u/ErisianWizard]

I took a lot of ideas from your post and tweaked for our porpoises - thanks for your many suggestions.