What do you prioritize when making any new software purchase for your business? Regardless of what's on your feature wish list, at the end of the day, the most important criterion is that your chosen software either makes or saves you money. That's really where issue-tracking software shines. It helps unearth all those pesky problems that have been flying under the radar and costing you money - whether you realize it or not.
Think you're immune from such unseen issues? Think again. Chances are your organization has some untracked issues that are hurting your bottom line right now.
Customer Complaints Add up
Regardless of your industry, customer complaints can serve as a bellwether for your clientele's overall level of satisfaction. If complaints are falling on deaf ears or getting lost in the shuffle, your business is losing out on a golden opportunity to address existing problems and demonstrate your commitment to the customer experience.
According to Satmetrix, U.S. businesses lose $41 billion each year because their customer service misses the mark and doesn't adequately address consumer concerns. Issue tracking software can help organizations monitor customer complaints and streamline workflows so individual issues are quickly assigned, documented and addressed. That level of responsiveness could be the difference between placating a temporarily inconvenienced consumer and driving away a long-time customer.
Issue tracking software can also help your bottom line by potentially shining a light on lingering problems your teams were unaware existed. For restaurant chains, customers may be concerned about a lack of vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free meals, driving them away and losing out on potential revenue. If you're routinely monitoring and tracking complaints, though, you can spot these trends and make changes to the menu to bring in a wider demographic of diners.
If customer complaints are left unchecked, it could be costing your business a bundle in potential revenue.
Help Desk Delays Increase Costs
The efficacy of your IT help desk ticketing system can have a major effect on your bottom line as well. Delays in this process can grind certain tasks and projects to a halt as users wait for their tickets to be addressed before moving forward.
Consider an employee who can't access the internal, proprietary software they need to complete a project: their ticket goes unanswered for an extended period of time. There really isn't anything they can do until the help desk addresses the issue. That lack of productivity translates into lost labor costs for the organization.
Similar to customer complaint management, help desk workflows could be rife with inefficiencies that are dragging the whole team down. TechTarget contributor Donna Fluss cited the example of customer service reps leaning too much on help desk teams to address certain problems. That could be a sign that it's time to revisit customer service training so reps can address those issues on their own without escalating them to a help desk. In turn, this frees up the help desk to tackle other, more pressing problems, giving the organization more bang for its IT buck.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, of course. There are many other everyday instances where untracked issues hurt businesses' bottom lines. With issue tracking software, though, organizations can shine a light on those problems and work toward solutions that will put them on sound financial ground.