Updated on January 23, 2025

cover image of email ticketing system for SMBs and enterprises

InsideRetail recently surveyed the customer experience performance of hundreds of online retailers in its database. Midas won the top prize with a score of 80.95, and there were two significant differentiators – Faster resolution and response times on email. 

To put it in perspective, Midas replied and resolved email queries 16 hours earlier than competitors (a 60% difference!). 

Almost every business around us is online and offers multichannel support. Some companies have adopted live chat and improved their CSAT scores (Inside Retail also awarded the live chat functionalities of Sage & Clare and Supre). 

Image showing a telecom tower with overlaid text stating "72% of Telecom Companies Don't Reply to Emails." This highlights a customer service benchmark for the telecom industry.
Telecom Companies’ Email Response Rates are Alarmingly Low

But, due to its complexity, email as a channel is often ignored. In fact, according to the Customer Service Benchmark report for the Telecom industry, over 70% of companies don’t reply to service emails at all. 

So, despite its complexity, email support can become a differentiator with modern AI and an email-based ticketing system. This article will cover how email-based ticketing systems can drive differentiation for SMBs and enterprises. We’re going to talk about:

  1. What are the Challenges of Email as a Support Channel?
  2. How can Email-Based Ticketing Systems help SMBs and Enterprises?
  3. How are Real World Companies Using Email-Based Ticketing Systems?
  4. How can you Implement Email-Based Ticketing Systems in Your Organization?
  5. Conclusion

What are the Challenges of Email as a Support Channel?

If you look at the history of email, it has always been positioned as a one-to-one communication channel. But, when you have a single email address where all your customers send in support requests, it becomes difficult to manage. 

The common challenges we’ve seen in email support are as follows:

1. Agent Collisions

As a preliminary band-aid, many organizations often take an email ID and share the password with all their support agents. This means that at least there are multiple stakeholders for the email channel and the overall response rate increases. 

However, since the incoming emails are unassigned, two or more agents can reply to the same email, causing a collision. 

Agent collisions happen when tickets are not routed to the proper agents. This causes two downstream problems: since agents don’t know which issue to respond to, their response time increases, and some customers receive two sets of answers. 

Email-based ticketing systems solve this by providing skill-based routing. Each query is routed to the human or AI agent who can solve the problem. This eliminates agent collisions and also improves the overall performance of your teams. 

Quote from Joan Roca, CEO and Founder of Essentialist, about response time and email routing, overlaid on an image of a plane in the sky.
Prioritizing Response Time for Efficient Email Communication

You can look at Joan Roca, the CEO and Founder of Essentialist, who recently switched to an email-based ticketing system and said, “Response time is everything. Before, it was difficult to route an email to the right person in order to get a response. Now it can be actioned as soon as possible.”

2. Delayed Responses

When your volume of messages is high, you miss a lot of emails. And if you share an inbox with multiple people across the team, these problems become magnified. 

Infographic: Companies take an average of 48 hours to reply to emails.
Companies Take an Average of 48 Hours to Respond to Emails

But response times are everything. Yet, according to Simplr, most companies take 48 hours to reply to an email. Even the best-in-class email support providers take 25.5 hours on average.

However, these response times are too long for the current customer expectations. These are the same customers that are buying from Amazon and receiving service within 15 minutes or less. While your business might not be the size or market of Amazon, your customer service team must still match their expectations. 

Automated AI responses from email ticketing systems can solve this problem. We know that up to 80% of customer questions are repetitive. And up to 90% of these L1 questions can be accurately answered through an AI system. 

As Shep Hyken puts it in his recent editorial on Forbes, “Overall, I believe most companies want to deliver a level of service that meets expectations. It’s not for lack of desire. It’s a lack of execution.”

3. Manual Categorization Errors

Tagging and categorizing emails based on SOPs is a common practice across organizations. However, this can be tiring for agents because it requires much manual effort. 

The manual aspect of this also creates confusion and manual errors in the process. Improperly tagged tickets can’t be used in more considerable analyses and are challenging to track in the system.

Plus, with the high volume, some emails might not be transformed into tickets. This causes a large-scale problem where errors accumulate, affecting your team and customer service performance analysis. 

Diagram showing 3 AI agents for email ticketing: Understand Questions (using NLP), Categorize Issue (using RAG), and Create Ticket (using API).
Three AI Agents Streamline Email Ticketing Using NLP, RAG, and API

AI in email ticketing can solve this by completely automating ticket creation and categorization tasks. Modern AI services come with advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP), which allows them to understand customer messages and use them to create tickets and categorize them. This agentic task works with 3 AI agents: one AI agent parses the customer question, another one files the ticket, and the final one adds categories according to your rules and SOPs. 

This reduces errors and ensures that your agents get firmly prioritized and categorized tickets so that they can focus on the customer instead. 

4. Lack of Collaboration

Traditional email systems were one-to-one, which meant no collaboration tools were available. So, when a human agent starts answering a question from a customer, they have to search different systems to understand the customer’s behavior, previous purchases, and so on. 

With Email-based ticketing systems, this becomes much easier. Since the AI system connects with your CRM, helpdesk, and other software, it contains all the data the agent needs to answer a question. The agent can then ask questions about the client from the AI system as they reply to the customer. 

This gives them more context for customer questions and helps them provide proactive customer service. Additionally, the customers don’t have to re-explain their problems because each new agent assigned to the case has a summary of the customer’s previous requests. 

Most email-based ticketing systems also have internal notes. This allows the agents to collaborate and provide important information about the customer. For example, one of your agents can add an internal note to a customer question, letting others know their invoices have been unpaid. This would prompt other agents to ask the customer about payment status when answering questions. 

5. Manual Workflows

It’s difficult to follow the standardized practices written down on an SOP daily when you log in to work. This is especially true for junior agents who might be unfamiliar with the systems at the workplace. 

Email-based ticketing systems can be trained with workflows that automate these processes. These workflows can automatically direct everything from ticket assignment to ticket resolution. This helps reduce the time and cost of onboarding a new agent and reduces manual error rates.

Now that we understand why businesses are adopting email-based automation systems let’s talk about how these systems can improve the business metrics of SMBs and enterprises.

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How can Email-Based Ticketing Systems Help SMBs and Enterprises?

Email is the second-most popular communication channel that customers use to connect with companies. So, the overall customer service metrics also improve when email support systems are updated to match modern standards. 

We’ve already outlined that an increase in customer service metrics also leads to a rise in profits and revenue. With that in mind, let’s examine the metrics influencing email-based ticketing systems.

1. CSAT – Increase

We’ve already discussed how the Essentialist improved response times and ticket routing efficiency using an email-based ticketing system. The integration of this system also improved their CSAT by 97%.

60% of customers expect an email reply within an hour, and the response time decrease from email-based ticketing creates an immediate improvement in CSAT and CX.

Further, AI systems also automate your email responses to repetitive L1 queries, providing instantaneous responses. This improves your CSAT from the cohort of customers that ask these questions and frees up your team to attend to critical issues and drop overall resolution times. 

2. First Contact Resolution (FCR) Rate – Increase

The resolution rate also increases since AI handles many L1 complaints. This can make a big difference since customers don’t have to return with their issues. 

Also, since you now have agents focusing on more business-critical tasks, the problematic issues from customers can be solved more quickly. 

We’ve seen some impressive results in this area. For example, Appen reduced their average resolution time from 2 weeks to less than a day. This improvement also directly improved their CSAT and NPS numbers.

3. NPS – Increase

Jeff Bezos would start all his letters to investors by talking about Net Promoter Score (NPS). According to recent statistics, Amazon’s NPS score is 73% (the average number for most companies lies around 50%).

However, one of the crucial points to consider here is that Jeff Bezos used to handle email customer support personally. And while email-based ticketing support systems can’t replicate the act of a CEO taking on customer service tasks, they can empower your team to achieve higher NPS. 

Faster responses and resolutions improve NPS scores because customers are more confident about your services. Their confidence in you also leads to more recommendations to their friends and an overall increase in NPS.

4. Upsell Revenue – Increase

Another consequence of AI handling most of your L1 complaints is that your agents can form stronger and more strategic customer relationships. This allows them to understand customer needs and recommend products for them. 

This directly translates to upsell revenue for you. You get more loyal customers ready to increase their investments in your products and services, translating to more significant profit over time. 

5. Net Retention Rate – Increase

When CSAT and NPS increase, customer retention also increases. This means that you keep more of your revenue year after year. An increase in the lifetime value of acquiring a customer directly translates to more profit for the business. 

According to a Bain Study, a 5% increase in NRR can lead to a 25-95% increase in profits. 

As you can see, an email-based ticketing system can improve your business metrics in many ways. To understand this, let’s look at Essentialist and how email-based ticketing transformed CX for them. 

How are Real World Companies Using Email-Based Ticketing Systems?

An Essential(ist) Story

Image of a road leading towards a sunset with the text "97% Essentialist's CSAT Rating after adopting an email-based ticketing system."
Essentialist Achieved a 97% CSAT Rating with their New Email Ticketing System

Essentialist is a boutique travel firm specializing in crafting personalized client experiences. This means they must provide at-scale customer service to all their clients. 

They used to work with a traditional email client earlier, which caused:

  1. Delayed responses – They couldn’t route tickets properly
  2. Lack of Personalization – They didn’t have customer context when answering questions.
  3. Lack of Collaboration – They couldn’t communicate with each other without forwarding emails from their personal addresses. 

The team’s delays and lack of communication made CX challenging to maintain. And given the delay in responses was affecting their CSAT as well. 

After implementing an email-based ticketing system, they saw:

1. Proper Routing – They have a rule-based routing system that automatically routes the issues to the proper agents. 

2. Customer Context – They could save internal notes about the customer’s preferences when they designed their travel packages. 

3. CSAT Increase – These improvements improved their CSAT to 97%.

    Joan Roca, the CEO & Founder of Essentialist, points out, “We’ve reduced our response time to 30 minutes compared to an industry average of 12 hours. We’re also measuring our CSAT score now. It’s at an all-time high of 97%, way above the average in our industry.”

    Email-based ticketing works across industries and company sizes. And the improvements in CSAT and NPS can make a significant revenue difference. 

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    So, if you want to adopt it for your business, what steps must you take? Let’s talk about that next.

    How can You Implement Email-Based Ticketing Systems in Your Organization?

    Diagram showing a four-step process: Identify Customer Needs, Data Analysis for AI, Execute Pilot Programme, and Improve & Re-Iterate.
    A Four-Step Process for AI Implementation: From Needs to Iteration

    We recommend a four-step framework for anyone looking to onboard an AI-powered email-based ticketing system. It goes as follows:

    1. Identify Customer Needs

    Before implementing AI into your email-based ticketing system, start by understanding the specific needs of your customers.

    • Examine email tickets to identify recurring themes and repetitive questions.
    • Export a list of frequently asked questions from your ticketing platform. Create a document addressing these FAQs, forming a foundation for training your AI system.
    • Identify areas in your service or product where customers encounter the most challenges. If some processes need frequent troubleshooting, develop a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to guide customers through these issues. This targeted preparation ensures a smoother AI training process.
    • Identify standard categorization SOPs for tickets and create detailed documentation around them. This will give your AI agents the rules they need to categorize and route customer questions properly.

    2. Do Data Analysis

    Once you’ve pinpointed customer needs, analyze your Knowledge Base. Ensure it addresses common questions and is organized for AI integration.

    • Structure your knowledge base atomically, breaking down information into small, actionable articles. For example, if you’re onboarding a retail client, you might create articles like:
      • How to track an order.
      • How to request a return.
      • Understanding your warranty.
    • Create detailed flowcharts for your manual workflows. These flowcharts will visually represent processes, making integrating them into the AI system and automating parts of the workflow easier.
    • An organized knowledge base ensures you haven’t overlooked key areas and simplifies AI training by providing clear, concise, and well-titled articles.
    • Use these structured documents to train your AI to recognize variations of repetitive questions. AI systems rely on identifying “intents,” so including diverse question formulations ensures more accurate responses.

    3. Execute a Pilot Program

    AI implementation requires refinement, so launch a pilot program targeting a small segment of your customer base.

    • Roll out the AI-enhanced email system to a specific group of customers and monitor its performance over several weeks.
    • Analyze the gaps identified during the pilot. Are there questions the AI couldn’t answer? Use this feedback to enhance your documentation and refine your training data.

    This iterative process allows you to incrementally improve the AI system incrementally, making it more innovative and effective with each cycle.

    4. Add Content and Re-Train

    Based on insights from the pilot, update your knowledge base to address identified gaps and re-train your AI system.

    • Introduce new articles or expand existing ones to provide more comprehensive answers.
    • Re-train the AI with updated documentation, ensuring it can handle a broader range of queries.

    As you iterate through these steps, your AI system will grow more adept at resolving customer emails, enhancing the efficiency of your ticketing process. Over time, you’ll notice reduced response times, improved customer satisfaction, and a streamlined support workflow.

    While AI can handle routine queries, complex problems still require human expertise. By automating these repetitive tasks, AI helps support agents to focus on strategic problem-solving and higher-value interactions.

    However, before deploying AI, consider potential drawbacks such as:

    • Misinterpretation of nuanced or complex queries.
    • There is a need for regular updates to align with evolving customer needs.
    • Potential biases in training data that may affect response accuracy.

    By addressing these challenges proactively, you can maximize the benefits of an AI-powered email ticketing system and ensure it is a reliable complement to your customer support team.

    Parting Thoughts

    Email-based ticketing systems are revolutionizing customer support for SMBs and enterprises by addressing key challenges like agent collisions, delayed responses, manual errors, and lack of collaboration. By leveraging AI and automation, these systems enhance critical metrics such as CSAT, FCR, NPS, and upsell revenue while improving customer retention and operational efficiency. Real-world examples, like Essentialist, demonstrate how businesses can achieve faster response times, better customer context, and higher satisfaction scores by adopting modern email-based ticketing solutions.

    We’ve built a state-of-the-art platform if you are an enterprise or SMB looking for an email-based ticketing system. Talk to us to know more.

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