What is issue tracking?

Issue Tracking is a way of recording and tracking the status of customer cases, tickets, or concerns, from inbox to resolution.

When it comes to software products, issue tracking keeps track of the difficulties that consumers are encountering. While issue tracking originated as a solution for recording software-related problems, you, as a manager or a company owner, may adapt the principles to physical items, a customer journey map, and any other aspect of a company with which consumers come into regular contact.

Issue Tracking Using Software Solutions

Issue tracking does not have to be achieved by using a software solution by definition. However, the two are frequently used in conjunction. It is possible to accomplish the bulk of issue tracking procedures through an issue tracking system. This app captures client problems and guides them through a journey, making it easier for customer service representatives to see the customer’s problem timeline.

Because issue tracking is most typically used to uncover and resolve defects in software, you’ll find issue tracking systems to be more prevalent in beta and alpha software than in stable product releases.

The Importance of Issue Tracking

Fast issue resolution is very crucial to the majority of customers. According to HubSpot, 90% of survey respondents believe that a timely response is critical or highly critical when dealing with customer service issues. With this in mind, firms must keep a close eye on concerns and move fast to resolve them while remaining transparent.

How does an issue tracker function?

Assume a user tries to execute an operation in a software product, such as logging in, exporting data, or establishing an analytics dashboard. They cannot complete the assignment and contact the company’s customer service staff by email, live chat, social media, or another channel.

The problem tracker now creates a support ticket and assigns it to an agent. In rare circumstances, the agent may deliberately pick the key rather than be assigned to it. It is determined by how the team’s processes are configured.

A good issue tracker would enable support agents to look for comparable tickets from the past or present to locate a solution or spot a repeating pattern.

How To Implement Issue Tracking

To use issue tracking properly, here are some key questions you should pay attention to:

What exactly is the problem?

A problem, inquiry, grievance, or criticism raised by a user is referred to as an issue. When your customers face a problem when utilizing your product, they have encountered a problem with your product.

While difficulties are more likely to come to your team’s attention when a client complains about them, you’re also expected to discover a significant number of issues without the assistance of customers. As part of the debugging process, your team will be actively looking for subjects to remedy them before they ever reach a client.

Who is in charge of keeping track of issues?

Once you’ve identified a problem with your product, you’ll need to figure out who is accountable for resolving it – and this can be a far more difficult task than it appears. While having a dedicated manager focusing on issue resolution is beneficial, the duty of resolving the issue will often fall on the shoulders of whoever is the best capable of doing it.

For example, if the problem occurs within a form handler on your website, your web development team will likely be in charge of solving the problem. Alternatively, should your customer have difficulties installing your app, this will be delegated to your customer care personnel.

The ability to delegate is a feature found in most issue tracking systems.

Difficulties in keeping track of issues

The most challenging aspect of problem tracking is bringing issues to the surface of the conversation. Whether your problems are identified by an internal team or by customers, you must have a straightforward and effective method of reporting and addressing them. Otherwise, your team and your clients will be reluctant to use that technology in the future.

Furthermore, issues brought to light can be ignored in the future. You may have realized that there is no simple answer, that a customer has stopped responding, or that your team is too busy to solve the situation immediately. A problem can slip through your system and emerge later in any of the above scenarios.

In addition, issue tracking tends to become overly convoluted. This occurs when your issue tracking software is highly complex, when you have too many teams attempting to work together, or when you’re utilizing too many different technologies to fix the problem simultaneously. There is a deadlock, and no one knows who is in charge of setting it or how far along the issue’s resolution process is at this point.