Developers Guide to zendesk

Taking ownership of support

• Developers should take full ownership of support tickets.
• By default, if you are unscheduled you should log into support and review all ‘open’, ‘pending’ and ‘new’ tickets.
• You should not wait for the Support Manager to assign you to a task.
• If you have no ‘open’ or ‘pending’ tickets that you have chased up by phoning clients, ask other developers if there are any tickets you can pick up to help them.
• If you have done all this and only at this point can you mark yourself as ‘unscheduled’.
• At no point should the Support Manager log into Zendesk and find ‘open’, ‘pending’ or ‘new’ tickets when a developer has marked themselves ‘unscheduled’.
• You should tag and CC yourself into the ticket you are working on and ensure that you complete the fields on the left hand side as per the step by step training guide here.
• If multiple developers have worked on a ticket, please ensure you are all tagged and CC’d into the ticket. (Please note that if you are not CC’d in you will not be receiving any email notifications)
• If tickets come in from clients which do not have a clear brief. Do not go back and forth messaging the client. Pick up the phone immediately discuss the work, summarise the agreed work on Zendesk and get the client for approval.
• Be proactive and call clients if they have not responded to tickets.
• Closing tickets - If a ticket has been opened and resolved within a day, the developer should close the ticket and summarise time spent to the client.
• There is a minimum charge of 1 hour for PAYG clients. Even if a task takes 0.25 hours, the client is still charged an hour.
• If a ticket spans over multiple days, leave an internal note for the Support Manager to update the client with time spent. Please ensure these tickets are tagged with ‘Support review’. This informs the Support Manager to summarise the time spent to the client and close the ticket.
• Client budget enquiries or complaints need to be escalated to the Support Manager.
• We should add a QA field which should be required. ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ option. This means the devs will need to consider whether the task needs to be QAd before even starting the task. If in doubt, the developer should put through QA. Salema, to supervise the process and can amend status if needed.

Site access documentation

• In order to gain access to a client site, you should look for site access documentation in Google docs or look on the client’s ‘writeboard’ on Basecamp.[b]
• If they are incomplete, missing, you cannot find the right site access documentation or are having problems logging in, let the Support Manager know.

  Internal notes

• As soon as you have picked up a ticket please add an internal note to say that you have taken the task.
• Always make internal notes to capture what has been discussed on phone calls with clients and what work has been agreed
• Make notes of ideas/resolution so other devs can pick up work in case of absence/holiday or if they are scheduled on project work. It helps the rest of the team have visibility of client requests and task status
• When writing notes on Zendesk, please sign off with your name so we know who posted the comment
• When work is ready for QA, you must inform Salema by writing an internal note in Zendesk

  Client Management

• Ensure you are clear on the task before starting.
• Each task needs one ticket, if a client logs multiple requests, a ticket needs to created for each request
• If you have any problems whatsoever, ask the Support Manager for help

  Ticket numbers and logging hours

• When logging hours please ensure you provide the ticket number to us as we need to link the time you spent to the correct task in Tickspot 'Open', 'Pending' and ‘Solved’ ticket status
• 'Open' tickets are tickets we need to respond to. Mark tasks that need a response from NDP as 'Open'
• 'Pending' tickets are ones awaiting client response. What do you need to do: Please ensure you revert tickets that need a client response as 'Pending'
• Solved tickets: If a ticket spans over multiple days, leave an internal note for the Support Manager to update the client with time spent. The Support Manager will then close this ticket. Please ensure these tickets are tagged with ‘Support review’.
• Solved tickets: If a ticket has been opened and resolved within day, the developer should close the ticket and summarise time spent to the client

  Estimating and tracking time spent

• Developers will take ownership of estimating tasks.
• When estimating a task, please use the term ‘estimate’. This means if we exceed the time, we can feedback to the client that it is an estimate. Under no circumstances should you use the word ‘quote’ or an equivalent word. Example, ‘We estimate 1.5 hours for this task’
• When estimating tasks, developers should consider not only the time needed to close the task but also time needed for the following: comms with client, internal comms with team, production meeting, QA and estimating and any other activities that accrue time.
• Do be mindful that some work will need design and IA, if unsure, please do not go ahead with the task. Either speak to the Support Manager or the Creative team for clarification before starting any work.
• Do update the client on how much time you log daily.
• Do make an internal note of how long you have spent and let us know if you needed assistance from another dev and the time they spent

  Picking up tickets which have not been assigned by Support

• The assignee of the ticket must always be NDP Support, this ensures that Salema has visibility of all tickets. To do this, click ‘Take it’
• Before going unscheduled view other developers tickets

  Unscheduled board and logging hours

• Devs spend a max of 30 minutes - 1 hour on support admin everything else should be billed.
• ‘Support Admin’ - means looking through tickets assigned to you and also asking other devs if there are tickets available that you can pick up.
• If on support, mark on the unscheduled board you are on Support.

0203 102 5295 ● www.ndp-studio.com ● One Aldgate ● London EC3N 1RE [a]Our mission statement is central to everything we do. Everything from our work to our attitude must relate our to the principles of Simplicity, Quality, Methodology and Professionalism.

Notes to add

Developers should create tickets if they get leads directly from clients. [b][email protected] - I thought we are adding the links under the organisation profile in Zendesk?