Using a Resolution field to track how tickets are solved

This article details a custom ticket field we use at Zendesk called the Resolution field. Where Zendesk Customer Support uses a custom About field to identify what type of requests we receive, Zendesk Customer Support uses a custom  Resolution drop-down field to track how tickets are resolved and what type of action was taken to solve the ticket.

This article contains the following sections:

Reasons for using a Resolution field

Examples of possible resolution options

Creating the Resolution field

Reasons for using a Resolution field

It's important to learn not only what types of tickets are opened, but also how teams resolve the tickets. You can use data from the Resolution field to identify resource allocation and obtain an accurate idea of how the team is functioning.

The Resolution field can also be used with an About field to provide useful information for managers and teams about areas that can be improved. These two fields provide a great feedback loop to show the full life story of the ticket.

Examples of possible resolution options

These are examples of values you might use to categorize types of ticket resolutions at a software company:

User Education - Did agents provide best practice information? Answer How-To Questions? Provide setup guidance?

User Error - Did we provide guidance to help a customer correct a mistake?

Code Fix - Did we create a new code to resolve this issue?

Operations Fix - Did we partner with our Operations team to release fix or recover data?

Finance Ops Fix - Or partner with another team for billing assistance?

Sale/Upsell - Did the solution involve a change in the user's current subscription?

Documentation fix - Did we need to create new or update existing documentation?

Custom solution - Did we build or provide a custom script/widget/app/solution?

Other Internal Dept - Did we build or provide a custom script/widget/app/solution?

Third party - Did we work with a partner to come to resolution?

Creating the Resolution field

To set up a Resolution field, you need to create a custom field. See Adding custom ticket fields to your tickets and forms.

The type of the custom field is drop-down, and the values in the drop-down will contain all of your resolution options.

You can set your Resolution field as a required field for agents to solve a ticket so that you consistently get the data about actions taken to resolve tickets.