Glossary term
Help Desk Ticket
A help desk ticket is a single record for one customer request, with a number, an owner, a status, a priority and a deadline, that holds everything said and done until the request is resolved, so nothing gets lost between mailboxes and chats.
What is a help desk ticket?
A help desk ticket is the record created for each request or problem a customer raises, whether it arrives by email, over WhatsApp or through a help-center form, and it gets a unique number used to track it to the end. A ticket holds the requester's details, a description of the issue, a priority, an assigned agent, the current status, and a timeline of every public reply to the customer and every internal note between staff. What separates it from an ordinary conversation is a measurable commitment: when the first reply is due, when the request must be solved, and who is accountable if it slips. Service teams move to tickets when request volume outgrows memory or a spreadsheet, or when they need to judge performance by numbers rather than impressions.
Ticket lifecycle and SLA targets
| Status | Meaning | Who is waiting on whom |
|---|---|---|
| New | Arrived; nobody has started on it | The customer is waiting on us |
| Open | An agent is working on it | The customer is waiting on us |
| Pending | Waiting for information from the customer | We are waiting on the customer; the SLA clock usually pauses |
| Solved | The agent has provided a fix | Waiting for confirmation or a set period to pass |
| Closed | Finished for good | Nobody |
Tickets are usually governed by a service level agreement (SLA) with two targets that vary by priority: time to first response and time to resolution. A facilities-management firm, for instance, might treat a failed air-conditioning unit in a hospital wing as urgent with a one-hour first-response target, and a request to repaint a meeting room as low priority with a response due within a working day.
Illustrative example: a tenant messages a property manager on WhatsApp about a leaking pipe. The agent converts the chat into a ticket, sets it to high priority and asks whether water is reaching the electrical panel, which moves it to pending and pauses the clock. The tenant answers in the same chat and the reply is added to the ticket; a plumber is booked, the ticket is solved, and the tenant is asked to rate the service in the same WhatsApp thread.
In Naffes CRM
The Naffes CRM help desk is part of the Pro and Enterprise plans. Tickets have statuses and priorities (urgent, high, normal, low), internal notes kept apart from public replies, watchers, reusable macros and CSV export. A ticket with no assignee goes automatically to the agent with the fewest open tickets, who is notified, and solved tickets close automatically after 7 days.
| Source | How it becomes a ticket |
|---|---|
| Support mailbox | Flag a mailbox as a support inbox and new emails become tickets; replies carrying the ticket number in the subject join that ticket, with no duplicates |
| WhatsApp, SMS, Messenger and Instagram chats | Convert the conversation into a ticket; later customer messages are added, and the agent's reply goes back on the same channel |
| Bot handoff | An option opens a ticket automatically whenever the bot hands a customer to a person |
| Public help center | Knowledge-base articles with search, plus a 'send us a request' form that creates a ticket |
SLA policies set first-response and resolution targets per priority, with one default policy. The clock pauses while a ticket waits on the customer; breaches are checked every 5 minutes and alert the assignee, or the admins if nobody is assigned; and a ticket still open 4 hours after its resolution deadline is escalated to admins once.
SLA timing and attachments: business-hours SLA calculation cannot be switched on from the UI; the business-hours schedule is fixed (Sunday to Thursday, 09:00 to 17:00), with no per-workspace schedules or holiday calendars. The ticket screen also has no file attachments yet.
A ticket in Naffes can end with an optional rating request; see CSAT. Conversations that need no deadline or follow-up can stay in the omnichannel inbox.
Questions
Questions 2
What is the difference between a ticket and an inbox conversation?
A conversation is an exchange of messages that may be over in minutes. A ticket is a commitment to resolve a request within a deadline, with a priority, an owner and an internal record. In Naffes you can turn a conversation into a ticket whenever it needs follow-up, and replies still go out on the same channel.
Does the customer get a ticket number?
Yes, if you switch on the 'We received your request' message, which carries the ticket number and goes out on the channel the customer used. If they reply by email with the number kept in the subject, the reply joins the same ticket.