Ticket Tsunami Workflow

As an ASE you are expected to use a SOW-specific amount of your workweek, on average, with each account. So what happens when all of a sudden your account submits a whole bunch of tickets (hence: “ticket tsunami”), more than you could handle without going way over your allocated time?

There are a few different approaches you could take:

1. Work the tickets in priority order. If the order is not clear, ask your main customer contacts to prioritize them for you.
2. Find some other SEs to help with some of the tickets by “working behind the scenes.” They can do research and provide you with internal notes to guide you, and leave you to communicate directly with the customer.
3. Find some other SEs to take assignment of some of the tickets, to the extent that you will be able to own and work the remaining ones.

How do you decide between these options? The short and simple answer is to let your customer decide. They’re paying to have you as their ASE, so this is their privilege. Reach out to your main customer contacts and inform them of the unusually high ticket load. Work with them to determine the relative priorities of the tickets. Then explain the options and ask them what they would prefer. In this process, be very transparent about the pros and cons that you see for each option. For example:

• Option 1:
  • Pros:
    • They’ll be working with you, their ASE, and you are familiar with them and their environment
    • You’ll be able to see the big picture - possible connections between some of the tickets, for example
  • Cons:
    • It will take longer, as you’ll only be working on the top few tickets each day

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