The Ticket That Was Never Raised
One ticket in six at a payroll bureau asks the same question: where do I download my P9? The cheapest ticket is the one never raised. Since 14 October the AWRA helpdesk suggests the answer while the person is still typing — and counts every time it worked.
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- AWRA OpsHub TeamOperations Insights
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A payroll bureau in Nairobi runs payroll for forty client companies and answers their employees’ questions through one helpdesk. In February and March the queue triples. The desk lead sorts last quarter’s tickets by subject and finds what every desk lead finds: a handful of questions, asked hundreds of times, each answered by an agent typing the same three paragraphs. One in six is about downloading a P9.
An article written the way people ask
Helpdesk → Knowledge Base holds the answers. A new article takes a title, the body in Markdown — bold, italics, links, lists and headings, with any HTML removed — keywords, an optional category, and a visibility: Requesters and public, or Agents only. It is saved as a draft and goes live when published.
The title is the part that matters most, and it should be written the way a requester would type the question: “Where to download your P9 tax certificate”, not “P9 policy”. Keywords carry almost as much weight as the title, so they hold the other words people use — P9, tax certificate, annual tax form, P9A, iTax. The desk lead also writes an agents-only article on reissuing a payslip, which agents can read from any ticket but never send to a requester.
The answer appears before the ticket does
As someone types the subject of a new ticket, the best published articles appear under These articles might already answer it. That happens on My Tickets in the app, on the employee self-service portal, on the public support form and on the new-ticket screen in the mobile app. The public form and requesters see public articles only; agents-only articles never surface outside the desk.
Each suggestion carries a This solved it button. Clicking it records a deflection and tells the person they do not need to raise a ticket. Published public articles also have their own web pages, so the desk can share the link in an email signature or a WhatsApp reply.
A deflection is a ticket your team never had to read, counted by the person who did not raise it.
What the desk sees
The agent dashboard has a Knowledge base deflection card: tickets solved without a ticket in the last 30 days and all time, the number of published articles, and the articles that deflect most. The library lists each article’s views, helpful votes and deflections, so an article nobody reads and an article that solves nothing are both easy to spot. The knowledge base feature page shows where suggestions appear and how the ranking works.
The bureau’s first week
Figures are illustrative.
One of those four is from an employee whose P9 shows the wrong employer PIN. The agent opens the ticket, and the sidebar’s Knowledge base panel has already searched from the subject. Insert link drops the P9 article into the reply for the download steps, and the agent writes the part only a person can: how the PIN will be corrected. Agents-only articles can be opened from that panel but not linked, because the requester could not read them. Agents can search and read articles in the mobile app too.
Reading and searching the library needs the permission to see all tickets; writing, publishing and deleting articles needs the permission to manage the knowledge base. For where tickets come in, see a support portal people will actually use, and for the other new channel, two-way WhatsApp.
Before you write article one
Which five subjects were raised most last quarter?
Look for
Questions with one right answer.
Why
Those are your first five articles.
How do requesters phrase them?
Look for
Their words, in titles and keywords.
Why
Suggestions match what people type, not what policy calls it.
Where do your requesters raise tickets?
Look for
App, employee portal, public form or mobile.
Why
That is where the suggestions will meet them.
Verdict
Write five articles from last quarter’s commonest tickets before you write anything clever. Title them as questions, fill the keywords with the words people actually use, and check the deflection card after a week. The articles that deflect will tell you what to write next; the ones that do not will tell you how your requesters really ask.
Deflection in more places
Suggestions reach the app, the employee portal, the public form and the mobile app. Two additions follow from how desks use them.
A new-ticket form in the customer portal
Customer-portal contacts raising tickets from the portal itself, with the same article suggestions as they type.
Searches that found nothing
A list of what people typed when no article matched, so the next article to write is already named.
Tell us how your requesters reach you and we will return a written scope and cost.
Scope self-serviceStart your knowledge base
Writing articles, visibility, suggestions on each form and reading the deflection figures.
Knowledge base guideFrequently asked questions
Where do knowledge base suggestions appear?
On the new-ticket forms in My Tickets in the app, the employee self-service portal, the public support form and the mobile app, as the requester types a subject. Requesters and the public see public articles only.
What is a deflection?
A requester clicking This solved it on a suggested article, which records that the question was answered without a ticket. The agent dashboard counts deflections for the last 30 days and all time.
Can agents link an article in a reply?
Yes. The Knowledge base panel on the ticket searches from the subject and Insert link puts the article’s link in the reply. Agents-only articles can be opened there but not linked.
Can knowledge base articles be read without a login?
Published public articles have their own public web pages that can be shared.
Who can write knowledge base articles?
People with the permission to manage the knowledge base. Reading and searching the library needs the permission to see all tickets.
