Your True Cost Per Ticket
Most teams quote a cost per ticket that ignores overhead. This one does not, which is why the number comes out higher.
Your true cost per ticket
Every duplicate ticket in your queue costs you this number twice. Cutting duplicates is the cheapest cost-per-ticket win available, because it needs no new headcount and no new process.
Stop paying for duplicatesThe formula
Cost per ticket = (fully loaded people cost + tooling cost) divided by tickets handled.
The mistake is using base salary. Benefits, payroll tax, equipment, software and the management time spent on the team are all part of what a ticket costs, and adding them typically moves the number by 25% to 40%.
Include your helpdesk licence, your telephony, your survey tool and anything else the support team could not work without.
What a good number looks like
It varies enormously by segment, so comparing against an industry average is close to useless. Compare against yourself instead.
Track it monthly and watch the direction. If cost per ticket is climbing while volume is flat, handle time is growing. If it falls while CSAT falls, you have cut something you needed.
The duplicate distortion
Here is the part that trips people up. Duplicates make your cost per ticket look better, not worse, because the denominator grows.
Two tickets for one problem, both handled, means your average is dragged down by the cheap second one, while your total cost went up. So a team that fixes duplicates often sees cost per ticket rise, while total support cost falls.
Track total support cost and tickets per real problem, not just the average.
Frequently asked questions
Should I include managers in the people cost?+
Include the share of their time spent on support. A support lead who spends half their week on the queue counts as half a person.
Do duplicates make cost per ticket look better or worse?+
Better, misleadingly. They inflate the ticket count so the average falls while your real spend rises. It is the most common way this metric lies.
Cut the tickets, not the service
Duplicates are the only volume you can remove without a single customer noticing.
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