Custom Fields and Ticket Forms
Every field you add is a question you make a customer answer. Some earn that cost. Most do not.
Fields versus forms
A custom field captures one piece of information: a product area, an order number, a plan tier. A ticket form is a named set of fields shown for a particular kind of request.
Forms let you ask a returns question a returns question and a technical question a technical question, instead of showing every customer every field. On plans that support multiple forms this is the single biggest improvement you can make to your intake.
Which fields are worth it
A field earns its place if the answer changes what happens next: routing, priority, or a report you actually read.
Fields that fail this test: anything agents fill in later "for reporting" and nobody ever reports on, and anything a customer has to guess at. A guessed value is worse than no value, because it looks like data.
The cost of a long form
Each required field costs you some percentage of people who abandon the form. Some of those abandon quietly. Others email you instead, which produces a ticket without the fields you were trying to capture.
And a few do both, which produces two tickets about one problem: one abandoned-then-emailed, one submitted after they came back. The tidier your intake form, the fewer of those you get.
Frequently asked questions
How many custom fields should a form have?+
As few as change what happens next. Three or four well-chosen fields beat ten that agents fix afterwards.
Can I have different forms for different request types?+
Yes on the plans that include multiple ticket forms, and it is one of the better reasons to be on those plans.
Fewer fields, fewer duplicates
People who abandon a long form often email instead, then submit anyway. Ticket Merger merges the pair.
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