Announcing the Top Rated Help Desk Software for 2019

TrustRadius Top Rated

Today, we awarded the 2019 TrustRadius Top Rated badges for Help Desk Software. The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are the most trusted in the industry because they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely on user feedback and satisfaction scores. Top Rated awards are the voice of the market and are not influenced by analyst opinion, the vendor’s company size, popularity, or status as a TrustRadius customer.

Help Desk Software

Help desk software assists customer support teams in managing and automating their processes. Customer service representatives and managers use help desk software to communicate with customers, organize and route support tickets, and create self-help knowledge bases. These products may also include social media integration, which helps organize customer service responses to direct messages, Tweets, and Facebook posts. Other common features include customer self-help portals, public Q&A boards, internal knowledge bases for agents, and customer polling.

When evaluating help desk software options, buyers should consider their customers’ expectations and how well those expectations are currently being met. Are they comfortable using self-help options, or would many of them prefer to speak to an agent first? Are customers consistently frustrated or happy with their experience in certain communications channels? It’s also important to make sure that new software will integrate well with existing applications—a smoother experience for agents often means better support for customers.

Here are the winners:

Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer support solution. It offers customer service capabilities via email, phone, live chat, social media, and company websites. Teams can use Freshdesk to manage support tickets from a single inbox, automate ticket routing and management, share ownership of tickets, and link related tickets together. It also includes customer surveys, knowledge base and forum tools, SSO support, customer segmentation, metrics and reporting systems, and integration with third-party software like Zoho CRM and Mailchimp. A majority (53%) of FreshDesk users on TrustRadius are from small businesses. FreshDesk reviewers love the software’s intuitive user interface, ticket automation capabilities, and team collaboration features.

“Freshdesk streamlines team communication and allows for expedient resolution of client issues. Agents can tag each other in notes and easily hand-off or collaborate as needed. It also allows clients to feel confident that a member of the team will be monitoring the support inbox, whether I’m directly involved or not.”

– Jennifer Hess | Designer, Developer & CEO | Graphic Design Company

[easy-tweet tweet=”Freshdesk streamlines team communication and allows for expedient resolution of client issues.” user=”trustradius” template=”qlite”]

Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud is an SaaS customer service solution. In addition to supporting phone, email, social media, text, and live chat support options, Service Cloud includes tools for field service operations. It features work-orders management, automatic job assignment, and image recognition to identify assets and parts. Service Cloud can also automate case routing, email responses, and workflow processes. Its dashboards, reporting, and analytics tools help managers and executives understand current performance and identify trends. Users from midsize businesses make up a majority (45%) of Salesforce Service Cloud reviewers on TrustRadius. Their reviews frequently highlight Service Cloud’s customizable reporting and dashboards, support for detailed ticketing, and smooth user experience.

“The highest praise I can give about this product is that our employees barely “felt” its existence in that it never got in the way of reaching the information or providing the information they needed…We greatly reduced redundant work and streamlined cross-team workflows by using cases as a place to document and distribute tasks.”

– Verified User | Project Manager in Marketing | Automotive Company

[easy-tweet tweet=”Salesforce Service Cloud: We greatly reduced redundant work and streamlined cross-team workflows” user=”trustradius” template=”qlite”]

Spiceworks

Spiceworks is a free suite of IT tools that includes help desk software. Its ticketing and task system is accessible from both desktop and mobile applications. Spiceworks supports multi-site teams, integrating them all into a master help desk system. Help tickets can be automatically assigned and shared with other agents. Spiceworks also includes customer self-service features, including ticket progress tracking and internal and external knowledge base tools. A majority (62%) of Spiceworks users on TrustRadius are from midsize businesses. Reviewers value Spiceworks’s fast initial deployment, strong community support, detailed metrics and analysis tools, and free price point.

“You can’t beat a free solution, and the community behind Spiceworks is huge. Their forums are filled with fellow IT pros willing to help each other out if you submit a question…When it comes to help desk and inventory software, there was not really any competition when comparing to Spiceworks.”

– Andrew Shannon | Senior System Administrator | Warehousing Company

[easy-tweet tweet=”You can’t beat a free solution, and the community behind Spiceworks is huge.” user=”trustradius” template=”qlite”]

Zendesk

Zendesk is a cloud-based help desk software suite. It includes ticket automation, skills-based routing, customer query answer bots, a cross-channel dashboard, and reporting features. Zendesk tracks customer context with each ticket, showing agents the help resources a customer has accessed before and after submitting tickets. Website and mobile integration let customers start service calls, chats, and email conversations directly from their browser or mobile app. To help solve problems before they occur, Zendesk includes behavior-based customer messaging tools, allowing businesses to automatically reach out to customers during actions where they might have problems. Almost half (49%) of Zendesk users on TrustRadius are from midsize companies. Reviewers highlight Zendesk’s extensive customization options, intuitive UI, and detailed ticket history tracking.

“If you need a support hub, Zendesk could work wonderfully for you. It has worked well for us as our support hub, where customers can either log in and look at the history of their tickets or just enter a new ticket. We couldn’t function as well as we do without it.”

– Verified User | Employee in Customer Service | Computer Software Company

[easy-tweet tweet=”Zendesk: We couldn’t function as well as we do without it.” user=”trustradius” template=”qlite”]

ConnectWise Manage

ConnectWise Manage is a business management solution with help desk features. It supports communication through phone, email, and live chat. Each ticket captures and tracks related customer interactions to give agents context. ConnectWise Manage also includes scheduling, ticket prioritization, and team availability tools. Its automation features can escalate service tickets that become exceedingly complex, notify customers and agents, and assign jobs. Dashboards and reporting tools help businesses understand and analyze their performance metrics. A large majority (78%) of ConnectWise Manage reviewers on TrustRadius are from small businesses. Reviewers appreciate ConnectWise Manager’s per-ticket time tracking and ticket automation tools.

“Having service tickets created automatically via the receipt of a customer email has been a big help. They are even able to reopen an existing ticket by simply replying to the email thread. This makes it easier for our techs to quickly see notes and history relating to the ticket and resolve it quickly.”

– Daryn O’Shea | CFO and I.T. Guy | Computer & Network Security Company

[easy-tweet tweet=”ConnectWise Manage: makes it easier for our techs to quickly see notes and history.” user=”trustradius” template=”qlite”]

Oracle Service Cloud

Oracle Service Cloud is a cloud-based help desk solution. It supports customer communication through phone, text, live chat and video chat. It also includes self-service tools, knowledge base systems, mobile app integration, skills-based ticket routing, reporting capabilities, and field service management. To help agents better understand customer issues, Oracle Service Cloud has a co-browsing feature, allowing agents to see what a customer sees on their device. A majority (67%) of Oracle Service Cloud users on TrustRadius are from enterprises. Reviewers value Oracle Service Cloud’s extensive customizability, powerful reporting and analytics features, and comprehensive view of individual customer issues.

“Oracle Service Cloud allows for seamless customization, complex automation, and a simplified user experience — all of which drastically improves our handle times, our accuracy, and our client satisfaction ratings.”

– Verified User | Manager in Customer Service | Music Company

[easy-tweet tweet=”Oracle Service Cloud: drastically improves our handle times and our client satisfaction ratings.” user=”trustradius” template=”qlite”]

Congratulations to the winners of the Top Rated Help Desk Software Award!

Top Rated Criteria

Products included in the 2019 Top Rated Help Desk Software list must have been in the top tier of their category TrustMap as of March 15th, 2019. To qualify for the Help Desk Software Top Rated Award, products must have at least 10 reviews written within the past year, a TRScore of at least 7.5 out of 10, and must receive at least 1.5% of the traffic in their category.  Every reviewer is verified and every review is vetted before publication. Products are plotted on the TrustMap based on end-user data, including users’ likelihood to recommend scores as well as buyer research patterns. To learn more about TrustMaps and Top Rated methodology, check out this page.