HelpSpot vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)

HelpSpot is well suited for streamlining support ticketing within the organization. By providing a single point of contact to email for support, we were able to increase response time and case resolution by approximately 30% through the increased efficiency of ticket routing via workflows and the ability for IT support staff to grab tickets from the queue instead of having them pile up in a mailbox that contains other emails as well.

Incentivized

SolarWinds WHD is well suited if you have a limited budget, as it costs less than many help desk software packages that are more full featured and modern in their design. It is not well suited to an environment where you want to manage inventory, users, purchases and tickets all in one package. It has an asset feature that we don't use but that looks quite limited. We track our assets and users separately from this.

Incentivized

• HelpSpot was great for organization. Having different queues allowed each of my team members to organize their conversations with the customer and quickly retrieve the history of the ticket.
• HelpSpot is a fairly simple tool that has a friendly user interface. With it's more modern look, it made it easier for me personally to navigate and train team members on how to use it successfully.
• HelpSpot allowed our team to view the responses section, which allowed our team to cut down on the time we spent responding to a ticket.

Incentivized

• Customized reporting allows us to track our service and support better, and find where we need improvements. This allows us to constantly upgrade our service levels and keep the customers happy.
• Detailed tracking and response to the end users have led to quicker remediation of tickets. We are able to see where we need a better response or where to add additional resources for support.
• Overall metrics allow us to staff properly for our tickets by location and remote users.

Incentivized

• The UI is a little dated but to be fair, shows most of the pertinent information at a glance on a well designed dashboard.
• The UI can also be buggy at times with controls appearing in strange places. These glitches are usually corrected within a reasonable amount of time.

• Because of AD integration, users sometimes try logging in with their email address and not AD credentials. The user then calls stating they can't put a ticket in, it would be nice if there was a method of matching the AD Email field with a login.
• Setting up new techs with the building they are responsible for can be a little messy

Incentivized

My current job does not use this platform as it is not necessary for my job function.

Incentivized

We are definitely going to be sticking with Web Help Desk for the foreseeable future since the product is very inexpensive for the features that it provides, the integration that it has with our existing systems, and the ease for managing users, assets, locations, and tickets. Web Help Desk is a great product that is backed by even better support, which is well worth looking into if you are considering moving to a new ticketing system.

Incentivized

The system has time and time again proven to be much easier to use and setup for both technicians and end users. It is simple enough to enter a ticket for end users, and even easier to communicate with logging back and forth because you can reply to the ticket emails to enter comments on the tickets. The technician side is a little clunky at first, but after looking at it for a few minutes it's very clear to see what you need to do to accomplish the goals. The mobile interface is snappy and responsive. It's a great product overall.

Incentivized

SolarWinds is a great customizable and affordable ticketing system. We use SolarWinds Web Help Desk for IT and Software
Development trouble ticket tracking and resolution. The reporting that
SolarWinds provides is great since it helps us discover problem areas and fix
those areas so they don't keep reoccurring

Incentivized

Take the time to roll out a test VM to configure and make changes to before doing a live deployment, this way you don't end up with a VM that has been tweaked and re-tweaked until it's perfect and instead end up with a final, polished product. I would also recommend taking the time to read through the support forums for figuring out minor issues that may pop up, chances are that you aren't going to be the first one to encounter them. When all is said and done, SolarWinds Support is VERY responsive and you shouldn't hesitate to contact them.

Incentivized

HelpSpot appears to be more of an old-school product but much of the recent technology is running under the surface. It has much of the compexity and customization available with Jira in tandem with the easy communications interface, not unlike Zendesk ,and some of the potential archival intelligence (in the works) of Fogbugz

Web Help Desk is definitely lacking in the UI/UX department compared to most other ticketing systems I have used int he past. It's very utilitarian; however, what it lacks in UI it makes up for in extensibility and customization. The main issue that the developers need to address is the use of a Web Objects back-end.

Incentivized

• Improved ticket response time
• Workload reporting to upper management
• Ticket category reporting to identify training opportunities

Incentivized

• Amazing impact on our Organization, we are much more organized since we implemented SolarWinds Web Help Desk
• The ROI is in the statistics! The application cost pennies to run compared to what the product will do for your organization.
• I challenge you to find a better product for the price!
• Our documentation has improved since we implemented SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Incentivized