Hiver vs. osTicket

One scenario where Hiver works really well is in a shared support or billing inbox or anywhere multiple team members need access to the same messages. For example, when a customer emails about a billing question, we used to reply and manually loop in the billing team or forward the message. That often caused confusion, especially when someone forgot to “reply all” or responded only to the teammate instead of the customer.Now with Hiver, we just assign the conversation to the billing inbox, and whoever is available can respond. Everyone on the team can see the thread, status, and notes, which avoids duplicated efforts and missed replies. We also used to rely on Google Groups, but it wasn’t clear if someone had already replied, and there was no easy way to collaborate behind the scenes. Hiver completely solved that for us.As for situations where Hiver might be less ideal, I’d say if your team isn’t using Gmail or Google Workspace, then it’s probably not a good fit. It’s really designed for teams that live in Gmail so the team doesn't have to learn a new system. I'm sure some businesses will require a more robust ticketing solution but for our use case, this was a perfect option to improve outcomes, client service, and satisfaction.

Incentivized

For beginning smaller companies that are in need of partially automating their incoming requests this product is easy to set up and will assist in structuring these request[s]. These requests can come in via email/phone or web portal. For companies that are beginning to streamline their support procedures, this tool can be a first step into automating part of these processes. This is also how user[s] should see it. It is merely a tool that can assist in structuring the incoming request flow the rest still has to be fit into business processes.

Incentivized

• automation through rules
• tagging emails, anaylics behind them
• support, chat always responds right away

Incentivized

• osTicket is extremely user friendly for end users and support agents. It's very easy for new end users to put in a service request. This aspect of simplicity is important because we don't have to train new users on how to put in service requests.
• Feature wise osTicket has everything you need without being overly complicated or cluttered. This is important for us because it allows for faster support times and happier end users.
• Lightweight and very reliable, osTicket uses PHP and MySQL. Setup is easy and it can be hosted internally or externally web hosed. Also, since it relies on PHP it gives you flexibility to use Apache, Nginx , Lighttpd , IIS, etc.
• Thriving community: the community behind osTicket is feature-wise. Which is very helpful if you have any questions.
• Best of all, osTicket is completely free and open source. While they do offer pair tier cloud-hosting and enterprise support. The free version offers all the features of the paid tiers (minus hosing and support).

Incentivized

• It could be considered expensive, but ultimately worth every penny for those who use shared inboxes/groups to run their business.

Incentivized

• Language package should permit also the translation of the templates
• It should not require the user to enter his details when creating a new ticket. This should be filled automatically
• Improve the layout of the ticket messages to facilitate reading and interpretation.

It does well what I was looking for on a ticketing tool

Easy to use

I am familiar with osTicket and this allow me to teach all the staff and support them whenever they have any concern regarding the usability and following processes.

Support is there, can be slow at times.

Being open-source it is community supported. There is a hosted version that provides better support. Honestly, I have not really needed support

Incentivized

Grant all prerequisites are met, before installing to avoid any issue during the installation

True ticketing solutions are certainly more robust in that you can typically manage social media channels and phones, etc. But, in my opinion, when you don't have a team solely responsible for managing a ticketing system they can be complicated to implement. With HIVER, we're already all accustomed to managing our own G-Suite inbox, so it was simply a matter of teaching the team how to utilize the solution.

Incentivized

osTicket has proven to be a very useful tool for the team to help support the business. Open-source was the right price point and self-hosting as mentioned was quite important (however I believe that osTicket does have a hosting solution available if needed). Jitbit was a close contender but didn't like how it doesn't separate people submitting tickets from users acting as agents. So all in quite happy with the choice.

Incentivized

• The ROI on showing how many emails are being received and addressed in a timely manner are great for KPIs
• the ability to search and ensure emails are not being deleted as an automatic report is sent out the following day saying if any emails were deleted by whom
• the ability to automate who gets assigned what emails from specific vendors per entity

Incentivized

• When we had a hosted version of osTicket, we were saving some time by having them work on our setup, but we were spending a lot. Switching to our own osTicket build from their open sourcing not only saved us money upfront but we actually spent LESS time developing because we knew our ideas and didn't have to explain them to another (unrelated) party.
• Creating our own ticketing infrastructure for institutional data requests has been a game changer for us. We have been able to interface with our enterprise email client and create a level of customization that meets our existing informational technology culture.

Incentivized