Help Desk Software

What is Help Desk Software?

Help Desk software organizes and automates customer support processes. Other names for Help Desk software include:

• Customer service management software
• Service desk software
• Customer support software

The goal of software under any of these names is the same. It creates a single point of contact for users to connect with a company. When customers cannot solve a problem, they can easily reach out for support and self-help knowledge.

Some help desk solutions offer both self-service and ticketing for support personnel. Others only provide ways for service desk employees to directly support customers. Standalone knowledge management systems can be used as self-service-only solutions.

Most help desk software integrates with live chat software and call center software. Alternatively, some customer service suites offer these capabilities built-in. Most will also integrate with related platforms, like a CRM.

Integration makes the software more functional and information more accessible, contributing to a smoother experience for the support agent and the customer requesting help.

Ticketing and Service Desk Issue Tracking System

The ticketing system is the most important part of help desk software. Customers use a portal to create a support ticket. The ticket is then submitted to the right person or department.

With a project management approach, help desk software lets users track, prioritize, and route tickets. This process can be automated or directed manually, often with collaboration across departments.

Multi-channel support uses the same issue tracking system across multiple channels. This includes live chat, email, web forms, and phone, and may also include social or other channels. The system integrates the progress of a ticket into a single interface, regardless of where the issue originated.

Based on user feedback in reviews, there are certain things to keep in mind. Look for these features as you’re determining whether a ticketing system is right for your use case:

• Customer ticket fields
• Billing based on support usage
• Differentiated support for various accounts

Knowledge Base Systems

Help desk software often lets teams create self-help resources. This helps customers to answer questions on their own, without submitting a ticket. These are known as knowledge bases, a type of self-service knowledge management system.

A knowledge base can take different forms, including:

• Discussion boards and forums
• FAQs
• How-to articles
• Pop-up tips & recommendations

Customers can often answer their own questions using these resources. This means fewer support tickets and more efficient work for support agents. Many help desk tools also include the ability to create an internal knowledge base that can help agents answer questions more quickly and accurately.

Platforms like Zendesk include both self-help and customer service options. Point solutions for knowledge base systems, like Document360, are also available. Knowledge management point solutions let users create and share self-help knowledge with customers and support agents.

Social Support

Social support integrates your help desk with social media platforms to bring a new level of service to customer support. This integration allows for social monitoring, issue tracking, and engagement. Examples of products that enable social support include Freshdesk, Zoho Desk, and HappyFox Help Desk.

Social support tools help agents communicate directly on social media. As customers ask questions or share complaints on social media, agents can respond faster and more publicly. Usually, agents can respond to Tweets or Facebook posts within the help desk interface. This helps keep social media support organized alongside other support channels. Even without a ticket, social media communications are an important way to interact with customers.

Customer Service Management

Help desk software also offers plenty of features that can help businesses better manage their customer service teams and make sure things are running smoothly. Managers can set and update service level agreements (SLAs), and track how well expected response and resolution times are being met. Managers can also assign and reassign tickets to specific employees to ensure ideal workload distribution. Reporting and analytics can provide further insight into team performance and ways to improve it.

Help Desk Software Features & Capabilities

Ticket & Issue Tracking

The core of most service desk solutions is the ticketing system. Many customer service management and analytics features fall into this category as well. Common features for ticketing and issue tracking include:

• Ticket creation - Allows users and agents to enter new support requests
• Ticket response - Allows agents to follow up with customers. This often includes automated responses
• Workflow/Escalation - The ability to route tickets to appropriate support personnel
• Documentation and collaboration - Agents can attach files and notes to tickets
• Service Level Agreement Management - set rules for when tickets need to be claimed and solved, distribute workloads, etc.
• Ticketing history, reporting, and analytics - view activity and metrics at the individual ticket level as well as across the organization

Self-Service/Community

Many help desk products support self-service options on top of ticketing. These community resources can take pressure off of agents by reducing incoming requests. Self-service and community features include:

• Forum functionality for customer discussion
• A searchable, external knowledge base
• Public Q&A for the benefit of other customers
• Internal knowledge base to help agents answer support questions
• Surveys and polls, for customers to submit ideas and leave feedback

Multi-Channel Communication

Most help desk solutions enable communication via multiple channels. Multi-channel features offer easier access to support for customers. Multi-channel communication also creates a more convenient platform for agents. Common multi-channel features include:

• A customer portal for users to submit tickets and access self-help resources
• Live chat within a software product or on a company website
• Phone support. This includes call recording, contact database, Interactive Voice Response, call routing, and call scripting
• Social integration with platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This often includes “social listening” tools for brand activity monitoring and reporting

Help Desk Software Comparison

To compare different help desk tools, consider these factors for each product offering:

Number of agents: Keep in mind the size of your team and any planned additions when purchasing help desk software. A majority of customer service management tools are subscription-based and billed per agent.

Analytics: There are a lot of metrics that go into managing customer support ranging from SLAs to CSAT. Leading help desk software provides the most important information to you in automatically curated dashboards.

Integrations: Your help desk software should integrate with the other software your customer service team already uses, particularly your CRM. This will make your support team’s job significantly easier.

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Pricing Information

Help desk software is usually priced per agent per month. This means the price increases the more support agents the organization needs. Vendors typically offer a discount for annual billing. It is also common to find multiple editions, with pricing dependent on features.

For the typical subscription model (per agent per month), pricing starts at under $10 for basic features. Subscriptions can run up to $200 per agent per month for enterprise packages.

Some smaller vendors offer a different pricing model, which requires both a one-time license purchase and a volume-based subscription model.

Some vendors offer limited free plans, allowing companies to use basic features for a limited number of agents. Then they can add more features or more agents when they grow. These plans may work well for startups or small companies that just need the essentials.