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Introducing TOPdesk in a sales environment
Updated July 31, 2020

Introducing TOPdesk in a sales environment

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with TOPdesk

We started using TOPdesk to be able to meet SLA criteria for an ICT hardware and services contract with the Dutch government. We have defined multiple services, each with their related SLAs. Every customer interaction between the Dutch government and Bechtle-Buyitdirect is logged and processed in TOPdesk. SLA performance of the contract is reported on a weekly basis for each related service. Based on the positive results we currently expanding the use of TOPdesk within our public vertical. We mainly use TOPdesk to support the RMA process for a demanding set of our public customers.

25 - Customer Services - After-sales
Account Management - Sales
Service Delivery Management - After-sales
  • Easy to understand end-user interface (both internal as well as self service portal)
  • Easy to configure / maintain
  • Easy to add new developed features to your SAAS platform (marketplace)
  • Easy import facility to do relative simple data imports for base entities
  • Search for specific data in your recorded interactions (both internal as well as from the self service portal)
  • Increasing workflow automation possibilities using APIs
  • Using custom fields in your SSP web forms. Currently, every field you enter (despite some standard ones like objects, contact details, category, short description,...) is stored in the request field. This makes it difficult for further process this data using HTTP actions.
  • Plugin to push planned tasks to outlook is difficult to setup. Take a look at Salesforce.......
  • TOPdesk gives us the opportunity to meet quality criteria in public tenders (increased our win chance)
  • Improved customer satisfaction because we have better control on our RMA requests. This reduces the number of telephone calls with our customer services.
  • Online customer insight in the SLA performance (previously we had to figure out data from Excel and Outlook on demand)
  • Support online tracking of delivery services for our customers. This reduces the number telephone calls with our customer services.
  • Integrated accessibility to CMDB information and service partner information increased the efficiency of processing customer RMA requests
  • TOPdesk
We have assessed TOPdesk together with ServiceNow, Salesforce Service Cloud (we already use Salesforce), Heat and Cherwell. Reason for chosing TOPdesk:
- SAAS (requirement)
- Pricing model (functionality versus license model) --> relative low investment to start TOPdesk
- Easy to use
- Availability Self-service-portal
- Easy to maintain
- Many customers in the Public domain (lock in)
The support is very good. Good knowledge base, easy to access support (never run into discussion about whether a question is support or consultancy), transparant roadmap, many new features launched, new features are easy accessible. Also communication with account management is very good.
TOPdesk has proven so far that it is capable of improving their product quite rapidly while it still is an easy to use application. Both from end-use perspective as well as functional maintenance. Strong points are the developments on action sequences and the possibility to use PowerBI for data presentation and to combine TOPdesk data with data from other data resources. Reason for the seven is their struggle with SAAS performance. Though it is definitely not bad all the time, there are periods in which performance is not acceptable.
Suited for:
Provding support services in the public domain. We noticed it is really an advantage since many of our customers in the public domains also use TOPdesk.
Quick start for base first- and second line processes with less human resource effort. TOPdesk OOTB comes with ready to used first- and second line processes. There is not much knowledge and effort required to get started and keep your base configuration maintained. Also the license model is flexible to grow with your business. Overall this allows you a quick start of using TOPdesk with a minimum of exploitation effort and costs.

TOPdesk Feature Ratings

Incident and problem management
8.2
Organize and prioritize service tickets
9
Expert directory
Not Rated
Service restoration
8
Self-service tools
8
Subscription-based notifications
8
ITSM collaboration and documentation
8
ITSM reports and dashboards
8
ITSM asset management
8.0
Configuration mangement
8
Asset management dashboard
Not Rated
Policy and contract enforcement
8
Change management
7.5
Change requests repository
7
Service-level management
8

Using TOPdesk

3 - We started using TOPdesk pretty much OOTB. Last year we increased workflow automation and system integration with TOPdesk systems from customers using action sequences. Action sequences are very powerful (can save a lot of manual backoffice tasks) but require a little more technically skilled support resources (coding Json).
  • Connecting to customer TOPdesk systems to act as an integrated secondline/thirdline service provider for our customers.
  • Workflow automation for logistic service delivery processes
  • Standardization of our service portfolio en managing service contracts
  • Asset registration for lifecyclemanagement
  • Automate and integrate our lifecycle service model with our customers and partners
  • Optimize and professionalize our customer communication --> interaction management

Using TOPdesk

I completely fits our current needs, it is easy to use and maintain (low costs) and new developments get seamlessly integrated.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • OOTB processes for incident- and change management
  • Setup mail triggers and mail templates
  • Setup assetmanagement templates
  • Standard data imports/exports
  • Setup RBAC (internal and external)
  • Workflow automation using action sequences
  • Odata connector for PowerBI
  • Consistent use of database field names in the different modules
  • Accessing unique identifiers
  • Missing type of interaction management (it is in the works I believe)
Yes, but I don't use it

Integrating TOPdesk

We are missing the possibilty to SOAP XML (to connect to some partner systems), but I can understand the choice made to move forward with RestAPI.
  • Other TOPdesk systems (from our customers)
Integration using action sequences. Easy to establish (APIs are well documented).
  • Logistic system partner
Not at the moment since they use SOAP XML. But the are moving to RestAPI in future.
  • File import/export
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
We use the CSV export tool in combination with WinSCP (to automatically export data to customer systems in CSV format).
I can't think of anything.

TOPdesk Implementation

At the start we hired a consultant from TOPdesk to overlook overall scope and take that into account by setting up the initial configuration. This was very beneficial to understand the impact of choices made from a broader perspective.
  • Implemented in-house
Change management was minimal - We use change management but not in the way it is designed for: we used it as an ordering module to set out service tasks to our partners. We are using simple change setup in combination with change templates, which was quite easy to implement
  • Adoption of TOPdesk by the organisation (organisation is used to work with mail system).
  • We are a sales organisation; organisation does not always understand the added value of a service management tool in particular.
  • We are part of a global organisation with a very restricted infrastructure. It was difficult our infrastructure ready to use a SAAS application like TOPdesk (email domain, no integration possibility with in-house tools).

Evaluating TOPdesk and Competitors

  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
Many of our customers in the public business use TOPdesk as well.
Not, we made the right choice at the time.

TOPdesk Training

  • no training
Yes, they also have good documentation, self service (knowledge items) and support desk.

Configuring TOPdesk

It is pretty well configurable. It is always a balance between OOTB/ease of use and complex to maintain. I believe TOPdesk is well balanced from this perspective.
No.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code

TOPdesk Support

ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
No - Current support is good and should also be part of the total package (support should always be premium).
Yes - I have reported a bug in our data imports. This was quickly resolved by the support team of TOPdesk.
When we started using Action Sequences we had some very detailed questions about how to code some workflow components. Many vendors would have stopped regular support for that and tried to sell professional services. The guy worked on our case was very passionate to get our problem resolved.

TOPdesk Reliability

We have not yet much experience for scalability. There are some good features to make TOPdesk more scalable, for example the value mapping as part of action sequences.
Last year we face a lot of performance issues on the SAAS platform. Last three months showed a more stable performance. We did not face any daytime outages in the last three months.
See previous question. They improved on performance compared to last year.

Relationship with TOPdesk

Account manager was easy to access and was willing to adapt the pricing model to our usage (we try to improve the TOPdesk ecosystem with our customers).
No additional comments.
The usage of licenses (we are an MSP that is using TOPdesk mainly as a 'pass through' system).
We have only contact once a year (maybe even less). From a sales perspective I would be more involved with my customer (how is TOPdesk usage, are there any threads for contract renewal.....)

Upgrading TOPdesk

  • This question is not applicable to use. We are on the SAAS platform.
  • We are currently looking into moving towards the new asset management module.
  • We are very interested in interaction management / activities / tasks (new setup)