What is Help Desk Software?
Help Desk software organizes and automates customer support processes. Other names for Help Desk software include:
No matter what it’s called, this form of software has the same goal. 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 for self-help knowledge.
Some help desk solutions offer both self-service and ticketing for support personnel. Others focus on either a knowledge center or a ticketing center.
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 for the customer requesting help.
Ticketing 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 ticketing 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:
Self Help Knowledge Base
Help desk software often lets teams create self-help resources. This helps customers to answer questions on their own, without submitting a ticket. This is known as a self-help knowledge base.
Sometimes this is in addition to a ticketing system, and sometimes it stands alone. A knowledge base can take different forms, including:
Customers can often solve their problem 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 and Desk.com include both self-help and ticketing options. Other tools, like Parature, are point solutions for a self-help knowledge base. Knowledge base 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 social monitoring, issue tracking, and engagement. Examples of products that enable social support include Freshdesk, Zoho Support and HappyFox.
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.
Help Desk Software Features & Capabilities
Ticket & Case Management
The core of most help desk solutions is the ticketing system. Common features for ticketing and case management 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, maintaining a record of every interaction.
Service Level Agreement Management
Self Help/Community
Many help desk products support self-help options on top of ticketing. These community resources can take pressure off of agents by facilitating self-service. Features around self-help and community include:
Forum functionality for customer discussion.
A searchable 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 give 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 for any planned additions when purchasing help desk software. A majority of help desk tools are subscription-based and billed per agent. Please see our Pricing Information section below for more details into how this may affect your budget.
Analytics, not just reporting: There are lot of metrics that go into managing customer support ranging from SLAs to CSAT. You could do the work of calculating these yourself, but leading help desk software takes analytics like these off your plate with automatically curated dashboards.
Integrations: Integrations are of the utmost importance in today's software-centric workdays. While some
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software support help desk features, you may still want a standalone help desk tool. However, you will also want this tool to be able to communicate with other software you use to manage your customer data and interactions. While Open API is becoming more common, it saves your team time when a particular tool has built-in integrations with software you're already using.
Start a Help Desk software comparisonPricing Information
Help desk software is usually priced as per agent per month. This means the price grows the more support agents the organization needs. Vendors typically offer a discount for annual billing. It is also usual to find multiple editions, with price 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 a more enterprise level of service.
Some small vendors provide software to other small companies. As a result, some packages are priced differently than normal. These pricing models include a one-time license purchase and a volume-based subscription model.
Some ‘freemium’ packages are available, such as Freshdesk for small businesses. Companies can use basic features for a limited number of agents without paying anything. Then they can add more features or more agents when they grow. These may work well for startups or small companies that just need the essentials.
