Best Help Desk Software

It is crucial for every organization to be able to efficiently address and resolve issues and requests raised by their customers and other users. These issues can be of various types such as support or product related and can vary depending on the nature of the business.

In the event of not having a powerful ticketing system, issues may be addressed by the respective team members manually but there are high chances that these issues will not be dealt with effectively or efficiently. Alternatively, to ensure that all end-user issues are logged, matched, monitored, and recorded by the IT help desk or service desk, a robust ticketing system is required, in order to streamline the support process.

In the event of not having a powerful ticketing system, issues may be addressed by the respective team members manually but there are high chances that these issues will not be dealt with effectively or efficiently. Alternatively, to ensure that all end-user issues are logged, matched, monitored, and recorded by the IT help desk or service desk, a robust ticketing system is required, in order to streamline the support process.

There are certain factors that need to be taken into consideration when choosing a helpdesk software. These are:

1. Support Styles

First off, identify how customers try to reach you. While some of them may try reaching you via email, others may prefer to use livechat, social media or the good old telephone. Ensure that the support software you choose is in alignment with your customers' expectations and your own style of support.

2.Usability

An intuitive and approachable UI for your support software ensures that your agents can start supporting right from the word 'go' without the need for any special training. An important point to note here is that higher prices do not necessarily mean a better helpdesk any more than a complicated UI guarantees feature-richness.

3. Price

Do your research, scout around, compare features, read up reviews and only then decide upon the right help desk software that fits your business workflows better. If you are just starting out, even a free helpdesk software can be more useful than just using email.

With an ocean of help desk solutions vying for your attention out there, what are the best ways to zero in on one that will be a perfect fit for your company?

The first step should be to define the complete range of service that you intend to provide to your users. This will give you a clear indication of the kind of features and functions that your help desk software should ideally have. While there are solutions available in the market that offer the full spectrum of customer service features, there are others who cater to niche areas of functionality. Review the features, analyze use cases, compare them across brands and find the perfect fit.

Be clear about what your budget is. Most help desk solutions have pricing models that are calculated on a per agent basis. So depending on the size of your team, look out for help desk solutions that offer maximum features at a reasonably low price.

Once you have zeroed in on the right solution for your business, make sure to try it out. Most providers nowadays offer a free trial and/or a free plan of some sort. To be convinced about the software's performance, your whole team should get on board to test it out with customers having different kinds of issues. Whether or not a help desk works for you depends equally on its offering and how well it is set up. With EngageBay, it's completely integrated with other features and it's easy to set up and easier to use!

In case the product has a knowledge base or online user manuals to guide you through the setup and execution, read and understand them well.

Customer service isn't a temporary thing. Neither is it a 30-day affair. In case you feel you need more time to evaluate the software, ask the provider to extend your trial. Take the time to run through as many of your team's use cases as possible.

Once you've evaluated all available options, purchased a suitable help desk software, and deployed it, it is natural that you'll want to know how it has impacted your customer service. This will help you understand if implementing the help desk is justified or otherwise. To understand the performance of the help desk software, you only need to look at the parameters that determine the impact and those are already present in your help desk itself:

• Pay attention to customer feedback
• Keep a tab on the average agent response time and average the duration of customer interactions.
• Make note of the average first response time and ticket resolution time.
• Find the number of overdue tickets before and after implementing SLAs and workflows.
• Keep track of the number of open tickets and escalated issues.