Help Desk Software for Maximizing Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

Are you using a shared email inbox to communicate with your customers? Have you missed responding to certain emails? Do you find it difficult to make customers happy? If you’ve been searching for a solution for these problems, you’re sure to have come across the term help desk software and probably wondered what it means.

If you want to know how a help desk software can help you communicate better and improve your relationships with your customers, you are in the right place. This page is going to answer the following questions -

What is a help desk software?

A help desk software streamlines customer conversations across channels into one place, keeps track of user requests, and enables you to communicate with customers more easily. Some businesses might even use a help desk system to manage internal IT-related requests.

A help desk software is also known as a help desk ticketing system, or simply a ticketing system because it records customer interactions as ‘tickets‘. Let’s understand how this works with an example. Let’s say a customer emails you or reaches out to you on social media. Here’s what will happen next:

- Your help desk tool will record the incoming query as a ticket. 
- Each ticket is categorized, prioritized, and assigned to a support rep. (You can set up automation rules on your help desk software to automate these processes or do this manually.)
- The agent will view the ticket, get context of any prior interactions, and reply right from the help desk software. 
- The agent’s response will then be sent to the customer on the channel in which they raised the ticket.

What are some challenges with help desk software?

1. Integration with other systems: Help desk software needs to integrate with other systems such as customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and project management software to ensure seamless workflow and data consistency. However, not all help desk software can integrate with all systems, leading to data silos and manual data entry.

2. User adoption: Getting all stakeholders, including support agents, managers, and any team that agents will need to collaborate with, to adopt the new help desk software can be a challenge. This can be due to resistance to change or lack of understanding of the benefits of the new software.

3. Customization: Every business has unique requirements and processes, and some help desk software may not be flexible enough to accommodate these needs. This lack of customization and one-size-fits-all approach will hinder your agility from keeping up with customer expectations.

4. Reporting and analytics: Generating meaningful reports and analyzing data is essential for understanding customer support trends, improving support processes, and making informed business decisions. However, some help desk software may not have robust reporting and analytics capabilities, making it difficult to gain insights from customer support data.

5. Scalability: As the volume of support requests increases, the help desk software must be able to scale to meet demand, without sacrificing performance or reliability. Some help desk software may struggle to scale, leading to slow response times, errors, and customer dissatisfaction.

6. Data security: Ensuring that sensitive customer data is protected is a critical concern for many organizations. Some help desk software may not be compliant with global requirements, or not have adequate security measures in place, such as encryption and access controls, putting customer data at risk.

What are the different types of help desk software?

Cloud-based help desk software

A cloud-based or SaaS-based help desk software is a help desk tool that is hosted and delivered over the internet, a.k.a the cloud. All you need is a laptop or a phone to log in and you can use the application from any server or location. With a cloud-based help desk solution, you don’t have to download any application or invest in hardware. 

The benefits of a cloud-based help desk software don’t end there. You’ll have a quick time to value, almost zero lags, and you don’t need to spend time and money on maintenance or security. Plus, you’ll have a lot more independence in terms of being able to customize your solution without any technical assistance. 

On-premise help desk software

Unlike cloud-based help desk solutions, self-hosted or on-premise help desk software are stored locally on your company’s server. The biggest benefit of using an on-premise help desk solution is that you have full control over where you store data, and hence security is never compromised. 

However, most cloud-based help desk software today comply with international security standards, including HIPAA and GDPR guidelines. Plus, making changes on an on-premise help desk system can take a lot of time, and you could face frequent downtimes for upgrades or maintenance. 

Open-source help desk software

An open-source help desk software is an application that has its original source code available for modification. Enterprise businesses with specific, robust requirements typically prefer open-source help desk software. 

Open source software requires a village of technical specialists to take the help desk live. A cloud-based help desk solution is a reliable alternative to open source help desk software since the former offers a lot of flexibility and can accommodate specific requirements too. 

Solopreneurs and small businesses

The main difference between a solopreneur and a small business is that a solopreneur needs a streamlined system to manage customer communication on their own, while small-sized businesses have a small team to offer support. However, both require a small business help desk software with automation capabilities that help them focus purely on answering tickets while the routine tasks are taken care of. Small businesses can benefit from a help desk that can -

• Automatically tag, categorize and prioritize incoming requests. 
• Remove the need to juggle the same inbox, folder structures, and logins between various team members in small businesses.
• Enable canned responses for frequently asked questions instead of answering them over and over again.

Medium-sized businesses

Mid-sized businesses focus almost exclusively on growing rapidly. So they need everything a small business requires plus advanced capabilities that can help teams deliver fast, personalized service at scale. A good help desk tool will help a growing business - 

• Ensure agents honor deadlines for solving customer problems with SLA automations. In case deadlines aren’t met, helpdesks can also automatically escalate tickets to managers.
• Prevent multiple agents from trying to answer the same ticket.
• Collaborate with external vendors without compromising on transparency. 
• Set up self-service options to free up your team’s time.

Enterprises

Enterprises require different teams to work cohesively together without impacting the customer experience. Enterprises need a way to measure their team’s performance and implement strategies to optimize costs and effort where necessary. An enterprise helpdesk software can help in the following ways -

• Manage agent availability across shifts, geographies, time zones, and languages, and route tickets to the right agent to get the quickest response possible.
• Integrate with other tools the business uses, such as CRM software, billing and payment systems, package trackers, etc., to get the right information necessary to solve a ticket.
• Bring your sales, marketing, and support teams together to increase visibility into each other’s workload and enable better collaboration.
• Any good help desk needs to be compliant with industry standards for data protection like TRUSTe, ISO 27001:2013, SSAE - 16 & HIPAA, SOC I, II, III, and so on. Make sure the help desk you choose has data centers across the globe and enterprise-class in-product security features to help you manage your data security challenges.

Freelancers

A help desk software can help freelancers streamline all client communication into a unified inbox. With a help desk solution, freelancers can keep track of updates in a single thread and prioritize their work better. Additionally, freelancers can also -

• Track time spent on supporting clients and invoice them accordingly without mundane paperwork for raising estimates or bills. 
• Optimize work hours to focus on high-priority tasks first by using automations to remind you about deadlines. 
• Document terms and conditions on a knowledge base that can be shared with clients. 

How do you choose the right help desk software?

With a ton of options available, choosing the best help desk software for your business can get quite overwhelming. Here are five tips that can help you choose the right help desk software:

Channels of support

How do customers try to reach you? Do they get in touch with you via email, social media or phone? Or do they prefer to chat with agents directly on your website? Make sure the support software you choose fits your customer expectations and your style of support.

Usability

A support software with intuitive and approachable UI means your agents can start supporting immediately without needing special training. Higher prices do not automatically mean a better help desk, and a complicated UI does not necessarily imply feature-rich.

Price

Do you have to pay per ticket or user, and which will be more feasible? Will the pricing be sustainable in the long run? Shop around, compare features, read up reviews and then decide which help desk software fits your business workflows better. A higher price is not the guarantor of quality, and if you are starting out, even a free help desk software can be more beneficial than just email.

Scalability

Will this help desk software scale as your business grows? Can your help desk help you manage large volumes of tickets across channels with multiple automations, agent groups, and SLAs for meeting deadlines?

Flexibility

Can the help desk software support your unique business needs? Can you integrate your entire tech stack and set up workflows based on data flowing in from other tools? If you want to use the help desk software for IT support as well, how easily can you differentiate between customer and internal support requests? 

What are the essential features of a help desk software?

Every help desk software or ticketing system is different. Some provide a basic platform that requires you to set up a lot of integrations and plugins before it is support-capable. Others need you to log in to talk to your customers. Some require you to integrate with reporting suites to analyze your performance, while others have AI crunching your numbers. Whatever the individual capabilities may be, you will need these six essential features in your help desk.

Mistakes to avoid while buying a helpdesk software

When buying a help desk software, it's important to avoid some common mistakes to make sure the software meets your business requirement, can equip your agents with the right tool, and can help deliver a great customer experience.

1. Not evaluating your needs: It's crucial to understand your business needs and goals for customer support before choosing help desk software. Otherwise, you may end up choosing a software that doesn't meet your requirements, leading to dissatisfaction and potential switch to another solution in the future.

2. Neglecting scalability: Choosing a help desk software that can't handle growth can be a costly mistake. As your business grows, your customer support needs may change, so it's important to choose a software that can grow with your business.

3. Ignoring integration: Integration with other systems, such as CRM and ERP, is crucial for avoiding manual data entry and data silos. Choosing a software that can't integrate with your existing systems can lead to inefficiencies and frustrated employees.

4. Underestimating the importance of user-friendliness: A help desk software that's difficult to use can lead to low adoption rates among employees and customers. When choosing a help desk software, it's important to consider how user-friendly the software is, so that everyone can use it effectively.

5. Not considering data security: Sensitive customer data should be protected, and a help desk software should have security measures in place to ensure that data is protected. Neglecting data security can put your business and customers at risk.

6. Skimping on training and support: Training and support are crucial for ensuring that employees can effectively use the help desk software. Skimping on training and support can lead to low adoption rates, ineffective use of the software, and frustrated employees.

7. Overlooking analytics and reporting: Analytics and reporting capabilities are crucial for gaining insights into customer support trends and improving processes. Overlooking this aspect of the software can result in a lack of visibility into customer support operations and inefficiencies.

8. Ignoring customer feedback: Ignoring customer feedback can result in poor customer satisfaction. It's important to consider customer needs and preferences when choosing a help desk software to ensure that customers are satisfied with the support they receive.

9. Failing to consider costs: The total cost of ownership for a help desk software can include subscription fees, integration costs, and training and support costs. Failing to consider these costs can lead to unexpected expenses and budget overruns.

10. Not considering future improvements: Help desk software needs to constantly evolve to stay in touch with customer behaviour, and it's therefore important to choose a software that can be easily updated and modified. Neglecting to consider future improvements can result in having to switch to a new system in the future, which can be time-consuming and expensive.

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