Helpdesk tool

These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Entire Site FAQs. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Manage consent. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.

Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website.

The majority of your support tickets are just emails, and Help Scout 's Gmail-style interface and keyboard shortcuts keep that in focus. You can have as many mailboxes as you need for support, each with their own email address, then Help Scout can further organize each mailbox into folders and categories based on rules. Dive into an email, and you'll see a familiar sidebar with information about the customer where Help Scout pulls in social media information and previous conversations to give your emails a personal touch.

Help Scout also offers your customers a quick poll at the bottom of your emails to ask how well your team did at support, and you can see your team's productivity and happiness scores along with other metrics inside Help Scout.

It's a simple, easy-to-use support tool, with the power you need to quickly answer questions without feeling overwhelmed. See Help Scout integrations on Zapier. A team inbox sounds like a great idea, but it's still hard to not wish you could just answer all of your emails right from your personal email inbox. And you can. Groove gives you a full team inbox while still letting you work from your personal inbox if you'd like. New or assigned tickets can be auto-forwarded to your email account, where you can reply, re-assign the ticket, and change its status with simple commands at the bottom of your message.

Back on Groove, you'll find a complete log of what everyone has accomplished, along with features like automation and saved common replies to speed up your work. There are also detailed reports in an easy to understand dashboard that'll show your reply ratings, average replies and time spent, and more. See Groove integrations on Zapier.

You already know how to use your email inbox, so Front designed its team inbox to work as much like popular email apps as possible. You can monitor any of your team's email inboxes, with a three-column design that shows accounts, a list of messages, and the message you've selected in one view. You can assign emails, snooze a message until later, add tags to find emails in the future, and add a comment to get more information from colleagues.

It's not just for support—but it works great for support or anything else where you need to work on the same inbox with your teammates. Front's team inboxes can work for more than email, too. It includes built-in Twitter and Facebook integrations that allow users to view mentions and messages and then reply right from Front.

Or, you can connect it to your Twilio, Truly, or Intercom to add an inbox for SMS messages, phone calls, and chat messages.

Each one lives in its own inbox, with the familiar email-style interface, for a simple way to reply to all of your messages in one app. Zapier integration with Front coming soon. Want a free support tool that can run on your own servers? It's an open source support tool that includes everything—you can answer support emails, assign tickets to other team members, create support forms, and write your help documentation all on your own server, for free. You can even tweak osTicket, by digging into its code or installing language packs and add-ons to employ extra features.

And, you can set it up to send emails through a transactional email service to make sure your emails always get delivered. It locks tickets while you're replying, so no one else can accidentally reply to the email at the same time. It also includes a tasks tool to let you create to-dos for others and make sure they don't forget to reply to important messages. With these features and more, osTicket might be a great option for you even if you weren't considering hosting your own support app.

Answering the same questions over and over gets tiring, and takes up time you could spend answering new questions or building your product. Tender Support simplifies things by defaulting to community forums, and treating your public and private messages the same. Whenever someone has a question about your product, Tender's help form defaults to having them ask a public question.

Once you answer it, any other customer can see the response and solve the problem without having to open a new support ticket. Some questions still require a private message, so your support page will include an option to send the message in this manner. Tender then automatically looks through your documentation and emails your customer a link to something that might answer their question.

You can still answer on your own, but you'll likely have far fewer issues you'll have to solve. Most support apps charge per users, making it tough to decide how many people should help with support tickets. SupportBee simplifies things by charging a flat rate, no matter how many people are helping juggle support tickets.

It's an email-focused support app—without a help center—that gives you a centralized inbox for every email your team needs to handle. New emails flow into your inbox and refresh automatically, so you'll always be on top of the freshest tickets. You can save snippets of text to quickly fill out important parts of email replies, mixing and matching snippets for each part of your reply instead of relying on full canned replies. With simple filtering to send tickets to the right team member, and SupportBee automatically suggesting snippets to use based on tags, you'll answer support tickets faster than ever.

See SupportBee integrations on Zapier. Your customers' happiness with your support team is likely linked to how fast you reply—and if you really solve their problems. Mojo Helpdesk includes a number of features to help you solve every issue on time.

You can customize your support form to make sure you gather enough information about each problem to solve it on your first try. Then, there's built-in service level agreement SLA agreements, to help make sure you answer your support tickets as quickly as you've promised. Timeliness goes beyond clearing the inbox—you'll also want to make sure you're getting faster at solving problems. Mojo Helpdesk includes a time tracking tool, so you can see how long each ticket takes and how much you've improved.

It'll even notice when you step away, pausing the timer and refreshing the inbox when you get back. Your customers can share their thoughts on your timeliness, as well, clicking a button at the bottom of your emails to let you know if they're satisfied or not. See Mojo Helpdesk integrations on Zapier. It's one thing to see a graph of your support traffic, but quite another to quickly find out that you've had more emails today than on average.

Sirportly makes it simple to find quick facts about your support queue, with its simple, real-language reports that tell "44 tickets were received today that's 4 more than normal ", perhaps, instead of showing only a graph of your stats.

You'll know at a glance how fast your team's responding, and who's sending in the most questions today—or you can build custom queries to find out anything else you want. Sirportly also makes it easy to manage all of your support, no matter how many different companies, teams, or products you need to support. You can add all of them to your account, separate support inboxes for different teams and needs, and use workflows to route tickets and automatically follow-up to help keep your support queue in check.

It can even pull in customer data from your app, to make sure you'll have the information you need to solve customer problems.

Or, if you want, you can run Sirportly Enterprise on your own servers to keep your app and support in one place. It's easy for support apps to become bloated with tools for a dozen different support-related tasks—but what if you want just a simple way to answer your customer's questions? Snappy offers that with an impressively fast app that's focused on emails, FAQs, and nothing else. You'll start out at its dashboard, which shows a large preview of messages and the time since they were received—a reminder of how long your customers have been waiting.

You can send a quick, Markdown-formatted reply there, or open the message for a full look at their email, previous requests, and more. Finding the right email to focus on is simple with Snappy's Lenses features, which are filters that help you find emails about specific topics, emails assigned to someone in particular, or customers have for too long been awaiting a reply.

You can then make an easy-to-understand support center with Snappy's FAQs, which require you to think of everything as a question. And as you're working, you can let your team know your status on the Wall, an internal social network just for your support team. See Snappy integrations on Zapier. Another promising simple support tool is the currently-in-beta SupportYard. It brings your team messages together in a simple interface, with search and tags to help you find the messages you need.

Looking for a full-featured support app—one that can manage your support emails, social networking mentions, phone calls or text messages? Each of these apps goes far beyond the basics of handling support. They're a bit more complicated and might take longer to get started using, but they also help manage every possible aspect of support you ever need—and more. Today you need to offer support via email, Twitter, Facebook, and perhaps phone.

Tomorrow, who knows which new social networks and communications tools will be most popular? Zendesk is ready either way. It's designed to enable you to help your customers wherever they are, with support for tools to add chat, SMS, and much more—along with CRMs, forms, and other tools that can add extra data to your support tickets.

If you ever need additional features, you can build your own Zendesk App or check back for a new one from their team. Zendesk is also designed to help calm your support queues by letting customers help themselves. When someone wants to ask your team a question, they'll first be shown your documentation, where Zendesk will show articles that might answer their questions.

Only then will they be able to send you a message, helpfully cutting down on repetitive questions you'd otherwise have to field.

They'll also be able to help you know how well your support is doing, through a Net Promoter Score survey at the bottom of your messages. This tool is accessed on the Cloud.

It supports both external customers and other departments of the company. Support operatives get a dashboard that organizes open tickets by time frame. These categories need to be defined by management, but they show which tickets are overdue, which are nearing their critical solution time, and which are new with plenty of time on the clock.

Other operative facilities include the steps for managing a ticket. The support team member just progresses through those steps to resolve a ticket.

This dashboard layout creates a working framework for each team member and establishes correct routines to reduce corner-cutting. Communications with the users are made through a single dashboard panel no matter what method of delivery those messages use. The messaging system enables the help desk responder to include back-office specialists on a ticket to collaborate on providing a solution. As Zoho Desk is hosted in the Cloud, team members do not have to be within sight of each other.

This allows support staff to work from home. For essential services, you can group together contributors at different locations around the globe to ensure a solution will be worked on around the clock. Zoho delivers apps for Android and iOS so your team members can access their dashboards while on the move. Self-service features of the system include a knowledge base facility that helps users find answers to their problems without tying up support staff. Forum pages allow users to post their experience in solving problems so that others may learn from that information.

Users can also post questions for the community to seek solutions and tips on getting the most out of the office system. A wide range of contact methods include phone, email, chat, and social media. However, if you want to restrict the channels through which users and customers can communicate problems with the help team, just leave those facilities disabled.

You can integrate a ticket submission page into your website with a customizable form. Managers get a live view of open tickets. The dashboard displays a card for each operative , dividing the group into those who are online and those who are not currently on their shift. The number of open tickets that each operator has to deal with is shown, and these are categorized by timeframe. The management console includes analysis tools that include reports on demand over time and the turnover of each support team member.

Specific tasks can be automated like work allocation and problem notifications. Zoho offers a day free trial of Zoho Desk to test drive the system.

Zendesk is very widely deployed on websites that offer subscription services. For example, this help desk software is very widely used in the VPN industry. The most noticeable features of Zendesk are its ticket management system and its live chat facility.

Webform , live chat , and email are centralized in the console, so the operative only needs to access one point to communicate with customers instead of having to swap between the email system, a chat app, and the web interface. Although SaaS and cloud storage providers widely use Zendesk , it is also suitable for in-house support departments , including an IT help desk. Zendesk Suite is a package of support utilities available on the cloud.

The suite includes a knowledge base platform , which can be your first port of call for users in trouble. Many calls to the IT help desk originate from users who just want to know what directory to save work in and which printer is the closest to them. So, creating user manuals and a troubleshooting guide on the company intranet will ease pressure on the support team.

Although live chat is probably more regularly regarded as a sales channel, using this feature for IT help desk provision can speed up the problem resolution process. All communications between a user and a support team member are logged in the system under a ticket number. That ticket can be forwarded to specialist staff or split to create multiple workflows.

The user is given the option to close a ticket , and if an operative closes the ticket without permission, the user can reopen the issue. The involvement of the user in deciding whether a job is finished supports team members who tend to close a ticket rather than deal with it.

It is also possible to add in a user or customer satisfaction survey during the ticket closure process to monitor staff performance. You can set goals to reduce the time each issue takes to resolve, identify the most common issues that provoke calls to the help desk, and track SLA performance. The standard reports produced by Zendesk support analysis and agreement performance delivery, but you can also create your own customized report formats.

The pricing model of Zendesk is entirely scalable. You pay a monthly subscription rate per agent. This makes a very high-quality support desk system available to the smallest of enterprises and you just add on more agent subscription as your company grows. Zendesk offers a free trial of the service so you can give it a run-through before committing any money.

Dameware is a division of SolarWinds. That company takes the top spot in this list of the best tools for IT help desks. However, Dameware Remote Support is a tool that you should consider to enhance the performance of your support technicians. This is an on-premises system and is priced per technician.

It can be installed on Windows and Windows Server environments. However, it is easy to expand your coverage just by buying in more agent licenses. As the name of this tool suggests, it enables your technicians to access user devices, explore issues, and fix problems. DameWare Mobile includes the same remote control mechanism used in the desktop version of DameWare Remote Support, so it allows IT pros and end-users to share the desktop screen during remote support sessions.

Although the Dameware system can be used for customer support, the issue of control over remote computers is easier to implement on in-house equipment. So, you can expand the use of this software beyond the boundaries of your company , but this strategy is probably better suited to internal support functions, such as an IT help desk.

The software includes a range of network analysis tools, such as Ping and Traceroute. These enable technicians to check on possible network issues if a user query sounds as though its cause is outside the endpoint device. The Remote Support tool is shipped with a number of pre-written analysis and inventory reports, but you can also specify your own customized reports. Security features of the tool include the enforcement of 2FA , and you can get access to devices that are powered off or in sleep mode.

SolarWinds operates a user community, called THWACK , where your team leaders and technicians can get tips and troubleshooting advice from fellow owners of the Dameware Remote Support system.

The company offers a day free trial for Dameware Remote Support. It acts as a self-service platform in both searchable troubleshooting pages and in a chat window format. However, it is an interesting utility, which, as an add-on to your ticketing system, can drastically reduce calls to the IT Help Desk and maximize the capabilities of unqualified help desk agents.

The AI-driven knowledge base approach of Agent. This means you could outsource your help desk functions to a call center once you have the knowledge engine of the system correctly set up. However, that approach would require a very comprehensive mapping of all the technical expertise in your IT support department.

That encompasses not only the information on how to fix a problem but the process of decision making that derives the probable cause of a problem.

In some instances, that can lead to very complicated paths. As most support technicians know, some problems are caused by an unexpected combination of errors, and it can be tough to isolate each contributing component.

The Agent. An effective support scenario implemented with Agent. This uses the Auto-pilot facility of Agent. The module asks questions of the user, successively narrowing down the problem to arrive at a solution. Once the solution phase begins, the Auto-pilot requests feedback from the user on the effectiveness of the suggestion. This process repeats until the problem is solved. The Auto-pilot can be dressed up to pose as a real person.

This can be achieved by implementing the utility through a chat window and giving it a human name. If no Auto-pilot solution works, the user should be passed on to a support agent and at this point, your ticketing system should kick in. Again, this contact can be performed through a chat screen , or it can be carried out over the phone. The support agent has access to the other format of Agent. This facility uses probability to guide the agent through investigation and solution options.

This is probably going to be exactly the same path taken by Auto-pilot. However, the inclusion of the human element at this point can help improve the interaction between the user and the AI inference engine. When all of these defenses fail, the ticket can then be passed on to an expert who, with the log of all of the facts unearthed during the Co-pilot stage, will already have much of the investigation taken care of. This investigation assistance will significantly reduce the time that each expert needs to dedicate to support tasks.

However, you will need to populate the knowledge base, and that task can take quite a long time. N-able MSP is a division of SolarWinds that focuses its efforts on providing support products for managed service providers.

Each MSP can be expected to serve several companies simultaneously. The service comes with a brandable customer portal , which enables the employees of the supported company to raise a support request ticket and receive feedback on the progress of the problem resolution. The portal is also accessible through a mobile app. Functions included in the N-able MSP Manager are a ticketing system , which creates access points for users into the support team through email or from the customer portal.

The manager also queues queries form users and allocates them to technicians. The time information that comes out of the ticket management system automatically flows through to a billing system.

MSPs using this system can generate their invoices from within N-able MSP Manager, or export the data through to a specialist billing system. As an IT helpdesk ticketing tool, Freshdesk is very effective. It can convert incoming communications into tickets, and it lets you prioritize, categorize, and assign them according to your specifications and requirements.

Collaboration is another key part of the Freshdesk solution. The team inbox is great for collaborating and boosting agent effectiveness: you can prioritize tickets with keywords, assign tickets to specific agents or groups, and filter tickets according to certain properties.

And the agent collision detection feature can merge related tickets, freeing up time. Moreover, if you receive multiple queries regarding the same issue, these are linked together and sent to one agent, certifying the solution is consistent. Freshdesk features a logging system where you can record and store everything from emails and chats to phone calls and web form ticketing. Simple problems that are queried often can be managed with automated replies.

In terms of SLA management, Freshdesk lets you establish rules pertaining to when tickets must be replied to, when they have to be solved, and estimated communication times. This enables you to monitor and measure how well agents are performing, as well as making deadlines and expectations crystal clear.

Work can be redistributed, or more staff acquired, according to the results of SLA performance metrics. Freshdesk has some unique features, including its Team Huddle platform, which creates a conversation record for a team.

This means team members with a range of skills can collaborate to solve more complicated tickets. Subtasks can be allocated to specific technicians and are tracked and recorded according to a parent-child hierarchy. Freshdesk is a great tool, but its mobile application could offer greater functionality. There are a few versions of Freshdesk available, and they can be paid for on a monthly or yearly subscription basis.

If you want to get a risk-free idea of whether this program is suited to your needs, you can access a day free trial of the Estate version, which is designed for large teams. AnswerDash is a cloud-based helpdesk tool, with a design strategy aimed to reduce the need for interactions with support staff as much as possible. This saves time, resources, and money. I was dubious about how this strategy would pan out initially but found AnswerDash has some notable advantages and is generally successful.

Provided you have an internet connection or mobile data, you can access AnswerDash over the web or via your mobile application. The AnswerDash helpdesk portal can be integrated with your own intranet or website, which is useful.

But the most impressive thing about this tool is the AI, which uses probabilities to generate the appropriate outcomes and outgoings. The instructions list, otherwise known as an inference engine, provides alternatives linked with probabilities. Inference actions are determined by the ordered probability list. In practice, this AI system delivers support functions very effectively. Another thing I like about AnswerDash is the actionable analytics.

You get real-time data, which provides you with significant insight into where support tickets originate from, sales conversions, and abandonment. This helps to inform how agents offer support. The mobile application is another nifty feature of AnswerDash.

Customers can access all the help they need via the app, and their mobile help experience is customized to fit with your overall brand, keeping their experience consistent and unified. The app also uses AI to deliver content relevant to the specific page the user is on, so all the content is appropriate to their needs. The AnswerDash app is easy to integrate: just add the mobile SDK with a couple of lines of code, and your Android and iOS applications will be ready to go.

To make this process as effective as possible, your organization needs to contribute to a database of problems and solutions. The input of your experts will establish a solution capable of addressing more issues. Still, some problems cannot be solved through self-service or AI—for example, those from an uncommon user error. In this case, AnswerDash quickly routes queries to your agents via its chat tools. The major weakness of this solution is also its main strength: its self-service focus.

This comes with advantages in terms of reducing team labor, but it requires a lot of input and makes you highly dependent on AI, which is not always reliable. If self-service is a priority for you, then this tool might be suited to your needs. ServiceDesk Plus by ManageEngine is another notable service desk management tool with a reputation for quality. It accounts for incident management, problem management, change management, and asset management, in a solution provided by an industry-leading developer.

The installed version is available for Windows and Linux. ManageEngine is owned by Zoho Corp, responsible for Zoho Desk, but chiefly operates as a separate provider.

ServiceDesk Plus aims to deliver a solution that prioritizes not just problem solving, but overall customer service and customer experience. This means offering detailed and extensive visibility, centralized controls, and a service to minimize the likelihood of downtime.

With problem management functionalities, you can customize tickets, classifying them and analyzing the root cause, so you can reduce repeats. This saves time down the line, making your system more efficient and more economical every day. ServiceDesk Plus incorporates a learning tool to manage changes in a proactive way, streamlining the approval, planning, and implementation processes by automating workflows.

With this tool, you can reduce the amount of unauthorized or failed changes, and the manual input required is minimal. The self-service portal features a knowledge base, which encourages users to solve their own queries.

This knowledge base is fully searchable and can be added to as much as you like. Again, the disadvantage of the self-service approach is it requires lots of manual input, especially when filling the knowledge base with content. The self-service portal is where support tickets are raised by users, and it gives you visibility into customer interactions with support agents.

You can see and access multiple tickets from a page within the portal, whether the tickets are open or closed. ServiceDesk Plus makes it easy for users to submit queries, allowing tickets to be raised via email, telephone, or web form.

Tickets are then assigned to agents automatically, according to the rules you have established. Rules allow tickets to be categorized, specifying things like user group, faulty equipment specifics, and department.

These rules come together to create a workflow, which is fully automated. When a ticket is assigned, the relevant technician or group will be notified by email or SMS. Three plans are on offer, with increased functionality as the price goes up. The Professional plan, for example, boasts added asset management features, while the Enterprise plan benefits from project management and ITIL tools. A day free trial is available for download, and you can choose to deploy it either in the cloud or on-premises.

Zendesk is a popular program among organizations providing subscription services. This is a simple but highly efficient helpdesk tool with an emphasis on multi-channel connection. Zendesk enables you to interact with your customers via live chat, email, social media platforms, telephone, and more.

It provides a centralized location for all your customer support relations, making communication authentic and efficient. The Zendesk approach to unifying customer support is impressive, simplifying and streamlining the entire experience for agents and customers alike. Zendesk also offers support for support mechanisms. In other words, it provides utilities specifically designed to help your support agents, making their jobs easier and the support they offer more productive.

This entails giving support agents relevant and detailed information to help them do their jobs better. The Zendesk ticket management system allows customers to submit queries through a range of channels, including email, chat applications, social media, and web forms. This helpdesk software tool is very customizable. You can create macros and share them between agents, and personalized responses can be saved as standard replies, saving time when recurring queries come up.

Query views can also be customized, so agents can choose to view tickets in a queue organized according to assignee, group, the status of the ticket, or other parameters. In addition, Zendesk offers an applications marketplace with more than apps and integrations, so you can make the helpdesk your own.

Zendesk recognizes the importance of collaboration and boasts functionalities designed to help your team work together. This helps to reduce the chance of agents colliding or working on the same ticket at the same time. These tools facilitate customers helping themselves, which reduces the time they spend with your agents. The portal empowers customers, giving them a hub for all the information they might need. The bot can automatically reply to support queries by providing links to help center articles.

Zendesk is a favorite among cloud storage providers and software-as-a-service companies. Its availability on the cloud means it can be accessed from anywhere, provided you have internet. There are benefits and disadvantages to this approach. BeyondTrust formerly Bomgar is a feature heavy helpdesk software tool.

One of the many things I like about it is the flexibility it offers, giving you the opportunity to host the tool either on premises or in the cloud.

BeyondTrust is a specialist program with a focus on centralized helpdesk teams. It offers support for both external customers and to your own staff, who might work in different departments or locations.