Customers can easily find flaws in a product or service. And they are impatient when it comes to fixing the flaws. They want them fixed as soon as possible. As per a study, 42% of customers expect to receive a reply to their complaints within an hour. A help desk software can help businesses in this cause as it addresses all your customer issues in an organized and time-saving manner.
Types of help desk software available
In most organizations, today, systems implemented are either on-premise or cloud-hosted. The help desk tools, in addition to these two benefits, can be divided further into three more types,
Basic help desk
Basic help desk software is often plug n play type solution that offers base ticketing system for your consumer complaints. It is possible to increase the productivity of the software by adding other features such as chat, reporting, knowledgebase, an additional point of contact, and other such features. The primary help desk software is easily scalable, and therefore it is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses. Affordability is one of the significant advantages of this type of software.
Enterprise help desk
Enterprise help desk software addresses internal issues such as IT assets, which the basic help desk software fails to cover. The software also has a more extensive database, multiple contact points, and can accommodate more consumers and users. It also includes account management, asset management, and SLA management. You can also customize it as per your company’s protocols.
Open-source help desk
This type of software is free and gives users control to modify its source code or integrate any process. You need trained developers who can tinker around the software with their coding skills and set up the workflow you require. Open-source software vendors also offer paid premium versions for additional charges which pack more robust features
Features
Here are the most essential features of a help desk software,
Ticketing Management
This is an absolute must-have feature for any help desk software. It organizes and tracks customer complaints right from their generation to resolution. A sound help desk system has the ability to display active complaint tickets in order to avoid duplication and see who’s handling them. The tool should also be able to convert all the consumer complaints received in your emails quickly to tickets.
Point of contact
How the customers are able to reach you for support is also one of the crucial factors to consider. Channels such as social media, email, chat, phone, or community can be regarded as the first point of contact. While come of these channels come ready to use with the help desk tool, others are available as add on services.
A Knowledgebase
This is one of the fundamental features of the help desk system. It combines the common customer queries that are frequently asked and forms Q&A or how-to articles. The employees can be released from these tasks of answering common questions to the consumer, and instead, help desk software can be used, which helps solve customer’s queries on the spot.
Automation
Repetitive routine tasks such as filling up forms and issuing daily reports can be easily automated using the help desk software. Task automation can take care of converting emails to tickets and then sending them straight to the agents so that they can quickly resolve them. The software can also send automatic notifications to the agent or the managers as soon as the tickets are resolved.
Dashboard
The dashboard feature can give the employee an overview of the most critical data. The data may include newly generated tickets, pending, and even urgent tickets. Managers can also see the key metrics of their team members, which include data such as their ticket resolution rate, overall performance, and a number of issues resolved per week or in a given month.
Analytics
The help desk ticketing system can also serve you as the source of fruitful marketing and sales opportunities. You can go through the most asked questions by the customers and then use them to improve your service or product accordingly. You can also organize everything in a visual representation that can give you valuable information, such as customer buying preferences and market demographics.
Customer survey
Similar to analytics, customer survey carries a specific objective of showing the customer relationship with the sales trends. You can use the feature to determine whether the volume of complaints is directly proportional to the rate of their resolution or not.
Takeaway
Looking for a help desk software for your company is a daunting process. There are a lot of options available out there, all claiming to be 100 per cent efficient. So, to make it easy, you need to first answer these two questions:
- Determine whether your company needs it?
- Does it have all the features needed?
To get you started, first check out a list of a few opensource help desk ticketing software available that you can use to understand the system correctly and deduce which features you need.
Author Bio
I am Greg Wilson, a Content Writer working with GoodFirms, a research and review platform for service and software companies. I am passionate about blogging, creative writing, social media, and content marketing. I write blog posts for GoodFirms about SEO softwares, Cloud computing, IoT development, and many more such categories.
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Contributed content
Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.