When your organization is first beginning out, e mail is often sufficient to deal with your buyer requests. However as your organization grows, you want a greater approach to deal with these requests coming in, earlier than your assist group turns into overwhelmed.
That is the place a assist desk ticketing system can are available. It’ll monitor all the buyer requests that are available, give them a singular ticket quantity for each you and your buyer to trace, and enable you manage these requests as a way to attain crucial ones first.
Is your group able to improve from e mail? Or are you a bigger group who must discover a higher device for his or her wants? This information will enable you choose the precise ticket system in your wants.
What’s a assist desk ticketing system?
A ticketing system acts like a digital organizer for buyer questions. When somebody reaches out – by e mail, telephone, chat, or on-line – the system makes a document. This document, or ticket, helps groups observe every request till it is solved.
Assist desk techniques do extra than simply observe tickets. They typically embrace instruments to construct reply libraries, arrange self-service choices, and enhance group output. Many additionally work with different software program your group makes use of, making the entire course of smoother.
The advantages of utilizing a assist desk
Whereas extra generally related to customer support and IT, a assist desk can profit many groups throughout nearly any trade. As an example, departments like human sources (HR) and upkeep additionally subject numerous requests, and assist desk software program can maintain these messages from getting misplaced within the shuffle.
Regardless of the use case, devoted software program gives:
Higher collaboration and transparency: Assist desks be certain that everybody on the group is aware of the standing of each situation and supply instruments that assist brokers work collectively with out stepping on one another’s toes.
Elevated group and effectivity: Ticketing instruments embrace tagging, categorization, and analytics options that allow you to trace efficiency metrics and trending points. Additionally they embrace productiveness and automation instruments to assist groups streamline their operations.
Improved buyer expertise: Assist desk software program permits you to present a greater person expertise by giving customers extra company over how they obtain assist. Whether or not it is by means of self-service choices or further channels like social media, assist desks enhance clients’ entry to assist.
It advantages everybody when your brokers can work collectively to resolve issues with out friction, points are simply tracked and moved by means of the decision course of with out getting misplaced, and customers can discover solutions on their very own phrases.
Assist desk options that allow groups to do higher work
Assist desk options can range from platform to platform, however some principal ones you need to contemplate when setting out to decide on an answer in your group embrace:
Omnichannel ticketing: Most assist desks assist a number of communication channels, together with e mail, chat, telephone, social media, messaging, and video conferencing.
Collaboration instruments: Featu
res like inside notes, ticket assignments, reply templates, and the flexibility to tag colleagues in on a case make it simpler to work by means of the queue as a group.
Self-service choices: Many assist desk options have data base builders, group boards, and buyer portals to empower individuals to search out their very own solutions.
Automation and AI: Assist desks can help you automate routine duties like ticket routing. Some can also have AI options like a chatbot, writing assistants, and sentiment evaluation, all of which assist liberate your employees for dealing with points that require human experience.
Reporting: In contrast to conventional e mail or telephone techniques, assist desks embrace customizable reporting dashboards that present perception into your group’s efforts.
Integrations: Assist desks can combine with different instruments in your group’s tech stack, akin to bug-tracking software program, CRM platforms, or ecommerce instruments.
Specialised options: Some platforms provide options focused at particular industries or departments. For instance, a platform centered on IT providers could embrace instruments for monitoring units like computer systems or different company-owned tools.
This can be a chapter in our Final Information to Completely different Ticketing Methods. Whenever you’re prepared, take a look at the opposite chapters:
2024 overview: Evaluating 11 of the highest assist desk instruments
There are many ticketing options in the marketplace. Nonetheless, relying in your use case and the kind of service you present, every could have professionals and cons. We’ve put collectively a listing of 11 assist desk instruments beneath, together with ideas on who would possibly profit most from every possibility.
1. Assist Scout
Greatest for buyer assist groups.
Assist Scout is a assist desk platform that focuses on serving to groups ship pleasant customer support experiences.
One distinction you’ll discover straight away is that we don’t use the time period “ticket;” as an alternative, we name buyer interactions “conversations.” Whereas this may occasionally appear to be an odd stance for a assist desk, we imagine that no buyer desires to be a quantity.
When your clients obtain emails despatched by means of Assist Scout, they’ll appear like common emails — no loopy ticket numbers or prompts to answer above the road included.
Inbox
Whereas clients won’t ever see the impersonal facet of assist desk life, your group will nonetheless have every thing they should observe and resolve buyer points. The platform helps e mail, reside chat, and social media channels, and all communications are funneled right into a shared inbox that may be accessed through your desktop laptop or cell app.
Every dialog throughout the inbox has a buyer profile full with several types of buyer information, akin to their identify, location, earlier conversations, and data pulled from third-party sources. This gives your group with the precise info to offer contextual, customized assist.
Collaboration
Assist Scout’s inbox provides typical options like the flexibility to assign conversations to particular brokers. It additionally consists of collision detection to make sure clients by no means obtain duplicate responses and inside notes and @mentions for documenting case updates or asking teammates for assist.
Productiveness
The platform additionally helps your group kick busy work to the curb with productiveness instruments. Use workflow automations to deal with repetitive duties like dialog routing or tagging high-priority instances. Saved replies are quick textual content snippets that allow you to reply to FAQs extra shortly with a standardized response. Snooze and ship later allow you to resolve when to reply to a buyer whereas conserving your queue clear.
Docs
Many purchasers desire to assist themselves, and with Assist Scout’s data base device, Docs, your clients can do exactly that. Create a assist heart with solutions to FAQs, how-tos, and movies. Customise the appear and feel of your Docs web site along with your firm emblem and model colours.
As soon as the positioning is reside, make self-service much more accessible by including a Beacon — Assist Scout’s net widget — on any web page of your web site or inside your app. Beacons allow you to serve up useful articles within the second with out disturbing your clients’ person expertise.
AI
Assist your assist group do their greatest work with AI options that enhance productiveness whereas liberating up time to deal with extra priceless duties.
AI summarize can sum up a protracted dialog in only a few bullet factors, enabling you to stand up to hurry shortly after an escalation, when handing off a case to a teammate, or when reviewing conversations as a part of your high quality assurance processes.
AI help is a writing assistant that may assist with spelling and grammar, translating textual content into one other language, or altering the tone or size of copy composed in any of Assist Scout’s editors.
AI drafts give everybody in your group a head begin by drafting a reply to any e mail on demand. Responses use earlier conversations and your data base as supply content material; merely click on AI draft, evaluate for accuracy, and hit ship.
Integrations
Assist Scout works seamlessly with all the purposes you have already got in your tech stack. Combine with Jira to enhance communication along with your improvement group, sync up with a CRM platform like Salesforce or HubSpot, obtain dialog notifications in Slack, or set up an ecommerce integration like Shopify to permit your group to handle order particulars proper from the dialog window.
As well as, our developer’s platform lets anybody with engineering know-how create their very own customized options.
Reporting
Again up your choices with information utilizing Assist Scout’s analytics options. You possibly can observe metrics like dialog or channel quantity, worker efficiency, and even the success of your Docs web site as a way to resolve which articles are essentially the most useful and determine areas for enchancment. Assist Scout additionally provides buyer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys and a happiness report that can assist you monitor your group’s score and make applicable changes alongside the way in which.
Greatest-in-class assist
Assist Scout is an apparent selection for groups inquisitive about a customer-first strategy to assist. Our assist professionals are specialists at what they do — in spite of everything, they’re Assist Scout customers too! Now we have tons of weblog posts and lessons that can assist you get essentially the most out of our software program, and the group is out there 24/6, guaranteeing that you just at all times have the care and assist it is advisable be there in your clients.
Worth: Free trial out there. Plans begin at $22/person per thirty days.
2. Jira Service Administration
Greatest assist desk ticketing system for engineering groups.
Most SaaS firms are aware of Jira, Atlassian’s venture administration software program. Past typical venture administration options like product roadmaps, Jira is usually utilized by engineering groups to trace improvement work and bug stories.
If you happen to’re trying to department into buyer or IT assist and Jira is a part of your tech stack, Atlassian’s assist desk, Jira Service Administration, makes plenty of sense. It has your entire primary assist desk options like ticket monitoring, assignments, a data base and instruments for incident, change, and asset administration, all wrapped up in a well-known person interface (UI). Service administration additionally permits for integrations with a variety of apps together with messaging providers like Microsoft Groups and Slack, or you may code your personal customized add-ons utilizing Jira’s REST API.
High options:
Service desk for ticket administration.
Self-service portal w/data base.
Incident, change, and asset administration instruments.
AI options.
Worth: Free trial and plan out there. Paid plans begin at $17.65/agent per thirty days.
3. Freshdesk and Freshservice
Greatest assist desk ticketing system for enterprise enterprise groups.
Freshdesk is a well known assist desk owned by the mother or father firm Freshworks. Given its sturdy characteristic set, the platform is usually in contrast with Zendesk, a device lined additional down on our listing. Very similar to Zendesk, Freshdesk is greatest suited to enterprise groups, although it does provide plans for smaller companies at affordable costs.
Whereas Freshdesk is an efficient selection for customer support, enterprise firms searching for an answer that may work for groups throughout the enterprise — suppose HR, finance, IT, and services — ought to attempt Freshservice. Freshservice is the service-focused providing from Freshworks, and its Enterprise Service Administration (ESM) plan lets what you are promoting handle every thing from worker onboarding to billing to asset administration multi functional place.
High options:
Omnichannel ticket administration and self-service options.
Incident and asset administration instruments.
Workspaces, a device enabling a number of groups to securely handle their very own information and settings inside a single Freshservice account.
Freddy AI plan add-ons (writing help, summaries, reporting insights, and many others.).
Worth: Free trial out there for each merchandise. Paid plans begin at $15/agent per thirty days, and the Freshservice ESM plan begins at $119/agent per thirty days.
4. JitBit
Greatest self-hosted assist desk ticketing system.
Regardless of providing options like reside chat, chatbots, and a data base, JitBit is a assist desk service supplier that considers itself to be “email-first.” They assist a number of e mail protocols (IMAP, POP3, SMTP, and many others.) and have built-in spam safety. The platform additionally has your entire fundamentals, like a shared mailbox, workflows, reporting instruments, and extra superior options like AI drafting capabilities that can assist you reply to customers extra shortly.
One of many extra notable options of JitBit that units it other than the instruments we’ve mentioned to date is that it has each a cloud-based ticketing system and a self-hosted possibility. Whereas most companies will desire the SaaS possibility for ease of use, firms with strict safety and security necessities would possibly recognize the flexibility to self-host.
High options:
Worth: Free trial out there. Self-hosted plans begin at $2199; cloud-hosted plans begin at $24.92 per thirty days.
5. HappyFox
Greatest assist desk ticketing system for troubleshooting.
HappyFox is a assist desk that allows groups to handle e mail and social media requests from a shared inbox. This resolution can be utilized by both buyer assist or IT groups because it has all the ticket administration instruments required by each departments (assignments, canned responses, tagging, ticket actions, workflows, a data base builder, SLA administration, a reporting dashboard, and many others.) in addition to objects usually included in IT ticketing techniques like asset administration instruments for conserving observe of firm property and the flexibility to view tickets as a kanban board.
One of many extra distinctive issues HappyFox provides is its Agent Scripting device. It lets you create scripts that brokers can use throughout a name or buyer interplay. Scripts assist guarantee brokers ask good questions and supply the most effective troubleshooting steps potential. Given which you could add detailed directions for every step within the script, it may be a helpful characteristic for groups that assist software program or {hardware} merchandise or groups searching for a method to assist new brokers onboard extra shortly.
Groups that require bots, reside chat, and different channels ought to word that HappyFox packages these options individually.
High options:
Worth: Free trial out there. Paid plans begin at $9/agent per thirty days. For plans that embrace agent scripting begin, contact for pricing.
6. ProProfs
Greatest assist desk ticketing system for buyer suggestions.
ProProfs is an organization that provides a collection of productiveness and enterprise instruments. A kind of instruments is Assist Desk, which permits groups to offer e mail assist. If you’re a group of 1, ProProfs’ resolution may be interesting: Its free plan has every thing it is advisable begin supporting clients, like limitless tickets, canned responses, auto-responders, labels, and even a cell app for simple assist through a transportable system.
Whereas a free plan helps maintain service prices low, one in all ProProfs’ paid merchandise, Buyer Service Suite, is a more sensible choice for bigger groups. One characteristic price a callout is their suggestions device, Qualaroo, which helps you ask the precise clients the precise questions on the proper time. It additionally provides sentiment evaluation powered by IBM Watson that can assist you higher observe your clients’ moods and emotions towards your model.
High options:
Worth: Free trial and plan out there. Paid plans begin at $19.99/person per thirty days, and Buyer Service Suite plans begin at $99/person per thirty days.
7. Solarwinds
Greatest assist desk ticketing system for IT service administration (ITSM).
Whereas many choices on the listing will work effectively for customer support and IT use instances, some lean extra towards one group than the opposite. Very similar to Assist Scout is very suited to assist, Solarwinds is an online assist desk made for IT groups and repair suppliers.
Whereas the UI is primary, Solarwinds is an IT ticketing system constructed to satisfy Info Know-how Infrastructure Library (ITIL) requirements. It consists of instruments to assist groups with downside, incident, change, asset, and data administration. It additionally has instruments for time billing and allows you to create stories to watch issues like technician efficiency, asset stock, and buyer survey responses.
High options:
Ticketing software program.
Data base device.
Customized reporting.
Meets ITIL requirements.
Worth: Free trial out there. Contact for pricing.
8. Zendesk
Greatest assist desk ticketing system for enterprise customer support groups.
In the case of assist desks, you’d be hard-pressed to discover a platform extra in style than Zendesk. It’s extraordinarily versatile, loaded with tons of nice options, and might associate with nearly any piece of software program in your tech stack. It has an omnichannel ticketing device, macros for dealing with frequent points, workflows to assist with busy work, a data base builder, a group discussion board, analytics for monitoring ticket quantity and enterprise drivers, and highly effective AI talents, akin to a digital agent to offer ticket deflection and lowered decision occasions.
Whereas a feature-packed platform gives plenty of flexibility and energy, smaller groups ought to know that organising and configuring a Zendesk account may be tough, particularly in case you’ve by no means achieved it earlier than. You’ll find some assist of their group boards, however most people might want to put aside sources (in-house builders or outsourced Zendesk professionals) to assist with implementation.
High options:
Omnichannel ticketing together with e mail, chat, social, messaging, and ticket kinds.
Assist heart and group boards.
1,000+ apps and integrations.
AI-first options, together with AI digital brokers for quicker resolutions.
Worth: Free trial out there. Plans begin at $19/agent per thirty days.
9. Spiceworks
Greatest free assist desk ticketing system.
A number of instruments on the listing provide a free plan, however Spiceworks is the one assist desk we’re protecting that solely has a free plan. The software program itself isn’t very flashy however nonetheless covers all the bases: ticketing software program, buyer portal, data base device, primary workflows, canned responses, reporting dashboards for measuring KPIs, and compliance assurance with service stage agreements (SLAs). It additionally has a cell app for groups that have to subject service requests on the go.
One factor to notice is that Spiceworks can present its device at no cost as a result of it generates income from in-app adverts. Nonetheless, in case you aren’t bothered by the adverts, it makes plenty of sense to economize and benefit from a free device.
High options:
Cloud-based ticketing resolution.
Data base.
Reporting options.
Cellular app.
Worth: Free.
10. Groove
Greatest assist desk ticketing system for groups supporting a number of manufacturers.
Groups searching for stable options at an affordable value will like Groove. You possibly can handle buyer assist requests through e mail, reside chat, and social media, construct a data base, automate duties with rule-based workflows, distribute instances utilizing round-robin routing, maintain observe of efficiency through reporting dashboards, combine with Shopify to evaluate orders and supply info, and reply to clients from anyplace utilizing a cell app. There are even AI instruments that may mechanically recommend tags, summarize assist tickets, and assist with writing.
One use case that may very well be notably helpful to groups that assist a number of manufacturers is the platform’s unified “all inboxes” view, which helps you to view all conversations from your entire mailboxes in a single view. Whereas yow will discover methods to perform this purpose with different instruments, it’s good that Groove makes it easy.
High options:
Shared inbox to handle e mail, reside chat, and social media conversations.
Workflows based mostly on guidelines and round-robin ticket assignments.
Reporting dashboards.
Unified “all inboxes” view.
Worth: Free trial out there. Plans begin at $16/person per thirty days.
11. Hiver
Greatest assist desk ticketing system for Gmail customers.
Hiver differs from all the different choices we’ve mentioned as a result of it’s not a standalone assist desk however an extension that works inside an present Gmail inbox. Ultimate for groups of a smaller measurement, the device lets groups create shared inboxes which can be seen throughout the Gmail UI and comes with specialised assist desk instruments like e mail assignments, personal notes, and collision detection that may’t usually be present in customary e mail purchasers.
You too can reply reside chat messages from inside your inbox, create a data base for self-service, and observe developments with reporting dashboards. Hiver has even hopped on the AI practice, providing summarize, auto-close, and e mail template suggestion options to assist scale back the quantity of effort your group is dedicating to every case.
If you wish to keep in Gmail whereas including a ton of performance, Hiver ought to be on the prime of your listing.
High options:
Worth: Free trial out there. Plans begin at $19/person per thirty days.
Greatest practices for selecting the best assist desk software program for what you are promoting
In the phrases of one in all our assist professionals, there’s no such factor as a “greatest” software program platform or perhaps a device that works for many organizations. There may be solely what’s greatest for what you are promoting proper now. Take a second to think about what issues your group is making an attempt to resolve with a assist desk, what options it is advisable obtain your required final result, and which of the instruments above is the most effective match for getting you there.
Upon getting your listing, seek the advice of with colleagues, take a look at opinions on websites like G2 and Capterra, and contemplate benefiting from free trials. Many platforms — Assist Scout included — allow you to join free, no bank card required.
If you happen to’re searching for a customer-first assist desk that gives a pleasant assist expertise for each your clients and group, we hope you’ll give Assist Scout a attempt.