Manually managing tickets is a complex, cumbersome, and time-consuming task. With a growing business and an expanding customer or client base, the number of requests, queries, and errors also increases. To handle these tasks efficiently, having a help desk ticketing system in place is essential. Unlike traditional on-site help desks dealing with manual and repetitive tasks (such as device rollouts and answering support questions), modern help desk software automates tasks like issue tracking and ticket management to offer real-time support and enhance the customer experience.
What Is a Help Desk Ticketing System?
A help desk ticketing system is a multi-dimensional, versatile tool designed to resolve user requests and queries through automation. It converts queries into tickets, and these tickets are tracked from start to conversion. Each ticket is tagged with time stamps and priority status based on which IT teams act quickly. The tool creates a personalized journey for users, who are offered appropriate solutions in real-time. Faster ticket resolution not only helps maximize customer satisfaction but aids in consistent business growth.
Why Is Help Desk Software Crucial for Businesses?
Help desk ticketing solutions help improve IT efficiencies and streamline various processes through automated features allowing teams to do the following:
- Prioritize tickets based on level of urgency
- Categorize tickets based on department and request type
- Designate tasks to team members based on area of expertise
- Alert teams of unexpected configuration changes
- Secure your business from potential data breaches
Outlined below are the five best help desk tools to help you identify, capture, and resolve issues faster.
Best Help Desk ticketing systems
1. Service Desk
SolarWinds® Service Desk is an IT service management (ITSM) solution allowing users to gather, manage, and prioritize incoming tickets. This help desk solution uses a service portal where users can easily submit tickets and requests. When tickets are organized in a central location, it’s easier for teams to resolve tickets coming from different mediums, including phone calls and emails. By using a customized service portal, teams can provide complete transparency into the status of the tickets. The solution also offers a service desk knowledge base with a step-by-step guide and detailed tutorials to empower users and teams to resolve tickets on their own. The scheduled reporting, advanced automation, network discovery, and API access features are included in its premium models. This enhanced help desk solution also integrates with more than 200 cloud applications to provide faster query resolution and seamless user experience. You can try Service Desk free for 30 days.
2. Web Help Desk
SolarWinds Web Help Desk® is a help desk ticketing and asset management software. Using this tool, teams can easily monitor, route, escalate, and resolve tickets and queries. Web Help Desk integrates with network management and server monitoring software to streamline the entire ticketing process with IMAP, POP, and Exchange protocols. It also integrates with incident management software (IMS) designed to allow teams to set up a parent-child relationship between an incident and its associated tickets. Once the incident ticket (parent ticket) is resolved, the related tickets are automatically closed. Automating queries into tickets with designated issues helps IT teams ensure these tickets are assigned to members with the right expertise. Moreover, teams can prevent these tickets from getting delayed by configuring alerts and reminders based on SLA priority (service-based, customer-based, and multi-level). The performance monitoring dashboards and reporting features also ensure you always know the real-time status of tickets. Web Help Desk is available to download free for 14 days.
3. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk is a context-aware cloud-based help desk software catering to businesses of all sizes. The key features of Zoho Desk include prioritizing urgent or overdue tickets, managing customer support tickets, a support portal, report creation, and a knowledge base for faster query resolution. The tool also includes easy-to-use visual dashboards to track quality metrics and analyze customer satisfaction. Zoho Desk automates tasks such as notification rules, service escalations, ticket assignments, and time-based actions by setting workflow rules. The software integrates well with clients’ in-house systems to provide faster query resolution, and it integrates with Zoho CRM to collate customer information. The help desk solution offers a 15-day free trial and a three-tier pricing model with premium features.
4. Freshdesk
Freshdesk offers an easy-to-use interface and several automated features and integrations designed to help foster the team’s workflow efficiency. The tool provides a “team inbox” feature to manage incoming tickets from several channels and platforms to a centralized location. Canned responses and automatic pop-ups provide relevant solutions to quickly answer common questions. The tool also offers a “team huddle” feature designed to bring in expertise to tackle complicated tickets. Freshdesk offers a free trial of each tier with time-tracking and satisfaction surveys.
5. Zendesk
Zendesk is a support desk software with an easy-to-use and intuitive front-end portal. The tool integrates with the knowledge base, help center, live chat software, messaging apps, and call center software to provide personalized support and real-time solutions. Additionally, it integrates with Slack to resolve customer support tickets and streamline communication and workflows. The tool collates queries from various interaction channels such as email, chat, and social media and brings them to a centralized shared inbox to provide quick support. Zendesk’s support ticketing system helps track, prioritize, and solve customer requests and queries. The premium plans of Zendesk include a basic help center, self-service support, website widgets, mobile SDK, email and social channel support, performance dashboards, CSAT surveys, multilingual content, and advanced encryption and security.
How to Choose the Best Help Desk Ticketing System
There’s no shortage of quality help desk solutions. Every solution comes with a unique set of features and integrations to provide seamless support. Still, SolarWinds Service Desk and Web Help Desk are among the best solutions available. They allow IT teams to automate ticketing tasks and track their real-time progress, and they let businesses integrate different teams to resolve issues faster. Both tools are marketed as true ITIL management solutions, as they offer a range of capture mechanisms. Although deciding on a help desk solution depends on your business requirements, it’s advisable to look for features capable of enhancing your workflow and customer support.