One of the best ways to keep users coming back to your website or business is to provide the best support service you can. By extension, using the right service desk software goes a long way in helping you achieve high quality.
There’s a broad range of service desk software options to choose from. Which platform you use will depend on the features you want to empower your team with. Some software emphasizes collaborative tools, whereas others focus on in-house analytics to help you streamline operations.
In this article, we’ll talk about the benefits of service desk software solutions in general, then introduce you to our five top picks.
Why Your Business Needs a Service Desk Software Solution
As customers have a greater number of online options to purchase products or services, standards for the selling companies are growing. In particular, Millennials are willing to spend up to 21% more to do business with companies with top-notch customer care. This figure is interesting, particularly if you’re working in a field with slim profit margins.
Best-in-class customer service can mean the difference between struggling to find new customers and retaining your existing user base. Acquiring new leads tends to be significantly more expensive, so this gives you an idea of how crucial support service can be.
In a nutshell, it’s in your business’s best interest to empower your support team with the tools they need to do the best job they can. Service desk software can do just that.
5 Best Service Desk Software Solutions
In this section, we’ll introduce you to five top picks for the best service desk software, suitable for most businesses. The list is in no particular order, and for each platform we’ll talk about how it can benefit you (as well as entry-level costs).
1. Freshservice
Freshservice lets you process support tickets via multiple channels, including email, phone, and a dedicated user portal. The platform is optimized to manage a large volume of requests, as it enables you to create custom rules and set deadlines for different types of queries.
With Freshservice, you can create public knowledge portals to help your customers troubleshoot potential technical issues on their own. For “simple” issues, you can set up automated responses to help lead users towards the right answers. If someone needs to get in touch with a support agent, the platform lets them evaluate the quality of service. In turn, this helps you identify problems within your team or reward outstanding work.
Price: The base Blossom plan starts at $19 per month and offers a free 21-day trial.
2. Zendesk
Zendesk offers a collection of tools for online businesses, including service desk software. Its suite lets you centralize tickets from a broad range of channels, which include live chat, phone calls, social media, and community forums.
With Zendesk, you can create knowledge bases for your users and offer live chat support for those who need extra help. The base Zendesk plan lets you chat with one user at a time through your user portal.
The platform gives you the option to configure custom workflows for your tickets and monitor agent performance.
Price: The Zendesk Team plan includes all the support channels we mentioned before, starting at $19 per month per agent. Cheaper tiers are available, but they come with more limited support channel options.
3. ManageEngine
With the ManageEngine support suite, you can manage user tickets and create self-service knowledge portals on an almost unlimited number of websites.
Using ManageEngine, you can enable users to submit support requests via email, your user portal, or through the phone. You can assign tickets to specific agents and set up custom statuses to help you keep track of the types of queries coming in.
Price: ManageEngine plans start at $10 per month per agent.
4. LiveAgent
With LiveAgent, your customers can submit support requests via email or live chat. Using the LiveAgent flexible free plan, you can chat with up to one user at a time through your website. If you want to manage multiple support requests simultaneously, the software also offers a premium version.
Other features include the ability to create public knowledge bases and set up basic automated responses for live chat requests. Plus, you get access to team-wide metrics, so you can monitor overall performance.
Price: LiveAgent premium plans start at $15 per month per agent.
5. SolarWinds Service Desk
SolarWinds offers a broad range of IT management software, including a service desk platform. Using SolarWinds® Service Desk, you can monitor tickets coming in via user service portals. The platform also gives you the option to set up an internal knowledge base to help your team quickly find the answers customers need.
With SolarWinds Service Desk, you can give users the option to answer satisfaction surveys, so you can monitor your team’s performance. Additionally, the software includes features to help you keep track of and manage your business’s IT assets.
Price: Service Desk plans start at $15 per month per agent, and a 30-day free trial is available.
Conclusion
Service desk software solutions offer a collection of tools to help you provide better customer support. That can be a boon to any business, regardless of what type of products or services you offer. By offering top-notch support, you can keep customers happy and increase the chances they’ll want to do business again in the future.
What service desk software you use should depend on your business’s unique needs. Given this, here are our five top picks along with their prices:
- Freshservice: Plans start at $19 per month with a free 21-day trial available.
- Zendesk: The Team plan costs $19 per agent per month.
- ManageEngine: Plans start at $10 per month per agent.
- LiveAgent: Premium plans start at $15 per month per agent.
- SolarWinds Service Desk: Plans start at $15 per month per agent with a free 30-day trial available.
*As of August 4, 2020. Pricing shown in USD.