What is a helpdesk?
A helpdesk is a system that organizes and centralizes customer communications, helping you handle customer complaints, issues, and grievances faster than ever before. It helps speed up customer service and increases customer satisfaction.
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What are the benefits of helpdesk?
Here are the most significant benefits of helpdesk software:
1. Unified conversations
Helpdesks pull your conversations across multiple channels into a one-view unified conversations inbox, make it easy for you to answer customer questions quickly, without the risk of missing a query.
2. Context
The one-view inbox also helps your agents refer to the conversations that they have had with your customers in the past, giving you context and eliminating the need to make your customers repeat themselves.
3. Agent insights
They give you insights on how your agents are performing, how quickly they are resolving issues, and whether they are meeting SLAs.
4. Increased agent productivity
Having a helpdesk in place helps your agents answer questions faster and work more efficiently. They don’t need to check multiple inboxes for queries coming in because they have it all in one place. Since they have context from past conversations, your agents don’t need to waste time asking customers to repeat their queries.
What are the types of helpdesk software?
There are four types of helpdesk software. They include:
1. Web helpdesk
This refers to helpdesks that are hosted on the cloud, typically in a SaaS model. This makes it affordable and easy to scale up. Your customer support teams will only need a web browser to access this kind of helpdesk.
2. On-premise helpdesk
The company owns the system, hosts it on their premises, and has complete control over the helpdesk software. The company holds the responsibility for the helpdesk’s maintenance and functioning.
3. Enterprise helpdesk
Along with standard helpdesk features, enterprise helpdesks also have advanced features to help answer and resolve customer queries faster than ever before and increase the overall company efficiency.
4. Open source helpdesk
Here the developers do not need licenses or permissions to access the source codes. This makes it easier for them to modify and enhance the source code according to their requirements.
What are the features of helpdesk software?
Here are the most common features of helpdesk software
1. Customer interface
They have customer-facing interfaces that can be used to enter tickets and interact with your support agents.
2. Automation
Most helpdesks have rudimentary versions of chatbots that can manage very basic questions. They also have custom tickets and task reminders.
3. Live chat
They also have live chat capabilities so that your support representatives can handle complex questions.
4. Integrations
They can be integrated with your existing support software like your CRM. You can even integrate them with your chatbot platform (like Engati) if you wish to use a more intelligent chatbot to handle more complex queries.
5. Template messages
They usually offer template messages that can be personalized for individual customers to speed up responses.
6. SLA management
They allow your team to monitor your service level agreements and track overdue tickets.
What kinds of businesses should use helpdesk software?
Businesses of all sizes can reap benefits from using helpdesk software.
A small business can use a helpdesk to strengthen its relationship with its customers and earn their trust.
Large enterprises can use helpdesks to improve collaboration among teams and answer customer questions quickly, at scale.
B2B organizations would benefit from helpdesks that offer customizable reporting and escalations.
B2C organizations might focus on automation and ticket deflection.
