Top 11 Help Desk Softwares for 2023 - Ultimate Guide

What makes a great help desk software?

All businesses need a way to manage communication with their customers. In the early days, it's common to create a simple email address like support@company_name.com and use it for customer service requests. This is fine to start with, but as the volume of customer inquiries increases and more support agents are hired, a help desk becomes necessary.

Why do you need a help desk software?

The job of a help desk software is to unify conversations from all channels, routing of incoming tickets, measure and improve customer satisfaction & integrate with other apps.

The "best help desk software" for a company depends on their specific use case. However, in general, here is a list of things you can expect from help desk software:

The 11 best help desk software for 2023

To assist you in your search, we have compiled a list of all popular help desk software in the market.

1. Richpanel

Best help desk software for scaling your customer service without hiring more agents.

Richpanel is a complete customer support platform that packs all features needed to deliver outstanding customer service and delight customers with super-fast resolutions.

Multichannel inbox

With Richpanel help desk software, you can manage customer communication from email, live chat, SMS, Instagram, Facebook, and phone calls all in one place. The inbox integrates with all popular apps to bring customer context such as ecommerce orders, CRM data, loyalty points, and more next to each ticket.

This multichannel capability and integrations eliminate the need for agents to switch between applications, making their work streamlined.

Other features of the inbox include:

Self-service portal

Enable your customers to resolve common issues immediately and in real-time 24/7. The self-service portal integrates with your cart platform, allowing your customers to perform common actions such as order tracking, editing orders, cancellations, and returns without the need for agents.

The self-service portal is similar to Amazon's "My Account" section, which has become the go-to tool for Amazon customers to resolve their issues.

Live chat

The live chat software enables customers to receive real-time assistance while browsing your website or mobile app. The appearance of the live chat widget can be customized to match your brand and make it your own.

With the campaigns feature, you can proactively engage customers based on specific conditions. During off-hours, the chat widget converts into a contact form and collects all necessary information to reach out to customers when agents resume work.

Reporting

The Richpanel help desk software also comes preloaded with default reports that measure all aspects of your support centre’s performance. The reporting goes beyond regular help desk software and enables you to analyze what topics customers contact you about, self-service rates, and customer retention, satisfaction, and revenue influenced by live chat.

Integrations

Richpanel help desk software integrates with several apps to simplify agent workflows. Integrations bring additional context inside the agent inbox, eliminating the need to switch between applications. Integrations play a crucial role in executing rules based on data from other applications and enabling workflows to take actions on external apps

Popular use cases include allowing customers to track order status in self-service, letting agents edit orders from the help desk, and asking customers to leave a review on Trustpilot after a positive customer sastisfaction survey rating.

Mobile app

Richpanel help desk software offers mobile iOS and Android apps users on the move. These apps are perfect for customer service teams who need push notifications to resolve customer issues while away from their desktops. With the mobile apps, you can easily manage your customer support workflow and provide excellent service, no matter where you are.

2. Zendesk

Most popular amongst enterprise teams

If you're considering a help desk software solution, chances are that you're either already using Zendesk or thinking about using it.

Zendesk was one of the first companies to offer cloud-based help desk software and has since acquired several companies to add a host of other capabilities, such as live chat, chatbots, knowledge base, social media integration, and phone support. It's a preferred solution for enterprise teams and integrates with over 1,000 apps.

Because Zendesk is sector-agnostic and allows for customization, users often struggle to determine which features they want to use and how to customize it for their specific needs. Another issue is that it's extremely difficult to get support from their customer success team, who have relatively small numbers compared to their large customer base.

We have heard complaints from customers paying over $100K in annual fees struggling to receive adequate support.

3. Zoho Desk

Most cost effective alternative to Zendesk

Zoho started as a Salesforce alternative but has since ventured into many other categories, including Zoho Desk, a help desk software solution. Like all of their products, Zoho Desk has all the essential features of  modern help desk software too, such as ticket management, automation, and knowledge base.

Zoho has never been known for innovation or great UI. The interface for all their products is basic and cluttered. However, you'll get an affordable help desk tool that can do the same things as Freshdesk and Zendesk.

4. Freshdesk

Help Desk solution with the best chatbot builder.

Freshdesk started as a “better & cheaper alternative” to the incumbent, Zendesk. Their claim to fame was that their online help desk software, was more simple and “fresh” compared to Zendesk. In many ways, players like Freshdesk have put pressure on Zendesk to upgrade their products which is obviously good for the end customers.

Freshdesk help desk solution in many ways is similar to Zendesk in terms of capabilities, number of integrations and also takes a horizontal approach which makes it a flexible product for all kinds of use cases. One advantage over Zendesk is its flexible chatbot platform, which can be used for a variety of use cases.

However, setting up this help desk system can be complex and time-consuming.

5. HubSpot Service Hub

Best Help Desk software for Hubspot customers

HubSpot is a well-known company that offers both CRM and marketing automation software. Among their products is HubSpot Service Hub, a cloud-based help desk software that provides advanced features, such as a ticketing system, customer relationship management tool, automation, and a knowledge base.

If a business already uses other HubSpot tools, it may find Service Hub to be a natural fit due to its seamless integration with HubSpot's ecosystem.

However, because HubSpot Service Hub is a relatively new addition to their product portfolio, it is not as feature-rich or mature as their CRM and email marketing platform. In particular, the live chat widget and ticket assignment features have room for improvement.

Additionally, all HubSpot products have the same login, unlike Zendesk or Freshdesk, which have separate UIs for each product. This can make the HubSpot UI feel cluttered, and a customer service manager may see and have access to a lot of things they will never use. Similarly, a marketing manager will see and have access to a lot of areas they will never use.

6. Intercom

Best for SaaS companies

Intercom began as a free live chat tool, and its messenger became popular due to its modern design and interface. The company has since added other products to its suite, including a help desk tool, ticket management, product onboarding tours, and in-app messaging.

SaaS and tech product teams looking to streamline the user onboarding journey and provide live chat support often choose Intercom. The tool offers great UI and integrations. However, the pricing can quickly become expensive, as it is based on agents, contacts in your database, and monthly users.

Many customers have complained that the pricing is not only high but also unpredictable.

7. Gorgias

Popular amongst Shopify merchants. Best for low volume support teams.

Gorgias started as a Chrome extension that assisted Gmail users in drafting and using canned responses. They soon discovered that most of their users were customer service agents; who used it to reply to their support requests and messages.

Consequently, they pivoted to becoming a Shopify app and now serve as a lightweight alternative to Zendesk for Shopify merchants.

The Gorgias help desk tool integrates with more than 150 Shopify apps, making agents' work more manageable. If you're a customer service agent working on a Shopify website, this tool can save you a lot of time in switching between different applications.

Currently, Gorgias has over 10,000 merchants who use their Shopify app. Their pricing is based on ticket volumes, so it can be expensive if you have high ticket volumes.

8. Help Scout

Best for businesses that want to prioritize email support

Help Scout is best suited for businesses that prioritize email-based customer support and collaboration within their support teams. It's help desk solution is well-regarded for its simplicity and ease of use, making it suitable for businesses of various sizes.

Help Scout's full knowledge management functionality is particularly beneficial for companies aiming to provide self-service options to customers.

Businesses seeking a customer support solution with robust reporting and analytics features will find value in Help Scout's ability to provide insights into customer support processes, customer satisfaction scores and performance.

9. Hiver

Basic helpdesk for small businesses. Built inside Gmail.

Hiver is best suited for businesses that heavily rely on Gmail as their primary email and customer support platform. It is particularly useful for teams that require shared inboxes, streamlined email collaboration, and efficient workflow management within the Gmail environment.

It’s not the ideal help desk software as the business scales or if you have too many agents but if you want to continue using Gmail while adding collaboration features & clear assignments then Hiver is a good choice.

10. Kustomer

Best help desk for customer 360 view.

Kustomer is a help desk software & CRM well-suited for businesses that prioritize unified customer 360 profiles and personalized customer experiences. Kustomer started off on the premise that customer data exists in silos across multiple applications and their software helps teams to unify this data and make it available to agents inside the CRM.

This help desk software does require decent amount of developer effort to get it working and build the unified customer 360 profiles.

11. Jira Service Desk

Best ticket management system for incident management

Jira Service Desk is commonly used help desk software by engineering teams, but it can also be useful for support teams as a central location for reporting and tracking bugs.

Users can create custom workflows and forms to ensure smooth project management. They can also assign statuses to specific tasks to keep everyone informed. Reports provide support reps asset management with insights into the work being done and the overall workload, providing context for asset management, bug-tracking and requests.

The best free help desks

If you have budget constraints or do not have enough support volume to justify paying for a dedicated help desk software, the following two free help desk support software may be suitable for your team.

Google Collaborative Inbox

Best free help desk for teams that already use G Suite.

If you're already using Gmail and looking to add some structure to your support efforts, Google Collaborative Inbox might be a good option. Think of Collaborative Inbox as a shared folder that multiple people can access from their personal email accounts.

Setting up Collaborative Inbox is relatively simple. First, set up the email address. Then, create a Google Group (if you're not familiar, check out this link). Finally, add people to the group. That's it! Now, everyone in the group can respond to emails in the group mailbox without sharing login information, which is a huge security benefit.

In addition, Collaborative Inbox allows you to assign conversations to different group members and set statuses for different conversations (e.g. closed, on-hold). You can also set different permission levels for collaborators, though this capability is somewhat limited.

Outlook Shared Mailbox

Best for free help desk for teams that already use Microsoft Outlook.

If your team uses Microsoft Outlook for email, you may want to explore the Outlook Shared Mailbox option. It is identical to Google Collaborative Inbox: you create a group and invite other members to it.

Outlook Shared Mailbox allows people to work from the same email queue and assign emails to different group members. If you already use Outlook, setting up a shared mailbox won't cost you anything extra.

On premise vs cloud-based help desk software solutions

Help desk software can be classified based on where the software is hosted:

• Cloud-based: This kind of help desk software is hosted online through a vendor's site or an application. To access the tool, you log in to the site or application and generally pay a monthly or yearly fee.
• Self-hosted: Also known as an on-premise help desk software, is installed directly onto your own servers. It could be something you build yourself or purchase from another company. Like cloud-based software, it is proprietary.
• Open source: Open source help desk software lets developers access the source code of a program directly, giving them the ability to customize the software in whatever way they see fit. This software is generally non-proprietary, meaning there's no single owner of the program.

Although, the above may come into play when making a purchasing decision, if you're buying a help desk software, 99% of the time it'll be cloud-based. All of the 11 options listed above are cloud-based help desk tools.

There may be instances where you purchase a help desk software that is installed directly on your own servers. However, this is not incredibly common or practical for most teams due to the associated cost of installation and upkeep of the help desk software.

Another, and possibly more useful, way to categorize help desk software providers is in relation to who you're using the help desk software to serve. In that case, there are two categories: internal and customer-facing.

• Internal: This help desk software is typically used to manage IT-related issues. Employees can log tickets directly with your IT team, making it easier to manage and organize those requests.
• Customer-facing: Customer-facing help desk software is generally used by customer support teams to manage incoming customer conversations. These tools vary in functionality, but most include a shared inbox and some form of collaboration, productivity, and reporting tools.

Richpanel Launch Plan For Clients

How to choose the help desk that's right for your company

Choosing the appropriate help desk software for your company can be intimidating. Every provider boasts about their product being better than anyone else's, with a list of features that are supposedly superior.

While the help desk software you select cannot deliver great customer service on its own, it is an essential first step in establishing customer support at your company. The right help desk will enable your team to consistently provide high-quality customer service.

Making an informed decision starts well before you begin comparing feature lists. To find the best help desk software for your needs, begin by answering questions about your customers, team, and company.

Defining "Great Customer Service" for Your Company

When you're in the midst of comparing help desk options, it's easy to lose sight of why you're doing it. You're not looking for the "best help desk software" because there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The right help desk for you is the one that enables your team to provide the best and most consistent service to your customers.

To determine which help desk can achieve that goal, you need to understand the type and quality of customer support and service that you want to offer. Here are some questions to help guide you:

• What type of support do your customers expect? Your customers will have their own preferences, so it's important to understand them. Do they prefer email? Are they comfortable with self-service tools? Do they expect a response within an hour or a day? Look for clues about their expectations and current satisfaction levels.
• What kind of experience do you want to offer your customers? Imagine the ideal customer support interaction from your customers' perspective. Do they need to use a website to get help, or can they simply send an email? Can they contact support through multiple channels? Can they easily answer their own questions using self-service tools?
• What kind of experience do you want to offer your support team? - TBD

As the first line of customer retention, you want to ensure that they have the right service desk tool. Help desk software that is clear, usable, and visually appealing will save them time and effort that they can then devote to your customers.

Determine what needs to change about your current support

Whether you're moving from a shared Gmail mailbox or switching from one help desk tool to another, this change presents an opportunity to rethink your customer support approach.

For example, many small companies use their support inbox for all types of company contacts. This means their one- or two-person support team handles everything from sales contacts to domain renewal notifications and advertising offers. Years later, the sales team is still receiving forwards from a much larger and busier support inbox! Choosing a new help desk is the perfect time to consider separating these contacts into a separate mailbox or automating their distribution with workflows.

Look at your current customer service activities and consider the following questions:

• Is this still the best way to resolve this issue?
• Is this approach essential to our customer experience, or could we achieve the same result another way?
• What can our team do now that we weren't capable of the last time we evaluated our tools?

Once you have a clear picture of the customer service you want to offer, you can use it as a benchmark to evaluate help desk features. Regardless of the help desk software you choose, it should help you deliver the type of service you have outlined.

Select Your Must-Have Help Desk Features

It's time to create a list of must-have and "nice to have" features for your help desk. Ask your customer service team to list all the customer service tasks they can think of and sort them into two buckets.

Help desk software that has all essential features is better than a service desk tool that implements more "nice to haves" but misses a key requirement:

• Must-have help desk features: If the help desk cannot perform X, we cannot create the desired customer service experience.
• nice-to-have help desk features: If the help desk can perform X, it could potentially improve the customer experience.

Try to keep the first list as short as possible. Features that sound good on paper but are poorly implemented or rarely used can frustrate your support team and harm good service.

By focusing on core requirements, you can reduce the effort required to choose the best fit and allow yourself more time to test your shortlisted help desks.

To evaluate each feature and categorize it as essential or non-essential, ask your team these questions:

• Does this feature need to be built into the help desk, or could we connect a separate tool that does the job better?
• Are there legal requirements we need to meet (e.g., data storage and privacy controls)?
• What value does this feature add to our customers? To our team?
• Are there technical requirements to meet (e.g., data format and accessibility)?
• What other products or services do we need to connect this to? Is it possible?

Exclude from consideration any products that don't cover all required features (either directly or through tight integration). The next step is to create an evaluation team to test your shortlisted help desks.

Features your need in your help desk software solution

Depending on your specific use case, certain features will be more important than others. However, whether you're using a help desk software for internal or external conversations, there are several key features to look for.

User-friendly interface

Any new help desk software takes time to learn. However, some help desk tools have much shorter learning curves than others. The sooner you're able to train agents, the sooner they can get back to supporting others.

Attend demos for all the help desk software tools you're considering, and when you've narrowed it down to your final few, do a live trial if possible.

If you can, have people from multiple disciplines participate in the trial phase. Managers, agents, and operations folks will use the tool in different ways, but it's important that any tool you choose works well for all those different use cases.

You should also experience what it's like from the submitter side. Submit a request and have a few back-and-forth interactions to understand what it's like to use the help desk software from both sides of the conversation.

Automation and self-service capabilities

After hiring a few team members, you should consider whether your ticket volume is proportionate to your business. Many businesses operate an inefficient system, manually dealing with issues instead of automating issue resolution. While this may be acceptable in the early days, it is critical to solve for this as you grow.

You should avoid a situation where you have already hired several agents, you invest in automation and then realize there's isn't enough work to keep all the agents busy.

Businesses like Amazon and Uber have done an excellent job of investing in self-service technology.

With Amazon, you can cancel, edit, or change the shipping address of an order without contacting anyone. With Uber, you can dispute a cancellation fee, change a driver rating, and claim a lost item using their self-service options. Features like these create an effortless experience for customers and drive loyalty.

Consider using help desk software that feature self-service capabilities. That can automate order management to let customers manage their orders. That have options toto create custom flows to automate common contact reasons.

Reporting and metrics

Though not every part of a great customer experience can be quantified, many things can. Most help desk software will provide reporting and metrics to better understand where you excel and where you need improvement.

Look for tools that can, at a least, help you determine what days and times are busiest, common reasons people reach out, average response times, and CSAT ratings.

Some help desk software even offer pre-built dashboards to make metrics reporting quick and easy. It's also good to have options to make custom dashboards to keep your most meaningful metrics easy to view.

Communication channels

Customers may reach out using various communication channels, such as email, phone, social media, and SMS. It is desirable to unify all such communications in a central place so that agents do not have to switch between different applications to respond to customers.

Additionally, customers should be able to switch channels without losing context or having to repeat themselves.

When evaluating help desk software to manage customer queries, multichannel capabilities should be one of the criteria considered if queries come in through multiple channels.

Customer context and integrations

According to a study by Gartner, customer support agents typically use eight different applications. This is because many queries require agents to fetch information from other applications or take actions on other apps. Such interruptions add considerable time to ticket handling.

However, by integrating the help desk software with your tech stack and fetching all customer context, agents can stay focused on conversing with customers and resolve issues faster.

Collaboration and productivity tools

Two of the biggest benefits of using a help desk software are the capabilities to collaborate with others and to streamline work. Access to these tools help reduce the burden on agents, giving them more time to focus on the people they support.

For example, with the Richpanel help desk software, you can add more context to a conversation with private notes, reduce duplicate work with collision detection, and give lightning-fast responses to common questions using macros.

You should also look for features that help you automate manual tasks, such as assigning and sorting incoming requests.

Scalability

Whether you're looking to purchase a help desk software solution for your business or school, one thing is certain: As your team continues to grow and change, so will your needs. Because switching help desks is a big undertaking, finding a solution that can grow with you is important.

It's best to look for a help desk software that will work well for at least the next 18-24 months. Anything less than that and you might be setting yourself up for a future headache. Anything beyond that timeframe gets pretty hard to reliably predict.

Pay attention to each help desk software pricing structure and make note of whether you'd have to switch to a different plan to meet future needs. Some tools charge per user, and some charge by volume. Tools that charge per user are generally much easier to forecast future costs for.

Implementation & customer support

Even if the help desk software is user-friendly, you may still need help with implementation and have questions at some point. While it may seem that the people creating help desk software would be very helpful, that is not always the case.

To ensure that you receive adequate support, ask if the help desk software offers onboarding and what type of implementation support is available. Additionally, review their knowledge bases and training videos to evaluate their ease of use and navigation.

You should also send a few requests to their support team to see how quickly they respond to service requests and how helpful they are in your interactions overall.

Richpanel Launch Plan For Clients

Determine what needs to change about your current support

Whether you're moving from a shared Gmail mailbox or switching from one help desk software to another, this change presents an opportunity to rethink your customer support approach.

For example, many small companies use their support inbox for all types of company contacts. This means their one- or two-person support team handles everything from sales contacts to domain renewal notifications and advertising offers. Years later, the sales team is still receiving forwards from a much larger and busier support inbox!

Choosing a new help desk software is the perfect time to consider separating these contacts into a separate mailbox or automating their distribution with workflows.

Look at your current customer service activities and consider the following questions:

• Is this still the best way to resolve this issue?
• Is this approach essential to our customer experience, or could we achieve the same result another way?
• What can your team do now that they weren't capable of the last time you evaluated our tools?

Once you have a clear picture of the customer service you want to offer, you can use it as a benchmark to evaluate top help desk software features. Regardless of the help desk software you choose, it should help you deliver the type of service you have outlined.

Select Your Must-Have Help Desk Software Features

It's time to create a list of must-have and "nice to have" features for your help desk software. Ask your customer service team to list all the various customer support interactions and service tasks they can think of and sort them into two buckets.

"Help desk software that has all essential features is better than a service desk tool that implements more "nice to haves" but misses a key requirement:

• Must-have help desk features: If the help desk cannot perform X, we cannot create the desired customer service experience.
• nice-to-have help desk features: If the help desk can perform X, it could potentially improve the customer experience.

Try to keep the first list as short as possible. Features that sound good on paper but are poorly implemented or rarely used can frustrate your support team and harm good service.

By focusing on core requirements, you can reduce the effort required to choose the best fit and allow yourself more time to test your shortlisted help desks.

To evaluate each feature and categorize it as essential or non-essential, ask your team these questions:

• Does this feature need to be built into the help desk, or could we connect a separate tool that does the job better?
• Are there legal requirements we need to meet (e.g., data storage and privacy controls)?
• What value does this feature add to our customers? To our team?
• Are there technical requirements to meet (e.g., data format and accessibility)?
• What other products or services do we need to connect this to? Is it possible?

Exclude from consideration any products that don't cover all required features (either directly or through tight integration). The next step is to create an evaluation team to test your shortlisted help desks.

Creating a help desk software evaluation team

If you're just starting out or at a very small company, the evaluation team may be just you. If you have a larger team, we recommend the following mix:

• One junior-level customer service person
• A couple of help desk power users
• A manager or senior leader

Combining their different needs and backgrounds will give you a more effective way to determine if the help desk software will be a good fit for your entire organization. We also recommend having the entire evaluation team review the same tool at the same time, rather than each person reviewing a different option.

Effectively trialling a help desk software is tough because you'll never be able to use the tool in exactly the same way you will when you're handling real customers at full volume. For a quick overview, make use of case studies to see how customers of different help desks talk about what they enjoy about the software.

When you're ready to deeply evaluate your help desk options, move on to the next few steps.

Testing the Customer Experience for Each Help Desk Software

How will your customers interact with the help desk software you choose? Use some of your typical customer questions as examples and complete a support conversation from the customer's perspective. Consider the experience you want to create for your customers and test it against each tool.

What will the customer see? How easy is the process for them?

For example, Richpanel allows customers to track orders, tickets, chats and FAQs in the customer portal. Even if the conversations originated on email, social media or text. This makes it easy for customers to self-service common issues & switch channels without having to repeat themselves.

Trial the Help Desk Software Experience

Your customer service team will be using this tool all day, every day. How easy is it for them to navigate around? How fast does it load, and how quickly can they find answers? The help desk software you choose should be as frictionless as possible for your team, allowing them to use all their energy helping customers and not fighting their tools.

Consider Scalability

Will this help desk software continue to work as your business grows? Ask the sales and success teams of the solutions you are considering for an estimate of their bigger customers' support volume. You don't want to pay the higher fees and complexity of software you don't need, but you also don't want to have to pick a new help desk 12 months from now.

Review Reporting Options

Testing reporting in help desk software is tricky when you don't have real data to report. Demonstration accounts can give you a sense of what is possible. If you've thought carefully about which customer service metrics you use and why, talk to the customer service help desk provider about how they can help you get those results with their tool.

For example, Richpanel trial accounts come pre-loaded with demo data for all reports so you can visualize what the actual usage would feel like.

Prioritize Reliability and Support

Who supports the support team? When your help desk software has an outage, when a feature is confusing, when your team needs to chat with someone & need immediate assistance or when a process needs reworking, how will you get help?

Not only do you need to know which support channels are available, but also how quickly you'll be helped and how competent the team helping you is.

Every help desk software experiences issues, but some companies do much better than others in handling those situations. Submit sample support requests to each help desk support team and see how timely, useful, and friendly the responses are.

When you can't help your customers because of a help desk issue, a responsive, informed support team is hugely valuable. You can also review the Twitter feeds and status pages of your top choices to see how responsive and communicative they are when issues arise.

As well as your own free trial experience, you can make use of external reviews and opinions to inform your choice. Customer service communities such as Support Driven are full of people who use help desk tools every day, and they are happy to share their experiences.

Make a Plan for Switching Help Desk Software

When you've made your choice of help desk software and are ready to make a move, you can save your future self a bunch of trouble by making a plan. Here are a few questions to consider:

• Do you have contact forms that need to be updated?
• Will your knowledge base be moving to a new tool too?
• Do you need to recreate (or rethink) workflows and automated filters in the new tool?
• How will you train your team on the new tool?
• Are there integrations to move or reconnect?

Moving to a new help desk can be a significant investment in your customer service team, your customers, and ultimately your company. While a long list of features is nice, it's important to make your choice based on a broader framework.

Choosing your perfect help desk software

Moving to a new help desk tool can be a significant investment in your customer service team, your customers, and ultimately your company. While a long list of features is nice, it's important to make your choice based on a broader framework.

Remember, the cost of choosing a help desk tool that works for your team and customers is high, so take the time to make an informed decision.

The above-mentioned help desk software solutions are among the best available in the market today. Consider your business case, budget, and vertical, and then pick 2-3 options that best suit your requirements. Sign up for a free trial if available or book a demo to see which one you like the best. In a nutshell, here's how I'd recommend selecting a new help desk system:

Best for automation & self-service: Richpanel

Best for ecommerce: Richpanel & Gorgias

Best if you want to stay inside Gmail: Hiver

Best for SaaS & software companies: Intercom

Best for enterprise & integrations: Zendesk, Freshdesk

People Also Ask:

What Is Help Desk Software Used For?

In simple words, help desk software is used to help you respond to queries efficiently and effectively. It is responsible for:

• Routing: evenly distributing tickets between available team members. Advanced help desk systems can also route tickets based on skills, language, and other criteria you define.
• Self-service: helping customers resolve common queries quickly and instantly using the self-service portal or a knowledge base.
• Live chat software: many help desk software packages come with a live chat feature that can be added to your website or mobile app. This allows visitors to get real-time assistance.
• Knowledge base: maintaining a central knowledge base that can be used by agents, customers, and collaborators.

What is the best helpdesk software?

Choosing the right help desk software depends on your use case, team size, and goals. If you are just starting with help desk software, a system like Hiver or Help Scout would be ideal. If your business is scaling and you need a comprehensive, flexible system, your choices include Zendesk, Richpanel, and Freshdesk.

Is ServiceNow a helpdesk software?

ITSM (Information Technology Service Management) is a help desk software used by internal IT teams to track and manage service requests of a company's employees. It includes modules for asset management, service catalog management, knowledge management, and handling IT incidents and problem resolution.

In simpler terms, if a company has several thousand employees, an ITSM helps with tasks such as provisioning laptops for new employees, deploying necessary software, handling IT issues, and off-boarding employees.

What is an example of a help desk?

The simplest example of a help desk is your company's email inbox, support@company.com. You receive support requests from customers through this email. One of your team members picks it up, resolves the customer query, and then responds to the customer. A help desk system can help you do all of this at scale, with additional capabilities and reporting.

Is help desk a CRM?

The lines between the two applications are blurring. Some modern systems are capabale of doin the job of both applications. Traditionally a a Help Desk software provides users the possibility to ask questions on the website & help agents resolve these queries. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems store customer info and help send targeted messages to customers. Today’s help desk softwares like Richpanel provide a ton of context inside the agent interface and let businesses send targeted messages based on certain triggers which is why many businesses use it like a CRM.

What is help desk software called?

A help desk tool, also called a service desk tool, provides a one-stop service for your internal and external problems. Support representatives are capable to quickly monitor all issues if needed and prioritize pending urgent tickets.

What is help desk ticketing system?

It’s essentially the same thing. The “Ticket” is a unique ID given to track a service request. This way if a customer reaches back again, they can give the ticket # to the agent and the agent can look it up to give an update to the customer. Modern help desk systems don’t need ticket # because they store customer’s info and all service requests (tickets) are connected to the customer’s profile. If the customer calls back again, agents can look up all previous tickets on their profile.

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