Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of features offered by different help desk software options? You’re not alone. Selecting the right software for your customer support needs can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be a headache.
In today’s competitive landscape, choosing a help desk system with the perfect feature set is crucial. A guide that simplifies your selection process can help you find the right fit for your business.
We’ll explore the most essential features for help desk software and why they matter to you. By understanding these key functionalities, you’ll be well-equipped to choose a system that streamlines your customer support operations.
Demystifying Help Desk Software
An intelligent help desk software helps in streamlining customer support operations by automating multiple processes. It must have all the tools required for your business to build strong customer relationships and deliver lasting customer service experiences.
Making an investment in a help desk ticketing system allows businesses to segment themselves from their competitors and offer enhanced customer service. It is a fantastic tool for effective customer support management. It provides your customer with a platform to address issues without requiring a significant amount of time and effort from your customer service team.
It also enables effective interactions between a customer and a customer support representative. In addition to this, it further allows your organization to update and resolve any issues raised by your end-users.
Types of Help Desk Software
There are four different types of help desk software that you can use depending on your business-specific needs.
1. Cloud-based Help Desk
The cloud-based help desk is one of the most common types and is a Software-as-a-Service application that is hosted on the vendor’s server, entirely web-based.
Its benefits include:
- Easy to set up and maintain – you do not have to be a technical expert to get started.
- High scalability – grows as your business grows.
- Offers anytime – anywhere accessibility, you just need an internet connection.
2. On-Premise Help Desk
Also commonly referred to as a self-hosted help desk, the on-premise help desk is licensed proprietary software purchased by a business. Businesses own and host this help desk on their servers after purchasing the software license.
Its core benefits include:
- Complete control of data and security.
- Better customized to the needs of a business.
But, you need an in-house technical team to constantly maintain your servers and recover data in case of any mishaps like hardware failures or power outages. It also requires additional cost of data backups, updates & fixes.
3. Open-Source Help Desk
An open-source help desk is another popular software that is entirely free. Also, it is highly configurable as the software itself is pulled from an open-source codebase and then implemented by a business.
It has benefits such as:
- Come with minimum limitations.
- Besides customization capabilities, you can enjoy community updates and suggestions.
To use this help desk, you need a team of IT professionals to build and customize the software for you and it can take months to configure and data security is always under question.
4. Enterprise Help Desk
The enterprise help desk offers an ample amount of advanced functionality such as IT asset management, enterprise reporting, multi-brand support, and more.
It provides benefits such as;
- Acts as a one-stop solution for offering round-the-clock support to your customers, as well as employees.
- Can be customized to meet the needs of large enterprises.
This help desk is very expensive and can be heavy on your pocket. Besides, more features can eventually lead to more complexities and your operators need to be technically sound or well-trained.
Key Features of Help Desk Software to Look For
While hundreds of features exist in help desk software, focusing on every single one can lead to analysis paralysis. The key is to prioritize functionality that aligns perfectly with your needs. Here’s a breakdown of essential features to streamline your selection process:
1. Ticket Automation
An efficient help desk system provides a ticket automation solution that helps you save agents’ time as well as operational costs.
It enables you to route tickets to customer support agents automatically based on any chosen criteria (language, agent availability, product knowledge, etc). Furthermore, unresolved priority tickets can also be escalated to higher management after a certain period.
Most automated ticketing systems come with some sort of alert feature to keep your service agents up-to-date regarding important ticket milestones and events. These alerts can be customized according to urgency and other required criteria.
2. User-Friendly Interface
Always pick a help desk system that is easily adaptable to your customer support team so that they can start tracking customer interactions within minutes. It will also save your agents’ time in resolving tickets thereby decreasing their average handling time.
In short, an impeccable user interface should be one of the core offerings of help desk software. There is no use in having a help desk with distinctive features if the user interface is hard to understand.
3. SLA Management
Service Level Agreement, abbreviated as SLA, is a powerful tool that can be used by your organization to manage customer expectations. Once you establish and set your SLAs with the customers, it is important to manage and track them to ensure that your customer support team keeps up with the SLA consistently.
SLA management entails monitoring and reporting services, resolving disagreements, and going above and beyond the agreement on how to develop the best SLA management standards.
4. Security and Compliance Features
Your help desk software is the goldmine of valuable and sensitive customer data. Even a minute security breach can cause irreparable damage with long-term effects.
According to a report by Accenture, security breaches have risen by 11% since 2018.
Therefore, you need a reliable help desk to safeguard your information and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands by upholding the highest standards of security policy on all levels.
5. Social Media Support
Nowadays, customers are increasingly reaching out to businesses through various social media channels like Facebook and Instagram in addition to channels like chat or email.
More than 80% of consumers are using social media platforms to engage with brands.
With proper social media channel integration, your customer support agents can easily view, monitor, and manage customer interactions and queries right from the unified help desk interface.
6. Self-Serve
Self-serve appears to be one of the most vital help desk software features as today’s customers are becoming more self-reliant.
Customers prefer to find answers and resolving common queries by themselves. So, it is important for you to create a self-serve portal for your customers.
For instance, knowledge base, FAQs, and community forums are some of those options. It enables customers to search for answers to common issues by themselves without any direct assistance from an agent. It helps you in saving your agents’ time and also increases your customer experience.
7. Live Chat Support
Live chat is an important feature offered by help desk solutions that help agents to chat with multiple customers at a time, and store all customer-related data for future reference.
Most of the live chat tools are mobile-friendly, enabling customers to reach out to business easily.
As per a report published by Forrester, more than 30% of customers expect a live chat option on your business website.
Live chat can also use preformatted texts and replies, saving time for the business. Live chat has become a great communication tool for businesses that helps in managing real-time conversations and delivering higher levels of customer satisfaction.
8. Knowledge Management System
Knowledge management is defined as the process of creating, organizing, distributing, and understanding knowledge about business processes, policies, and products.
Knowledge Management System (KMS) is a feature that helps you to organize, and transfer knowledge and skills that are a part of your organization’s history. It also helps you in organizing huge amounts of data effectively.
Moreover, it allows you to create a one-stop database with ease of accessibility and helps in enhancing your inter-departmental cooperation.
9. Third-Party Integrations
By having the right help desk platform, you can experience seamless integrations of various third-party applications which are essential for your business.
For example, you can easily integrate important business applications such as online payment gateways, logistics partners, ERPs, or any other APIs.
In addition to that, you can also integrate your email and social media platforms with the help desk to add customer records and get a better idea of how your customers are interacting with your website, landing pages, or social media posts.
10. Reporting and Analytics
The reporting and analytics feature of a help desk system offers you a completely self-reliant way of analyzing and handling business data. It gives you a comprehensive view of different facts and metrics affecting your business.
Besides letting you visualize data, it also enables you to generate detailed reports of your agents based on metrics such as average handling time, average response time, and CSAT for all the assigned tasks.
Leverage the Best Help Desk Features
Exceptional customer service is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. Kapture’s help desk software empowers you to deliver an exceptional experience at every touchpoint.
Kapture goes beyond basic ticketing, offering a comprehensive suite of features designed to streamline your customer support processes. Actionable insights from insightful reporting help you identify areas for improvement, while a robust knowledge base equips your agents with the information they need to answer questions quickly and consistently. Integrate Kapture seamlessly with your existing tools and leverage our real-time live chat system to foster deeper customer connections. With Kapture, you can optimize your workflows, empower your agents, and ultimately transform your customer service.
Ready to revolutionize your service processes? Contact Kapture’s product squad today and discover how our help desk software can elevate your customer experience.
About the Author | |
 | Shivika |
| Shivika is a Content Writer at Kapture CRM, who enjoys using her creative skills to contribute to the exciting technological advances. She is passionate about cultural artifacts and culinary art. | |
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