The Best Help Desk Software

Most companies revolve around communication, hence the importance of having the best help desk software to assist with tasks.

Whether it’s communicating with customers to help resolve service-related issues or fielding IT requests from employees, most businesses will require some method of managing those conversations at some point.

One of the most effective methods is to use help desk software.

What is help desk software?

Help desk software is a tool for organizing, managing, and responding to service requests. Some help desks handle external customer requests, while others handle internal service requests from team members.

A help desk may include tools such as a shared inbox, a knowledge base, and a live chat solution. However, not all help desks have all of the tools listed above.

Because it consolidates all of your customer support interactions into one omnichannel tool, help desk software is a great way to improve your customer experience — 75 percent of customers want a consistent experience regardless of how they engage a company (via social media, in person, by phone, etc.).

What are the different categories of help desk software?

There are as many ways to peel a cucumber as there are ways to categorize help desk software. For example, you could divide it into three major categories based on software type:

Cloud-based: A cloud-based help desk, also known as a web help desk, is proprietary software that is hosted online via a vendor’s website or application. To use the tool, you must first log in to the website or application and pay a monthly or yearly fee.
Self-hosted: A self-hosted help desk is one that is installed on your own servers. It could be something you make yourself or something you buy from another company.
Open source: help desk software allows developers to directly access a program’s source code, allowing them to customize the software in any way they see fit. This software is generally non-proprietary, which means it does not have a single owner.

Though the aforementioned factors may be considered when making a purchasing decision, if you’re purchasing an external solution, it will almost always be cloud-based (all of the options listed below are cloud-based).

There may be times when you purchase a solution that is installed directly on your own servers, but this is not very common or practical for most teams due to the cost of the installation and maintenance of the software.

Another — and possibly more useful — way to consider help desk software categorization is in terms of who you’re using it to serve. In that case, there are two types: internal and external.

Internal: Generally, an internal help desk solution is used to manage IT-related issues. Employees can submit tickets to your IT team directly, making it easier to manage and organize those requests.
Customer-facing: Customer support teams typically use customer-facing help desk software to manage incoming customer conversations.

The functionality of these tools varies, but most include a shared inbox and some form of collaboration, productivity, and reporting tools.

**What features of help desk software should you look for?**

Some features will be more important than others depending on your specific use case. That being said, there are a few key features to look for when using a help desk for internal or external conversations.

Easy-to-use interface

It takes time to learn any new software. Some tools, however, have much shorter learning curves than others.

The faster you can train agents, the sooner they can get back to doing what they do best: helping others.

Attend demos for all of the tools you’re thinking about, and when you’ve narrowed it down to a few, do a live trial if possible.

If possible, include people from various disciplines in the trial phase. Managers, agents, and operations personnel will all use the tool in different ways, so it’s critical that any tool you choose works well for all of those use cases.

You should also look at the experience from the submitter’s perspective. Submit a request and engage in a few back-and-forth interactions to truly understand how the tool works from both sides of the conversation.

Reporting and metrics

Though not every aspect of a great customer experience can be quantified, there are many that can. You can better understand which areas you excel in and where you still have room for improvement if you have access to reporting and metrics tools.

Look for tools that can help you determine, at the very least, the busiest days and times of day, the most common reasons people contact you, average response times, and CSAT ratings.

See also: Best Contact Center Software

Some tools even provide pre-built dashboards to help with metrics reporting. It’s also useful to have the ability to create custom dashboards to keep your most important metrics easily accessible.

Collaboration and productivity tools

The ability to collaborate with others and streamline work are two of the most significant advantages of using a help desk tool. Access to these tools alleviates the burden on agents, allowing them to devote more time to the people they serve.

Help Scout, for example, allows you to add more context to a conversation with private notes, reduce duplicate work with collision detection, and provide lightning-fast answers to common questions with saved replies.

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

Scalability

Your requirements will change as your team grows and changes. Because switching help desks is a major undertaking, it is critical to find a solution that can grow with you.

It’s best to find a tool that will last at least the next 18-24 months. Anything less, and you may be setting yourself up for a future headache. Anything beyond that timeframe becomes extremely difficult to predict.

Take note of each tool’s pricing structure and whether you’ll need to switch to a different plan to meet future needs. Some tools charge per user, while others charge based on volume. In general, tools that charge per user are much easier to forecast future costs for.

Quality customer support

No matter how simple a tool is, you’ll have questions about it at some point. Though you might expect people who create help desk software to be extremely helpful, this is not always the case.

Once you’ve narrowed down your list of potential candidates, examine each of their knowledge bases to see how comprehensive their content is and how easy it is to navigate.

You should also send some requests to their support team to see how quickly they respond and how helpful they are in general.

The 11 best help desk software for 2022

To start your search, you should be aware of at least some of your options. The following is a list of 11 of the best help desk software solutions currently available on the market.

Help Scout
SysAid
Hiver
Freshdesk
Jira Service Desk
Zendesk
Zoho Desk
Front
Gorgias
Kustomer
Spiceworks

1. Help Scout

The best help desk software for teams that value customer satisfaction. Help Scout is a comprehensive customer support platform that includes all of the tools you need to provide an exceptional customer experience.

When you join Help Scout, you gain access to a variety of tools.

Shared inboxes

Help Scout’s shared inboxes include collaboration tools such as @mentions and private notes, which can be used to solicit assistance from others or to add context to a customer conversation.

Collision detection is also available to reduce duplicate work, as are workflows to automate routing and routine tasks.

Finally, saved replies make it simple to respond to routine customer inquiries.

Knowledge base

You can use Docs to create, manage, and organize self-service content.
The WYSIWYG editor simplifies content creation.

To create even more robust self-service content, you can upload videos, images, and other types of content directly to articles or embed videos.

Data on performance allows you to see which articles are performing the best, which could be performing better, and what content you should create next.

Live chat

Help Beacon, Scout’s live chat widget, is a multi-purpose tool that includes live chat as well as proactive support options via Messages.

Customers can use the live chat function both online and offline to get the answers they need when and where they need them.

You can segment audiences based on specific customer attributes, schedule messages, and even view performance data to help you fine-tune your efforts with Messages.

Reporting

Help Scout includes pre-built dashboards so you can see how your team is performing right away. You can also create custom reports that focus on specific metrics.

If you want to do even more with your data, our API allows you to export it to your preferred business intelligence tool.

Profiles of customers

Customer profiles are created automatically for customers with whom you have interacted via Beacon. They display basic information such as their company, role, and any previous interactions you’ve had with them.

You can edit and update customer profiles at any time to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date. By adding a few lines of code to any Beacon implementation, you can even automate the updating process.

Apps for mobile devices

Finally, Help Scout provides mobile iOS and Android apps for teams that require notifications on the go or who need to resolve issues while away from their desktop computers.

Though Help Scout’s features are impressive, we believe our best asset is our world-class support team, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For those who prefer self-directed learning, we also have a large knowledge base.

Starting at $20 per user per month.

1. SysAid

SysAid is a ticketing system for help desks that manages internal IT requests. To reduce SLAs, they provide a number of SLA management features such as ticket and workflow automation.

You can also create a knowledge management self-service portal so that employees can handle simple requests like password resets on their own.

You can get started quickly with a variety of templates and default forms, or you can design your own custom ones to best serve the needs of your organization and team.

Because most IT tools are used in tandem, you also gain access to a number of third-party integrations.

SysAid includes powerful asset management features that make it simple to manage all of your network’s assets and see hardware and software for each of your end users.

For pricing, please contact SysAid directly.

2. Hiver

Hiver is best thought of as an extension to your Gmail account. It allows you to leave internal notes on conversations and even assign conversations to specific agents.

Hiver also provides some reporting to help you better understand team performance and gain insights into the most common reasons customers contact you.

It’s worth noting that, unlike the majority of the other tools on this list, Hiver doesn’t include any additional tools beyond a shared inbox, which may limit its ability to scale with your team.

Furthermore, some basic features, such as reporting, are only available on their more expensive plans.

Starting at $12 per user per month.

3. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a multi-purpose help desk that is ideal for larger teams, particularly those in call centers.

When you sign up, you gain access to tools for managing support requests such as a shared inbox, a knowledge base, and chat capabilities. You will also be given incoming minutes to handle customer phone calls (the amount of minutes varies based on the specific plan you choose).

You also get third-party integrations to keep your support tech stack connected. Although powerful, Freshdesk’s pricing/plans can be perplexing due to the numerous optional add-ons. Furthermore, the above-mentioned features are only available on their higher-tier omnichannel plans.

There is a free plan available. Paid plans begin at $15 per agent per month.

4. Jira Service Desk

Jira Service Desk is commonly associated with engineering teams, but it is also used by many support teams as a place to report and track bugs.

Users can design custom workflows and forms to ensure projects run smoothly, and they can assign statuses to specific tasks to keep everyone informed.

Reports can provide support representatives with insights into what’s being worked on and the overall workload, providing additional context to bug-tracking and requests.

There is a free plan available. Paid plans begin at $7.50 per user per month.

5. Zendesk

Almost everyone who works in customer service has heard of Zendesk. They create a multi-channel support solution with features such as a shared inbox, a knowledge base, and live chat tools.

They also provide some more advanced AI-based solutions for chatbots and autoresponders (though those are only included on their higher-cost plans).

You also get a slew of productivity and automation tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations to connect with other tools in your support ecosystem.

To be honest, there isn’t much Zendesk doesn’t do or communication channels it doesn’t support.

However, it is a very complex and complicated product that requires a significant amount of time, energy, and resources to get up and running.

This adds significant additional costs on top of the monthly rate, and since most teams don’t require access to all of Zendesk’s features, it’s very possible that they could find a solution that meets their needs for less money.

Monthly fees start at $19 per agent.

6. Zoho Desk

You may be familiar with Zoho as a CRM tool, but they also provide a customer support solution.

Zoho Desk includes many of the expected features, such as a shared inbox and a knowledge base tool.

They also provide more advanced services such as AI-assisted response and advanced automations for conversation sorting and tagging.

If you already use other Zoho products, Zoho Desk works seamlessly with them. However, their more advanced features, as well as some basic ones like live chat, are only available on their most expensive enterprise plan, which may be out of reach for some teams.

7. Front

When communicating with customers, most teams prefer to accept support tickets via a group email address (e.g., [email protected]).

Some teams, however, prefer to communicate via personal email addresses while still requiring the functionality of help desk software. Front allows you to do just that.

Front allows you to link your email, SMS, and social media accounts to a single inbox. It also has productivity features such as internal notes and some automation features to reduce manual work. They also provide some analytics and integrations, but only on their more expensive plans.

Front also lacks a knowledge base for FAQs and a live chat tool for real-time support, unlike some of the other options on our list.

Starting at $19 per person per month.

8. Gorgias

Gorgias is an ecommerce-focused help desk solution. Gorgias provides users with access to a shared inbox, knowledge base, and live chat tool.

The integrations with Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce set it apart from the other options on the list (although the Magento integration is only offered on the higher-tier plan).

Through those integrations, you can view order details, edit orders, and even issue refunds directly from your help desk, saving your team a lot of time and effort.

However, one significant disadvantage is that all of their plans have ticket limits, which means your costs may vary month to month depending on volume.

To give you an idea, their base plan includes 350 monthly tickets, which equates to approximately 12 tickets per day — a figure that most teams would far exceed. Following that, you’ll be charged an additional $25 per 100 tickets.

Prices begin at $60 per month.

9. Kustomer

Kustomer created a one-of-a-kind solution by combining help desk and project management software.

Kustomer provides email, chat, phone, and social account support via multiple channels. You can create, assign, and set due dates for tasks in project management.

You can also see a comprehensive picture of each customer and update multiple systems at the same time, saving time and energy.

Though Kustomer has some impressive features, it is quite pricey, and the pricing is a little confusing because there are a number of tools that are add-ons.

Price: Starting at $89 per month per user.

10. Spiceworks

Spiceworks is yet another help desk solution geared toward internal IT requests. You can easily organize and manage conversations with it, as well as set up a self-service portal to enable people to get answers and solutions on their own.

You can also automate a number of manual tasks to free up time for your IT staff. If your company provides IT services to a variety of clients, you can create individual sites and user portals for each. Spiceworks is also completely free.

The cost is zero.

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

Choosing the best help desk software for your business can be difficult. Every vendor has its own page of checkmarks demonstrating how their product is at least three ticks superior to everyone else’s.

The help desk you choose cannot provide excellent customer service, but it is an important first step in establishing customer support at your company.

The right help desk will assist your team in consistently producing the level of customer service you desire.

Making an informed decision begins long before you start comparing feature lists.

Begin by answering questions about your customer, team, and company to find the best help desk software for you.

Define “excellent customer service” for your business

When you’re deep into help desk comparison shopping, it’s easy to lose sight of why you’re choosing a help desk in the first place.

You do not need to find the “best help desk software” because there is no such thing. The best help desk for you is one that enables your team to serve your customers effectively and consistently.

To determine this, you must first understand the type and quality of customer support and service you wish to provide. Here are some questions to assist you in understanding.

What kind of assistance do your customers anticipate? Your specific customer base will come to you with their own needs.

Do they favor email? Are they at ease with self-service tools? Do they expect a response in an hour or a day? Look for indicators of what your customers expect from you and how satisfied they are right now.

What kind of experience do you want to provide your customers? Consider the ideal customer support interaction from the perspective of your customer.

Is it necessary for them to use a website to seek assistance, 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 bring to your support team? Charles Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip, loved his favorite pen so much that he purchased the entire stock when it was discontinued.

While your support team may not share your enthusiasm for help desk software, they will rely heavily on it.

You want to make sure they have the right service desk tool as the first line of defense for customer retention. Clear, usable, and appealing help desk software will save them time and effort that they can spend on your customers.

Determine what needs to change about your current support

Whether you’re switching from a shared Gmail mailbox to another help desk tool, this change is an opportunity to reconsider your customer support strategy.

Many small businesses, for example, use their support inbox for all types of company contacts, implying that their one- or two-person support team handles everything from sales contacts to domain renewal notifications and advertising offers.

Years later, the sales team continues to receive forwards from a much larger and busier support inbox! Choosing a new help desk is an excellent opportunity to consider streaming those into a separate mailbox or automating their distribution through workflows.

Examine your current customer service activities and think about the following:

Is this still the best solution to this problem?

Is this approach critical to our customer experience, or could we achieve the same result in a different way?

What can our team do now that we couldn’t do the last time we thought about our tools?

You’ll have a goal to measure help desk features against once you’ve sketched out a clear picture of the customer service you want to provide.

Whatever help desk software you choose, it must enable you to provide the services you have specified.

Select your essential help desk features

It’s time to take things a step further and make a list of “must have” and “nice to have” features. Request that your customer service team write down and categorize all customer service tasks that come to mind.

Help desk software that includes all of your essential features outperforms a service desk tool that includes more “nice to haves” but lacks a critical requirement:

Essential help desk features include: If the help desk does not do X, we will be unable to provide the desired level of customer service.
Non-essential help desk features: If the help desk does X, we may be able to use it to improve the customer experience.

Make an effort to keep the first list as short as possible. Features that appear appealing on paper but are poorly implemented or rarely used impede good service by frustrating your support team.

By focusing on your core requirements, you can reduce the amount of work required to select the best fit and free up more time to test your shortlisted help desks.

To evaluate each feature and classify it as essential or non-essential, ask your team the following questions:

Is it necessary to build this feature into the help desk, or could we connect a separate tool that does the job better?
Are there any legal requirements we must follow (for example, data storage and privacy controls)?
What benefit does this feature provide to our customers? To our group?
Are there any technical requirements that must be met (for example, data format and accessibility)?
What other products or services must this be linked to? Is it conceivable?

You can now eliminate any products from consideration that do not meet all of your requirements (either directly or by tight integration).

The next step is to form an evaluation team to put your shortlisted help desks through their paces.

Create a help desk software evaluation team

If you’re just starting out or working for a small company, the evaluation team might just be you. We recommend the following mix if you have a larger team:

One junior-level customer service representative
A couple of help desk gurus
A manager or senior executive

Combining their various needs and backgrounds will provide you with a more effective way to determine whether the help desk will be a good fit for your entire organization.

We also recommend that the entire evaluation team look at the same tool at the same time, rather than each individual reviewing a different option.

It’s difficult to effectively trial a help desk because you’ll never be able to use the tool exactly the same way you will when you’re dealing with real customers at full capacity.

For a quick overview, use case studies to see how customers of various help desks discuss what they like about the software.

When you’re ready to dive in and thoroughly assess your help desk options, proceed to the next few steps.

Test the customer experience of each help desk solution

How will your clients interact with the help desk you select? Using some of your most common customer questions as examples, complete a support conversation from the customer’s point of view.

What will the client see? How simple is the procedure for them? (Because Help Scout does not have a customer-facing portal or ticket numbers, your customer will only receive personal emails.)

Consider the experience you want to provide your customers and run it through each tool.

Trial the help desk user experience

This tool will be used by your customer service team all day, every day. How simple is it to navigate, how quickly does it load, and how quickly can they find answers?

The help desk software you select should be as frictionless as possible for your team, allowing them to focus their efforts on helping customers rather than fighting their tools.

Consider scalability

Will this solution continue to work as your company expands? Request an estimate of the support volume for their larger customers from the sales and success teams of the solutions you’re considering.

You don’t want to pay the higher fees and complexity of software that you don’t require, but you also don’t want to have to choose a new help desk in 12 months.

Review reporting options

When there is no real data to report on, testing reporting becomes difficult. Accounts of demonstration can give you an idea of what is possible.

If you’ve carefully considered which customer service metrics you use and why, talk to your help desk provider about how they can assist you in achieving those results with their tool.

Prioritize reliability and support

Who provides assistance to the support team? How will you get help if your help desk system goes down, a feature is confusing, or a process needs to be reworked?

You need to know not only which support channels are available, but also how quickly you’ll be helped and how competent the team assisting you is.

Every software product has issues, but some companies handle these situations far better than others. Submit sample requests to each help desk support team and observe how prompt, helpful, and friendly the responses are.

When you are unable to assist your own customers due to a help desk issue, a responsive, knowledgeable support team is extremely valuable.

You can also look at your top choices’ Twitter feeds and status pages to see how responsive and communicative they are when problems arise.

In addition to your own trial experience, you can use external reviews and opinions to help you make a decision.

Customer service communities like Support Driven are teeming with people who use help desk tools on a daily basis and are eager to share their insights.

Make a plan for switching help desks

When you’ve decided on a help desk and are ready to move, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by making a plan.

Here are some questions to think about:

Do you need to update your contact forms?
Will your knowledge base also be migrating to a new tool?
Is it necessary to recreate (or reconsider) workflows and automated filters in the new tool?
How will you teach the new tool to your team?
Are there any integrations that need to be relocated or reconnected?

Choosing your perfect help desk

Moving to a new help desk represents a significant investment in your customer service team, customers, and, ultimately, your company.

A long feature list is desirable, but you should choose with a larger framework in mind.

Remember that the cost of selecting a tool that works for your team (and your customers) is high, so take the time to do your research.