Service Desk Software Comparison: Think All Service Desk Software is the Same? Think Again!
A Service Desk Software Comparison Can Help You Visualize Features
Given the plethora of help desk software options from which to choose, finding the one which will enable your business to most effectively manage customer support tasks can feel burdensome. A service desk software comparison can help you begin to sort out what features are most important to you and your business. Here, two free software products are compared with two subscription based products to help you better visualize the features associated with each. All four products use the ticket system to enable your support team to address customer requests.
What Can You Expect From Free Service Desk Software?
Trouble Ticket Express and Help Desk Lite are two popular software products offered at no charge. But what comes with free software? Both products offer you the ability to create customized service request forms with html templates. Both products will provide your business with service ticket tracking by providing a limited ability to track the status of each ticket along with operator identification. The status reporting with Trouble Ticket Express is more detailed by comparison. Essentially, both free products will enable you to track your service tickets and to know which operators have been tasked.
What You Can’t Expect from Free Service Desk Software
A service desk software comparison should also make you aware of what won’t be provided. Neither of these free software products will provide you with the structure to maintain your customer database, moment to moment web site monitoring, or live help. Perhaps more importantly, neither do they provide you with automated ticket escalation. Some key differences do exist between the free products. One difference is that Trouble Ticket Express is web-based (rather than email-based) and therefore allows you the option of purchasing modules which will enrich the software. However, both Help Desk Lite and Trouble Ticket Express will give your business the basics of customer service ticket management at no charge.
What Do You Get With Subscription Service Desk Software?
A service desk software comparison between popular subscription software products can help you see what a monthly fee can provide. Help Desk Connect and Smart Answer represent two such products. These products enable you to track customer service tickets with a more complete status menu than is provided by the free software mentioned above. In addition to Pending, Open, and Solved, your tickets will also tell you if the operator has Responded or is Closing the customer request. Like the free product Trouble Ticket Express, both Help Desk Connect and Smart Answer are web-based help desk products. All three utilize bulletin boards for tracking customer correspondence. Both Help Desk Connect and Smart Answer provide you with customizable service requests and layouts via the web fields’ manager and web layout manager. However, this service desk software comparison shows that you will have to pay in order to maintain a MySQL database. Major benefits to subscription based software are automated ticket escalation, customer database functionality and the ability to generate searchable knowledge databases. You can expect to pay $19.95/month per user with each of these two providers.
Which features are most necessary to organizing your service support team is for you to determine. Examining a few products in this service desk software comparison should help you decide how best to achieve the highest level of service at the lowest cost to your business.