What to Look For in a Web Help Desk

Are you missing opportunities for customers to maintain contact with you? Are people within your company having trouble with their systems? Are technical issues not being tracked properly, making finding solutions difficult? If there are stakeholders inside and outside of your company looking for help, and having trouble finding it, perhaps a web help desk is your solution. All of these concerns, and many others, can be handled by good web help desk software. However, not all software is created equal.

There are many different aspects of a web help desk. Sometimes they can be as simple as initial client support, but you can add many other services to good help desk software. Options like ITIL incident management, surveys, knowledge base, assets, parts and billing, tasks, are all possibilities, and much more. When you look into adding a web help desk to your company’s repertoire, it is imperative that you do a top-down review of all your systems that can be managed by one, and see what best fits your needs.

One of the first decisions that needs to be made is what inputs will go into the web help desk. If it is going to just be incident management, the inputs will come from anyone having concerns. However, if work flow solutions are going to be run through the program, that’s a different set of people with input into the system  This will quickly come from the top-down review, but will certainly affect costs of your program.

Another important aspect to consider is the output from the web help desk, both to your customers and internally. Some programs simply offer response emails, while others take more steps to ticket management and reminder emails. Others may include graphs, charts, and other tools to manage the database of information the program compiles.

Other things to take into account when purchasing a web help desk program are the abilities of the company to support your needs moving forward. How well can they customize reports and emails for you and your customers, and do they offer customization? Is data storage included, and how reliable are their back up systems? It may be important to ask how often the program is upgraded and the time required to complete installation of the upgrade. The upgrade may need to work with not only a current operating system, but any future systems you may use.

Finally, some companies prefer to have a web help desk program that is purely web based, while others appreciate software on their servers. Either design can work for your company; it is simply a matter of preference. Carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages to any program choice.

Nearly every company is online, and despite the fact that some personal touch has been lost with new technologies, a web help desk is a vital way to keep your customers and your employees satisfied. Some companies find that people are still the best response options for both customer and internal complaints, and while certainly nothing will ever take the place of a human touch, a quality web help desk can make their job both easier and more effective.