Help Desk Software

There may be thousands of help desk solutions from free trouble ticket templates for spreadsheets to enterprise solutions from ERP vendors. And the basic issue is not even which system to use, but whether a help desk is the proper solution at all. We created this buyer’s guide to help potential buyers in their help desk software review and system comparison to determine when to use software and which to pick.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What Is Help Desk Software?
What Type of Buyer Are You?
The HD Vendor Landscape

Market Trends You Should Understand
Benefits & Potential Issues

What is Help Desk Software?

There is a video from Norway that shows a fictional, and obviously anachronistic, medieval help desk agent assisting a monk who is migrating from scrolls to books. The monk doesn’t understand how to open the book. He finds scrolls much easier to use, simply because he has never before used a book. When the worker finishes, he leaves behind instructions in a book, which the monk also can’t open.

At the core, help desk management software tracks customer calls and problem resolutions. The core components are a trouble ticketing system, a reference library or knowledge management system, and a management report system. A key feature is the ability to integrate to the systems involved in the customer issue or systems that monitor other systems. These might include a systems management tool for corporate networks or a system that can remotely diagnose problems with other systems. 

The distinctions between help desk systems and client support and service systems are subtle, and perhaps less and less important. Some organizations have help desk, some have customer service. Many have both. A customer support center’s goal is to assist all customers with a wide variety of issues, whether account or technical. Help desks focus on a small set of products or problems, usually technical. The encounter ends with a resolved problem or a service request. CSS gives the agent insight into the customer’s total history where help desk systems focus on the technical issues. Generally, any CSS and most customer relationship management (CRM) programs have help desk functions but not all help desk systems can integrate with client information to be complete CSS solutions. 

There is one notable niche, the internal network/computer help desk. IT organizations generally staff a team dedicated to computer, network, and communications users. These IT help desks feature rich integration with the company IT system and network management tools, giving agents visibility into issues with the customer’s systems. IT tools include IBM Tivoli Service Request Manager, CA Technologies Service Desk Manager and BMC Remedy Action Request System.

What Type of Buyer Are You?

Before doing a help desk software comparison, it is important to first consider which category of buyer you fall into:

• Customer-focused buyer. These buyers are working for firms that support customers from the help desk. These buyers need strong integration with customer support systems and sales force systems to make certain the customers issues are addressed and reported.
• Internal buyer. These buyers are working for firms that service internal customers through a help desk. These buyers need service level tracking and integration with systems management tools for the devices they are supporting.
• Enterprise suite buyer. These buyers work for large firms that have multiple help desks, some customer-focused and some supporting internal operations. These buyers seek strong information sharing between the systems, flexible forms and ticket formats to support a number of different tasks.
• Technical buyers. These buyers need systems to support the unique requirements of highly technical users. These buyers need systems to quickly determine the cause of difficult problems and provide solutions that the users can implement. 

The HD Vendor Landscape

Below are some of the best help desk software vendors on the market, sorted by buyer type.

Market Trends You Should Understand

• Merging with CSS. Even the most basic systems are moving closer to being customer support and service applications. The integration of customer information history with help desk functionality just makes sense when cheap bandwidth and storage makes it so easy to do. 
• Web chat. Most systems include chat functions. Even if the software does not include chat, web chat solutions are easy to add. Web chat is important because it lets customers communicate with the help desk even if a phone is not available or if the customer is traveling internationally.
• Automated tools. Two related trends are augmenting the help desk. One is that increasingly sophisticated automatic agents provide guidance to solve common problems, for example, how to initiate a virus scan or clean temporary Internet files. The other is the self-help tools can perform some system procedures that previously required human assistance; a good example is password reset.

Benefits & Potential Issues

• Reduced service costs. Issues handled through help desks do not have to be escalated to more expensive support options.
• Increased customer satisfaction. Customers, whether internal or external, that have their issues resolved more quickly are naturally more satisfied. Just as important, though, are customers whose issues can’t be solved quickly. These customers are also more satisfied if they know their issues are acknowledged and escalated.
• Better problem tracking and documentation. Generally the key motivator for buying software is better problem tracking and documentation. Often the reason is compliance with regulations or a response to an internal audit. Whatever the case, a help desk system can provide problem documentation that is clear and consistent. Advanced systems will also perform trend analysis on problems.
• Better solution tracking and solution reuse. A benefit of better problem tracking is better solution tracking. This allows agents to benefit from previous successes by searching problems and re-applying successful solutions.

There are a few caveats. First, it is not a help desk’s mission to solve every problem. They exist triage problems, solve what can be solved quickly and escalate the others. If they are evaluated only by the number of problems solved and not by whether problems were appropriately handled, there is a possibility that agents will not escalate problems. This could lead to a decline in customer satisfaction.

Second, there must be place to send the escalated problems. There has to be a service group that can handle problems that are beyond the scope of the help desk. We recommend looking at help desk software reviews as part of your research to see what benefits and issues other users have experienced.

Have an opinion on this guide? Email the authors. We appreciate the feedback.