Completely changed our business - for the better

Most companies using Help Desk software are in software development, tech or online commerce of some kind. We're in the boring, traditional business of veterinary medicine practice, and deal with hundreds of emails a day from clients and the rest of the outside world. We're the only vet company I know of that uses a help desk, and we use Help Scout - and absolutely LOVE it. We did use Zendesk previously, but found that it's way too complicated and not very personal. Pet owners don't want to be given a ticket # and feel like they're speaking to a robot. Help Scout solved that immediately when we switched. We have a lot of complex conversations via email that require multiple people being involved, communicating internal messages to each other about certain threads, etc. etc. Help Scout is absolutely fantastic, because it's very elegant in it's simplicity - but tremendously powerful in it's capability. On top of that, we've found their support team to be kick ass, highly responsive and always eager to try and figure out a solution to any issue we bring them. We are very loyal Help Scout clients, and plan to be for a long time.

Pros

- extremely simple to use and understand as a user - treats communications like human beings and provides a much more personal feel to communication (as opposed to making people feel like numbers) - fantastic support team that's very responsive and solution focused - solid API that allows you to bring in data from other apps so that you have a consolidated view of a client, beyond just their email history

Cons

- wish that the interface could be a little more customized for our specific needs - really don't have any downsides to it - it's a great product

Great customer focused company to work with!

Excellent. While there is some admittedly cool functionality that other CRMs offer at higher prices, they don't make sense for our current business needs and you really can't beat Helpscout when it comes to their customer service and help resources. It's excellent working with a team who really care what their customers and their customers' customers think.

Pros

Their entire philosophy is centered around customer satisfaction and success. This mirrors our own approach and it's great seeing that in action. They are also great at handling questions and service requests, and I love all the support and information resources they offer.

Cons

I wish the reporting functions were better and more detailed. Sometimes when something wasn't functioning in a way that worked for it, their response was suggesting a work around that would require a service plan upgrade when I figured out a work around that could work at our current level, but that is a very minor gripe.

Great for small teams!

When looking for customer service platforms, a lot of people will want it to feel human. Oddly, I love that it can be used to send confidential documents securely, and I don't have to interact. It's a great timesaver that way, especially when the people on the other end are using it for the same reason. Yes, you can add more personality and humanity, but in my case, I like being able to work uninterrupted, and no one ever has to say "have a nice day" because all we're doing is sending documents. If you're looking for something a little more personal -- it can absolutely be used that way. The notes and chat functions are helpful, and Help Scout is pretty adaptable to whatever your customer service philosophy entails.

Pros

-Extremely easy to set up, add employees to, and use on a daily basis without hassle. -Love the option to assign communications and update the status of them. -Simple, straightforward design. -Did I mention is was easy? Almost no training required.

Cons

-It would be nice to have more customization options. The simplicity is of appeal here, but the limitations are noticeable.

Help Scout helps out

Help Scout helps out in a pinch. I definitely recommend any company or business that has a customer support component to it to use their software and platform to start.

Pros

When I used to work at ActBlue as a support associate, I really liked Help Scout's ticketing system. It was straightforward and less confusing than Intercom. Escalating and de-escalating issues was pretty easy. Help Scout is a huge help for customer service, people oriented folks like me.

Cons

This is just a theory but I feel like Help Scout works better with certain email addresses than others. For people who have older emails such as hotmail, aol, or yahoo - their messages don't come across so clearly, which makes helping our customers and clients a real challenge.

Stellar Support Tool for SaaS companies

We support a B2B SaaS platform in the Marketing Automation space and provide email support. Help Scout executes very well against the challenges that we have.

Pros

Help Scout is purpose-built for Support teams which is fantastic. The features, UI, and reporting align closely with how we run our support team which makes things a lot easier. We're big on automation and building on top of our tools and have been very impressed both with the workflow capabilities as well as the API endpoints and integrations that are possible. The team behind Help Scout does a terrific job of supporting us, they have been extremely responsive, down to earth, and accurate in their replies.

Cons

To deliver a really good and consistent experience, the support channels of email, chat, and phone are very discrete and can't be blended as easily together as say a tool like Intercom (where we were coming from). While a short-term pain for us, I think delivering better in each of the channels ultimately made us a more mature team in the end.