Find the best Online Help Desk Software

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everything HelpDesk

everything HelpDesk is a help desk solution that helps users manage incidental requests, tracking issues and reports. Key features include multi-departmental desk support, dashboards, email and calendar integration. everythin...Read more about everything HelpDesk

Deskero

Deskero by Nabra is a cloud-based help desk management solution designed for businesses of all sizes. It offers ticketing, multi-channel support, social media and chat support and reporting functionalities within a suite. Phone, A...Read more about Deskero

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Jitbit Helpdesk

JitBit Helpdesk is an IT help desk management solution designed for companies of any size that offers automated routing, incident management, inbox management, ticket management and self-service portal functionalities within a sui...Read more about Jitbit Helpdesk

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iSupport

iSuppport is a help desk solution designed for small and midsize companies that offers incident management, problem management, change management, end user self-support and reporting functionalities within a suite. iSupport a...Read more about iSupport

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Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer service software that helps businesses provide effortless service across every customer touchpoint. Freshdesk empowers businesses to monitor customer conversations across email, phone, chat, soc...Read more about Freshdesk

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SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds Service Desk is suitable for companies seeking a help desk solution that offers IT service management (ITSM) functionalities. SolarWinds Service Desk offers comprehensive service desk functionality that helps businesses...Read more about SolarWinds Service Desk

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Zendesk Suite

Zendesk is a cloud-based help desk management solution offering customizable tools to build customer service portal, knowledge base and online communities. The solution offers a customizable front-end portal, live chat features an...Read more about Zendesk Suite

4.4 (3873 reviews)

8 recommendations

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SysAid

SysAid empowers organizations to deliver exceptional service – automagically. A comprehensive, next-gen ITSM platform, SysAid comes ready for action with generative AI baked into every element of service management, all wrapped up...Read more about SysAid

4.5 (441 reviews)

8 recommendations

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Salesforce Service Cloud

Service Cloud from Salesforce is a cloud-based customer service management solution that is designed to initiate customer service activities from anywhere. Built on the Salesforce1 Platform, Service Cloud works to centralise and o...Read more about Salesforce Service Cloud

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InvGate Service Desk

InvGate Service Desk is an IT service management platform that offers help desk request fulfillment, customer service and support and self-service knowledge management. The system is compatible with Mac, Windows, and iPad (or othe...Read more about InvGate Service Desk

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TeamSupport

TeamSupport is a robust customer support solution designed to improve customer satisfaction, simplify workflows, and make agents’ lives easier. We empower teams of all sizes to consolidate channels, shorten time to resolution, col...Read more about TeamSupport

4.5 (844 reviews)

2 recommendations

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Workbooks

Workbooks offers growing companies a SaaS platform to run their business and engage with their customers – at an affordable price. Workbooks designs, develops and implements its own software, which is targeted specifically at mid-...Read more about Workbooks

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NICE CXone

Organizations around the world are striving to deliver the ultimate customer experience, strengthen brand value, and boost efficiency. NICE CXone empowers brands to achieve these objectives on one interaction-centric platform with...Read more about NICE CXone

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Enghouse eKMS

Now part of Enghouse Interactive, SmartSupport Knowledge Management Solutions is a plug-and-play knowledge base solution that caters to businesses of all sizes across various industries. The solution lets users streamline customer...Read more about Enghouse eKMS

HappyFox Help Desk

HappyFox is a cloud-based customer relationship management solution that provides help desk and ticketing solutions to businesses across various industries, including computer and software, education, travel and leisure, media and...Read more about HappyFox Help Desk

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mHelpDesk

mHelpDesk is a field service solution that helps customers automate everything from first customer contact to getting paid. This includes customer management, quoting, dispatching, invoicing, billing and reporting. mHelpDesk ...Read more about mHelpDesk

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Help Scout

Help Scout is a dedicated customer support platform built for growing teams to deliver best-in-class customer service. When you sign up you get access to an entire suite of tools, all optimized specifically for customer support. ...Read more about Help Scout

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Agiloft

Agiloft Contract Management Suite is a cloud-based contract management suite suitable for companies of all sizes. It offers workflow automation, budget and forecast reports, a search engine with optical character recognition (OCR)...Read more about Agiloft

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Commence

Commence CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management(CRM) solution that caters to small and mid-size businesses and helps them to manage communication with existing and potential customers. The solution includes various ...Read more about Commence

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Tracker

Tracker is a web-based, integrated recruitment ATS and CRM designed for recruiting and staffing firms across industries. The solution allows businesses to manage entire recruitment workflows, right from candidate sourcing and plac...Read more about Tracker

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Buyers Guide

Last Updated: March 16, 2023

What's meant by the term "help desk software'" can be unclear. Go browse a handful of vendor websites, and you'll see the term "help desk" applied to two distinct groups of software—general customer service software and software for managing IT assets and services.

While customer service and help desk software do share some common applications—a central ticket-tracking system, for example—they are by no means interchangeable. If you were to purchase customer service software to manage your small business's IT endpoints and networks, you'd quickly regret the decision. And if you tried managing your company's customers with software designed to manage computers and networks, you'd regret that all the more!

This guide is about cloud-based help desk software for IT management. If you're looking for customer service software, take a look at our customer service software buyer's guide.

But, if you're looking to manage and support your internal IT assets, you're in the right place. Here's what we'll cover:

What Is Online Help Desk Software?

Common Features of Online Help Desk Software

What Type of Buyer Are You?

Market Trends to Understand

What Is Online Help Desk Software?

Online help desk software helps companies manage their entire IT infrastructure, which can include:

  • Individual endpoints, such as desktop computers, laptops and tablets

  • Peripherals, such as printers, scanners and POS systems

  • Back-end equipment, such as servers and backup storage systems

  • Networks and networking hardware, such as LANs, routers and Wi-Fi access points

  • Any software that keeps the business running and employees productive

This is an IT-centric definition. From the point of view of the employees who rely on IT, online help desk software is more about getting support for IT services. It's a small but important distinction we'll discuss more below in the Market Trends to Understand section.

Like most software, help desks began as on-premise (i.e., locally installed) software. Today, online help desk solutions are cloud-based, meaning that they're hosted, updated and maintained by the vendor. Many of these tools provide both cutting-edge functionality and user-friendly interfaces.

RemedyForce-is-an-online-help-desk-solution-with-a-user-centric-UI

RemedyForce is an online help desk solution that offers a user-centric interface

For most small businesses, online help desks are the smartest choice. They require little (or no) installation of local software, are automatically updated and patched by the vendor, have lower startup costs and provide the best end-user and administrator experiences.

Common Features of Online Help Desk Software

IT asset management

Tracks and manages all physical IT hardware owned by (or used within) a business.

Network monitoring and management

Helps administrators control and configure networks and network access, while monitoring traffic and connections.

Knowledge management

Organizes the information, or knowledge, used by IT department employees. Can be used as a self-service resource for employees.

Configuration management

Manages the settings and permissions configured on individual devices. Lets administrators apply configuration or settings changes to multiple devices at once.

Service catalog management

A service catalog helps larger organizations guide their employees to the IT staff that can best support them. Service catalog management functions help administrators create and maintain these catalogs.

License management

Helps companies track and make the best use of their software licenses.

Remote access and control

Allows technicians to access and control a workstation from a remote location, facilitating remote diagnosis and resolution with minimal end-user involvement.

Impact analysis tools

Analyzes planned changes for any potential conflicts, flagging possible conflicts before the changes get rolled out. Provides a “look before you leap" style safeguard.

Service level agreement (SLA) management

SLAs guarantee that issues of a certain type will be addressed or resolved within a certain timeframe, among other service guarantees. These features allow users to set prioritization triggers, automatic escalations and other custom rules to ensure applicable issues are handled in compliance with an SLA.

ITIL compatibility

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of IT service management best practices that ensure service management is aligned with business priorities.

What Type of Buyer Are You?

Online help desk are generally used in two different business contexts:

Internal. This is traditionally the most common use. The help desk is the central platform for a company's internal IT department. It serves the company's local and remote employees. These buyers should look for platforms with core help desk functionality and determine requirements based on their company's IT environment, strategy and growth plans.

Managed service provider (MSP). Companies can outsource their IT services management to third-party companies called managed service providers, or MSPs. MSPs should look for help desk systems with more robust remote access and control applications and tools for managing and monitoring individual service level agreements.

Market Trends to Understand

Over the past decade, IT service management has undergone a change in perspective. It began as an IT-centric discipline in which problems and services were managed with a focus on the underlying assets and tools. With today's more modern approach, IT service management focuses on the workflows that the IT department supports.

This shift is also described as the consumerization of IT, a phrase explained in Gartner's "Elevate the Employee Experience With Consumer-Oriented IT Service Delivery" report. It states: "The consumerization of IT isn't so much about using consumer apps for business purposes. It's more about applying the tactics of consumerization to the IT fabric, so as to make employees more agile and engaged." (Full report available to Gartner clients.)

Selecting the right online help desk platform can go a long way toward managing your company's IT to improve the end-user experience, while allowing your IT teams to manage these systems more effectively and efficiently.