12 Help Desk Automation Ideas & 29 Tools to Elevate Your Support

Maximize your help desk efficiency with 12 automation ideas and 29 essential tools. Discover strategies and solutions to enhance your support operations.

Aug 14, 2024

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12 Help Desk Automation Ideas & 29 Tools to Elevate Your Support

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As customer support grows more complex, the volume of queries and requests will rise, too. If left unchecked, this can lead to many issues that harm your business and customers. Slower response times can frustrate your customers, damaging their experience and tarnishing your reputation. Help desk automation can help you avoid this scenario by optimizing your customer support operations to handle higher query volumes, improving customer experience quickly.

We will explore how automating your help desk software can boost customer satisfaction and customer service KPIs while reducing operational costs. Help desk automation like ChatBee.AI is an AI customer support tool, can help you optimize support operations to improve customer experience without the additional costs of hiring and training new staff.

What Is Help Desk Automation?

Help desk automation uses technology to streamline support tasks and processes, like information gathering and ticket routing. The primary goal of automation is to relieve customer service agents of repetitive, mundane jobs so they can focus on more complex customer requests.

Another key objective is to enhance the accuracy and speed of help desk operations. Instead of making mistakes while manually sorting incoming tickets, automated tools can quickly triage and route requests to the proper department or agent based on defined rules. Help desk automation reduces response times, improves accuracy, and enhances customer satisfaction.

Help Desk Automation vs. Help Desk Support: What's the Difference?

Help desk automation refers to using technology to streamline assistance tasks and processes, while help desk support is the deployment of assistance to solve end-users' problems through different channels. The primary focus of an automated help desk is to optimize workflows and improve operational efficiency, whereas help desk support is dedicated to issue resolution and customer satisfaction. They aren’t the same thing.

Real-Life Applications of Help Desk Automation

Help desk automation is commonly employed in three distinct situations: workflows, reports, and user responses. Let’s examine each of these use cases in more detail.

Automated Workflows

When customers contact a company for assistance, their request is typically recorded as a support ticket, a mechanism to document the interaction. As multiple requests can (and often do) arrive simultaneously, agents must determine the level of urgency with which each ticket needs to be resolved. Help desk automation tools can:

Triage incoming tickets

Ensure that lower-priority tickets are solved promptly by self-serve resources, such as a knowledge base

Identify the most critical issues and route them promptly to a human rep

Ticket Routing

With help desk automation, incoming tickets can be immediately routed to the right department or agent based on their:

Content

Priority

Other factors

This ensures that the most qualified person addresses the customer's issue as quickly as possible. An example of what an efficient ticket routing flow looks like:

Provide ticket progress updates to customers

One of the worst things a customer support agent can do is leave their customers unaware of what's happening. When combined with the initial problem the customer was trying to get addressed, a lack of transparency can inspire significant dissatisfaction with your company.

With help desk automation, customers can receive updates via email or SMS. Companies can even provide them with a self-service portal to view the status of their tickets in real-time.

Feedback Gathering

Automated tools can significantly enhance the process of gathering customer opinions and feedback by allowing companies to collect this type of information in real time. Once the data is collected, businesses can start analyzing it immediately, using the information to improve and evolve their processes.

Gathering feedback in this fashion aids organizations in recognizing trends, gaining insights into customer needs and preferences, and making data-driven decisions that improve their products and services.

Automated Reports and Insights

Automated reports generated by a help desk automation system can provide valuable insights into customer behavior, helping companies identify patterns that would be difficult to spot manually. Automated reports might reveal that a particular product or service frequently causes customer problems.

This insight allows businesses to improve their products or services or provide better support. Automated reports can help companies pinpoint areas to improve their customer support operations. They might reveal that customers are experiencing long waits when trying to reach a support rep. This data can prompt the company to improve staffing levels or implement artificial intelligence solutions to boost first-contact resolutions (FCR).

Automated Answers

Utilizing either predefined knowledge or past interactions, an AI-powered help desk tool can provide:

Fast

Actionable

Automated answers

To customer inquiries. It also reduces the risk of human errors, helping you ensure high consistency in support.

Some automated help desk platforms can learn from each conversation and update their database accordingly. The accuracy and relevance of automated answers improve over time.

Leveraging Automation for Competitive Advantage in Business

From a macro perspective, these tools can provide a major competitive advantage. According to a McKinsey survey, while many businesses agree that they could automate a quarter of their organizations' tasks within five years, less than 20% indicate that they've implemented the necessary technologies to carry out that automation.

Imagine that answering basic customer queries is one of the tasks your competitors have not yet automated. By automating this interaction in your business, you'll be one step ahead in maximizing convenience through digitization, increasing your chances of keeping your existing customers and winning over some of your competitors.

7 Key Components & Features of Help Desk Automation

Help desk automation is vital in enhancing customer support operations. Automating repetitive tasks frees support teams to focus on more complex queries, improving overall service quality. Knowing which features can make all the difference when searching for an automated service desk is important. Here are some must-have automation features that you should consider:

1. Automated Ticket Routing

Automated ticket assignment in a help desk automatically assigns incoming support requests or complaints (tickets) to the appropriate person based on predefined rules and criteria. Many ticketing systems use the Round-robin assignment feature to distribute tickets among all available resources automatically. This leads to a fair distribution of work and speeds up the issue resolution process.

2. Alerts & Notifications

Alerts and notifications are another help desk automation feature that can help your agents stay updated about ticket progress no matter where they are. Agents get a new ticket notification whenever a new help desk ticket is generated, and customers can get an email alert when an agent working on the issue shares a response.

3. Ticket Escalation

Ticket escalation is the process of raising the priority level of a support ticket to ensure that it receives appropriate attention and resources. When a ticket is escalated, it is typically routed to a higher-level support agent or manager who has more expertise or authority to resolve the issue.

Tickets are usually escalated when an agent fails to resolve the issue per the set SLAs or when the issue can greatly impact business processes. This is a great way to ensure urgent issues are given attention.

4. Reporting

Customer service managers can generate automated reports to keep a firm tab on team and individual performance. These reports offer up-to-the-minute insights into the customer service process. In a single reporting dashboard, you can view metrics such as:

The average ticket response time

Ticket resolution time

Pending tickets

Agent ratings, etc.

Managers can filter reports to gauge an agent’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly performance.

5. Canned Responses

Canned responses are pre-designed message templates that can be used to respond to common customer queries and requests. You can use appropriate canned responses to address common queries such as:

What is the status of my order?

What are your company’s return policies?

Canned responses will help you reduce human errors and share consistent replies.

6. Knowledge Base

An online knowledge base acts as a repository of:

Help articles

FAQ pages

Video tutorials, etc.

Customers can access a dedicated knowledge base around the clock.

A knowledge base can help automate your customer service process and reduce ticket volume. Customers can browse a list of FAQs, read the relevant solutions, and resolve issues at their own pace.

7. Chatbot

A chatbot has become a popular service desk automation tool that can help your business assist customers 24×7 even when your customer service team isn’t available. Bots can be trained to handle common queries related to:

Product pricing

Availability

Return Policies

Appointment scheduling and more

If a bot can’t tackle a customer query, it can transfer the chat to a human operator.

Connectors and Integrations

ChatBees focuses on optimizing Real-Time Agent Guidance (RAG) for internal operations, such as customer and employee support. The software boasts accurate responses and easy workflow integration through a low-code, no-code approach.

ChatBees' agentic framework enhances response quality, enabling operations teams to handle higher query volumes without needing DevOps for deployment and maintenance.

Boosting Response Quality and Efficiency with ChatBees' Agentic Framework

This improves predictability and accuracy, enabling these operations teams to handle more queries. No DevOps is required to deploy and maintain the service.

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

Ticket Resolution

Automated Ticketing System

Customer Service Knowledge Base

Slack for Customer Support

Ticket Triage

AI For IT Support

Ticket Handling Best Practices

Automated Email Response Customer Service

AI Ticketing System

8 Benefits of Help Desk Automation

1. Improved Efficiency: Automation Increases Productivity

Help desk automation elevates productivity by streamlining repetitive tasks. Automating ticket routing and categorization allows support teams to focus on more complex issues. This leads to faster response and resolution times, which boosts customer satisfaction.

2. Cost Savings: Reduce Operational Expenses

Help desk automation reduces operational costs. Organizations can handle the same volume of inquiries with fewer support agents by decreasing manual labor and automating routine tasks.

3. Consistency: Deliver Reliable Customer Experiences

Automation ensures consistency in responses and actions, reducing the risk of human error. Customers receive standardized information and service, enhancing their experience.

4. 24/7 Availability: Provide Round-the-Clock Support

Chatbots and automated responses can provide support around the clock, including outside regular business hours. This improves customer satisfaction and availability.

5. Scalability: Effortlessly Adjust to Increased Demands

As businesses grow, they can easily scale their support operations with automation. Help desk automation allows organizations to handle increased ticket volumes without proportionally increasing staffing levels.

6. Faster Resolution: Resolve Urgent Issues Quickly

Help desk automation can prioritize tickets to the most appropriate support agents or

teams. This ensures that urgent issues are addressed promptly, improving customer satisfaction.

7. Reduced Workload: Allow Agents to Focus on Complex Tasks

By automating repetitive tasks, help desk automation reduces the workload for support agents. Agents can focus on complex issues that require human intervention, leading to higher job satisfaction and better utilization of their skills.

8. Compliance and SLA Adherence: Meet Business Regulations

Help desk automation can help enforce service level agreements by tracking response and resolution times and sending alerts when SLA thresholds are at risk of being breached.

AI Customer Service Software

Ticketing System Workflow

Help Desk Process

Hubspot Ticketing System

AI Customer Service Agent

Real-Time Agent Assistance

Ticket Management System

Digital Customer Service Tools

Slack Ticketing System

Service Desk Automation

Customer Service Automation Software

Help Desk Analysis

Automated Customer Support

12 Help Desk Automation Ideas Every Business Should Consider Implementing

1. Jumpstart Customer Engagement With Live Chat

Live chat is a brilliant addition to any website. Unlike traditional communication channels like phone or email, live chat can handle multiple customers simultaneously. Customers love speedy responses when it comes to resolving their issues or queries.

According to a Forrester report, over 30% of customers expect live chat support on your website. How can live chat help you automate your process? Whenever a visitor shares a typical query, the chat operator can simply share a link to a relevant help center article and encourage self-service. This is a great way to deflect most low-priority tickets.

2. Invest in Automated Help Desk Software

If there is one tool that can help you automate multiple tasks, it’s help desk software. From ticket assignments to notifications and alerts, help desk automation software can help you automate mundane tasks and enhance team productivity. Let’s see how it works:

Automated ticket assignments: When agents pick tickets to resolve manually, it can lead to unfair distribution and create confusion. To avoid such a situation, you can route tickets automatically to agents using the round-robin method.

Automated email notifications: How do you update agents when a new ticket arrives in my inbox? How do I inform customers that their ticket has been registered? Automated email notifications can do the trick. They are sent to agents or customers when a pre-defined condition is met.

Canned responses: This simple automation feature can save your team thousands of hours monthly. Canned responses are pre-designed email or chat response templates that agents can use to respond quickly to common customer queries.

3. Develop Powerful Chatbots

With chatbots, customers can get instant assistance, so they don’t have to wait in a call support queue or write lengthy complaints via email. Chatbots are a must for IT help desk automation.

57% of executives claim that chatbots bring significant returns on investment (ROI) with minimal effort. Whether you own an online store, develop mobile apps, or run a fashion boutique, chatbots are applicable in most industries.

Enhancing Customer Service with Human-Like Chatbots and Seamless Escalation Options

You can design their scripts to mimic human-like interactions and not sound robotic. You can even give your bot a unique personality to enhance the customer service experience.

There will be situations where chatbots can’t offer a solution or understand the problem. In such a case, the bot can give customers the option to connect with a live chat operator or create a help desk ticket.

Do your customers keep waiting to get an email response from your help desk team? Automated email replies can help you eliminate their frustration.

According to Statista, 62% of customers expect businesses to share an email response within 24 hours. You can use auto-reply emails for different situations. You can share them when customers drop a complaint when your team is offline. Here is a sample text:

Hi,

Thank you for contacting us. Our help desk team’s operation hours are from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. You can expect our agent to connect with you within the next 24 hours. Kindly fill out this query/complaint form.

This will help customers get an immediate response and allow them to set the right expectations.

5. Reduce Help Desk Tickets With Knowledge Base

Most customers don’t give a toss whether you have enough customer service staff available. If they encounter a small issue, they feel they should have the option to explore solutions themselves.

According to a Microsoft study, 90% of global customers expect brands and organizations to provide an online self-service portal. Ensure your knowledge base offers advanced search capabilities and presents content in multiple formats – from small FAQs to in-depth troubleshooting guides.

Boosting Self-Service with Interactive How-To Videos and Proactive Outreach

You can even include short how-to videos for greater interactiveness. If you already have a knowledge base and feel customers always skip self-service, it’s best to market it. We can share proactive emails with customers, including links to relevant help center articles. Phone support agents or live chat operators can do the same to encourage self-service among your audience.

6. Use Pre-Designed Response Templates

A majority of customer queries are repetitive:

Where is my order?

How do I return my item?

When will product X be back in stock?

There is no point in reinventing the wheel. Instead of typing the same response again and again, you can create email and chat response templates for routine queries.

Crafting Effective Response Templates with Personalization for Enhanced Customer Service

Customer service managers can bring out their experience and help craft brilliant responses to frequently asked questions. Support agents can then use these templates to save time and reduce effort. The purpose of these templates is not to simply share a response in seconds. You must add a modest amount of personalization to make customers feel special and valued.

7. Leverage IVR Technology

IVR, or interactive voice response technology, has been the cornerstone of help desk automation for decades. But how exactly does it work? IVR allows customers to interact with a pre-recorded voice using DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency) tones.

An IVR system can allow you to share pre-recorded greetings and route callers to the right departments. How does this technology help you facilitate automation at the service desk? An IVR system can be designed to offer multiple self-service options to customers, such as:

Order tracking

Balance inquiry

Appointment booking, etc.

Over the phone. When phone support operators are too busy to take further calls, an AI voice-enabled IVR can communicate this to customers. The system can even arrange customer callbacks based on their preferred time slots.

How do you know if your automation efforts are successful? Why not ask your customers directly about their customer service experience? An automated help desk ticketing system allows you to share automated surveys with customers right after their support interaction – once a ticket is closed.

These surveys can help you capture feedback on agent performance, ease of seeking assistance, or the overall support experience. You can even choose to escalate issues based on how customers respond. If a customer gives a one-star rating or shares negative feedback, you can escalate the case to the manager and schedule a call.

9. Improve the feedback loop

If you work with software or another online business, you may use a mechanism like CSAT or NPS to get customer feedback on how well your team is performing. Want to automatically reply to someone who gives me a bad rating to ask for more feedback?

It’s easy for follow-ups to fall through the cracks, so automating that process can be super useful. It also allows the customer to feel heard and helps improve their relationship.

10. SLA Automation

Service Level Agreements or SLAs are formal commitments made by a business or support team to its customers regarding the level of service they can expect to receive. They are crucial in setting expectations, measuring performance, and ensuring high customer satisfaction.

SLA automations in help desks allow you to set up reminder alerts so that any time a deadline is violated, the relevant teams are notified, ensuring timely resolutions. These reminder alerts are defined based on the following:

Ticket type

Issue severity

Priority level, etc.

11. Customer Feedback Automation

This type of help desk automation uses predefined workflows to:

Efficiently and effectively collect

Analyze

Act on customer feedback.

It helps businesses streamline the feedback process, gain valuable insights, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Customer feedback automation enables help desks to send out surveys automatically after a support interaction or purchase. The feedback can then be analyzed using NLP and sentiment analysis to extract essential information from unstructured responses.

Automating Customer Feedback Collection for Mobile App Enhancements

Say a software company wants to collect feedback from customers who have recently used their mobile app. They want to understand the user experience, identify any issues, and gather suggestions for improvement.

Collecting the automation workflow would be as follows: The customer completes an interaction with the mobile app, which triggers an email survey sent to the customer’s registered email address. The survey could be around the user’s satisfaction with the application, specific features they liked, issues encountered, etc.

Streamlining Feedback Management with Automation Tools for Enhanced User Experience

Once the customer submits the survey, an automation tool like Chorus AI (a tool that analyzes all customer interactions to identify top customers and extract important information to be used as testimonials) collects responses and categorizes them. The feedback can be related to the app’s features, such as:

Performance

User interface

Features they liked

If a customer rates an experience below a certain threshold, an automated alert is sent to the support team for immediate attention.

Generating Insights and Engaging Customers Through Automated Feedback Reporting

The automated system then generates reports and dashboards that provide an overview of customer feedback trends. It highlights areas of concern and showcases positive feedback as well.

The system triggers automated follow-up emails or notifications for customers who provide contact information. These may include thanking the customer for their feedback, updating them on issue resolutions, or even offering incentives for participation.

12. Custom Workflow Automation

Custom workflow automation involves designing and implementing personalized and tailored automated processes within an organization’s operations or software systems. These workflows are customized to meet specific business needs, allowing for the automation of unique tasks, actions, and decisions.

Custom workflows can streamline and automate complex processes, reducing manual effort and the likelihood of errors. It enables you to create workflows that precisely match your unique business processes, making it easier to adapt to changing needs.

Automating Order Fulfillment: Streamlining Processes from Verification to Customer Notification

Here’s an example of how this help desk automation can help. Consider an e-commerce company that wants to automate its order fulfillment process, which includes:

Order verification

Inventory check

Shipping label generation

Customer notification

This is how the custom workflow automation can be set up:

Order Verification: The workflow starts when a new order is received. An automated system checks if the order information is complete and accurate.

Inventory Check: The workflow checks the inventory system to ensure the ordered products are in stock. If not, it triggers an alert to restock.

Shipping Label Generation: Once the order is verified and the inventory check is successful, the system generates a shipping label and assigns the order to the shipping department.

Customer Notification: After the order is shipped, the system automatically sends a confirmation email to the customer, including tracking information.

Exception Handling: If issues arise during the process (e.g., an out-of-stock item), the workflow can notify relevant staff for manual intervention.

29 Most Popular Help Desk Automation Software in 2024

1. ChatBees.ai

ChatBees' agentic framework enhances response quality, enabling operations teams to handle higher query volumes without needing DevOps for deployment and maintenance.

Boosting Response Quality and Efficiency with ChatBees' Agentic Framework

This improves predictability and accuracy, enabling these operations teams to handle more queries. No DevOps is required to deploy and maintain the service.

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

2. HelpDesk: Automate Customer Support Issues with No-Code Workflows

HelpDesk is an automation platform that provides no-code workflows for businesses to address customer issues. This browser-based product allows users to set up condition- and action-based workflows to automate daily customer communications.

HelpDesk also helps users assign tickets to agents based on:

Skills or availability

Identify VIP customers

Categorize customers and tickets

Other predictive features include email templates, custom fields, ticket summaries, and text enhancements.

3. HappyFox: Automated Customer Service for Businesses of All Sizes

HappyFox is a customer service platform with automated help desk capabilities that businesses of all sizes can use. It’s a ticketing system that lets users convert requests into tickets from multiple channels, including:

Chat

Social media

The phone

HappyFox also offers features like smart rules, service level agreements (SLAs), and auto ticket assignments for automation. The platform also offers canned responses to help agents respond to customer inquiries and reporting and analytics features.

4. Salesforce Service Cloud: AI Automation for Customer Service Operations

Salesforce Service Cloud is a customer service platform that offers AI-powered workflows and automation. This product lets businesses connect customers with knowledge base articles, automate business processes, and route cases.

The platform also has chatbots that can handle common requests. It integrates with other systems, such as Zendesk. While Salesforce Service Cloud is highly customizable, it tends to have a high total cost of ownership because it often requires expensive technical resources and partnerships.

5. Freshdesk: Cloud-Based Help Desk for Automating Customer Support

Freshdesk by Freshworks is a cloud-based automated service desk platform. It offers a ticketing system and multichannel support capabilities over:

Phone

Chat channels

Teams can automate ticket assignments and set automatic email notifications to notify customers of request changes. Its features include:

Agent routing

AI-powered workflows

Self-service software like customer portals

Freshdesk's reporting capabilities are limited, and its agent interface is disconnected. This forces users to go to different screens for detailed information on individual channels like phone or chat.

6. ServiceNow: AI Automation for IT Help Desk Operations

ServiceNow offers help desk software that specializes in IT service management. It also has a customer service management (CSM) tool focusing on automated issue resolution and self-service capabilities.

Automated service desk features include intelligent routing tracking tickets throughout the:

Resolution process

AI-powered chatbot

Automated self-service

Teams can also engage in omnichannel support and communicate with each other through agent workspaces. The platform also attempts to assist agents with customer service management playbooks that can alert them to trending problems. These dedicated workspaces offer a unified CSM view and automated task abilities.

7. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus: IT Help Desk With Automation Features

ManageEngine is an IT service management platform that aims to supplement help desk capabilities. The product combines:

Service management

Asset management

Finances

And more

To deliver workflows that help the customer service experience. The product offers:

No-code ticket automation

Reporting functions

Customization

To address tickets in all stages of the ticket lifecycle. ManageEngine also partners with Zoho to utilize Zia, a conversational AI chatbot. This bot acts as a virtual assistant and first point of contact, providing customers with an alternative avenue for assistance.

8. SysAid: IT Help Desk Automation Software

SysAid is an IT service automation platform that focuses on creating workflows for service desks. Through its no-code software, businesses can automate tasks related to:

Customer support tickets

Daily tasks

General workflow

SysAid features self-service automation to assist support agents in finding resolutions to common problems like password resets, ticket automation, and asset management. Additionally, reporting features can help businesses monitor the status of active and archived support tickets.

9. Zoho Desk: Help Desk Software for Automating Customer Support

Zoho Desk by Zoho is a help desk software that helps users create automated customer resolutions. The platform has three main objectives:

Improve the customer experience

Assist support agents

Increase long-term retention

Zoho attempts to help businesses with these goals by offering:

Omnichannel capabilities

AI workflows

Analytics

Other workflow-related features

Other capabilities include self-service features that enable customers to find:

Answers independently

Ticket organization

Accessibility

To help support agents keep track of open tickets and time tracking so managers can monitor employees' productivity. Integration features allow businesses to use Zoho and many other daily tools.

10. Spiceworks: Free IT Help Desk Software

Spiceworks is a free cloud help desk focused on automation and efficiency for help desks. This product is designed for businesses with tight budgets and helps to automate daily projects and user requests.

Teams can create reports to help monitor their trending performance. The platform has features like:

Automated ticket routing

Automated responses

Knowledge base creation

Advanced Reporting

Spiceworks offers fewer capabilities than the other options on our list, but it does include the basics to get businesses up and running.

11. Knowmax: AI Knowledge Management System for Help Desks

Knowmax is an AI-powered knowledge management system developed by CX experts specifically designed to be integrated with and enhance your existing help desk with its:

Interactive decision trees

Visual how-to guides

Articles

Knowmax ensures that knowledge is easily accessible and actionable for your help desk staff from day one.

12. HelpScout: User-Friendly Help Desk Software

HelpScout is a web-based help desk software that helps manage and streamline customer support offerings. HelpScout’s collaborative inbox, automated workflows, and reporting and analytics dashboard enable businesses to respond quickly to customer support tickets, enhance workflow, and optimize team performance.

13. Zendesk: Comprehensive Customer Service Software

Zendesk is a customer service and integration platform that provides businesses with a centralized platform for handling customer support issues across various channels, such as:

Chat

Phone

Social media

The software has several features that help agents manage support requests efficiently, such as:

Automated workflows

Ticketing management

Ticket routing

14. Vivantio: IT Service Management Platform with Automation Capabilities

Vivantio is a cloud-based IT service management platform designed to help businesses manage their service requests, incidents, assets, and people with its:

Automation engine

Scalable and adaptable platform

Software

Enterprises may lower operating expenses, expedite operations, and speed up ticket response times.

15. Jira service management: ITSM Software for Help Desk Automation

Jira Service Management is an ITSM desktop and service desk with features such as:

Ticket management

Automation

Knowledge base

Jira Service Management helps your teams manage IT services efficiently and effectively. The software is integrated with other software, such as Jira software.

16. Desk365: User-Friendly Help Desk Software

Desk365 delivers a robust cloud-based ticketing system known for its user-friendly interface and seamless implementation. Packed with features like:

Efficient ticket management

Collaborative tools for teams

Automation

SLA capabilities

Desk365 empowers businesses to optimize customer support operations, guaranteeing swift attention and resolution for every ticket. The responsive mobile version of Desk365 enables support teams to stay connected and address customer inquiries from any location. This feature ensures businesses can maintain exceptional customer support, even when team members are on the move.

17. ProProfs Help Desk: Help Desk Software with Automation Tools

With the support of the ProProfs support desk's fantastic automation tools, your team can do more in less time. You can automate various processes to increase productivity and lighten the workload of your agents, from ticket routing to notifications and alerts.

A knowledge library that offers solutions through:

FAQ pages

Guides

Video tutorials

And more

Helps automate your support processes.

18. HubSpot Help Desk: Free Help Desk Software for Organizing Customer Issues

HubSpot's Free Help Desk and Ticketing Software is a unified help desk dashboard where all customer requests are stored so your entire team can:

Easily track

Prioritize

Manage them

Staying organized becomes more challenging as you scale your business, making it more difficult to give each customer issue the attention it deserves. This software allows you to monitor each issue and resolve it easily.

19. Groove: Simple Help Desk Software for Small Businesses

Of all the options I tested, Groove is one of the simplest and most cost-effective cloud-based help desk software solutions for small to medium-sized businesses. It helps companies communicate with their customers via:

Live chat

Social media

Phone calls

Over 10,000 users trust Groove as a simple yet powerful Zendesk and Freshdesk alternative. According to them, Groove’s help desk is easier to use, quicker to set up, and provides a much better customer experience.

20. CDESK: Customizable Help Desk Software

CDESK is a highly customizable help desk platform that offers various free customer service tools. It includes everything from ticket management to customer feedback collection. This platform is ideal for smaller businesses adopting their first help desk software.

21. Hesk: Lightweight Help Desk Software

Hesk is a lightweight help desk software for small customer service teams. It's simple and user-friendly, making it easy to learn for beginners. It's also really simple to test out. Its site features a demo version we played around with for a while. The system was intuitive, and there were plenty of mock contacts for which you could create tickets.

22. HelpDeskZ: Free PHP Help Desk Software

HelpDeskZ is a PHP-based solution for your web-based ticketing system. The software is free, so you don't need to worry about paying for upgrades as you scale.

One thing I liked about this product is the two demo options. You can try this help desk as a support rep or reverse the roles and see what customers see when interacting with your business.

23. LiveAgent: Free Help Desk Software for New Businesses

LiveAgent's free help desk software is a great starting point for new businesses looking for a powerful system but needing more money for an enterprise-level plan. It has all the features your team needs to satisfy customer requests. There are some limitations, like the need to view tickets that are seven days old.

24. BoldDesk: Help Desk Software for Improving Customer Service

BoldDesk is a modern help desk software solution streamlines customer support operations and enhances overall service quality. It caters to businesses of all sizes, offering a comprehensive suite of tools for managing customer inquiries, automating support workflows, and providing insightful analytics.

BoldDesk’s user-friendly interface and robust features make it an ideal choice for organizations looking to improve customer service efficiency. Whether managing day-to-day support requests or implementing complex workflows, BoldDesk provides the tools and insights to enhance customer satisfaction and drive business success.

25. Kustomer: Customer Service Software for Omnichannel Support

Kustomer is a customer service platform designed for businesses to manage, automate, and personalize customer interactions across various channels. The platform allows companies to have a unified view of their customers’ interactions by consolidating data from various communication channels, such as:

Chat

Social media

Text messages

into a single customer timeline.

26. Gorgias: Help Desk Software for E-Commerce Support

Gorgias is a customer service and support help desk designed specifically for e-commerce. It is a central hub for managing customer interactions across various channels, strongly focusing on streamlining workflows and leveraging data to improve the customer experience.

27. Tidio: Customer Support Chat Software

Tidio has become an indispensable customer support tool for businesses of all sizes. The platform is popular for its AI-powered chatbots that help users complete the:

Checkout process

Check order status

Handle support tickets

And more

The platform provides an easy-to-use dashboard that enables multichannel integration, allowing you to handle all client communication within one central inbox. It offers features to categorize your:

Visitors

Apply tags

Utilize chatbots

To answer and gather contact information from potential leads.

28. Intercom: Customer Service Software with Advanced Automation

Intercom is an AI customer service tool for enterprise-level organizations with multiple front-end departments. The platform is known for its strong messaging capabilities and automation features. It’s built on a single system with three critical components:

AI agent

AI copilot

AI analyst.

According to their website, AI helps bots successfully reduce agent support queries. Human agents can also use personal virtual assistants and canned responses when replying to support queries.

29. Drift: Customer Engagement Platform for Sales and Support

Drift is designed to enhance a customer journey by consolidating all communications in a single location. Service teams can use the platform to build:

Sales pipeline

Convert prospects

Provide superior customer experience

The software acts as an AI-powered engagement platform that analyzes consumer data points to offer personalized support at every stage of the buying journey.

3 Industrial Use Cases for Leveraging Help Desk Automations

1. SaaS Companies: Efficient Support Systems for Business Continuity

SaaS companies need solid customer support systems. It's an industry where bugs, outages, and user error can lead to many problems. Without IT help desk automation, SaaS users will be stuck on long hold times.

No one wants to wait impatiently for a human representative to get on the line and help them. With help desk automation, an AI chatbot can immediately communicate outages to SaaS customers without any hold time. Self-service knowledge-based articles can also handle user error issues.

2. Travel Services: Providing Timely Information to Customers

Travel industries also need efficient support. Companies like Disney Resorts often see long hold times when vacationers call for general information or to check up on their existing reservations.

By incorporating help desk automation, customers can provide reservation numbers to AI chatbots to pull up the information they need to review. Customers seeking general information can also find expedited help through automated systems and knowledge-base articles that answer frequently asked questions.

3. Financial Services: Automating Responses to Common Queries

Banks are also notorious for long customer support hold times. With help desk automation software, financial institutions can keep their phone lines free for emergencies and more complicated issues that require a human being. Automation solutions can handle simple matters like providing account balances or reviewing recent transactions. No one wants to sit on hold for 25 minutes just to get their routing number.

10 Ways to Choose the Right Help Desk Automation Tool

1. Define What ‘Great Customer Service’ Means For Your Business

Businesses known for exceptional customer service start by creating a customer service strategy. Your customer service strategy is the foundation of an exceptional service culture.

Understand what great customer service means to your business and make such standards consistent across all departments.

For some businesses, great customer service means a customer who has given a 5-star rating to a customer service agent or interaction. Others might adopt an in-depth approach and consider repeat buyers or loyal brand advocates signs of superior customer service. Understanding your business objectives and priorities will help you find a tool that meets them.

2. Understand Customer & Employee Expectations

Before picking the correct help desk solution, you must understand what customers expect from your brand. Around 54% of all consumers globally say they have higher customer service expectations than just one year ago.

While some customers might expect a swift response over live chat, others might demand a mobile-friendly knowledge base. You can understand their expectations by:

monitoring brand mentions on social media

keeping an eye on your competitors

directly asking your customers via surveys

When we talk about employees, you must reduce their efforts and make their lives stress-free. Your agents' productivity and operational efficiency depend on the tools they use. Before finalizing a help desk, you must consider taking suggestions from those who directly deal with customers- your service managers and service representatives.

3. Raise Important Questions About Your Help Desk Vendor

Once you understand customer needs and expectations clearly, it’s time to raise important questions about various help desk vendors:

How many paying users do they have?

What is their average rating on popular software review platforms?

How easy is it to contact them for technical or non-technical assistance?

How many communication channels are they available on? (email, phone, chat, etc.)

What other perks/benefits do they offer?

How secure is your business data with them?

Do they provide a free trial of their tool? What help desk metrics does the tool allow you to measure?

The answers to these questions will provide a strong base for your research and help you realize every tool's pros and cons. After discussing them with your team or CS experts, you can frame more questions.

4. Consider Key Help Desk Features

Your search for the best help desk software is incomplete without factoring in the features. Let’s look at some of the core features that your tool should have.

Issue Tracking Issue

tracking is one of the primary features of free help desk software. You can convert every customer issue/request into a ticket and track the entire ticket lifecycle. Your agents can easily monitor the progress of every support ticket in a shared dashboard.

Internal Collaboration

As a business, you may need more than an individual or department to resolve a ticket completely. Internal collaboration features such as:

Private notes

Parent-child ticketing, etc.

Knowledge Base

All great help desk tools have one thing in common; they allow users to create a knowledge base from scratch. You can allow customers to find relevant help using:

FAQs

Articles

Video tutorials, etc.

Live Chat Live

Chat enables you to provide real-time support from your help desk. Besides engaging users, you can also use a live chat plugin to maximize your sales opportunities. Chatbots can assist customers with their basic queries.

Reports & Analytics

The best help desk ticketing system must offer your team the necessary data. You can track key customer service metrics such as first response time, customer satisfaction, ticket backlog, etc. Managers can also monitor team performance from time to time.

5. Scalability Is the Key

Overlooking the scalability factor while purchasing help desk software can harm your business's growth. You should check with sales and customer service teams to see if the solution you are considering can support a large volume of customers.

Go for a help desk that can match your growing business requirements. You have a small team, but the business could expand at some point in the future.

Scalable Solutions for Growing Customer Service Needs

With business expansion, you need a powerful help desk ticketing system to handle the rising volume of customer issues and requests. A scalable and future-proof software helps you better manage customer communications and collaborate with teams efficiently without losing customer queries. Help desk managers can rest assured that even in rapid business expansion, their help desk tool will be more than ready to grow.

6. Focus on Your Budget

Budget is always essential whether you have a customer service team of hundreds or ten members. Without sound budget knowledge, you are just taking a shot with both your eyes closed.

Here are some points to consider to ensure the help desk system fits right in your budget. Don’t get distracted by steep discounts or low prices. A low price does not guarantee quality features.

Choosing Cost-Effective Help Desk Solutions with Transparency

Go for a tool that offers all the features your team needs without burning a hole in your pocket. Get the upper management's approval before finalizing any help desk tool. Keep things transparent and let your leadership know where and how the money will be spent.

Instead of investing heavily in an open-source tool, buy a cloud-based help desk software that offers flexible pay-per-agent plans. Go for annual plans, as most companies offer heavy discounts (anywhere from 10 to 50%) on them. Ask if there are any hidden costs or charges.

7. A Free Trial Can Work Wonders

Some help desk vendors offer a free trial for their product, usually limited to 15 or 30 days. A free trial can give you a glimpse into a help desk system and help you make a more confident purchase decision. With a free trial, you can try the tool you will purchase without spending a dollar.

A trial version is a great way to check if all the advertised features and options are included and how well they function. Most trials offer premium features, so your team knows exactly what they are getting into. A 15- —to 30-day window is more than enough to gauge a tool's efficacy and explore all features in greater detail. Ask your agents to jot down everything they love and highlight areas where the tool falls flat.

8. See How Well Your Team Responds

Selecting the right help desk software is only half the battle won. You must consistently see how your team responds to the tool and whether they face any challenges. Before you get all hands on deck, ensure your team is trained on basic help desk skills.

They must have a fair idea about tickets:

Prioritization

Escalations

Canned responses

Ticket resolution time

And more

Contact your help desk vendor for support whenever your team encounters any challenges. To overcome any hurdles, visit their help center and look for:

Relevant FAQs

Help articles

Video tutorials

Hold regular team discussions and meetings to understand how comfortable your agents are with the tool. If they face challenges even after weeks of use, the tool might not fit you best.

With the right tool, you must witness enhanced productivity and fewer efforts from your agents. Create an internal knowledge base and allow agents to share best practices, tips, or hacks on making the most of the tool. An agent can share how he discovered a fantastic feature and how it can solve a significant problem.

9. What Support Channels Do Your Customers Prefer?

Today's customers do not wish to contact a support team using traditional channels such as the phone or email. Over the last few years, digital channels such as live chat and social media have garnered tremendous popularity.

51% of customers prefer to use live chat support for multitasking purposes. When choosing your help desk, make sure it supports popular communication channels among your audience.

10 To What Extent Do You Wish to Automate Your Customer Service Process?

Customer service automation can display magical results for your customer service team. Look for a help desk solution that allows you to automate your repetitive tasks with features such as:

Canned responses

Automated ticket routing

Automated notifications

Surveys

Many modern tools offer AI-powered chatbots that can help you assist customers even when your team is unavailable to take chats. Chatbots can interact with customers, help them make better purchase decisions, and generate more leads for your business.

6 Performance Metrics to Measure How Effective Your Help Desk Automations Are

1. Customer Satisfaction Scores: The Golden Metric of Help Desk Automation

Help desk automation is designed to improve user experience by resolving issues quickly. So, once you implement automation, tracking how your customers feel about it is crucial. If your help desk automation tool performs well, you should have more satisfied customers.

Their satisfaction comes from:

Understanding the product well

Having quick resolutions

There is a low average wait time when calling in

You can measure customer satisfaction scores by sending automated surveys. Many businesses ask customers who recently spoke with support to participate in one. A popular option for gauging customer satisfaction is your net promoter score. This requires a simple survey asking users to rate their company or department on a scale of 1-10.

2. Employee Satisfaction Scores: Help Desk Automation Enhances the Work Environment

Help desk automation de-stresses your customer support representatives and decreases their call loads. Since the help desk automation platform has taken over those tasks, reps are free from dealing with the same repetitive issues.

If your automation platform improves employees’ professional lives, it will reflect their job satisfaction scores. Regularly poll your employees to get a good sense of their thoughts and feelings.

3. Churn Rate: Understand Why Customers Leave

Help desk automation’s ability to increase customer satisfaction (via more access to support and lower wait times) should also decrease your customer churn rate. The churn rate is a metric that measures how many customers your business has lost over a given period.

If your churn rate is high, finding the cause is imperative. It could be that customers don’t like the resources you’re providing, or they’re stuck in a chatbot automation loop. Consider sending automated polls or surveys to lost customers to uncover their reasons for leaving.

4. Retention Rate: A Key Indicator of Customer Happiness

Your retention rate is the number of closed customers who return for more. A company signs up for a six-month plan using a cloud-based SaaS solution.

At the end of the six months, they renew. That’s a retained customer. Quality customer support is a major factor that influences customer retention rates.

5. Response Time: A Direct Indicator of Help Desk Automation Efficiency

If automation does its job correctly, your average response times for customer support tickets should be much lower. This should create a pattern where hold times and email response times consistently drop.

6. Ticket Volume: A Straightforward Metric for Help Desk Automation

The overall ticket volume is another metric that’s easy to track using your chosen help desk automation tool. It can generate a report that shows the total support tickets created through the system during a given time. If the self-service and automated options you have in place are helping customers solve their problems, your overall support ticket volume will decrease.

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