Simple Guide on How to Set up and Optimize the Hubspot Help Desk

This straightforward guide will help you set up and optimize your HubSpot help desk easily, resulting in better customer support management.

Sep 28, 2024

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Simple Guide on How to Set up and Optimize the Hubspot Help Desk

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Imagine this: A customer contacts your support team for help with a product issue. After a long wait, they receive a response, only to find out the information is outdated. They reach out again, and another team member replies, but they still don’t have the answer to their question. The customer gives up and takes their business elsewhere. No one wants to see a scenario like this play out, but it can happen when your support team isn’t organized or equipped to help customers efficiently. Using the Hubspot help desk software, you can prevent situations like this by creating a smooth and organized process for managing customer inquiries.

This article will explore how to set up and optimize the Hubspot help desk to improve customer service. We’ll also examine how ChatBees’s AI customer support solution can help you achieve your goals even faster.

What Is HubSpot Help Desk?

The HubSpot help desk is a robust ticketing system that helps businesses manage customer service interactions more efficiently. Part of HubSpot's Service Hub:

Centralizes customer communications

Organizes and tracks support tickets

Integrates seamlessly with HubSpot’s CRM software to help organizations scale their customer service efforts and provide better customer support.

What Is a Help Desk?

A help desk is a technology system that helps customer service teams intake, manage, organize, automate, respond to, and report on customer questions or issues. Help desks typically include:

Ticketing system

Inbox

Routing or assignment system for reps

Reporting dashboard

Leveraging Technology for Exceptional Customer Support

Meeting and exceeding customers' expectations is critical if you want to build a customer-centric company focused on increasing customer value and growth. The best customer support comes from humans using top-notch technology to help scale the impact of each support rep and the solutions they identify for their customers.

A help desk is one example of those technologies. It empowers your team to provide delightful service that turns your clients into advocates, which will help you become a successful flywheel organization where customers’ success fuels your company’s growth.

The Importance of Reactive Customer Support

Prioritizing reactive customer support will earn you goodwill with your customers and help you form productive partnerships with them. Responding to and resolving customer issues is the basic element of excellent customer support.

What Is Help Desk Support?

Through a formal and organized software system, help desk support:

Answers customer inquiries

Takes in tickets

Resolves customer issues

Provides customer service

Customers benefit from help desk support because it automatically prioritizes issues without rep intervention. Help desk support is similar to customer service, which doesn’t use a software system like in-person customer service.

The Inefficiencies of Unorganized Support

Some companies provide customer service over email and chat, but don’t use a dedicated help desk to organize tickets and customer inquiries. While the result might be similar, a customer gets help via an online avenue, the process is much more different for reps. They must organize all the emails, chat conversations, and social media DMs by themselves, decreasing productivity levels and increasing clerical errors.

Help desk support automates this process for both reps and customers. Here are some help desk supports:

Example 1: A customer submits a ticket. The ticket pops up in the help desk system. It’s automatically assigned to the next available rep. The rep replies to the ticket with a solution. If the issue isn’t solved, the customer replies to the ticket. The ticket is closed.

Example 2: A customer sends an email to the customer support team. The conversation pops up in the team’s shared inbox. The conversation is assigned to the next available rep. The rep and the customer message each other back and forth, the customer does so through their email, while the rep does so through the help desk software. If the issue is resolved, the conversation is archived. If a problem surfaces, a ticket is created.

With that in mind, let’s answer a critical question: What does a help desk do, and how does it help customers and reps?

What Does a Help Desk Do?

A help desk has a particular set of capabilities that help service teams and customers keep track of an issue and ensure a successful outcome for both parties. To that end, a help desk does the following:

It Facilitates Customer Intake

Customer intake is how customers submit questions and issues to your customer support team. Examples of customer intake methods include:

Live chat

Customer portal submissions

Feedback forms

Social media

Phone calls

Offering Multiple Channels for Customer Support

The channels used will depend on your customers and your industry, but it's advisable to offer various channels for customers to reach out to you to make sure you're helping them the way easiest to them. Otherwise, if you try to get customers to jump through too many hoops, they may grow frustrated and leave you for a competitor that's more accessible.

Now, how does a help desk come in? Without a help desk, these various modes of intake may get lost in the “slush pile” physically passed along from rep to rep or forwarded from email to email.

The Importance of a Centralized Help Desk

This is a sure way to lose critical information that will help you resolve a customer complaint effectively. A help desk keeps the information in one central location, where you can change the priority level of an inquiry and quickly escalate the issue to the appropriate party. This, in turn, keeps customers happy because they don’t have to repeat information or constantly have to reach out to your team.

It Keeps All Customer Communication in One Place

Help desks make customer intake easy and keep all submissions in one unified location, often referred to as a “shared inbox.” A shared inbox helps customer support teams manage and collaborate on customer responses to determine best a strategy for triaging and responding.

Shared inboxes usually involve consolidating and sorting messages and assigning incoming tickets to specific reps. Examples of shared inboxes include:

Group email aliases

Conversational messaging inboxes

Live chat queues

Social media monitoring tools

Creating a Unified Customer Experience

Help desk software typically places all of these into one stream your team can access and reply to. When customers receive a response, they won’t feel like it’s a disjointed experience, even if they’ve used three different methods in the past to reach out to you. This will help you provide a seamless omni-channel service experience and surpass customer expectations.

It Organizes and Routes Tickets

Help desks provide powerful ticket organization and routing features that helps customer support teams stay organized and on track. This is especially important when ticket volume increases, such as during product outages or your busy season.

Efficient Ticket Management and Automation

Customer issues frequently involve various teams to resolve, so sorting, prioritizing, assigning, and tracking tickets helps teams save time and improve responses. Automation is a helpful way to route and assign tickets more efficiently to team members specializing in specific issues or complaints.

Improving Ticket Response Times with a Help Desk

Customers who submit a ticket to your company might expect a long wait time. Still, with a help desk’s ticket organization features, you can pleasantly surprise them by responding in less than a business day. The best part is that most help desk tools support canned responses, so you can simply set a reaction to fire off once a customer submits an inquiry.

It Compiles Customer Service Data into Reports

Reporting on customer support issues and trends helps service teams optimize their work, incentivize and compensate reps, and make informed team priority and headcount decisions. A help desk’s reporting feature offers insights about how team systems and priorities are working.

This usually includes dashboards that inform management about the following:

Ticket resolution time

Customer satisfaction

Rep productivity

Customer experience and more

Now that we're all on the same page about what a help desk does, here's our list of the best help desk software your customer support team can use to serve customers better.

HubSpot’s Help Desk Software

HubSpot’s help desk tool is part of Service Hub, a full-scale customer service software designed to help small-to-enterprise businesses provide delightful customer service experiences. HubSpot’s help desk tool features include:

Customer intake management

Conversational 1:1 communication inbox

Service level agreements

Automation and bots to effectively route, assign, and respond to tickets

Customer service reporting to achieve better service results

Service hub is mighty when used with other tools in the HubSpot CRM platform. By integrating automation and bots with all of your marketing and CRM data, Service Hub helps deliver an end-to-end customer experience that helps retain happy customers.

A Versatile Tool for Collaboration and Ease of Use

For that reason, we recommend it if you’re specifically looking to increase collaboration across your sales, marketing, and service teams. It’s also a great choice if you’re intimidated by all the software options out there. It offers plenty of functionality for free, allowing you to get acquainted with a powerful system without paying a dime.

Ticket Deflection

Reduce Support Tickets

Automate Support

Scaling Customer Support

Ticket Analysis

Ticket Queue Management

Key Features of HubSpot Help Desk

HubSpot help desk software provides a free ticketing system that helps you efficiently organize and respond to customer inquiries. With HubSpot’s help desk software, you can:

Create a ticket

Assign it to a teammate

Categorize it

Prioritize it

Track its status until it’s resolved

The help desk software integrates with HubSpot's CRM platform, allowing you to keep track of all customer interactions and deliver personalized responses.

Ticket Management

HubSpot's help desk software is built around a ticketing system that helps you manage, organize, and respond to customer inquiries. When a customer reaches out with a question or concern, you can create a ticket to track and resolve the issue on time. This helps you keep your customer from falling through the cracks and maintains a record of the issue for future reference.

Automation

HubSpot's help desk software comes with automation features to help you streamline your customer support operations. You can set up workflows to automate repetitive tasks like:

Sending follow-up emails

Assigning tickets to teammates

Reducing response times

These save you time and help you deliver a more consistent and reliable experience to customers.

Real-Time Reporting

The help desk software comes with reporting tools to help you monitor your customer support performance. To get a clear picture of how your team is doing, you can track key metrics like:

Ticket volume

Ticket status

Customer feedback

Agent performance

These insights can help you identify areas for improvement to boost customer satisfaction and team efficiency.

Omnichannel Support

With HubSpot’s help desk software, you can manage customer inquiries from various channels all in one place. The software integrates with HubSpot’s Conversations tool, so you can organize incoming customer support inquiries through email, live chat, and even social media and respond to them directly from the Help Desk interface. This allows you to keep all customer interactions organized and easily accessible to your whole team, regardless of their grouping.

How to Set up and Use the Hubspot Help Desk Workspace

Setting up HubSpot help desk software can help you stop losing track of customer conversations. This tool allows you to organize all incoming support requests in one place. You can also automate your processes to get help to customers faster. Here’s how to get started:

Opt Into the HubSpot Help Desk Beta

You’ll need to opt into the HubSpot beta. You can do this by:

Clicking your company icon at the top right corner

Clicking Product Updates

Searching for “All-New Help Desk Workspace.”

Access the Help Desk

Head over to Service > Help Desk.

If you need to tweak the settings, just pop over to Settings > Tools > Inbox & Help Desk > Help Desk.

If you need to tweak the settings, go to:

Settings

Tools

Inbox & Help Desk

Help Desk

Connect Communication Channels to HubSpot Help Desk

When you're ready, it’s time to connect your existing communication channels to Help Desk. If you're an admin, you can hook up email, form, chat, bot, and even Facebook Messenger channels directly to Help Desk. Once they're connected, any messages coming in will automatically create a ticket in the Help Desk.

Migrate Existing Conversations from Inbox to Help Desk

Already using the conversations inbox? Great. But what if you want to move your existing channel (and all those lovely conversations and tickets) over to Help Desk? Admins can do just that. Just keep the following points in mind:

All agents in your account should have access to Help Desk and make sure you've set up help desk SLAs.

Just in case, kick off the migration during low volume times of the day to reduce disruptions to your support staff and existing processes.

Only connected email and form channels can be moved.

To transfer an email or form channel from the conversations inbox:

Go to settings > Inbox & Help Desk > Inboxes > Hover over the email or form channel you wish to relocate under Channels

Click the Options dropdown menu

Choose Move to Help Desk.

Next, you’ll want to decide what you want to do with historical conversations. You've got two options:

Move All Conversations with [Inbox Address]: This option will shift all existing conversations from your channel over to Help Desk, including any associated tickets. Don't have a ticket for a conversation? No worries. One will be created as it enters Help Desk. Just select a ticket status for Open and Closed conversation statuses from the 'New ticket status' dropdown menus.

Don't Move Any Conversations: Want to leave things where they are? No problem. Choose this option and your existing conversations will stay put in the current conversations inbox. This is a good choice if you don't need to access old conversations in Help Desk.

Once you've made your decision, hit 'Move channel'.

Set Up Automation for Routing Tickets in HubSpot Help Desk

You’ll want to set up automation for routing tickets to get your team organized and improve response times. To do this, navigate to the automation tab in help desk. Then create a workflow that specifies how to organize tickets based on properties like ticket status, priority, and origin.

Customize Ticket Views in HubSpot Help Desk

You can customize ticket views in HubSpot help desk to help your team organize. Out of the box, HubSpot help desk comes with a set of default views to help you get started. These include:

Open tickets

Tickets assigned to me

Closed tickets

Tickets by priority

To customize these views, go to the tickets section within help desk and click on the dropdown menu to view existing options. From there, you can:

Edit

Clone

Delete

Set Up Working Hours in HubSpot Help Desk

Before you start using HubSpot help desk to manage customer inquiries, set up your support team’s working hours. This will help you automate responses and set expectations for both your agents and customers. To set up working hours, go to Settings > General > Business Hours in Help Desk.

Create SLAs in HubSpot Help Desk

Create SLAs to define your team’s response and resolution targets. SLAs will help improve customer satisfaction by ensuring you meet your ticket resolution goals. To set up SLAs in HubSpot Help Desk, go to the Help Desk Settings and navigate to the SLAs tab to create your rules.

Service Hub Hubspot

Hubspot Ticketing System

Ticketing Tools

Hubspot Operations Hub

Hubspot Notion Integration

Hubspot Tickets

Call Center Ticketing System

Best Ticketing Apps

How HubSpot Help Desk Improves Customer Service

As your customer base grows, it becomes easier to let customer issues slip through the cracks. Emails get lost, spreadsheets become unmanageable, and customers suffer. HubSpot Help Desk Software helps businesses deliver a better customer experience by giving them the tools to scale customer support efficiently as they grow.

The software centralizes customer conversations, so everything runs smoothly as you grow. You can also automate tedious tasks to help your team manage increasing ticket volumes without getting overwhelmed.

HubSpot’s help desk offers a unified platform for your:

Customer support

Marketing

Sales teams

As you scale, your support team can deliver personalized service to customers based on information from their entire lifecycle with your business. This context helps customers feel understood and reduces friction so they can return to enjoying your products.

Create a Help Desk That's Digital by Design

Scaling your support team without scaling headcount can be challenging. With HubSpot’s help desk, you’ll have a purpose-built workspace to empower your reps to deliver omnichannel support and increase customer satisfaction.

Efficient Team Management and Customer Journey Visibility

With advanced SLAs and routing features, it’s easier than ever to manage your growing support team and exceed customer expectations. And because you're delivering support through HubSpot’s customer platform, your team will have access to the entire customer journey in a single view.

Improve Rep Efficiency with HubSpot AI

Increase the effectiveness of your support team with AI already built into your help desk. With reply recommendations and AI assistants at every click, your support team will close more tickets faster while increasing customer satisfaction. And with skills-based routing, your customers will get routed to the right support rep every time.

Provide More Helpful, Personalized Support

Every post-sale interaction is a critical component of retention. But utilizing a support tool that is disconnected from your marketing and sales data only drives friction and scatters the insights you need to grow. Help desk brings the best of HubSpot’s Smart CRM and AI-first customer platform together. Do more with less, and provide more helpful, personalized support with unified customer insights built into every interaction.

Integrating HubSpot Help Desk with Other Tools

Integrating HubSpot with other tools and external platforms improves customer support operations by streamlining communication and centralizing customer data. This allows businesses to create a unified and efficient customer support experience for their teams and customers.

Key Features of Integrating HubSpot with Other Tools

Integrating HubSpot with other tools, social marketing platforms, and efficient social media management tools allows businesses to centralize all customer data in one place.

Streamlining Workflows with Integrations

When you integrate HubSpot with tools like Zapier or Automate.io, you can automate repetitive tasks and workflows. This saves time and reduces the risk of human error. For example, leads captured through a form on a website can be automatically added to a CRM system and assigned to a sales representative for follow-up.

Better Communication and Collaboration

Integrating HubSpot with tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams enables better communication and collaboration among team members.

Tailored Reports

Integrating HubSpot with tools like Google Analytics or Tableau allows businesses to create more detailed and customized reports on their marketing and sales performance.

CRM Integration: A Game-Changer for Customer Support

The CRM integration feature in HubSpot allows businesses to seamlessly sync and manage customer data, interactions, and touchpoints within a single platform. This integration enhances efficiency, accuracy, and organization in:

Tracking leads

Managing customer relationships

Driving sales growth

With CRM integration, businesses can:

Easily access valuable insights

Streamline communication

Tailor personalized strategies to engage with customers effectively

Marketing Automation & Customer Support

Marketing automation uses software and technology to streamline and automate marketing tasks, campaigns, and workflows. As a key feature of HubSpot integration for business, marketing automation allows companies to:

Easily create, manage, and track targeted marketing campaigns

Personalized customer communications

Lead nurturing strategies

Sales Pipeline Management

Sales pipeline management is a vital feature of the HubSpot integration for businesses. It allows users to visually track and manage their sales prospects through each stage of the sales process. With the ability to create customizable sales pipelines, companies can:

Easily track opportunities

Measure progress

Stay organized in their sales efforts

Benefits of Integrating External Tools with HubSpot

HubSpot offers an all-in-one marketing solution, allowing users to manage their marketing efforts on one platform. It will enable users to easily create, analyze, and optimize their marketing campaigns across multiple channels.

Boosting Marketing Efficiency and Results

This tool lets users streamline their marketing efforts, save time, and improve overall campaign effectiveness. With HubSpot's all-in-one marketing solution, users can achieve increased brand visibility and lead generation and ultimately, drive more sales and revenue for their business.

CRM integration through HubSpot allows seamless communication and data syncing between your customer relationship management system and your marketing and sales platforms. With this integration, you can:

Achieve a unified view of your customers

Streamline your sales and marketing processes

Improve overall efficiency and effectiveness in managing customer relationships

This tool enables you to track better and analyze customer interactions, personalize marketing efforts, and drive more successful sales conversions.

In-depth analytics in HubSpot allow users to gain detailed insights into their marketing efforts, sales performance, and customer interactions. With this tool, users can:

Track key metrics

Monitor campaign performance

Identify areas for improvement

By analyzing data, businesses can:

Make informed decisions

Optimize their strategies

Drive better results

With in-depth analytics, users can:

Achieve increased efficiency

Better targeting

Higher ROI on their marketing and sales efforts

Best HubSpot Integrations to Elevate Customer Support

Discover the top HubSpot integrations that can enhance your marketing, sales, and customer service efforts. These integrations can help you streamline your processes and drive better results, from automation tools to analytics platforms. Explore the best HubSpot integrations below:

ChatBees

ChatBees optimizes RAG for internal operations like:

Customer support

Employee support

Etc.

Our AI customer support software provides the most accurate response and easily integrates into their workflows in a low-code, no-code approach. Key features include:

An agentic framework that automatically chooses the best strategy to improve response quality

Enhanced predictability and accuracy, enabling teams to manage more queries.

No DevOps is required for deployment and maintenance.

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

HelpDesk

HelpDesk is customer support software that allows businesses to communicate with their customers through various channels, such as:

Chat

Social media

Phone

The platform helps companies streamline their customer service operations and provide timely and efficient support to their customers. HelpDesk offers a range of features, such as a ticketing system and automation tools to help businesses manage customer inquiries and resolve issues effectively. Their software is designed to:

Improve customer satisfaction

Increase efficiency

Reduce response times

With HelpDesk, businesses can easily:

Track and prioritize customer tickets

Collaborate with team members

Analyze customer interactions to identify areas for improvement

The platform is user-friendly and customizable to meet the unique needs of different businesses.

Salesforce

Salesforce is a customer relationship management (CRM) software company that provides cloud-based applications for:

Sales

Customer service

Marketing automation

Analytics

And more

Salesforce's site highlights its expertise in helping businesses of all sizes:

Drive growth

Increase efficiency

Build stronger customer relationships

Enhancing Business Efficiency and Insights

With its integrated platform, companies can streamline processes, collaborate more effectively, and gain valuable insights to make data-driven decisions. Salesforce also emphasizes its commitment to innovation, sustainability, social responsibility, and its global network of customers and partners.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that helps businesses grow their audience and engage with customers. It offers a variety of tools and features for:

Email marketing

Social media advertising

Customer relationship management

And more

With Mailchimp, users can:

Create professional-looking emails

Design landing pages

Track performance metrics

Automate marketing campaigns

The platform is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy for businesses of all sizes to create effective marketing strategies. In addition, Mailchimp provides helpful resources such as:

Guides

Tutorials

Case studies to help users achieve their marketing goals

Mailchimp is a comprehensive solution for businesses looking to drive growth and success through practical marketing efforts.

Zapier

Zapier is a web-based automation tool that allows users to connect their favorite apps and automate repetitive tasks without coding skills. With Zapier, users can create 'Zaps' workflows that connect apps using triggers and actions. This enables users to streamline their workflows and increase productivity by automating tasks such as:

Data entry

File management

Communication

Zapier integrates with over 2,000 apps, making it easy for users to create powerful automations that suit their needs.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a powerful web analytics service offered by Google that allows website owners to track and analyze various aspects of their website traffic and user behavior. With Google Analytics, users can monitor the following:

Number of visitors to their site

Where they are coming from

How they interact with the site

Many more

Gaining Valuable Insights and Data-Driven Decision Making

The service provides detailed reports and insights that help users better understand their audience and make data-driven decisions to improve their online presence. Additionally, Google Analytics offers advanced features such as goal tracking, e-commerce tracking, and custom reports to cater to each user's specific needs.

How to Integrate HubSpot with HelpDesk

To integrate HubSpot with HelpDesk ticketing system (helpdesk.com), follow these steps:

1. Log in to your HubSpot account.

2. In the top-right corner, click on your profile picture and select 'Integrations.'

3. In the Integrations page, search for HelpDesk in the search bar.

4. Click on the HelpDesk integration and select 'Connect.'

12 Best Practices to Master HubSpot Help Desk

Dealing with customer inquiries across multiple channels can be a real headache. That's why automating ticket creation is an absolute game-changer. With a few clicks, you can set up HubSpot to automatically create tickets for every:

Chat

Social media message

Automated ticket creation also ensures consistency across the board. No more missing crucial customer details or issue information; HubSpot captures it all, leaving you with a complete picture every single time.

How to Automate Ticket Creation

Connect a HubSpot Form

Go to your HubSpot account and create a new form or edit an existing one. Ensure the form includes ticket properties, such as:

Name

Issue description

Add this form to your knowledge base, website, landing pages, or external web pages. A new ticket will automatically be created in my conversations inbox when someone submits the form.

Enable Email Ticket Creation

Go to Settings (the gear icon in the main navigation bar) in your HubSpot account.

Navigate to Inbox > Inboxes.

Find the team email account for which you want to enable ticket creation.

Turn on the setting to "Create tickets from new incoming emails sent to this team email account. Any new emails sent to this account will automatically create a new ticket.

Set Up Facebook Messenger Bot (Optional)

Create a new bot chat flow if you use a connected Facebook Messenger account. In the chat flow builder, add the "Submit ticket" action. Configure the action to create a new ticket when someone interacts with the bot.

Verify Connected Channel

Go to Settings > Inbox > Inboxes. In the "Connected Channels" section, you'll see any channels connected to ticket pipelines. Click on the pipeline name to edit its settings or add new channels.

Customize Ticket Pipelines for Your Unique Needs

Every business is unique, and your customer service workflow should reflect that. That's why HubSpot allows you to tailor ticket pipelines to match your specific processes, whether:

Support

Sales

Something entirely different

Visualizing Ticket Progress and Ensuring Accountability

You can define clear stages within these pipelines. Suddenly, it’s easy to visualize the progress of each ticket through its lifecycle, from the moment it lands in your inbox to the grand finale of a satisfied customer. It keeps everyone on the same page and ensures no ticket falls through the cracks.

How to Set Up and Customize Ticket Pipelines

Create a New Pipeline

Go to Settings (gear icon) > Objects > Tickets. Click on the "Pipelines" tab. Select "Create pipeline" from the dropdown. Enter a name for your new pipeline and click "Create."

Add or Edit Ticket Statuses

With your new pipeline open, you'll see the default statuses (New, Waiting on Contact, etc.). To add a new status, click "+ Add status" and enter a name. Then, select whether it's an open or closed status. To edit a status name, click on the existing name and type a new one. To reorder statuses, click and drag them to the desired position. To delete a status, hover over it and click "Delete" (you'll need to move any existing tickets first).

Customize Status Properties (Optional)

Hover over the "Update status properties" column for status and click "Edit properties." When moving a ticket to that status, check the boxes for any properties you want to require/display. Use the "Required" column to make a property required for that status. Drag properties around to reorder them. Then, click "Next."

Configure Team Access (Professional/Enterprise only)

Go to Settings > Users & Teams. Select users for whom you want to edit permissions. Click "Edit permissions" > "CRM" tab. For the "Tickets" row, set View to "Team only" and uncheck "Unassigned." Click "Save."

Implement Smart Ticket Routing for Speedy Resolutions

Imagine a customer reached out with a question about your product's latest update. Their ticket lands in your inbox, but instead of you manually figuring out who's best equipped to handle it, HubSpot's innovative routing system kicks into action. You can route tickets to the most skilled agents based on their expertise.

This skill-based routing ensures customer inquiries are matched with the best-suited agent to resolve the issue efficiently. You can create rules to route tickets to teams or individual agents based on specific skills, such as:

Languages

Specializations

How to Route Tickets to Agents

Create and Manage Skills

Go to Settings > Routing > Manage Skills. Review existing skills or create new ones (e.g., languages, specializations). Click "Create Skill" to add a new skill, and provide a name and category.

Assign Skills to Agents

Go to Settings > Users & Teams. Select an agent and click "Edit User." In the "Skills" tab, assign relevant skills (languages, custom skills) to the agent. Set their main language and secondary languages.

Create a Routing Ruleset

Go to Settings > Routing. Click "Create Ruleset" and provide a name. Select the email or form channel (if in beta) for routing.

Configure Routing Rules

Enter a rule name. Add conditions based on ticket properties (e.g., language, product, etc.). Select the teams and/or skills to route matching tickets to. Save the rule and optionally create additional rules.

Review and Activate Ruleset

Review the configured rules in the ruleset. Once satisfied, activate the ruleset for the selected channel.

Utilize Knowledge Base Integration for a Quick Self-Service Option

Nobody wants to wait hours for responses from service agents for simple queries. That's where HubSpot's knowledge base integration comes into play, providing a game-changing self-service support experience for your team and customers. You can integrate your existing knowledge base with your help desk tickets with just a few clicks.

When a customer contacts you with an inquiry, your agents will have instant access to a treasure trove of relevant articles and resources at their fingertips. Your agents can also share self-help articles directly within their ticket responses.

Prioritize with Automation for Efficient Customer Support

Some inquiries simply can't wait. That's why HubSpot's automated prioritization feature is an absolute must-have for any business that values efficiency and top-notch customer experiences. With just a few simple rules, you can configure the system to prioritize tickets based on automatically:

Urgency

Impact

Customer segmentation

Prioritizing VIP Customers for Enhanced Satisfaction

For example, you could set up a rule to flag all tickets from your VIP customers as high-priority, ensuring they receive immediate attention and lightning-fast resolution times. By ensuring that high-priority issues are always at the top of the queue, you're providing an exceptional experience for your most valuable customers and contributing to faster resolution times across the board.

Foster Internal Collaboration for Better Problem Solving

Teamwork is crucial for customer service success. HubSpot's collaboration features help foster a seamless, united front when tackling tricky inquiries. First, you can comment on activities within records. This allows your service agents to jot down:

Thoughts

Questions

Updates within each ticket

Enhanced Collaboration and Communication

They can @mention other teammates and communicate directly on the ticket. No more scrambling to piece together information from disparate emails or chat logs. Everything you need is conveniently in one place. Agents can share these insights with their teammates, quickly looping in a subject matter expert for their two cents or collaborating on a complex issue requiring multiple heads.

Integrate CRM for Holistic Insights

Integrating HubSpot's Help Desk with your HubSpot CRM can help you track your customers’ preferences and history. Unifying your customer data across both platforms gives you a comprehensive, 360-degree view of every interaction, from sales conversations to support inquiries.

This lets you provide personalized support tailored to your customer's needs and preferences. For example, a long-time customer may contact you with an issue. With the CRM integration, your agent can instantly access their:

Purchase history

Past support interactions

Rlevant notes or preferences

Armed with this context, they can deliver a support experience that feels warm, familiar, and tailored specifically to that individual customer.

Monitor Performance with Analytics for Continuous Improvement

Knowledge is power, and when it comes to optimizing your customer service operations, HubSpot's analytics capabilities are an absolute goldmine. By regularly monitoring key performance metrics, you'll gain invaluable insights into what's working well and where there's room for improvement. From response times and resolution rates to customer satisfaction scores, HubSpot's analytics tools comprehensively overview your team's performance.

Driving Continuous Improvement with Data

Then, you can use these insights to drive continuous improvement. You notice that response times for a particular issue type are lagging. With this knowledge, you can take targeted action, such as:

Providing additional training

Reallocating resources

Implementing process improvements

Proactive Customer Communication for Better Customer Experiences

You need transparency to build your customer’s trust in your brand. HubSpot's automated response and update features help keep your customers in the loop and ensure transparency and trust. Picture a customer reaching out with an inquiry. Within moments, they receive an automated acknowledgment letting them know you’ve received and are working on their request.

Proactive Communication and Customer Updates

No more radio silence and endless waiting. Just a reassuring message that sets the tone for a positive experience. With HubSpot's automated updates, you can keep customers informed every step of the way, from ticket assignment and progress updates to final resolution.

Continuous Training for Agents

Your service agents are the frontline warriors with the tools to deliver exceptional experiences. Implement continuous training and skill development to maximize the potential of HubSpot's Help Desk capabilities. By providing ongoing training opportunities, you'll empower your agents with the skills they need to navigate the platform like pros and foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

From in-depth workshops and hands-on sessions to easily accessible knowledge bases and online resources, the possibilities for agent development are endless. And let's remember the power of peer-to-peer learning. Fostering an environment where agents can share their experiences, tips, and tricks can elevate the team's performance.

Regularly Review and Refine to Stay Ahead

In customer service, standing still is the quickest path to falling behind. You should regularly review and refine your ticketing processes to stay ahead of the curve and deliver exceptional experiences. Establish a rock-solid feedback loop involving your service agents and customers. After all, who better to provide insights into what's working (and what's not) than the people who live and breathe these processes daily?

Imagine having a direct line to the front lines where agents can share their:

Experiences

Pain points

Suggestions for improvement

Leveraging Customer Feedback for Optimization

Combine that with customer feedback, and you have a goldmine of information to guide your refinement efforts. But simply collecting feedback isn't enough; what you do with it counts. Review this invaluable data regularly and use it to identify opportunities to streamline, automate, or enhance your ticketing practices.

Foster a Customer-Centric Culture for Exceptional Service

Customer service is about putting your customers first. It's about:

Anticipating their needs

Exceeding their expectations

Fostering loyalty that turns one-time buyers into raving fans

Fostering a customer-centric culture within your organization is crucial for truly mastering HubSpot's Help Desk capabilities. Encourage your service agents to adopt a mindset that places the customer at the center of:

Every interaction

Every decision

Every process

Leverage the power of automation to turn this customer-centric philosophy into tangible action. Use HubSpot's tools to:

Anticipate customer needs

Provide personalized support

Deliver experiences that make customers feel truly valued and understood.

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