Help desk software

Last updated December 23, 2023

Help desk software is a computer program that enables customer-care operators to keep track of user requests and deal with other customer-care-related issues.^[1]

History

The history of help desk software dates back to the 20th century when businesses relied mostly on face-to-face interaction to resolve customer issues. Customers had to visit a company’s store or office with the product to get their problems solved.

With the invention of the telephone in 1876 and the telephone switchboard in the 1890s, the help desk assumed a better approach. Customers were able to reach their company and voice out their problem over the phone system. During the 20th-century era, companies used mainly equipment like dictation machines, typewriters, and dumb terminals with access to a mainframe computer, to address customer issues. The earliest use of computers for customer service was done through the use of mainframe software. Customers would submit paper forms or communicate their issue by phone to customer service agents who would seek avenues to handle the issues.

In the 1960s, companies began to set up call centers and also train staff to receive and handle customer inquiries in an organized and efficient manner. This was the era of Interactive voice response (IVR) which became a big boost to the telephone customer service system. Later on, Desktop PCs and email significantly improved help desk systems. Customers could communicate their problems by email, bypassing paper forms. Help desk agents could provide status updates and resolutions by email as well.

Meanwhile, the actual introduction of help desk systems began in 1980 when the internet was officially made available for public use. Many companies started outsourcing their customer service department. This led to the massive use of email and live chat systems in the 1990s. This new development enabled several US companies to outsource their help desk to low-cost countries like India and the Philippines.

In the 2000s, companies began to use diverse kinds of software packages to deal with customer-care issues. This led to the massive production of different kinds of help desk software programs across the internet and the world at large. In recent times, the internet and networked systems make help desk software more interactive and participatory for customers and agents. Customer can now submit and track their issues more easily.

Customer service and help desk software systems have become increasingly popular in recent times. According to a recent report, there is a massive increase in sales of customer relationship management (CRM) software, which includes help desk software across the globe.^[2]

Basic characteristics

Help desk software automates customer services in diverse ways. It typically consists of at least three parts. These include Ticket Management, Automation Suite, and Reporting/Optimization.

Help desk software has a point of contact for customers to send their queries and a ticketing system that tracks and organizes issues for faster resolution. It may also have a feature that aggregates and organizes queries and answers into a knowledge base, such as FAQs or guide articles. It may accommodate multiple points of contact; a working dashboard; and an analytics section. It may also have a feature that allows agents to escalate issues to a higher level.

More advanced help desk applications feature online chat, insights and analytics, automated processes, multiple contact channels, reporting tools, collaboration tools, and a CRM feature.

Benefits

The following benefits are typically associated with help desk software:

Any business that uses webmail for support tends to resolve customer support issues quicker and sees an increase in support productivity when they switch to help desk software.^[3]^[4]
Help desk software automates tasks such as: ticket categorization and prioritization, ticket routing, alerts and notifications, ticket status management, and so on. With the right help desk solution, the workload is cut down as many tasks such as issue tracking, assigning, and ticket management can be automated.
Some cloud-based help desk software has built-in security features, such as HIPAA compliance if for handling US health care information, or GDPR compliance for accepting requests from persons located in the European Union.

Disadvantages

There are some disadvantages related to help desk software as well, mainly:

Many help desk software platforms have expensive upfront costs as well as time-consuming implementation periods, which can significantly drain company resources. While most offer a trial option, effectively trialing software is difficult and time-consuming in a large organization. It's also difficult to evaluate the software with a full volume of tickets and staff in a short period of time.
On-premises help desks can have costs associated with maintenance, upgrades, and scheduled downtime of servers, which are borne by the customer, not the help desk software provider.
Cloud-based help desks can incur higher costs over longer periods of time. Cloud-based help desk software can become partially or entirely unavailable to users without an Internet connection. Consequently, unexpected disruptions in Internet connection may make such services temporarily unavailable.

Related Research Articles

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.

A call centre or call center is a managed capability that can be centralised or remote that is used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of enquiries by telephone. An inbound call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product or service support or information enquiries from consumers. Outbound call centres are usually operated for sales purposes such as telemarketing, for solicitation of charitable or political donations, debt collection, market research, emergency notifications, and urgent/critical needs blood banks. A contact centre is a further extension to call centres telephony based capabilities, administers centralised handling of individual communications, including letters, faxes, live support software, social media, instant message, and email.

An automated call distribution system, commonly known as automatic call distributor or automatic call dispatcher (ACD), is a telephony device that answers and distributes incoming calls to a specific group of terminals or agents within an organization. ACDs direct calls based on parameters that may include the caller's telephone number, the number they dialed, the time of day or a response to an automated voice prompt. Advanced ACD systems may use digital technologies such as computer telephony integration (CTI), computer-supported telecommunications applications (CSTA) or IVR as input to determine the route to a person or voice announcement that will serve the caller. Experts claim that "the invention of ACD technology made the concept of a call centre possible."

In telecommunication, provisioning involves the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide new services to its users. In National Security/Emergency Preparedness telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.

A management information system (MIS) is an information system used for decision-making, and for the coordination, control, analysis, and visualization of information in an organization. The study of the management information systems involves people, processes and technology in an organizational context.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Customer support</span> Service to help customers use a product

Customer Support is a range of services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. Regarding technology products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods, it is termed technical support.

Help desk and incident reporting auditing is an examination of the controls within the help desk operations. The audit process collects and evaluates evidence of an organization's help desk and incident reporting practices, and operations. The audit ensures that all problems reported by users have been adequately documented and that controls exist so that only authorized staff can archive the users’ entries. It also determine if there are sufficient controls to escalate issues according to priority.

An issue tracking system is a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of issues. Issue tracking systems are generally used in collaborative settings, especially in large or distributed collaborations, but can also be employed by individuals as part of a time management or personal productivity regimen. These systems often encompass resource allocation, time accounting, priority management, and oversight workflow in addition to implementing a centralized issue registry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Request Tracker</span> Open source ticket-tracking software

Request Tracker, commonly abbreviated to RT, is an open source tool for organizations of all sizes to track and manage workflows, customer requests, and internal project tasks of all sorts. With seamless email integration, custom ticket lifecycles, configurable automation, and detailed permissions and roles, Request Tracker began as ticket-tracking software written in Perl used to coordinate tasks and manage requests among an online community of users.

The eCRM or electronic customer relationship management coined by Oscar Gomes encompasses all standard CRM functions with the use of the net environment i.e., intranet, extranet and internet. Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships with customers through the use of information technology (IT).

Appointment scheduling software or meeting scheduling tools allows businesses and professionals to manage appointments and bookings. This type of software is also known as appointment booking software and online booking software.

Spotler CRM is a Cloud CRM provider, offering CRM systems to small and medium sized companies.

LiveChat Software is a customer service software company and developer of LiveChat – software as a service-based help desk software and online chat software for e-commerce sales, customer support, and lead generation.

Email management is a specific field of communications management for managing high volumes of inbound electronic mail received by organizations. Today, email management is an essential component of customer service management. Customer service call centers currently employ email response management agents along with telephone support agents, and typically use software solutions to manage emails.

A contact manager is a software program that enables users to easily store and find contact information, such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers. They are contact-centric databases that provide a fully integrated approach to tracking all information and communication activities linked to contacts. Simple ones for personal use are included in most smartphones. The main reference standard for contact data and metadata, semantic and interchange, is the vCard.

Healthcare CRM, also known as Healthcare Relationship Management, is a broadly used term for a Customer relationship management system, or CRM, used in healthcare.

Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online and automate repetitive tasks.

In marketing, contact center telephony is the communication and collaboration system used by businesses to either manage high volumes of inbound queries or outbound telephone calls keeping their workforce or agents productive and in control to serve or acquire customers. This business communication system is an extension of computer telephony integration (CTI).

Networked Help Desk is an open standard initiative to provide a common API for sharing customer support tickets between separate instances of issue tracking, bug tracking, customer relationship management (CRM) and project management systems to improve customer service and reduce vendor lock-in. The initiative was created by Zendesk in June 2011 in collaboration with eight other founding member organizations including Atlassian, New Relic, OTRS, Pivotal Tracker, ServiceNow and SugarCRM. The first integration, between Zendesk and Atlassian's issue tracking product, Jira, was announced at the 2011 Atlassian Summit. By August 2011, 34 member companies had joined the initiative. A year after launching, over 50 organizations had joined. Within Zendesk instances this feature is branded as ticket sharing.

Data center management is the collection of tasks performed by those responsible for managing ongoing operation of a data center. This includes Business service management and planning for the future.

References

↑ Oliver, Haslam (4 September 2015). "The Best Help Desk Software of 2015". Pcmag. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
↑ Gary, Hilson (23 July 2015). "Canada lags U.S. in adopting help desk software as email, spreadsheets still prevail". IT World Canada. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
↑ Suzanne, Kattau (4 September 2014). "5 Tips: Pick the Right Help Desk Software for Your Small or Midsize Business". Pcmag. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
↑ "How to Find the Right Helpdesk Software to Turbo-Charge Your Business". huffington Post. 2 December 2015. Retrieved 11 January 2016.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[PC1-1] Oliver, Haslam (4 September 2015). "The Best Help Desk Software of 2015". Pcmag. Retrieved 11 January 2016.

[ITWC-2] Gary, Hilson (23 July 2015). "Canada lags U.S. in adopting help desk software as email, spreadsheets still prevail". IT World Canada. Retrieved 11 January 2016.

[3] Suzanne, Kattau (4 September 2014). "5 Tips: Pick the Right Help Desk Software for Your Small or Midsize Business". Pcmag. Retrieved 11 January 2016.

[4] "How to Find the Right Helpdesk Software to Turbo-Charge Your Business". huffington Post. 2 December 2015. Retrieved 11 January 2016.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]