Customers are impatient — wait times are their worst enemy, and they want answers immediately. Below, we’ve outlined the reasons why you shouldn’t be a slowpoke, as well as the benefits of help desk software. We’ve also broken down the key features to look for if you’re in the market for the best help desk software.

At some point, you’ve probably wondered how to get your customers to stay, considering how cutthroat the competition can be. Your customers can make or break your business, and without them, you won’t have any source of revenue. The problem is that customers aren’t the most patient people, so it’s important to meet their needs and demands.

What’s the key to keeping them happy? The answer is help desk software.

According to SuperOffice’s survey, the average time it takes for companies to respond to customer issues via email is 12 hours. However, the same survey also showed that 46 percent of customers expect a response within 4 hours, while 12 percent expect a response within 15 minutes.

With that said, if it takes your team ages to respond to a single concern, you need to work on your help desk practices. Otherwise, you will lose customers.

What is Help Desk Software?

A help desk software (or a service desk software) allows companies to manage concerns from customers or internal sources, such as help desk staff, on one platform. In addition, it simplifies the resolution process by assigning trackable “tickets” to customer requests, which are then forwarded to a dedicated agent.

Help desk software solutions allow IT help desk teams to have a visual overview of every ticket to make sure that no concern is ever overlooked. In addition, it lets customer support teams automate certain functions to speed up the support process. Help desk software is typically used by call center agents, small businesses, and IT support teams.

To sum it up, a help desk software:

• Shortens the time it takes for teams to respond to customer queries.
• Allows teams to track “tickets” and ensure that every issue is resolved.
• Consolidates the information that’s specific to each concern.
• Gives teams a bird’s eye view of problems that have been resolved to provide every individual with a tailor-made experience.
• Allows teams to allocate their time toward more complicated matters.

Why Should Companies Use Help Desk Software?

It’s time to stop putting people on hold. Use help desk software to make managing complaints, concerns, and more significantly easier for your customer support agents. Take a look at a few reasons why you need to download help desk software today:

1. Speeds Up Response Times

Customers can be impatient. In fact, HubSpot Research found that 90 of customers believe that “immediate” responsiveness is vital to the overall experience. To expound, they define “immediate” as less than 10 minutes.

With help desk software solutions, you’ll be able to resolve problems in real-time. For instance, when a customer reports a concern through the ticketing system, they will be assigned to an agent who will be in charge of their query. In addition, the ticket can be tracked throughout the system to ensure that no ticket is missed and that they’re dealt with in a timely manner.

2. Enhances Customer Retention

Even if your products are valuable, your business will not survive if your response time is slow. Bain and Company found that customers are four times more likely to choose a competitor if they experience service-based problems. A survey by Zendesk also revealed that 80 percent of customers would likely leave if they had more than one bad experience with a business.

With that said, it is imperative to provide proper support at all times. If you want your customers to stay, show them that your business is serious about customer support. Buy a help desk software to be absolutely sure that their problems are resolved in no time.

3. Streamlines Customer Requests

One of the reasons why help desk software is a must-have is that it lets you streamline customer concerns. Through the ticketing system, customers’ tickets are assigned to the point of contact or departments trained to deal with specific concerns. By managing the concerns, customers no longer need to be on hold or sit around and wait days to get an answer. A help desk software makes it possible to resolve problems within one hour.

Agents can also put certain customer queries on priority to ensure prompt resolution — in other words, they can allow customers to cut in line. For example, a query about a stolen credit card would undoubtedly be more serious than a request for a credit card statement.

4. Protects Your Reputation

Don’t underestimate the power of social media posts! The Qualtrics XM Institute discovered that over 92 percent of customers would recommend a company if their service-related experience was “Very Good.” And according to the CFI Group, 36 percent of customers will post about their experience on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram. The problem is that customers will talk about their bad experiences, too — this can ruin your company’s reputation.

Be extra careful when it comes to customer experience. Your customers will inevitably talk, so give them good things to talk about on Facebook. One of the ways to do this is by boosting your business’s support response time.

5. Better Than Bots

Bots are convenient, but customers don’t believe in their capabilities. Microsoft found that over 35 percent of customers claim that chatbots can’t resolve their concerns and that they generally end up being transferred to a live agent. To add to this, surveys have shown that about 86 percent of customers prefer to interact with real people than chatbots.

A help desk software sorts support tickets and forwards them to an on-premises point of contact. That way, customers can get the answers they need — and in detail. It doesn’t rely on a chatbot that provides “basic” responses that don’t address the problem at all.

6. Consolidates Information Onto One Platform

Everyone involved in customer management will have a bird’s eye view of customers, concerns, and more. Managers will be able to track support tickets, check to whom the ticket was assigned, as well as the ticket status — all in one software.

Agents, on the other hand, will be able to work closely with all departments to make sure that customer requests are resolved correctly. This is because the help desk software also doubles as a knowledge base for instructions, how-tos, FAQs, and more. In the event that the agent requires more information, they can request the concerned departments to help address the query on time.

Top 5 Must-Have Features of Help Desk Software

In the market for help desk software solutions? Make sure it has these key help desk software features:

1. Multi-Channel Support

People typically use the phone to contact support teams, but you can’t be 100% sure that the phone is your customer’s preferred form of communication! What if they prefer email, online forms, or forums? That’s why your software should allow you to deal with customer requests across multiple channels, such as chat, social media, and more. That way, your customers can reach you from whichever support channel they choose.

Best Help Desk Software For Multi-Channel Support: Zendesk

With Zendesk, you can consolidate customer communications from multiple channels (e.g., emails, phone calls, etc.) to perform all of your customer support processes in one place. Integrate third-party tools you already use, such as MailChimp, Stripe, and Shopify, so you don’t have to hop from one app to another.

2. Built-in Collaboration Tools

Agents don’t always have the answers to everything. By using help desk software with built-in collaboration tools, you can make your team member’s life a lot easier and consistently provide your customers with prompt responses. Your agents will also be confident that their responses or solutions are always correct as they’ve been verified by others. Collaboration tools also enable teams to contribute by creating a knowledge base of how-tos, instructions, pre-made replies, templates, and more.

Best Help Desk Software For Collaboration: Help Scout

Help Scout lets your support team collaborate better. You can provide your comments on individual conversations via private notes. Plus, Help Scout comes with “collision detection” help desk software features to reduce the risk of duplicate work.

3. Task and Ticket Automation Tools

This is another must-have for service desk software. With ticket automation, your team can say goodbye to repetitive and time-wasting tasks like sorting tickets and routing tickets to the right desks. Automation also lets you track tickets and alerts you if there are tickets “stuck” in the system. That way, your support teams will have more time to attend to customer conversations.

Best Help Desk Software For Automation: SysAid

SysAid is the perfect platform for teams that want to put their routine tasks on autopilot. It tracks, sorts, and routes tickets automatically so that your team can concentrate on more critical help desk tasks. SysAid even comes with self-service automation, so your support team won’t have to waste its time resetting people’s passwords! (Here’s a not-so-fun fact for you: Gartner found that it takes 2 to 30 minutes for help desks to reset a password — what a waste of time!).

4. Context-Driven Communication

According to HubSpot Research, 33 percent of customers feel frustrated whenever they have to repeat themselves to customer service representatives. That’s why you should look for help desk software that shows you every interaction you’ve had with an individual. When you have context, you can provide the customer with a more tailor-made experience and have a clearer picture of their concerns.

Best Help Desk Software For Context-Driven Communication: Kayako

With the help desk software Kayako, every agent (even those not assigned to the customer) will have a visual overview of individual customer interactions. That way, they won’t have to ask the customer to repeat themselves every time they have a concern. All of the information they need is on one platform.

5. Self-Service Features

It’s imperative for your help desk software to have self-service features. This will enable your team to build a vast knowledge base that everyone can use to solve customer tickets. In addition, agents can refer to the knowledge base in case they need more information on a specific topic. A self-service portal can also speed up the resolution process, as it encourages customers to solve their problems by themselves.

Best Help Desk Software With Self-Service Features: HappyFox

HappyFox is a help desk software that allows you to make a searchable knowledge base. That way, customers won’t have to go to you whenever they have a general inquiry. Instead, you can redirect them to the self-service portal, where they can search for answers from a wide range of well-organized FAQs. HappyFox also lets you create an internal knowledge base for help desk members.

Conclusion

Customers aren’t very forgiving — in fact, 80 percent of them will never forgive you if they have a poor experience. To prevent this, it’s imperative to improve your help desk practices. Start by speeding up your support team’s response times, responding to customer requests across support channels, and more. Choose from the best help desk ticketing systems today to find one that fits your company’s day-to-day needs.