Help Desk Definition
“A help desk is a department or person that takes care of end-to-end customer communication. It listens, understands, and assists the customer’s business-related queries more quickly and effectively.”
It helps organizations build a delightful customer experience and lifetime value. I’m sure you may be more familiar with it than you know! Let’s learn more in detail.
In the mid-1990s, research by Iain Middleton of Robert Gordon University studied the value of an organization’s help desks. It is a service desk that could be physical or electronic or computer-based communication.
But, Nowadays help desk is more of a helpdesk management system. It is more of a technology-enabled system with features and functionality that empower CX and save lots of time for customers and businesses.
In this guide, you’ll learn about the help desk, how it works, its benefits, and tips to help you improve customer experience & brand loyalty.
What is a help desk?
A help desk is the first point of contact technology system for customers that instantly connect with the helpdesk system. The helpdesk connects customers with the right customer service team of any Organization.
Let’s take some common names for a helpdesk:
- Computer support center
- IT response center
- Customer support center
- IT solutions center
- Resource center
- Information center
- Technical support center
Now you must be thinking about the help desk vs service desk– what’s the difference Well, some of their functions do overlap. But, the service desk focuses more on delivering IT-related services. In most organizations, the information technology support team works as one of the help units.
Customer service teams intake, manage, organize, automate, respond to, and report on customer questions or issues. Help desks typically include a ticketing system, an inbox, a routing or assignment system for reps, and a reporting dashboard.
Use of desk – Why do people use help desk?
Every customer-facing team may have several people interacting with customers directly at the same time. If this is happening across multiple email accounts with various people, it gets tricky to minimize duplicated conversations, understand the complete context and know who the customer already interacted with at your company.
Helpdesk systems bring everyone’s interactions into one interface and allow different conversations to be cross-referenced and used for more context in the customer experience.
Some basic functions for which businesses use a help desk include,
- Organizing customer requests as support tickets on a single interface.
- Categorizing and automating the flow of tickets to your support center.
- Assigning the tickets to customer support agents for issue resolution.
- Tracking the status of a request, both in terms of ownership and ticket duration.
A helpdesk software helps create organization out of chaos by keeping your ticketing system clean and providing your agents with relevant customer data that empowers them to succeed at their job.
Benefits of a help desk for the organization and employees
- Help desk software integrates with the knowledge base and other databases to resolve primary queries before creating a ticket. And this results in lesser tickets.
- The software is future-proof and scalable as per business requirements.
- The system also ensures the workload is divided equally and assigned to the suitable skill set. The process helps improve employee satisfaction, leading to a lesser attrition rate for the organization.
- The software generates employee performance and workflow reports. Detailed analytics tools in the software help administrators and managers find pain points and create an action plan to improve team performance.
- Administrators can assign a level of responsibility to each agent and create workflows for allocating tickets accordingly.
- Automated assignment models and a first-come, first-served basis for queuing up tickets reduce the scope for manipulation.
- The software helps ensure compliance concerning documentation and other record-keeping procedures.
- Help desk software easily integrates with business systems, including ERP and CRM. It assists in tracking devices and reducing IT security risks with cloud-based storage.
- It also provides customer interaction data that helps understand requirements and demographics.
- Last but not least, you can program the software to send surveys and seek consumer feedback for your service automatically.
What is help desk software?
Your company’s help desk is the first contact point for people who have queries about products or services. And behind every responsive team, there is always some or the other high-quality software.
In simple words, a help desk system is a tool that assists an organization in responding to customer queries, service requests, and other communication quickly. As it issues tickets for communication, the system is also known as a ticketing system.
The software has a ticketing system, an inbox, a routing or assigning system, and a reporting dashboard. However, features may vary from one system to the other.
It is a virtual desk for handling all the issues. The software program helps register customer queries, assign them to the appropriate person, and keep a follow-up. According to detailed studies, these systems make the support staff more responsive and efficient.
How does help desk software work?
Users can submit their queries via email, chat window, or a web interface. The software registers it and suggests knowledgebase articles related to the issue.
A ticket is created and assigned to the service executive, depending on the query category. Customers receive an email or text message notification about the status of the ticket. Put simply, you can set expectations and keep them updated rather than forcing them to follow up.
Mobile App
Depending on the number of associates working remotely, your firm can also opt for a mobile help desk. Yes, you guessed it right. Employees can use their phones and access all the features available on your organization’s help desk software.
Aspects to be considered while choosing a help desk software
- Organization type
- Number of teams and agents per team
- Goals for your help desk
- Company’s budget for the software
Help desk software is available in basic, enterprise, open, and closed-source options.
You certainly have questions about pricing, don’t you? Well, the cost depends on the software subscription and features you choose.
Key functions of a help desk software
- Allowing internal and external consumers to communicate with the organization via email, phone call, text, website forms, web chat, social networking sites, and other channels of their choice.
- Helping customers with self-service options (VRU).
- Automating multiple workflows.
- Analyzing customer communication history and assigning the query to the team member who interacted with the consumer previously.
- Ensuring all the customers get a personalized experience.
- Tracking and reporting on the status of registered queries.
- Alerting service executives about delayed tickets.
- Generating records for all the interactions between customers and the support department.
- Ensuring collaboration between various teams.
Guide to choosing the right help desk software
- Organization type
- Number of teams and agents per team
- Your goals and expectations from it
- Company’s budget for the software
Help desk software is available in basic, enterprise, open, and closed-source options.
You certainly have questions about pricing, don’t you? Well, the cost depends on the software subscription and features you choose.
Best help desk software tools
- Help Scout
- Zendesk
- Hiver
- Zoho Desk
- Freshdesk
- Atera
- Live Agent
- Jitbit
- Salesforce
- Team Support
- Paldesk
11 Best Help Desk Software for 2023 - Buyer's Guide
Is help desk software good for small businesses?
Whether you have thousands of customers or just a few hundred, your customer service department certainly needs assistance in registering, managing, organizing, assigning, and responding to customer queries quickly. So yes, even the smallest businesses can benefit from help desk software.
Best practices
Every successful business has excellent customer service as its backbone. Studies have already proved that a good customer service experience can convince 80 percent of consumers to make another purchase from the brand or business.
Rapidly responding to customer queries affects the company positively. You certainly want your support team to be equipped with the best software, don’t you?
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