Nurturing customer loyalty has long been the key to building a successful business. In most industries, over 80 percent of revenue comes from loyal customers making repeat buys. To earn the loyalty of customers, it is necessary to provide great customer service after sales have been completed.
Customer service has become far more important in today’s world where dissatisfied customers can easily switch to a new provider by doing a quick online search. Consequently, businesses need to understand how to use technology to refine the quality and efficiency of the customer support services they provide. Desk software is designed to help businesses improve their customer support services by organizing requests, tracking progress, and ensuring that requests go to the right people.
What Defines Desk Software
Today, there is a very wide range of services whose purpose is to improve customer experiences. Desk software focuses specifically on managing customer support requests.
Major desk software solutions focus on the concept of digital support tickets. These tickets customers can open on their own or support agents can open while they are on the phone with a customer. Increasingly, the best desk software providers are adding support for widgets, chats, and embeddable forms that enable customers to open support requests instantly without relying on a phone-based support agent.
Many desk software providers are finding ways to use AI to improve the quality of customer service while bringing down support costs. For instance, chatbots provide customers with instant help at all hours of the day. AI can also help to understand a customer’s request delivering it to the right tier of support specialists.
Additionally, desk software can help support teams to get the most out of their resources and understand their performance at all times. Larger teams can use desk software to keep track of which representatives have the most expertise in a certain area. This directs customer questions to the right tier agent with that expertise. The leading desk software providers compete fiercely to provide the most insightful analytics and business intelligence tools that use live data to create charts and graphs while tracking key metrics.
Choosing the Best Desk Software
The scope of features that different desk software suites offer can vary widely. Let’s take a look at the different solutions out there and what makes them unique.
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a leading desk software solution that focuses on bringing customer service requests across all channels to one place. With Freshdesk, customer support agents can view a live feed of new customer service requests originating from email, chatbots, online forms, social media, and even modern apps, like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger.
Freshdesk comes with an AI assistance tool called Freddie AI. Freddie can respond to customers instantly in a way that is appropriate for the channel that a customer is using. For instance, on live chat channels, Freddie can simulate chatting with a customer in a way that is both entertaining and helpful. Likewise, Freddie can respond to emails in a professional manner that is appropriate for the medium.
AI is also used throughout Freshdesk to help support agents resolve customer service requests better and faster. These AI features can do a wide range of functions, including automatically assigning tickets, creating reports automatically, and reminding agents to take key actions. Overall, this automation help to save a substantial amount of time for both agents and customers.
Happyfox
Happyfox is a desk software solution that stands out for being easy to use. The software has one of the cleanest interfaces in the industry, but it still manages to come loaded with most of the features today’s businesses need.
Happyfox easily integrates with your email server, website, and social media accounts. Messages sent to these channels can then be automatically converted into tickets so that support personnel can respond to them appropriately.
Larger support teams like Happyfox because it offers plenty of tools to allocate support tickets to different team members. Tickets can be flagged based on priority, or they can be assigned a special category if they require specialized assistance. Each ticket also displays a live status so that all team members can understand current progress toward resolution.
The only downside of Happyfox is that its pricing is not transparent. People seeking to buy Happyfox have to call the provider to receive a custom quote based on their needs.
Cayzu
As with most desk software solutions, Cayzu enables you to bring together conversations across all channels to just one place. It also offers full support for automated workflows and other common forms of AI-based assistance.
Cayzu stands out for offering extensive integrations that can improve reporting and enhance how organizations use data. For instance, it easily integrates with Google Analytics so that companies can keep a close eye on customer service requests initiated through their website.
Another core element that sets Cayzu apart is it works great with multiple brands. Save a lot of time and effort by managing all of your brands directly inside one portal.
Nevertheless, people considering Cayzu should keep in mind that it has some limitations. Since Cayzu pricing is reasonable, its automation tools are not nearly as extensive as what other providers are offering. Additionally, Cayzu cannot create custom reports, so you have to rely on third-party integrations for reporting.
Solarwinds Service Desk
Solarwinds Service Desk is a perfect solution for larger businesses. What makes them unique is the design focusing on the internal clients. Therefore, it is ideal for managing an IT helpdesk.
Since Solarwind’s primary design is for larger businesses, it offers features that many larger enterprises demand. For instance, Solarwinds supports both a cloud-based solution and on-premise installation. Therefore, companies insisting on retaining physical custody of their data can get what they need by using Solarwinds.
Some key features include:
- Incident management consolidates, manages, and prioritizes incoming tickets.
- Service catalog standardizes service request and fulfillment processes.
- Fully integrated IT asset management compiles hardware, software, POs, and more.
- Service portal for users to have a single place to submit tickets and requests.
- Change management to plan, review, and implement changes quickly and successfully.
Overall Solarwinds is an excellent solution if your business has a larger budget and primarily only needs a help desk solution.
Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk is one of the best desk software options on the market because it combines an impressive range of features with powerful integrations that enable you to get more out of your implementation.
One of the unique aspects of Zoho Desk is that it is available in a free tier that features customer management, basic ticketing, knowledge bases, and more. Upgrading to the plan that costs $14 per month adds support for ticket assignment, workflow rules, and team management. The top-tier plan is just $40 per month, and it includes advanced reporting and Zoho’s cutting-edge Zia AI assistant. Don’t forget this tier is also included at no charge with Zoho One.
Zoho Desk can generate beautiful forms with only a few clicks, and its user interface is extremely intuitive. The integrations included with Zoho Desk are also unparalleled in the marketplace. Because the app offers easy integration with most other Zoho products and some of the leading third-party SaaS-based tools.
Zoho Desk’s interface is designed in a way that helps users to focus on the essential features they need at the time while more specialized features are hidden away in menus. The bottom line is that Zoho Desk is a great solution that every SMB or enterprise owner should try. If you are wanting to see a full demo check out our full product tutorial on Zoho Desk.
