What are the essential features of help desk software?

When choosing help desk software, it’s important to ensure that it has all the features you need in order to make your job easier and more efficient. Here are some of the must-have features of help desk software, so you can make sure the solution you choose has them all.

#1. A painless customer experience

Help desk software should enable customers to solve their problems without ever having to speak with a live support agent. That way, they can get help by simply sending an email or chatting via website messaging. Or they can use a knowledge base—online guides filled with answers to frequently asked questions and step-by-step troubleshooting steps.

#2. Technical support for non-technical users

One common complaint about help desk software is that it’s too technical for its intended users—those without a technology background. If you want your help desk software to be useful to non-technical users, look for help solutions that use drag-and-drop menus and simple checklists (as opposed to requiring an understanding of programming or IT terminology). This type of user interface makes it easier for end-users to communicate what they need.

#3. Integration with other applications

Without some sort of application-to-application integration, it’s impossible to sync data between help desk software and other business applications. For example, if you use Salesforce to manage your leads and opportunities, a simple integration would allow for automatic syncing with your help desk software. This makes it easy for support agents to see when tickets are related to something already in Salesforce, like an opportunity or lead—saving them time from having to manually search through all incoming tickets or alerts.

#4. Self-service portal

Yes, customers prefer to contact your help desk via live chat or email. But self-service portals offer many advantages that traditional support channels don’t—and can dramatically reduce time spent on repetitive tasks. In a world where automation and AI have become buzzwords, it’s important to remember that there’s still a place for old-fashioned human support at organizations that provide outsourced IT services.

#5. Monitoring, reporting, and alerting

Monitoring, reporting, and alerting are among one of the most important functions in any help desk solution. After all, if you aren’t monitoring what your users need or what support tickets need attention, it’s likely that both will go unaddressed.

#6. Dashboards & Live Feeds

The first thing users will want to do after logging into your help desk is view a dashboard, live feed, or summary of their day. This can be in any form—tabular, graphical, etc.—but it should give them a snapshot of what they’re working on at that moment.

#7. Marketing tools

Since your company will be competing with others for new customers, marketing tools, such as direct mail and e-mail campaigns, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and more will all be important. This should also include a review of how your target audience receives information today. For example, if your customers are currently receiving product information via print advertising in specialized magazines or newsletters, they may not be ready to transition to online sources—at least not right away.

#8. Customization & personalization options

Does your help desk software offer customization and personalization options? The best system on earth will be useless if it can’t speak to your customers in their language, with a look and feel that fits your brand. These days, you want a solution that allows you to customize it however you see fit – using color schemes, custom fields, and widgets. With some systems, even changing your company logo is as easy as uploading a new image file. That said, make sure you check out how much control you have over those customization options; some systems allow for almost complete freedom while others take more of an out-of-the-box approach.