10 Innovative Features of Helpdesk Software That You Need

10 Innovative Features of Helpdesk Software That You Need

If you are planning to switch to help desk software for your customer support operations, the number of features available in help desk software can confuse you and leave you in a dilemma. 

Choosing the right help desk software features is not an easy task. There are a variety of factors to consider when evaluating the available options. 

With the growing competition out there, it’s important for you to choose a help desk system that has the right set of features and capabilities. 

Though it may feel like wading through a vast sea of options, there are a few ways to simplify your process of selecting the appropriate help desk with suitable features as per business requirements.

So, let’s look at which features of help desk software will be most vital for you and your business and why.

What is Help Desk Software?

A help desk software helps businesses manage customer support operations without any hassle. It is a central point of contact for customers seeking assistance from businesses. 

An intelligent help desk software helps in streamlining customer support operations by automating multiple processes. It must have all the tools required for your business to build strong customer relationships and deliver lasting customer service experiences.

 

Why Should Businesses Invest in a Help Desk Ticketing System?

“Customer is King” should be the golden rule for any business that wants to be successful.

According to Nextiva, 91% of customers worldwide believe that customer service is an important factor in their decision to remain loyal to a brand. 

Making an investment in a help desk ticketing system allows businesses to segment themselves from their competitors and offer enhanced customer service. It is a fantastic tool for effective customer support management. 

The help desk features allow you to customize your services to make significant changes in the customer experience. It provides your customer with a platform to address issues without requiring a significant amount of time and effort from your customer service team. 

It also enables effective interactions between a customer and a customer support representative. In addition to this, it further allows your organization to update and resolve any issues raised by your end-users.

 

Types of Help Desk Software

There are four different types of help desk software that you can use depending on your business-specific needs.

1. Cloud-based Help Desk

The cloud-based help desk is one of the most common types and is a Software-as-a-Service application that is hosted on the vendor’s server, entirely web-based.

Its benefits include;

  • Easy to set up and maintain, you do not have to be a technical expert to get started. 
  • High scalability – grows as your business grows.
  • Offers anytime, anywhere accessibility, you just need an internet connection.

2. On-Premise Help Desk

Also commonly referred to as a self-hosted help desk, the on-premise help desk is licensed proprietary software purchased by a business. Businesses own and host this help desk on their servers after purchasing the software license. 

Its core benefits include;

  • Complete control of data and security. 
  • Better customized to the needs of a business. 

But, you need an in-house technical team to constantly maintain your servers and recover data in case of any mishaps like hardware failures or power outages. It also requires additional cost of data backups, updates & fixes. 

3. Open-Source Help Desk

An open-source help desk is another popular software that is entirely free. Also, it is highly configurable as the software itself is pulled from an open-source codebase and then implemented by a business.

It has benefits such as;

  • Mostly free and many come with minimum limitations.
  • Besides customization capabilities, you can enjoy community updates and suggestions.

To use this help desk, you need a team of IT professionals to build and customize the software for you and it can take months to configure and data security is always under question. 

4. Enterprise Help Desk

The enterprise help desk offers an ample amount of advanced functionality such as IT asset management, enterprise reporting, multi-brand support, and more. 

It provides benefits such as;

  • Acts as a one-stop solution for offering round-the-clock support to your customers, as well as employees.
  • Can be customized to meet the needs of large enterprises.

This help desk is very expensive and can be heavy on your pocket. Besides, more features can eventually lead to more complexities and your operators need to be technically sound or well-trained. 

 

Key Features of Help Desk Software to Look For

Choosing the right help desk software features can be overwhelming. You may have to consider hundreds of tools and thousands of potential features that exist in help desk software. But, this can lead you to more complexity and overhead.

Therefore, it is advisable to find help desk software with the exact parts you need rather than every feature available. 

Mentioned below are some of the must-have features in help desk software to help you narrow down your choices.

1. Ticket Automation

Ticketing is one of the most important aspects of customer service. An efficient help desk system provides a ticket automation solution that helps you to save agents’ time as well as operational costs.

It enables you to route tickets to customer support agents automatically based on any chosen criteria (language, agent availability, product knowledge, etc). Furthermore, unresolved priority tickets can also be escalated to higher management after a certain period. 

Most automated ticketing systems come with some sort of alert feature to keep your service agents up-to-date regarding important ticket milestones and events. These alerts can be customized according to urgency and other required criteria.

10 Innovative Features of Helpdesk Software That You Need

2. User-Friendly Interface

Before selecting any help desk, it is important to make sure that it will be easy to use for your team. Always pick a help desk system that is easily adaptable to your customer support team so that they can start tracking customer interactions within minutes.

It will also save your agents’ time in resolving tickets thereby decreasing their average handling time

In short, an impeccable user interface should be one of the core offerings of help desk software. There is no use in having a help desk with distinctive features if the user interface is hard to understand. 

A smooth and efficient user interface helps in saving time, focusing on the core business activities, and enhancing customer relationships. 

3. SLA Management

Service Level Agreement, abbreviated as SLA, is a powerful tool that can be used by your organization to manage customer expectations.

Once you establish and set your SLAs with the customers, it is important to manage and track them to ensure that your customer support team keeps up with the SLA consistently.

SLA management entails monitoring and reporting services, resolving disagreements, and going above and beyond the agreement on how to develop the best SLA management standards.

4. Security and Compliance Features

Your help desk software is the goldmine of valuable and sensitive customer data. Even a minute security breach can cause irreparable damage with long-term effects.

According to a report by Accenture, security breaches have risen by 11% since 2018.

Therefore, you need a reliable help desk to safeguard your information and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands by upholding the highest standards of security policy on all levels. 

5. Social Media Support

Nowadays, customers are increasingly reaching out to businesses through various social media channels like Facebook and Instagram in addition to channels like chat or email. 

More than 80% of consumers are using social media platforms to engage with brands. 

With proper social media channel integration, your customer support agents can easily view, monitor, and manage customer interactions and queries right from the unified help desk interface.

10 Innovative Features of Helpdesk Software That You Need

6. Self-Serve

Self-serve appears to be one of the most vital help desk software features as today’s customers are becoming more self-reliant. 

When it comes to customer service, customers are now preferring to find answers and resolving common queries by themselves. So, it is important for you to create a self-serve portal for your customers. 

For instance, knowledge base, FAQs, and community forums are some of those options. It enables customers to search for answers to common issues by themselves without any direct assistance from an agent. 

It helps you in saving your agents’ time and also increases your customer experience.

7. Live Chat Support

Live chat is an important feature offered by help desk solutions that help agents to chat with multiple customers at a time, and store all customer-related data for future reference.

Most of the live chat tools are mobile-friendly, enabling customers to reach out to business easily.

As per a report published by Forrester, more than 30% of customers expect a live chat option on your business website. 

Live chat can also use preformatted texts and replies, saving time for the business. Live chat has become a great communication tool for businesses that helps in managing real-time conversations and delivering higher levels of customer satisfaction.

10 Innovative Features of Helpdesk Software That You Need

8. Knowledge Management System

Knowledge management is defined as the process of creating, organizing, distributing, and understanding knowledge about business processes, policies, and products.

Knowledge Management System (KMS) is a feature that helps you to organize, and transfer knowledge and skills that are a part of your organization’s history. It also helps you in organizing huge amounts of data effectively.

Moreover, it allows you to create a one-stop database with ease of accessibility and helps in enhancing your inter-departmental cooperation. 

With the KMS feature available on your help desk, you can provide better customer service through well-informed customer service agents.

10 Innovative Features of Helpdesk Software That You Need

9. Third-Party Integrations

By having the right help desk platform, you can experience seamless integrations of various third-party applications which are essential for your business.

For example, you can easily integrate important business applications such as online payment gateways, logistics partners, ERPs, or any other APIs. 

In addition to that, you can also integrate your email and social media platforms with the help desk to add customer records and get a better idea of how your customers are interacting with your website, landing pages, or social media posts.

10. Reporting and Analytics  

The reporting and analytics feature of a help desk system offers you a completely self-reliant way of analyzing and handling business data. It gives you a comprehensive view of different facts and metrics affecting your business.

Besides letting you visualize data, it also enables you to generate detailed reports of your agents based on metrics such as average handling time, average response time, and CSAT for all the assigned tasks. 

10 Innovative Features of Helpdesk Software That You Need

 

Leverage the Best Help Desk Features 

Many businesses have started adopting a help desk platform to meet their customers’ expectations. But not every help desk can provide effective solutions to meet the ever-changing needs of the customers.

Kapture provides all the above-mentioned features with the potential to optimize your customer experience. 

Our insightful reporting allows you to keep an eye on your business as well as team performance. You can create a knowledge base for your agents to help them take quick actions while interacting with the customers.

Experience multiple integrations at a single platform and optimize your workflow to provide the best customer experience. 

Engage with your customers in real-time and optimize your customer experience by implementing our live chat system.

Know more about our help desk ticketing software by connecting with our product squad at Kapture and transform your customer service processes.

 

About the Author

Shivika
Shivika
Shivika is a Content Writer at Kapture CRM, who enjoys using her creative skills to contribute to the exciting technological advances. She is passionate about cultural artifacts and culinary art.

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