There are some significant differences between the various help desk software products out there, and a wide range of prices. Some will limit the number of people that can use the package at one time, and the options for managing tickets differes widely. This is why it’s important for you, as a business owner, to know exactly what you are after before shopping for the right software for your business.

Providing your customers with a streamlined support system is imperative in this day and age. With so much competition in the marketplace, if your customers do not feel like their questions are getting answered in a timely manner, then you may find that they will just move on, gravitating to another business that does offer the support they are after.

The number one rule in business has always been “the customer is always right”, so keeping your customers happy will ensure that they remain loyal to your business, and pass on that invaluable word of mouth advertising. If you want your business to last in the long term, then a robust help desk package is of the utmost importance.

The complexity of your business operations will be the main determining factor in which software is right for you. If all you need is the ability to manage trouble tickets efficiently, then you will find a wide variety of free packages that you can try out. If, however, you wish to incorporate project and time management, billing, and ad hoc reporting, then you may need to do a bit more digging and spend some money to get something that suits your needs.

The days of desktop help desk applications is gone. It no longer makes sense, in this day and age of readily accessible, and high speed Internet, to have the added complication of having clients install software just to get help from your business. The majority of help desk software runs directly from the browser, meaning that all your client needs is an Internet connection and a web address to get the help they need from your business.

Having a help desk solution running over a network via browsers has many benefits. For instance, before these packages became ported to the web, businesses had to constantly install new versions of the software as bugs were found and fixed, and as new versions of Windows came out and broke older versions. When your business has hundreds of employees, rolling out a desktop application update becomes a very costly venture. Browser based software, on the other hand, need only be updated on the server, and everyone automatically has access to the new version. The other great benefit is that it costs the amount of time you will have to spend training your employees on proper usage of the product. Most of them will already be web savvy, and these applications are no different to browsing any well built web page. Finally, having your help desk system online means that you can access it wherever you happen to be. For the business manager that has to travel a lot, this is a huge help. Instead of sitting at the airport wondering what is happening in your business, all you need to do is log on and have instant access to all customer enquiries in an instant.

When choosing your software, keep in mind that the needs your business has right now may be different from what is needed in a couple of years time. Businesses are constantly evolving, if they don’t they shrivel up and die, and your help desk application should be scalable to allow for these changes as they occur. The best way to ensure the right fit for your business is to get the application custom built from the ground up, but this can be a huge expense, and should only be considered after exhausting all the other options out there.

The best place to start researching is at the lower end of the price range, and you can’t get much lower than free. Many people, businesses in particular, will not even consider help desk freeware to handle something as important as customer service. There is no doubt that there is a lot of really bad free software out there, but there are also some real gems. The list belows are free help desk software packages that are widely considered the best available.

Trellis Desk

Accord 5 is based in California and commenced their web application business in 2007. Although fairly young to the scene, they have created a huge gathering of loyal users, and credit a lot of their success to their own customer relations. They pride themselves on simplicity in design, and their free help desk software platform – Trellis Desk – is a testament to that ideal. Here are some of the functions that make Trellis Desk such a popular product…

• Create your own list of dpeartments – with no limitations
• Create template responses that can be used in those situations where a canned response is all that is needed to satisfy the customers query
• Set tickets to different levels of urgency, to ensure that problems get addressed in a timely manner
• Automate the escalation of tickets based on a predertermined timeframe
• Assign different user levels and permissions for different areas of the application
• Assign tickets to specific staff members
• Modify multiple tickets at once, minimizing tedious repititions
• Create support ticket RSS feeds
• Modify the user interface colors to better match your business
• Rich text editing within the application
• File attachments (eg, PDF’s, Word Documents, and spreadsheets)
• Integration with emails, so that customers send their enquiries directly to your email address, and Trellis Desk automatically picks them up

Trellis Desk has a demo that you can play around with at http://demo.accord5.com/. Definitely worth giving a spin.

Hesk

Hesk is another web based help desk freeware software option that is PHP based. It’s very easy to set up a ticket support system using Hesk. The user interface is clean and easy to use, and Hesk allows you to change languages. The entire knowledge base is searchable, meaning that customers can search for previous issues that have been resolved, effectively answering their own queries and minimizing the need to lodge a support ticket. Hesk includes built in spam prevention to ensure that your website is not overrun by spammers. Submitting a ticket using Hesk is a simple process, and as soon as the ticket it replied to, the user will get an email notification letting them know.

On the adminsitration side, each staff member is given their own unique username and password. Once logging in, they can manage support tickets relating to them, and modify certain interface options to suit their individual work flow. Canned responses are also available in Hesk, allowing staff to quickly and efficiently deal with queries that have been answered previously. Individual tickets can be assigned to categories, given different priorities, and have notes added to them. he notes are only viewable by staff. Replies to tickets can have attachments embedded into them, such as related documents and spreadsheets.

Once a ticket has been resolved, it can be closed by the staff member or the customer, and the customer is given an option to rate the response they were given.

The knowledgebase can be modified to suit your business, and assigned categories for ease of searching. There is no limit to the number of articles, categories and subcategories that can be added to the knowledgebase, and Hesk provides the ability to see which articles have been viewed the most number of times, which will help you determine areas within your business that need to be looked at. Knowledgebase articles can also have external documents attached to them, for the provision of further information on a topic.

Although Hesk is completely free to use, they do also offer a paid version for $39.95. The only difference between the free and the paid version is that Hesk’s self advertising links will not be shown once you have paid. The Hesk website also offers hosting of your application if it is needed, or you can download all the required files and copy it and host it on your own site. All the installation instructions you will need are included in the package.

A demo of Hesk in action can be found at http://www.hesk.com/demo.php

SysAid

SysAid is another industry leader in the world of free help desk applications. Freely downloadable, SysAid has a robust framework that is being used by tens of thousands of organizations around the world. This helpdesk software provides an easy way for customers to submit their service requests by simply filling out the provided online forms, which can be easily integrated directly into your website. It is completely integrated with your email, so the customer has a seamless interaction directly with your support staff, and service reuqests can be automatically routed to particular departments or staff members based on predefined parameters.

Each support ticket can be automatically escalated using user defined rules that utilize due dates and urgency parameters. Your business can set up predefined message templates and automatic notification options to suit your businesses workflow. It also allows security levels for different user groups, allowing you to provide a more private and secure service to your customers.

On top of these basic help desk features, SysAid also provides direct connection with client computers for those times when your support staff need to see what is happening first hand. Most of the other free help desk applications do not offer this service, and recommend you use external tools to connect to clients computers. Having it all in the one platform makes for a much more streamlined operation.

SysAid also boasts extensive reporting capabilities, allowing you to easily find trouble spots and bottlenecks within your customer support service. A demo of SysAid can be run from http://www.ilient.com/demoChoose.htm

Open Source Help Desk Software

Along with these freeware help desk application options, there are a large number of open source help desk platforms that have been built over the years. The best resource on the web for open source help desk applications can be found at http://www.opensourcehelpdesklist.com/. They have an alphabetized list of over 40 open source help desk software programs that you can choose from.  With all these free options available, it’s quite possible that your business will be able to provide your clients with the support they need without spending a dime in setup fees.

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