What is Help Desk Software?

What is Help Desk Software?

Help Desk is a conversational name given to the function in a company that solves customers' grievances. Customers contact the help desk when they have a question or a problem. An employee from the company then addresses the question to the customer's satisfaction.

In a textbook scenario, a help desk is a physical space that's often manned by someone from the customer support function. In reality, though, it's just a means to reach out to someone from a company when some help is needed. Most companies give out an email ID and/or a toll free phone number to their customers. Customers can reach the company through these when they need help.

A help desk software simply automates as much of this as possible. Generally, a helpdesk software consists of at least 3 parts, namely Ticket Management, Automation Suite, Reporting & Optimization. Together, these three functions essentially form the crux of a helpdesk operation as well. How, you ask? Here's how:

  1. The software pulls customer emails from an email ID and lists them in a single place. It allows a help desk executive to answer calls from customers and log them easily. It allows customer support executives to listen to and respond to customer feedback on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. All of these are common examples of Ticket Management.
  2. The Automation Suite allows a help desk coordinator to ensure that questions from customers are redirected to employees who're capable of answering them satisfactorily. It enables the coordinator to get notifications when a support executive hasn't responded to a ticket, or when a ticket is taking too long to get resolved, or one of several other possible cases.
  3. Reporting & Optimization constitutes the most important function of customer service. It pulls pertinent information about all the critical aspects of the helpdesk. Managers and leaders can understand things such as load on the helpdesk team, turnaround time & resolution rate of each executive etc. Metrics like these give managers a quick perspective of how things are faring and let them make amends for the better.
Zoho Desk has all these and more. Curious to know further? Just head here.