Why Use Helpdesk Software on Your Website?

Article title: Why Use Helpdesk Software on Your Website?

Before discussing helpdesk software, I'd like to list helpdesk functions and why having a website-based helpdesk is important.

Helpdesk Software Functions

A helpdesk does the following:

• Help request management.
• Help request tracking.
• Managing a knowledge base or frequently asked questions.
• Resolving issues.
• Providing self-help resources.

Why Have a Helpdesk

Customer support, no matter what your company provides (sales, services, etc.), is critical to customer satisfaction. A high customer satisfaction creates repeat business - one of the crucial factors of a successful enterprise.
Having a helpdesk is one of the main keys to high customer satisfaction though customer support. Your customers need to contact you for a variety of reasons. Maybe they've lost the password to your website? Maybe they purchased the wrong item and need a return? Maybe they can't figure out how to properly install the memory chip you sold them?
Sure, you can have your customers contact you directly via email. That works. They lost their password, you get an email from a website user who lost their password and log into the site, reset their password, and send them the information they need.
However, what happens if you have a lot of customers? How would you remember who sent what and who needs what? Does this customer need a password reset, or did he lose his user manual and needs a replacement sent? How many times has this particular issue come up for this particular product? When did this customer request assistance for this particular issue? How long has this problem been an issue for them?
What would happen if you had more than one staff person working to resolve helpdesk issues? How would Rebecca know that Timothy has already resolved this particular customer's issue? Have them share the same email account to receive and respond to issues? How would you keep them from working on the same issue at the same time and therefore duplicate effort?
What if Rebecca solved an issue virtually identical to a separate issue Timothy is currently working on? How would Timothy know this issue's already been resolved, so he could use this information to resolve his issue?

Helpdesk Software

Helpdesk software helps you manage your helpdesk operations. Helpdesk software assists you in keeping track of emails, so you don't lose any. This software makes your website look more professional, and it provides an easier way for you to communicate with customers - people often hate waiting on hold for phone support or navigating a huge array of menu items via the phone. Helpdesk software allows the customer to easily and succinctly relate their issue to you.
Likewise, help desk software allows you to guide a customer in the way they report their problem to you. By having required fields such as model number, software version number, etc. you can cut down on the amount of back-and-forth communications with your customer to simply figure out basic details needed in resolving an issue.
You can create a specific reporting format that guides the customer in the way they report their problem. How often does this issue occur? When does it occur? What steps would you use to reproduce the problem?
Helpdesk software provides a way for means for multiple support professionals to work in concert on a number of issues. Rebecca resolves and issue, marks it closed, and Timothy can search though all of the resolved issues to see if the problem he's working on has already been resolve. Timothy can also find out how the problem was fixed and use this solution to solve his issue.
Helpdesk software helps you ensure your helpdesk staff are not unnecessarily duplicating effort - Rebecca and Timothy are not both separately working on Mr. Henry's production issue at the same time without knowing the other is working on it.
Helpdesk software allows you to track trends. Let's say you get a lot of requests for assistance with how to perform a specific function on your website? You can search though the tracked helpdesk requests to see how often this particular topic needs resolving.
If you find the issue is a popular one, you may decide to create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) topic on the problem and publish this FAQ on your support website. Without helpdesk software to track these types of questions, you'd never be able to figure out which questions need such FAQ topic postings and which don't.
As you can see, there's really no reason not to have some kind of helpdesk software for your online business. Even if you have a small site and are managing the help requests yourself, you'll find some kind of helpdesk software advantageous to use.
If you're managing a larger site, you'll find helpdesk software an absolute necessity. You'll save time, money, and effort tracking your help request issues by eliminating duplication of effort and documenting problem resolutions for reuse.

Free Helpdesk Software

Rather than paying $200.00 or more for such software, you can give my free of charge script helpdesk software HESK a try.
HESK is a PHP-based help desk software package that runs with a MySQL database. It allows you to setup a ticket based support system (helpdesk) for your website. Your customers are able to submit support tickets, and the staff has a user-friendly web based interface to reply to and manage help desk tickets.

Copyright notice

This tutorial is copyrighted by GANNYY DOUGLAS TUNDE. Obtain permission before copying, re-publishing or otherwise redistributing this article.