We’re taking a look at help desk systems today! I talk a lot about e-mail overload and even how to make email fun, but what I don’t talk about as much is the customer service side of email.
E-mail is still a relatively young technology, but it’s not the only technology that you can use to take care of customers and potential customers.
There are all kinds of different ways to keep track of incoming e-mails, and to have different members on your team sort through and help you answer.
That’s where help desk systems really shine.
I’m going to be looking at two different help desk systems today that will save you and your team lots of time.
Help Desk Systems Review
Benefits of Help Desk Systems (even for small businesses)
There are many benefits of using help desk systems, and here are some of them:
- With these systems you can keep track of all previous inquiries from the same customer, with the click of a mouse.
- You can see all previous messages within a thread, so even if you someone is brand-new to resolving a ticket or answering a question, they’ll be able to browse through what has happened for this particular ticket.It’s not cool to try to answer or resolve an issue when you don’t have the full backstory.
- Help desk systems allow your team members to draft responses to messages, which you can then approve and will save you a lot of time as a busy business owner who has too many hats to wear.
- It’s great to still have a feel for what is going on, track progress, and avoid any confusion in your inbox.
- It’s really easy to get set up, and if you have an existing e-mail address then you can just start forwarding these messages to a help desk system.
- You can make it clear that different people are answering your e-mails right from within the interface. We don’t want people to be confused about who they should be contacting, but at the same time they will understand that different people can be answering your e-mail from the same e-mail inbox.
- You can freely customize your responses but also have templates you can fill out when you’ve got similar issues that pop up or a situation that you want to address similarly.
HelpScout Review
The first of the help desk systems we will be looking at today is called Help Scout. Help Scout is great if you’re starting out, and you want something that’s simple and based around answering questions via a desktop or laptop.
You can set up a variety of different mailboxes.
I personally started using Help Scout with my team and it’s been great to have the ability to assign messages and tickets to a specific person. We are able to collaborate by leaving each other notes, and keeping each other abreast of how to go about handling and resolving specific situations. It’s also great to communicate how to move forward with similar queries in the future and review closed tickets.
Currently, Help Scout does not have a mobile component to it, so to take care of business you need to have access to your computer.
Even if I didn’t have an assistant, I might have considered moving to a help desk system.
ZenDesk Review
The next helpdesk system I want to talking about is called Zendesk. This is a system that a lot of the bigger companies use, and the benefit of it is that it has a mobile app. One of the great things about e-mail is being able to access it from anywhere. From your phone to your iPad, having this feature makes this system more easily accessible and mobile friendly.
Zendesk also gives you the ability to have multiple people answering questions from anywhere. This is especially helpful if there were things that are urgent that only you can answer, or need to reply.
So, what are you waiting for?
I highly recommend that you give these helpdesk systems a try, especially if your business is starting to get unmanageable where your e-mails and correspondence are concerned.
I also recommend that you give this a try if you have more than one person answering e-mails on a specific account, or if you would like to move in that direction quickly and easily.
Sometimes we know we need to start handing out e-mails to other people on our team, but we just don’t know how to set up the technology for it. This is one of the easiest solutions.
So if you are ready to get help answering your e-mails, then getting a helpdesk system to help you track everything is the way to go.
Get a little help in answering your e-mails, and take a look at what it does for your productivity and your customer satisfaction as well.
