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Help Desk Software 2024: Complete Guide

Learn why Help Desk software is important for the business, how it helps and how to choose the right Help Desk software

What is the right solution for you depends on your business context and needs. Let us help you firm up your needs and find you the right-fit solutions. Get your personalized assessment report now!

Updated By Cuspera

Last updated: Jan 31, 2024

Popular Help Desk Software

Zendesk For Service

Customer service solution that’s easy to use and scales with your business

4.36

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Zendesk For Service Icon

Zendesk For Service

21.79
★★★★★
★★★★★
Customer service solution that’s easy to use and scales with your business

Zendesk For Service is a bundled software package by Zendesk for customer support and customer success teams to provide an omnichannel customer support experience.

It comes with support, guide, chat, and talk in one package. It helps in making customer conversations flow seamlessly across channels and create a better experience. The customer support feature helps with tracking, prioritizing, and solving customer support tickets. The guide helps with the knowledge base and smart self-service. The suite also provides live chat and messaging, along with call center software.

It uses artificial intelligence to provide automation capabilities. It comes with proactive triggers to help send targeted and behavior-based messages to customers.

Testimonials

Maria Kozlova

Data Analyst

OnePlus

Zendesk For Service Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Helpdesk management,Engagement management,Customer feedback management
Top Features : Ticketing,Personalization,Alerts: popups & Notifications

Vendor: Zendesk

Founded: 2007

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 1019 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Financials: IPO

freshdesk

Omnichannel Customer support software

4.46

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freshdesk Icon

freshdesk

22.31
★★★★★
★★★★★
Omnichannel Customer support software

Freshdesk is an online cloud-based customer service software providing helpdesk support with all smart automation to get things done faster. It helps to retain customers and enhance customer relationships.

Freshdesk helps to streamline customer conversation in one place, automates repetitive work and saves time, enables collaboration among team members to resolve issues faster, and many more.

Some of its features include track and manage incoming support tickets from multiple channels, converting support emails into trackable tickets to manage and resolve, create service tasks for tickets that need a field team response and track its status to completion, automatically assign tickets to agents and groups based on keywords, requester or properties and many more.

Testimonials



Mostafa AbdElKader

Manager of Customer Service and Business Operations

CEQUENS

freshdesk Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Engagement management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Personalization

Vendor: Freshworks

Founded: 2010

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 2950 S. Delaware Street, Suite 201, San Mateo CA 94403

Financials: SERIES H

Zoho Desk

Customer Service Software for Context-Aware ...

4.42

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Zoho Desk Icon

Zoho Desk

22.09
★★★★★
★★★★★
Customer Service Software for Context-Aware ...

Zoho desk is an online tickets management software for customer support teams to service customers with increased productivity.

It provides built-in purpose-built tools to help agents with context aware responses. It provides context aware decisions for managers and context aware solutions for customers. It comes with tickets management, AI, self service capability, insights, security and customization. The Zoho desk app for iOS and Android helps users with remote tickets management capability.

It uses automations, sentiment analysis, third party integrations, APIs and custom functions to provide context awareness.

Testimonials

Paul Grimes

VP Of Marketing

Lubrication Engineers International Ltd

Zoho Desk Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Workflow management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Alerts: popups & Notifications

Vendor: Zoho Corporation

Founded: 1996

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 4141 Hacienda Drive, Pleasanton, California 94588, USA

Financials: PRIVATE

Freshservice

Intelligent, Right-Sized Service Management Solution for the Modern Enterprise

4.55

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Freshservice Icon

Freshservice

22.73
★★★★★
★★★★★
Intelligent, Right-Sized Service Management Solution for the Modern Enterprise

Freshservice is a Service Management solution that acts as a force multiplier, helping businesses of all sizes achieve efficiency, effectiveness, and greater ROI.

Freshservice achieves greater efficiencies with AI and automation, empower employees with a consumer-grade user experience in the channel of choice, whether MS Teams, Slack, or with the Freshservice chatbot. It also provides a rich API for custom integration, automated workflows, smart analytics, ecosystem partner solutions, and hundreds of marketplace Apps, and so on.

Its features include track, prioritize, assign, and automate resolution processes to drive service desk efficiency, easily resolve tickets based on priorities, and automate escalation rules to communicate about SLA violations, improve productivity, prioritize, categorize, assign and close tickets, send for approvals, and notify agents and users automatically and many more.

Testimonials

Adam Le Feuvre

Project Manager

M&C Saatchi

Freshservice Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Workflow management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Alerts: popups & Notifications

Vendor: Freshworks

Founded: 2010

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 2950 S. Delaware Street, Suite 201, San Mateo CA 94403

Financials: SERIES H

Deskpro

Helpdesk Software | Cloud or Self-Hosted, On ...

4.54

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Deskpro Icon

Deskpro

22.72
★★★★★
★★★★★
Helpdesk Software | Cloud or Self-Hosted, On ...

Deskpro is an all-in-one helpdesk software that provides customers and internal users with memorable customer experiences. It is a multi-channel helpdesk that captures and stores every message from customer conversations in a shared inbox, bringing the team together for harmonious support.

Deskpro improves efficiency by eliminating repetitive tasks with powerful automations. Aids in the making of data-driven decisions that improve the team's support, the development of a support system that gathers feedback directly from the user, and the ability to instantly communicate with customers with more functionality and customizable capabilities.

Deskpro Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Helpdesk management,Communication management,Sending & publishing communications
Top Features : Ticketing,Templates,Alerts: popups & Notifications

Vendor: Deskpro

Company Size: 11-50

HQ Location: 79 Hartfield Road, London, Wimbledon SW6 3JA, GB

Financials: PRIVATE

LiveAgent

Help Desk & Live Chat Software

4.59

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LiveAgent Icon

LiveAgent

22.95
★★★★★
★★★★★
Help Desk & Live Chat Software

LiveAgent is a Helpdesk software for SMBs that can be used across industries such as Automotive, Marketing & Telco, Travel, SaaS and more. It can adapt to different business models such as Agencies, Enterprise, NGOs, Startups and others.

LiveAgent provides Helpdesk support through various channels such as Mails, Live Chat, Call Center, Social Media and Knowledge base for customer self help. Some of the main features of LiveAgent include Slack notifications for ticket details, chat and broadcast messages through Viber, and a Universal Inbox for viewing and responding to tickets from all channels.

Ticket status can be viewed from a single dashboard, Hybrid ticketing enables communication to the customer across different channels with the same ticket.

LiveAgent Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Engagement management
Top Features : Ticketing,Recording,Personalization

Vendor: qualityunit

Company Size: 101-250

HQ Location: Vajnorska 100/A, Bratislava, Slovakia 83104, SK

Financials: PRIVATE

Salesforce Service Cloud

Service Cloud: Customer Support & Call Centre Software

4.20

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Salesforce Service Cloud Icon

Salesforce Service Cloud

20.99
★★★★★
★★★★★
Service Cloud: Customer Support & Call Centre Software

Salesforce Service Cloud is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform for customer service and support, based on the company's CRM software for sales professionals. It helps to enhance customer relationships and improve internal communication.

Salesforce Service Cloud helps to rapidly respond to customer needs on any channel, even from home. They reach the customers on the channels they use most, including mobile messaging, web chat, and social media.

It gives agents a complete, shared view of every customer and interaction, provides one-on-one agent assistance by embedding chat support, supercharge the customer experience with AI-powered chatbots, resolve onsite support issues, and many more.

Testimonials

Adam Lavezzo

VP, Revenue Strategy & Operations

BetterUp

Salesforce Service Cloud Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Helpdesk management,Customer case management,Engagement management
Top Features : Ticketing,Personalization,Dashboard

Vendor: Salesforce

Founded: 1999

Company Size: 10001+

HQ Location: 415 Mission Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105, United States

Financials: IPO

Teamsupport

Customer Service Software Built for Business to Business

4.40

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Teamsupport Icon

Teamsupport

22.00
★★★★★
★★★★★
Customer Service Software Built for Business to Business

TeamSupport is a Customer Service software built for B2B companies. It provides help desk features and customer service management tools enabling improved customer service and better relationships.

TeamSupport features include Customer management that enables easy tracking of customer details and issues from a common company-wide customer database. Ticket Management provides customised automation, ticket tracking and routing, grouping of related tickets, leveraging of conditional fields and more. TeamSupport integrates with the software systems in the business such as CRM, developer tools and others.

The Collaboration and teamwork feature enables internal communication using Water Cooler, internal chat and shared calendar. An integrated product database enables easy tracking. The Customer Self-service feature provides a self-service hub with knowledge bases, community forums and wikis. Reporting and analytics feature provides unlimited reports and real-time customer insights and metrics.

Testimonials

Grahame Wan

Technical Services Manager

Redman Solutions

Teamsupport Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Workflow management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Recording

Vendor: Teamsupport

Founded: 2008

Company Size: 51-100

HQ Location: 8330 Lyndon B Johnson Fwy Suite 1100 Dallas, TX 75243

Financials: PRIVATE

ServiceNow

ServiceNow - Digital Workflows for Enterprise - Make work ...

4.09

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ServiceNow Icon

ServiceNow

20.46
★★★★★
★★★★★
ServiceNow - Digital Workflows for Enterprise - Make work ...

ServiceNow is a cloud-based workflow automation platform that enables enterprise organizations to improve operational efficiencies by streamlining and automating routine work tasks. It delivers digital workflows that create great experiences and unlock productivity.

It provides software solutions to structure and automate various business processes via a SaaS delivery model. Drive connected digital workflows across the enterprise, deliver modern, consumer-like experiences, and accelerate time-to-value and innovation. It unleash the power of AI and analytics to surface information, make predictions, and automate repetitive tasks , achieve new levels of user productivity and satisfaction with intuitive omni-channel experiences, rapidly unite people and processes with intuitive, cross-enterprise integrations, accelerate innovation, and protect data in one trusted cloud and keep critical business services running securely.

Its capabilities include automation discovery, performance analytics, mobile app builder, virtual agent, AI search, predictive intelligence, process optimization, integrationHub, configuration management database (CMDB), and edge encryption.

Testimonials

Landon Cook

Director of Customer Service Operations

Tennessee DHS

ServiceNow Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Workflow management,Helpdesk management,Engagement management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Recording

Vendor: ServiceNow

Company Size: 5001-10000

HQ Location: 2225 Lawson Lane, Santa Clara, CA 95054, US

Financials: IPO

SolarWinds Service Desk

An IT service management (ITSM) solution that understands what it takes to successfully....

4.51

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SolarWinds Service Desk Icon

SolarWinds Service Desk

22.55
★★★★★
★★★★★
An IT service management (ITSM) solution that understands what it takes to successfully....

SolarWinds Service Desk is an IT Service Desk Software that enables modern organizations worldwide to deliver a superior service experience to their employees. It helps enterprises manage IT complexity, scale IT support services, and increase security within the service desk.

It offers comprehensive service desk functionality that helps businesses respond to service requests in a timely manner, resulting in improved support. The IT service management software accelerates efficiency and visibility into services requested and delivered across an organization, making it easy to continuously streamline process improvement and greater productivity. Through unprecedented agility and scalability, SolarWinds Service Desk gives organizations the ability to rapidly and consistently deliver the services that employees need to get work done. It advanced ITSM capabilities that meet the heightened security expectations of modern enterprises and improve key service management processes for employees.

Key features include incident management consolidates, manages, and prioritizes incoming tickets, service catalog standardizes service request and fulfillment processes, service portal for users to have a single place to submit tickets and requests, change management to plan, review, and implement changes quickly and successfully, and more. It is a fully integrated service desk and asset management solution utilizing a SaaS/multi-tenant platform, allowing internal service providers to streamline process improvement and greater productivity.

Testimonials

Carter Whitley

Endpoint Engineer

DPR Construction

SolarWinds Service Desk Icon
Highlights
Top Processes : Helpdesk management,Workflow management,Knowledge management
Top Features : Ticketing,Alerts: popups & Notifications,Dashboard

Vendor: SolarWinds

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 7171 Southwest Pkwy, Austin, Texas 78735, US

Financials: M&A

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What is Help Desk?

Help Desk

Help Desks were created by enterprises to provide both customers and internal users with a central location for information and support on their processes, products, and/or services. The purpose of the help desk is to offer a single point for the businesses to answer questions and troubleshoot problems. Help desks enable businesses to respond to their customers effectively and enable a better customer experience.

The future service desk should more closely align with the consumer experience in terms of self-service and the availability of applicable information.

D S

David Slakin

Gensler

Help desks can deliver a variety of both product and technology-related services. The function of the help desk is to be the single point of contact for any assistance customers or end-users need, with respect to business services.

According to an HDI report conducted in 2017 on Technical Support Practices the top three drivers of the decrease in ticket volume are self-help (42%), staff competency (34%), and knowledgebase (29%).

Post pandemic, one of the trends in customer support is the increased shift towards remote support. Remote support is facilitated by chat, video, screen sharing and collaboration tools.

Adoption of Generative AI is going to significantly alter the help desk landscape. AI based chatbots are known to free up customer support reps from manual and repetitive tasks. But as per Cristina Fonseca of Zendesk

Generative AI is used to not only do that, but to also make automated responses to customer enquiries smoother, faster and more helpful, while providing an extra layer of insight and context to agents to help them fulfill their job to even higher standards.

C F

Cristina Fonseca

VP of Products, Zendesk

What is Help Desk Software?

Help Desk software helps businesses execute core tasks that are based on corporate best practices such as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). The goal of managing any customer issues is to restore normal service operation quickly and efficiently, and this is the primary objective of any Help Desk software. According to many experts a large number of companies look at Help Desk Software as a tool that gives them a competitive advantage.

Help Desk software is primarily used to help agents track, manage, and solve customer issues. Teams typically deploy help desk software to manage the ticket life cycle, automate tasks, and optimize processes and workflows. Help Desk software enables technology teams to offer support for customer interactions across phone, chat, email, social media, and other channels in one place.

Help Desk vs Service Desk

Business Users are often confused with the two terms Service Desk and Help Desk. Are they both interchangeable? When to use what? Do we need both? So it is often important to understand the distinction between the two. It is important to note the Service Desk very often used in the context of IT Operations.

Service Desk is born out of IT Services best practices framework ITSM and based on the paradigm “managing IT as a Service”. Simply put, Service Desk is the single point of contact between service providers and users and is focused on delivering service end-to-end. A typical service desk manages both incidents and service requests and handles communication with users. It is concerned with both resolving the immediate issue and improving the quality and performance of services offered to ensure they are fully meeting the user’s needs as per the business goals and service agreements. The service desk is a key component of managing the service delivery from a big picture perspective and is often seen as more strategic.

Help Desk is more focused on incident management and largely pertains to break-fix problems. Service Desk is a broader evolution of Help Desk. Since Help Desk is only a small part of the overall service delivery it is often seen as more tactical. However, many of the modern Help Desk go beyond just incident management to include Knowledge Management and enabling self-service.

5 Key Benefits of Help Desk Software

Seamless Experience for Customers

A Help Desk software converges all inbound communication and converts the help desk into a single point of contact for all questions. By supporting a single point of contact, Help Desk software minimizes customer frustration and enables faster problem resolution.

Omnichannel Customer Support

Help Desk software helps bring together multiple support channels, regardless of whether your customers use different channels or even switch channels to get an answer. Help Desk software allows you to easily follow a customer from one channel to the next without loss in communication or ticket information.

5 Key Benefits of Help Desk Software

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Help Desk Software plays a major role in businesses to improve their customer satisfaction scores. Many of the features like automated ticketing and routing, sending reminders to agents on pending tickets, automatic assignment of tickets help greatly in customer issues being addressed promptly, and ensuring nothing goes amiss.

Help Desk software enables businesses to meet their customer demands. According to a Zendesk Customer Service Survey Report in 2018, for 97% of respondents, bad customer service changes their buying behavior. Help Desk software lets businesses stay proactive and organized in solving their customer issues, thereby improving satisfaction and influencing future business transactions.

Using Help Desk software, businesses can ensure all the information regarding a customer query/interaction is in one place. This enables you to avoid having the customer repeat themselves and provide a superior customer experience.

Improved Operational Efficiency

Help Desk Software helps businesses to handle customer issues at scale. Help Desk software enables the creation of manual workflows. This saves time by automatically creating tickets and assigning customers to specific support team members. Help Desk software enables businesses to create documentation so that they can search and find answers to their common issues easily. Some help desk software even offer analytics on the knowledge base, to help know what people are looking for the most.

Using Help desk software, companies can track metrics that directly impact customer satisfaction. The software often incorporates metrics such as tickets closed, deferred, agent productivity, customer feedback, and more, which can help improve service efficiencies.

Higher Productivity

With Help Desk Software, all customer support interactions happen from one place, so communication is seamless, personal, and efficient. This makes agents more productive as they don’t have to juggle between channels and deal with any ad-hoc communication. Also, all information related to customers is available to them, so they can service customers faster thereby increasing overall productivity.

Which industries use Help Desk Software?

Mid to large size companies from industries such as manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and education which constantly interact, or support customer issues can utilize Help Desk software effectively. Organizations can use Help Desk software for their external customers, or their internal ones (employees).

Who are the users of Help Desk Software?

Help Desk software is mainly used by businesses for technology support, customer support, or IT asset management. The Help Desk software is therefore operated by IT teams, but can also be used by HR teams, technical support, trainers, and educators who are looking to provide support to their clients/customers.

Why Help Desk is Important

Help Desk software helps businesses by solving many of the critical problems they face in customer support.

Problem #1 - Lack of Visibility into Customer Support Issues

Businesses that rely on email and phone to handle customer inquiries, cannot provide insight into how customer support agents are performing, or if they are providing correct information to customers. A Help Desk software helps maintain a record of customer interactions to monitor support activities. Together with reports and analytics, Help Desk Software provides the necessary insights to managers to proactively deal with customer issues.

Problem#2 - Agents not used optimally

One of the common problems faced by businesses is the lack of understanding of the usage of their agents. Are the right agents deployed for the right set of customer issues? Is the workload optimally balanced between the agents? Is a particular agent spending too much time on specific customer issues? Are agents spending too much time on repetitive problems? Help Desk Software alleviates these problems with the configuration of the right set of workflows, agent assignment rules, and notification on pending cases. Business leaders always have a pulse on their resource usage when they use Help Desk Software.

Problem#3 - Too much time spent on repetitive issues

Businesses always prefer to optimize their resources and do not wish to employ their premier agents on a repetitive set of customer issues. Such issues are best handled through self-service. Applying Pareto’s principle, 80% of the customers face 20% of all the issues. Businesses can optimize their customer support by linking with Knowledge Management and offering self-help through automation.

Top 3 drivers of decrease in ticket volume. Self-help: 42 percent Staff competency: 34 percent Knowledge base: 29 percent”

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HDI

Problem#4 - No Loopback from customer service

Customer Issues often provide insight into what customers are missing in the product/service, process gaps, and what customers would like to see. Help Desk software helps managers gain insights regarding what customers care about providing a clear view of what they need. This helps provide improvements to products or add relevant information to documentation, or change processes to offer better customer experiences. Completing this process loop from customer service to product development is important for the business to acquire and retain customers.

What are the Key Features of Help Desk Software?

Ticket Management

All Help Desk software helps to track and manage customer issues by keeping track of each customer issue in the form of a ticket. Ticket Management helps to prioritize, categorize, and assign tickets to the right agents. This is a key feature that helps to use resources optimally. Generally, ticket management allows issues to be reported from any channel, and Help Desk software helps to centralize all such reported issues.

Automation

Help Desk software supports the creation of business workflows that run automatically based on established triggers. This automation helps to prioritize and assign tickets to the right agents based on pre-set rules. This automation can also be enabled by AI. Automation of workflows can be done where the customer issues are coming from, type of issue, and also based on customer classification. This enables customers to get faster solutions to their issues while reducing manpower time. Many Help Desk software offer automation of tasks, and processes, to save time and effort in repetitive jobs.

Collaboration

Support agents often need help from their team members, supervisors to resolve issues. Help Desk software provides the ability to collaborate with team members on resolving issues, without back and forth communication and without losing customer context. This is a critical component for providing a great customer experience.

Customization

Businesses can use the Help Desk software to customize forms, templates, workflows, and responses to their unique needs.

Reporting and Analytics

Most Help Desk Software provide an extensive set of analysis and reporting on all key metrics related to agent workload, customer satisfaction, help desk productivity. Important metrics in customer support performance need to be tracked, and most Help Desk Software will offer reports based on these metrics for managers to assess overall support performance. They also have custom reporting and report sharing capabilities.

Personalization

Help Desk software offers businesses the ability to personalize all their interactions. This can include applying logos, creating custom fields, custom email, and SMS messages. Help Desk software offers respondents the ability to implement and re-use standard responses to recurring questions and situations.

Custom views

Custom views can be created using Help Desk software to offer personalized views for agents to see their activities based on ticket status or other conditions, and for managers to monitor status levels. Custom dashboards or layouts also allow different departments to monitor their requirements.

Native Apps

Some Help Desk software offer mobile apps support to enable agents to respond to customer service requests on the go. Mobile apps also enable business users to manage issues 24/7 and respond immediately without the customer experiencing any delay.

AI in Help Desk Software

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) impacting several routine technology tasks, it’s no surprise to see its impact on Help Desk software and support.

An AI-driven helpdesk utilizes a unique combination of Generative AI and automation to intercept and resolve support requests with end-users while automating your most repetitive tasks, actions, and workflows.

An automated ticketing system is an integral part of helpdesk software that helps to manage inbound customer tickets. AI greatly helps in optimizing the ticketing system by understanding the nature of requests and responding to tickets automatically, tagging tickets and routing to the correct agent in an optimal manner.

Cognitive Automation

By analyzing repetitive tasks conducted by Help Desk software, AI can offer advanced automation. Cognitive Automation will allow machine learning to automate multi-step tasks which can reduce the time it takes to identify and solve issues.

Business-aligned organizations are more likely to spend money on technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics, service automation, and virtual agents over the next twelve months, and far less likely to have no plans

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HDI

Get Intuitive Insights

Leveraging advanced algorithms, more data points can be analyzed, faster and effectively, resulting in business managers being given intuitive insights into their customer interactions or new product capabilities that may be in demand.

Save Time with Big Data Analytics

According to a ThinkHDI article, Help Desk software can leverage big data to save up to 670 working hours per year. Helse Midt-Norge IT (HEMIT), is the IT Help Desk service provider for nine hospitals in central Norway. Using Big Data analytics, HEMIT spent more time-solving user problems, rather than just reporting them. The final result was a 50% time reduction to complete help desk tickets, with 10% fewer phone calls and 25% more help desk resources available for problem resolution.

Buyer’s Guide: 8 Factors to Consider to buy Help Desk Software

Cloud or On-Premise Deployment

Businesses that need full control over their customer data and incident management files, prefer to use on-premise solutions. Businesses that need extensive customization and complex integrations would also help the on-premise solution. When it comes to flexibility and ability to scale, cloud-based online Help Desk software scores better. Businesses need not worry about infrastructure management, configuration, and scale issues as these will be easily handled online Help Desk Software. When you need more scale or a higher configuration, all you need to do is choose a different pricing plan. Compliance and regulatory limits also play a key role in the selection of an on-premise solution.

Support Organization Structure

Some organizations offer multi-tier help desk support wherein each level of support offers a varied degree of customer service and usually there is a hand-off between levels. Also the channels that are used in these different tiers would be very different. Help Desk support can be spread across geographic locations. It is important to choose the right Help Desk software that supports such a complex organization structure and support models.

Capabilities

Help Desk Software needs to have some of the key core capabilities like ticket management, automation, integrated live chat, built-in phone support, reporting, and analytics. It is important to assess the strength of these abilities before choosing the software. Also a built-in knowledge base or integration with knowledge management systems is key to implementing today’s sophisticated Help Desk. Many of today’s Help Desk software vendors have advanced capabilities like collaboration tools, customer portal, dashboards and mobile apps.

Also the needs of your business function should match the capabilities provided. For example, most Help Desk software is tuned for customer support. If it is meant for internal use, say by the HR department, it is important to assess whether it is tailored for such use cases.

ITIL compliance

ITIL offers a best practices framework for customer service providers. Choosing software that has a higher degree of compliance with ITIL ensures that organizations are benefiting from such practices. This to an extent takes care of many of the compliance, audit, and regulatory issues.

Scalability

As your business grows, you’ll need to manage more business users, support technicians, and end-users. The Help Desk software should be scalable to support future business growth.

Localization

A business that operates globally, will need to communicate with customers from different countries. In such a case the Help Desk software should be able to offer its capabilities in multiple languages.

Security

Help Desk Software should support both data level and user-level security. Businesses must consider security protocols such as data encryption, data storage, and access protocols before making a choice. The software should support the necessary authorization and authentication mechanisms to deal with multi-level support and organization hierarchy.

Integration

Help Desk software must be able to interact with other applications like CRM and analytics software for which it will require integration capabilities. Larger enterprises may have dedicated Knowledge Management Systems that would need integration with Help Desk. If the organization is implementing a larger service delivery framework, then it needs to integrate with other tools and applications that support other critical functions of service management.

What are the challenges in adopting Help Desk Software?

According to Research and Markets, the ITSM (IT Service Management) market is slated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.78% between 2016 and 2020, with the cloud-based ITSM market reaching a CAGR of 14% between 2016 and 2021.

But before thinking about what the future of help desk support software will be, it's important to consider the challenges that are being faced.

Data Security

Business users are becoming more comfortable in using their personal devices in the work environment. While this increased mobility is enabling businesses to be more productive, it also comes with the risk of data misuse. This can make it difficult for Help Desk software to be effective across such a dynamic environment.

Compliance Issues

Today’s businesses operate in a dynamic environment with interrelated IT components. These complexities can lead to inadvertent violations if the Help Desk software is not up to date or advanced enough to manage constantly changing regulatory policies.

Growing Data and Applications

As business users adopt more technologies, company environments often experience data proliferation or fragmentation of data across applications. This can cause multiple issues in terms of security, compliance, transparency and speed for the Help Desk software implementation.

Staying Up-to-Date

Help Desk software needs to stay relevant with continually changing technologies and customer needs. While customers can adapt quickly to new channels of communication, this can pose a challenge for Help Desk software that is not agile in its ability to evolve.

ROI of Help Desk Software

Businesses that invest in Help Desk software usually experience improved productivity and faster resolution of customer issues. According to an Avanade whitepaper, for every $1 invested in customer experience through help desk software or similar platforms, you can reap a return on investment of $3.

Poor customer service is one of the key reasons for customers to move away from the organization to go to their competitors. 86% of the customers cite poor customer service is one of the key reasons why they do so. For 51% of the customers, one poor customer service experience is enough to do so. Investing in a good Help Desk Software helps organizations to do away with this issue.

Reduce Time and Costs

By reducing the time to create tickets and resolve issues, Help Desk software can help businesses reduce the time and costs per customer issue. According to a BMC blog post, the cost of manually handling a help desk ticket is $22. By automating the process, 22% of total service desk tickets were resolved at practically no cost.

For many of the organizations, support revenue is a major source of revenue and for such organizations, Help Desk Software not only brings in internal efficiencies contributing to the bottom line, but also greatly helps in improving customer satisfaction and NPS thereby contributing to the top line.

Which of these 228 Help Desk software fit your needs?

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228 Help Desk Software

Zendesk For Service

Customer service solution that’s easy to use and scales with your business

4.36

Read Reviews
Zendesk For Service Icon

Zendesk For Service

4.36
★★★★★
★★★★★
Customer service solution that’s easy to use and scales with your business

Zendesk For Service is a bundled software package by Zendesk for customer support and customer success teams to provide an omnichannel customer support experience.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Engagement management,Customer feedback management
Top Features : Ticketing,Personalization,Alerts: popups & Notifications
Zendesk For Service Icon

Vendor: Zendesk

Founded: 2007

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 1019 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Financials: IPO

freshdesk

Omnichannel Customer support software

4.46

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freshdesk Icon

freshdesk

4.46
★★★★★
★★★★★
Omnichannel Customer support software

Freshdesk is an online cloud-based customer service software providing helpdesk support with all smart automation to get things done faster. It helps to retain customers and enhance customer relationships.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Engagement management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Personalization
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Vendor: Freshworks

Founded: 2010

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 2950 S. Delaware Street, Suite 201, San Mateo CA 94403

Financials: SERIES H

Zoho Desk

Customer Service Software for Context-Aware ...

4.42

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Zoho Desk

4.42
★★★★★
★★★★★
Customer Service Software for Context-Aware ...

Zoho desk is an online tickets management software for customer support teams to service customers with increased productivity.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Workflow management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Alerts: popups & Notifications
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Vendor: Zoho Corporation

Founded: 1996

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 4141 Hacienda Drive, Pleasanton, California 94588, USA

Financials: PRIVATE

Freshservice

Intelligent, Right-Sized Service Management Solution for the Modern Enterprise

4.55

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Freshservice

4.55
★★★★★
★★★★★
Intelligent, Right-Sized Service Management Solution for the Modern Enterprise

Freshservice is a Service Management solution that acts as a force multiplier, helping businesses of all sizes achieve efficiency, effectiveness, and greater ROI.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Workflow management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Alerts: popups & Notifications
Freshservice Icon

Vendor: Freshworks

Founded: 2010

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 2950 S. Delaware Street, Suite 201, San Mateo CA 94403

Financials: SERIES H

Deskpro

Helpdesk Software | Cloud or Self-Hosted, On ...

4.54

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Deskpro

4.54
★★★★★
★★★★★
Helpdesk Software | Cloud or Self-Hosted, On ...

Deskpro is an all-in-one helpdesk software that provides customers and internal users with memorable customer experiences. It is a multi-channel helpdesk that captures and stores every message from customer conversations in a shared inbox, bringing the team together for harmonious support.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Communication management,Sending & publishing communications
Top Features : Ticketing,Templates,Alerts: popups & Notifications
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Vendor: Deskpro

Company Size: 11-50

HQ Location: 79 Hartfield Road, London, Wimbledon SW6 3JA, GB

Financials: PRIVATE

LiveAgent

Help Desk & Live Chat Software

4.59

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LiveAgent

4.59
★★★★★
★★★★★
Help Desk & Live Chat Software

LiveAgent is a Helpdesk software for SMBs that can be used across industries such as Automotive, Marketing & Telco, Travel, SaaS and more. It can adapt to different business models such as Agencies, Enterprise, NGOs, Startups and others.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Engagement management
Top Features : Ticketing,Recording,Personalization
LiveAgent Icon

Vendor: qualityunit

Company Size: 101-250

HQ Location: Vajnorska 100/A, Bratislava, Slovakia 83104, SK

Financials: PRIVATE

Salesforce Service Cloud

Service Cloud: Customer Support & Call Centre Software

4.20

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Salesforce Service Cloud

4.20
★★★★★
★★★★★
Service Cloud: Customer Support & Call Centre Software

Salesforce Service Cloud is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform for customer service and support, based on the company's CRM software for sales professionals. It helps to enhance customer relationships and improve internal communication.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Customer case management,Engagement management
Top Features : Ticketing,Personalization,Dashboard
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Vendor: Salesforce

Founded: 1999

Company Size: 10001+

HQ Location: 415 Mission Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105, United States

Financials: IPO

Teamsupport

Customer Service Software Built for Business to Business

4.40

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Teamsupport

4.40
★★★★★
★★★★★
Customer Service Software Built for Business to Business

TeamSupport is a Customer Service software built for B2B companies. It provides help desk features and customer service management tools enabling improved customer service and better relationships.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Workflow management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Recording
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Vendor: Teamsupport

Founded: 2008

Company Size: 51-100

HQ Location: 8330 Lyndon B Johnson Fwy Suite 1100 Dallas, TX 75243

Financials: PRIVATE

ServiceNow

ServiceNow - Digital Workflows for Enterprise - Make work ...

4.09

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ServiceNow

4.09
★★★★★
★★★★★
ServiceNow - Digital Workflows for Enterprise - Make work ...

ServiceNow is a cloud-based workflow automation platform that enables enterprise organizations to improve operational efficiencies by streamlining and automating routine work tasks. It delivers digital workflows that create great experiences and unlock productivity.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Workflow management,Helpdesk management,Engagement management
Top Features : Ticketing,Dashboard,Recording
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Vendor: ServiceNow

Company Size: 5001-10000

HQ Location: 2225 Lawson Lane, Santa Clara, CA 95054, US

Financials: IPO

SolarWinds Service Desk

An IT service management (ITSM) solution that understands what it takes to successfully....

4.51

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SolarWinds Service Desk

4.51
★★★★★
★★★★★
An IT service management (ITSM) solution that understands what it takes to successfully....

SolarWinds Service Desk is an IT Service Desk Software that enables modern organizations worldwide to deliver a superior service experience to their employees. It helps enterprises manage IT complexity, scale IT support services, and increase security within the service desk.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Workflow management,Knowledge management
Top Features : Ticketing,Alerts: popups & Notifications,Dashboard
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Vendor: SolarWinds

Company Size: 1001-5000

HQ Location: 7171 Southwest Pkwy, Austin, Texas 78735, US

Financials: M&A

ConnectWise Manage

Business Management Software | ConnectWise Manage Business ...

4.08

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ConnectWise Manage

4.08
★★★★★
★★★★★
Business Management Software | ConnectWise Manage Business ...

ConnectWise Manage helps users manage customer service agreements, automate recurring invoices and document agreements in a central storage location. It caters to small and midsize businesses and can also be deployed on-premises.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Sales document management,Helpdesk management,Workflow management
Top Features : Ticketing,Alerts: popups & Notifications,Personalization
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Vendor: Connectwise

Founded: 1982

Company Size: 501-1000

HQ Location: 4110 George Rd., Suite 200, Tampa, FL 33634, USA

Financials: M&A

Spiceworks IT Help Desk

Cloud Help desk software for IT

4.36

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Spiceworks IT Help Desk

4.36
★★★★★
★★★★★
Cloud Help desk software for IT

Spiceworks IT Help Desk helps IT professionals, to manage an internal IT help desk and a business more effectively. It helps to handle tickets in just a few minutes with the help of free help desk software on the server or in the cloud, comprehend team dynamics, and explain the value to the company using AI technology and unique insights into the market to connect IT pros with the right experts, tools, and information when they need it most. Also, connects tech brands with in-market buyers at the right time.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Communication management
Top Features : Ticketing,Alerts: popups & Notifications,Dashboard
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Vendor: Spiceworks

HQ Location: 3700 N Capital of Texas Hwy, 100, Austin, TX 78746, US

Helpcrunch

HelpCrunch - Intelligent Customer Communication Platform ...

4.77

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Helpcrunch

4.77
★★★★★
★★★★★
HelpCrunch - Intelligent Customer Communication Platform ...

Helpcrunch is a customer communication platform enabling Lead Generation and Sales, Customer Engagement and Customer support. It can be used by businesses of all sizes across the industry, and is available on mobile Android and iOS.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Engagement management,Engaging and following up
Top Features : Widgets,Alerts: popups & Notifications,Personalization
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Vendor: Helpcrunch

Founded: 2014

Company Size: 11-50

HQ Location: 600 California St, San Francisco, CA 94108, USA

Financials: SEED

Livechat

LiveChat | Live Chat Software and Help Desk Software

4.59

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Livechat

4.59
★★★★★
★★★★★
LiveChat | Live Chat Software and Help Desk Software

LiveChat is a simple online chat solution for businesses, allowing their customer service professionals to contact customers who are seeking information on the website directly. The platform enables businesses and their team to talk with clients and potential customers directly on their websites and in real-time.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Engagement management,Engaging and following up
Top Features : Personalization,Ticketing,Alerts: popups & Notifications
Livechat Icon

Vendor: Livechat

Founded: 2002

Company Size: 101-250

HQ Location: One International Place Suite 1400 Boston, MA 02110-2619

Financials: IPO

Crisp Customer Messaging Platform

Customer Messaging Platform For Startups & SMB's - Crisp

4.56

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Crisp Customer Messaging Platform

4.56
★★★★★
★★★★★
Customer Messaging Platform For Startups & SMB's - Crisp

Crisp Customer Messaging Platform is a multichannel customer messaging platform that unifies external and internal communication into one inbox. It helps to increase sales and revenue and improve internal communications.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Engagement management,Knowledge management
Top Features : Widgets,Bot,Voice transcription
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Vendor: Crisp

Company Size: NA

HQ Location: Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, The Netherlands

Financials: NA

Livezilla Customer Support

LiveZilla Live Chat, Live Support, Ticket System and Customer ...

4.54

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Livezilla Customer Support

4.54
★★★★★
★★★★★
LiveZilla Live Chat, Live Support, Ticket System and Customer ...

LiveZilla is a Customer Support Software. It provides Live chats and also monitors website visitors in real-time. It helps to grow sales and revenue and turn visitors into customers.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Communication management,Contact list management
Top Features : Ticketing,Personalization,Alerts: popups & Notifications
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Vendor: Livezilla

Founded: 2009

HQ Location: Ekkehardstraße 10, 78224 Singen

Intercom

Complete customer communications platform with bots, apps, product tours, and more

4.49

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Intercom

4.49
★★★★★
★★★★★
Complete customer communications platform with bots, apps, product tours, and more

Intercom is a complete Customer Communications Platform providing Conversational Support, Conversational Engagement and Conversational Marketing for businesses ranging from small to Medium and Large Enterprises. The software can be used across industries such as E-commerce, Financial Services, Healthcare, Education and more. The software is optimized for desktop and mobile devices.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Engagement management,Engaging and following up,Helpdesk management
Top Features : Bot,Personalization,Ticketing
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Vendor: Intercom

Company Size: 501-1000

HQ Location: 55 2nd Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, California 94105, US

Financials: SERIES D

VisionFlow

Powerful software for Customer Support, Project Management, ITSM, CRM

4.44

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VisionFlow

4.44
★★★★★
★★★★★
Powerful software for Customer Support, Project Management, ITSM, CRM
Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Knowledge management,Sales document management
Top Features : Dashboard,Personalization,Ticketing
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Vendor: VisionFlow

Company Size: 1-10

HQ Location: Vegagatan 3, Visionera AB, Stockholm, Stockholm 11329, SE

Financials: NA

LiveHelpNow

LiveHelpNow -Fully integrated customer service suite....

4.39

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LiveHelpNow

4.39
★★★★★
★★★★★
LiveHelpNow -Fully integrated customer service suite....

LiveHelpNow is a LiveChat Software. LiveHelpNow provides a Live Chat support suite which lets agents manage multiple requests easily and in real-time. The live chat features of the application give users insight into customer behaviour and intent, with real-time visitor monitoring, individual customer information feeds and social media insights.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Engagement management,Knowledge management
Top Features : Ticketing,Alerts: popups & Notifications,Personalization
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Vendor: LiveHelpNow

Company Size: 11-50

HQ Location: 515 S West End Blvd, Quakertown, Pennsylvania 18951, US

Financials: PRIVATE

Apptivo

Cloud Business Management Software Suite

4.38

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Apptivo

4.38
★★★★★
★★★★★
Cloud Business Management Software Suite

Apptivo is a Business Management Software that is used by organizations to experience the power of integrated software. It consists integrated set of apps that include CRM, Project Management, Contract Management, Email Marketing, Help Desk, Invoicing and more. It helps to improve efficiency and enhance customer relationships.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Contact list management,Sales document management
Top Features : Recording,Personalization,Templates
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Vendor: Apptivo

Company Size: 251-500

HQ Location: 39055 Hastings St, Suite 209, Fremont, California 94538, US

Financials: PRIVATE

Richpanel

Live Chat Software & Helpdesk For Ecommerce Stores

4.38

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Richpanel

4.38
★★★★★
★★★★★
Live Chat Software & Helpdesk For Ecommerce Stores

Richpanel is a Customer Data Platform that helps businesses to understand and extract value from their data. It helps agents efficiently resolve customer issues without switching tabs.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Helpdesk management,Customer feedback management,Measuring customer satisfaction
Top Features : Ticketing,Personalization,Dashboard
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Vendor: Richpanel

Company Size: 11-50

HQ Location: 1885 Cabana Dr, San Jose, CA 95125, San Jose, California 95125, US

Financials: PRIVATE

Gnatta

Customer Service Technology - Customer Engagement

4.33

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Gnatta

4.33
★★★★★
★★★★★
Customer Service Technology - Customer Engagement
Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Contact list management,Communication management,Social media management
Top Features : Personalization
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Vendor: Gnatta

Company Size: 11-50

HQ Location: 18 Finsbury Square, London, London EC2A 1AH, GB

Financials: PRIVATE

WhosOn

Live Chat Software For Websites

4.28

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WhosOn

4.28
★★★★★
★★★★★
Live Chat Software For Websites

WhosOn is a live chat software that enables to chat, track, and engage website visitors while they browse. It allows users to engage with customers at a whole new level of efficiency, to detect and pinpoint new leads, and consequently to increase conversion rates. It helps business cart bounce rates, and to motivate users to subscribe or to make orders.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Measuring customer satisfaction,Customer feedback management,Contact list management
WhosOn Icon

Vendor: Parker Software

Company Size: 11-50

HQ Location: Prospect Way, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire ST8 7PL, GB

Financials: PRIVATE

Salesforce Essentials

Build stronger customer relationships, with the CRM built for small business

4.17

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Salesforce Essentials

4.17
★★★★★
★★★★★
Build stronger customer relationships, with the CRM built for small business

Salesforce Essentials is the vendor's small business plan for its CRM (Sales Cloud) and customer support (Service Cloud) solutions. It is designed for a small sales team to sell smarter and faster with the help of the app's built-in intelligence. It helps to acquire customers and enhance customer relationships.

Highlights
Top Business Usecases : Engagement management,Helpdesk management,Engaging and following up
Top Features : Personalization,Ticketing,Recording
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Vendor: Salesforce

Founded: 1999

Company Size: 10001+

HQ Location: 415 Mission Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105, United States

Financials: IPO