When your organization is first beginning out, electronic mail is normally sufficient to deal with your buyer requests. However as your organization grows, you want a greater solution to deal with these requests coming in earlier than your help staff turns into overwhelmed.
That is the place a assist desk ticketing system might help. It should monitor all the buyer requests that are available, give them a novel ticket quantity for each you and your buyer to trace, and enable you to arrange these requests as a way to attain crucial ones first.
In case your staff is able to improve from electronic mail, this information will enable you to decide one of the best free assist desk ticketing system.
What’s a assist desk ticketing system?
A assist desk ticketing system is software program that organizes buyer questions. When somebody reaches out — by electronic mail, cellphone, chat, or one other system — the system makes a file. This file, or ticket, helps groups monitor every request till it is solved.
However assist desk ticketing programs do extra than simply monitor tickets. They typically embrace instruments to construct reply libraries, arrange self-service choices, and increase staff output. Many additionally work with different software program your staff makes use of, making the entire course of smoother.
The advantages of utilizing a assist desk ticketing system
Whereas extra generally related to customer support and IT, a assist desk ticketing system can profit many groups throughout nearly any business. For example, departments like human sources (HR) and upkeep additionally discipline a lot of requests, and a ticketing system can preserve these messages from getting misplaced within the shuffle.
Regardless of the use case, the advantages of a assist desk ticketing system embrace:
Higher collaboration and transparency: Assist desks be certain that everybody on the staff is aware of the standing of each difficulty, they usually present instruments that assist brokers work collectively with out stepping on one another’s toes.
Elevated group and effectivity: Ticketing instruments embrace tagging, categorization, and analytics options that allow you to trace efficiency metrics and trending points. Additionally they embrace productiveness and automation instruments to assist groups streamline their operations.
Improved buyer expertise: Assist desk software program permits you to present a greater person expertise by giving customers extra company over how they obtain help. Whether or not it is by self-service choices or extra channels like social media, assist desks improve clients’ entry to assist.
It advantages everybody when your brokers can work collectively to resolve issues with out friction, points are simply tracked and moved by the decision course of with out getting misplaced, and customers can discover solutions on their very own phrases.
Options to search for in a assist desk ticketing system
When looking for a assist desk ticketing system, there are a number of key options you must search for:
Omnichannel ticketing: For those who get buyer questions from many various sources, search for a assist desk that helps a number of communication channels. That will embrace electronic mail, chat, cellphone, social media, messaging, and video conferencing, amongst others.
Collaboration instruments: Search for options like inner notes, ticket assignments, reply templates, and the flexibility to tag colleagues in on a case. These options make it simpler to work by the queue as a staff.
Self-service choices: If you wish to assist your clients discover their very own solutions, search for ticketing programs with self-service choices like information base builders, group boards, and buyer portals.
Automation and AI: Along with primary automations like ticket routing, it’s possible you’ll wish to search for a ticketing system with AI options like a chatbot or writing assistants. These options assist unlock your workers to deal with these points that require human experience.
Reporting: To know and enhance how your staff is performing, search for programs that present studies on crucial metrics on your staff (e.g., decision instances, SLAs, buyer satisfaction, and agent efficiency).
Integrations: If you might want to pull information from different programs into your assist desk to supply higher help, search for a ticketing system that may combine with different instruments in your staff’s tech stack, reminiscent of bug-tracking software program, CRM platforms, or ecommerce instruments.
Specialised options: Lastly, it’s possible you’ll wish to select a system that gives options which can be particular to your business or use case. For instance, a system centered on the IT companies use case could embrace options for monitoring gadgets like computer systems or different company-owned tools.
The ten greatest free assist desk ticketing programs
There are many ticketing options available on the market. Nonetheless, relying in your use case and the kind of service you present, every may have professionals and cons. We’ve put collectively a listing of 10 of one of the best free assist desk ticketing programs under, together with ideas on what kinds of groups would possibly profit most from every platform.
1. Assist Scout – Finest for buyer help groups
Assist Scout is a assist desk platform that focuses on serving to groups ship pleasant customer support experiences.
One distinction you’ll discover straight away is that we don’t use the time period “ticket”; as a substitute, we name buyer interactions “conversations.” Whereas this may occasionally look like an odd stance for a assist desk, we imagine that no buyer desires to be a quantity.
When your clients obtain emails despatched by Assist Scout, they may appear to be common emails — no loopy ticket numbers or prompts to answer above the road included.
Inbox
Whereas clients won’t ever see the impersonal aspect of assist desk life, your staff will nonetheless have all the pieces they should monitor and resolve buyer points. The platform helps electronic mail, stay chat, and social media channels, and all communications are funneled right into a shared inbox that may be accessed through your desktop pc or cellular app.
Every dialog throughout the inbox has a buyer profile full with several types of buyer information, reminiscent of their identify, location, earlier conversations, and data pulled from third-party sources. This offers your staff with the best info to supply contextual, personalised help.
Collaboration
Assist Scout’s inbox presents typical options like the flexibility to assign conversations to particular brokers. It additionally consists of collision detection to make sure clients by no means obtain duplicate responses and inner notes and @mentions for documenting case updates or asking teammates for assist.
Productiveness
The platform additionally helps your staff kick busy work to the curb with productiveness instruments. Use workflow automations to deal with repetitive duties like dialog routing or tagging high-priority circumstances. Saved replies are quick textual content snippets that allow you to reply to FAQs extra rapidly with a standardized response. Snooze and ship later allow you to determine when to answer a buyer whereas conserving your queue clear.
Docs
Many shoppers favor to assist themselves, and with Assist Scout’s information base instrument, Docs, your clients can do exactly that. Create a assist heart with solutions to FAQs, how-tos, and movies. Customise the appear and feel of your Docs web site together with your firm brand and model colours.
As soon as the location is stay, make self-service much more accessible by including a Beacon — Assist Scout’s internet widget — on any web page of your web site or inside your app. Beacons allow you to serve up useful articles within the second with out disturbing your clients’ person expertise.
AI
Assist your help staff do their greatest work with AI options that increase productiveness whereas releasing up time to concentrate on extra helpful duties.
AI Summarize can sum up a protracted dialog in just some bullet factors, enabling you to stand up to hurry rapidly after an escalation, when handing off a case to a teammate, or when reviewing conversations as a part of your high quality assurance processes.
AI Help is a writing assistant that may assist with spelling and grammar, translating textual content into one other language, or altering the tone or size of copy composed in any of Assist Scout’s editors.
AI Drafts give everybody in your staff a head begin by drafting a reply to any electronic mail on demand. Responses use earlier conversations and your information base as supply content material; merely click on AI draft, overview for accuracy, and hit ship.
Reporting
Again up your choices with information utilizing Assist Scout’s analytics options. You may monitor metrics like dialog or channel quantity, worker efficiency, and even the success of your Docs web site as a way to determine which articles are essentially the most useful and establish areas for enchancment.
Finest-in-class help
Assist Scout is an apparent selection for groups interested by a customer-first strategy to help. Our help professionals are specialists at what they do — in any case, they’re Assist Scout customers too! We have now tons of weblog posts and lessons that can assist you get essentially the most out of our software program, and the staff is offered 24/6, making certain that you just all the time have the care and help you might want to be there on your clients.
What’s included within the free plan?
Assist Scout’s free plan consists of limitless customers, one shared inbox, one Docs web site, one Beacon, ticket assignments and auto-replies, 10 saved replies, 10 views, 10 workflows, 10 proactive messages, 100 tags, studies with as much as one month of information, and AI Drafts, Help, Summarize, and Solutions.
Get began with Assist Scout:
2. Google Collaborative Inbox – Finest starter ticketing system
For those who’re already utilizing Gmail and wish to add some construction to your help efforts, Google Collaborative Inbox is usually a good, free starter ticketing system.
The easiest way to consider Collaborative Inbox is as a shared folder a number of individuals can entry from their very own private electronic mail accounts. With it, you’re in a position to assign conversations to particular person group members and add statuses to requests. Group members can do issues like mark a problem as a reproduction or as resolved. You may as well set permissions for various individuals or groups who’ve entry to the Collaborative Inbox.
Organising Collaborative Inbox is comparatively easy. You arrange the e-mail deal with, create a Google Group, after which add individuals to that group. That’s it. Now everybody within the group can reply to emails within the group mailbox with out sharing login info.
Google Collaborative Inbox could be very primary in performance, however the factor that basically makes it completely different — assuming you already use Google Workspace — is that you just don’t have to enroll in extra software program, making it very handy to get began. It additionally permits as much as 25 members, which is increased than many different free assist desk ticketing programs.
What’s included within the free plan?
Google Collaborative Inbox is 100% free for Google Workspace subscribers and consists of one shared inbox, ticket assignments, ticket statuses, and agent permissions for as much as 25 customers.
3. Jira Service Administration – Finest for engineering groups
Most SaaS corporations are accustomed to Jira, Atlassian’s undertaking administration software program. Past typical undertaking administration options like product roadmaps, Jira is usually utilized by engineering groups to trace growth work and bug studies.
For those who’re trying to department into buyer or IT help and Jira is a part of your tech stack, Atlassian’s assist desk, Jira Service Administration, makes a variety of sense. It has your whole primary assist desk options like ticket monitoring, assignments, a information base, and instruments for incident, change, and asset administration — all wrapped up in a well-recognized person interface (UI).
Service Administration additionally permits for integrations with a variety of apps, together with messaging companies like Microsoft Groups and Slack, or you possibly can code your individual customized add-ons utilizing Jira’s REST API.
Prime options
Service desk for ticket administration
Self-service portal w/information base
Incident, change, and asset administration instruments
AI options
What’s included within the free plan?
Jira Service Administration’s free plan can be utilized by as much as three brokers and consists of electronic mail help, chat help, buyer portals, consumption varieties, workflows, incident templates, and on-call schedules.
4. ProProfs – Finest for buyer suggestions
If you’re a staff of 1, ProProfs’ resolution could be interesting: Its free plan has all the pieces you might want to begin supporting clients, like limitless tickets, canned responses, auto-responders, labels, and even a cellular app for simple help through a conveyable machine.
ProProfs’ assist desk is nice for each buyer help and IT groups alike. Each groups can use the platform to supply multichannel help throughout electronic mail, stay chat, and a assist heart. It additionally offers collaboration options like inner notes and automation capabilities for a streamlined workflow.
Prime options
What’s included within the free plan?
ProProfs’ free plan works for a single person and consists of limitless tickets, canned responses, and a number of inboxes.
5. Solarwinds – Finest for IT service administration (ITSM)
Solarwinds is an IT ticketing system constructed to satisfy Info Know-how Infrastructure Library (ITIL) requirements. It consists of instruments to assist groups with drawback, incident, change, asset, and information administration. It additionally has instruments for time billing and allows you to create studies to observe issues like technician efficiency, asset stock, and buyer survey responses.
Solarwinds’ free plan that lets a single person handle incoming electronic mail requests with no dialog limits.
There are some things that make SolarWinds’ free plan distinctive. First, you’re in a position to set up it straight on a Mac, Home windows, or Linux-based machine. Second, you possibly can create self-service portals on the free plan, which isn’t widespread amongst opponents. Third, you’re in a position to do automated ticket routing.
Prime options
Ticketing software program
Information base instrument
Customized reporting
Meets ITIL requirements
What’s included within the free plan?
Solarwinds’ free plan consists of one person, a self-service portal, ticket automations, Linux compatibility, and no dialog limits.
6. Spiceworks – Finest for big IT help groups
With Spiceworks, you possibly can effectively handle buyer requests by a customizable internet portal. You may robotically assign and route tickets primarily based on predefined priorities and classes, serving to requests get to the best individual straight away. Additional, you’re in a position to create automated responses for routine questions to avoid wasting brokers time and enhance productiveness.
One thing a bit distinctive about Spiceworks is that it has options for stock administration, making it ideally suited for an IT use case. Together with that, in addition they provide a customizable information base, which is sweet to supply as a self-serve help possibility.
Together with these options, in addition they have pretty sturdy analytics choices. You may filter information and create customized studies. You may even connect with Energy BI to get extra refined together with your information. Spiceworks additionally presents a cellular app, so you possibly can deal with requests even whenever you’re away out of your desk.
One factor to notice is that Spiceworks can present its instrument without spending a dime as a result of it generates income from in-app advertisements. Nonetheless, in the event you aren’t bothered by the advertisements, it makes a variety of sense to save cash and reap the benefits of a completely free instrument.
Prime options
What’s included within the free plan?
Spiceworks is 100% free to make use of and consists of limitless customers, a shared inbox, iOS and Android apps, no dialog limits, automated responses, stock administration, and a assist heart.
7. Zoho Desk – Finest for small companies
Zoho Desk is a superb possibility for small companies with a free plan for as much as three seats and limitless tickets. For those who’re a high-volume, small staff, it may very well be an excellent possibility. On the free plan, you get one shared inbox in addition to one assist heart.
With the shared inbox you possibly can create as much as 10 tags to categorize tickets. You may as well create two macros, that are canned responses that may enable you to reply widespread questions rapidly.
Additional, you possibly can arrange notification guidelines to let clients and brokers learn about adjustments or updates to a request. You may as well add clients as contacts and save sure details about them so brokers have extra context in future interactions.
One function that’s a bit distinctive from Zoho is the flexibility to create a suggestions widget and add it to your web site. It’s basically an online kind the place guests can depart suggestions straight from the web page they’re on. You may as well create consumption varieties for help requests, which could be helpful for getting sure info upfront, saving brokers time when responding.
What’s included within the free plan?
Zoho Desk’s free plan consists of three customers, one shared inbox, one assist heart, two macros, notification guidelines, a suggestions widget, and an consumption kind.
8. UVdesk – Finest for ecommerce corporations
UVdesk’s free plan presents limitless seats and a shared inbox for electronic mail requests. The platform as a complete is ecommerce-focused and permits customers so as to add an internet site widget the place guests can submit requests straight. They do that by internet extensions for Shopify, Magento 2, Opencart, Prestashop, and WordPress websites.
The free plan additionally presents some productiveness options like saved replies. You may prioritize tickets in addition to set a ticket standing to maintain clients updated on progress. You’re additionally in a position to create customized electronic mail templates.
Together with electronic mail help, you possibly can create a information base with UVDesk. There’s no article restrict, and you may arrange articles into completely different classes to make navigation simpler for guests. Final, you possibly can customise the look of the online widget with shade choice and even by including your individual customized CSS.
What’s included within the free plan?
UVdesk’s free plan consists of limitless customers, a information base, saved replies, ticket statuses, and Shopify, Magento 2, Opencart, and Prestashop internet extensions.
9. osTicket – Finest open-source ticketing system
osTicket is a free, open-source assist desk ticketing system that offers groups the flexibility to supply electronic mail help to clients. There’s no seat restrict or request restrict, they usually have some helpful productiveness options like the flexibility to create customized columns and queues to maintain requests organized.
There’s additionally a collision detection function that permits brokers to lock a ticket whereas they’re engaged on it to keep away from one other agent chiming in on the similar time. This helps keep away from duplicate work and stops clients from getting a number of responses, which could be very complicated. You may as well arrange ticket filters to route requests to completely different brokers and departments primarily based on guidelines you set within the platform.
One factor that’s pretty distinctive about osTicket is the duties function, which you should use to create completely different duties associated to particular points. It’s a good way to create checkpoints and preserve monitor of progress for extra complicated points. You may as well create a buyer portal, giving individuals entry to self-serve help choices.
What’s included within the free plan?
osTicket is 100% free and consists of limitless customers, a self-service portal, collision detection, no dialog limits, customized queues and columns, and process administration.
10. Hiver – Finest improve from Google Collaborative Inbox
Earlier on this article, we talked about that Google Collaborative Inbox is a superb starter assist desk ticketing system. However in the event you’ve already been utilizing Collaborative Inbox and are on the lookout for an improve, Hiver is an efficient selection. Hiver differs from all the different choices we’ve mentioned as a result of it isn’t a standalone assist desk however an extension that works inside Gmail.
Ideally suited for groups of a smaller measurement, Hiver lets groups create shared inboxes which can be seen throughout the Gmail UI and comes with specialised assist desk instruments like electronic mail assignments, non-public notes, and collision detection that may’t sometimes be present in commonplace electronic mail purchasers.
You may as well reply stay chat messages from inside your inbox, create a information base for self-service, and monitor traits with reporting dashboards. Hiver has even hopped on the AI practice, providing summarize, auto-close, and electronic mail template suggestion options to assist scale back the quantity of effort your staff is dedicating to every case.
If you wish to keep in Gmail whereas including a ton of performance, Hiver needs to be on the high of your checklist.
Prime options
What’s included within the free plan?
Hiver’s free plan that features limitless customers, one shared inbox, one tag, and one electronic mail alias.
Selecting one of the best assist desk ticketing system on your staff
There’s no such factor as a “greatest” system. There may be solely what’s greatest for your corporation proper now.
Take a second to contemplate what issues your staff is attempting to resolve with a assist desk ticketing system, what options you might want to obtain your required final result, and which of the instruments above is one of the best match for getting you there. Listed below are some inquiries to reply to search out the best possibility:
Who’s the first viewers you’re serving? Some instruments are constructed for IT help, and a few are constructed for buyer help. Figuring out who you’ll present help to and the way you’ll present it may assist information you towards essentially the most ideally suited possibility.
How nicely does the instrument scale? It is a huge issue to contemplate. Chances are high you would possibly wish to improve your plan ultimately, so take note of instruments that make leveling up straightforward to do.
What’s it like to make use of? Even free instruments don’t get used in the event that they’re a ache. Be sure to’re kicking the tires and attempting issues out. Having one thing that’s snug and intuitive will make sure you get essentially the most worth attainable out of your choice.
The questions above ought to assist get you began in making a variety. That stated, in order for you extra steering on deciding on a assist desk, we’ve a complete information on the subject.
Lastly, as soon as you have put collectively a shortlist, seek the advice of with colleagues, try opinions on websites like G2 and Capterra, and take into account benefiting from free trials to actually get a really feel for whether or not or not the platforms you want are going to work on your staff.
