Know any damn good helpdesk software?
15:27 Thursday 26 Apr 07
I am after suggestions for helpdesk software to help me do my work at wordpress.com
I don’t want to dismiss or have a go at the program I’m using right now because it’s been part of the learning curve and it has enabled support to scale – a year ago when I started there were less than 200,000 users and Thunderbird did the job for me. Now we will hit a million blogs inside a month – we passed a million users already. At some point Support will need to be more than just me and in that respect the less software gets in the way the better it is.
Right now, the program I’m using needs another screen for a tag to be created, the ticket screen to be hard-refreshed, the ticket needs to be saved to make the tag ‘stick’ and then I can reply. Lot of clicks. I have my doubts on the search and the items below in what I don’t want are there.
So, what do I want it to do….. here’s my desired workflow:
- When I open the ticket I can – from the one screen –
create / assign / remove tag(s)
assign / change an owner
send the ticket to another category
reply and send.
I need
- replies, and all replies to replies, to stay together.
- user history
- a really good search by any element
- mass actions
What don’t I need:
- Knowledgebase building
- Any billing integration
- Contacts / articles / downloads
- Any extra stuff for large support teams
Does it have to be Web 2.0, ajaxy, open-source and any other ‘cool’ factor? No.
Does price/license matter? Not yet but they do not equal good necessarily.
Am I after something built to a spec? No.
The deciding factor? It just has to work. But it has to work very well – I can be picky.
Support is very very simple – people want answers, you supply them. That’s it. So the software should let me do that quickly and effectively.
I’ve probably missed something from the above so if I remember I’ll add it.
1
That is *exactly* what I am looking for too. I’ll let you know if I find anything, but so far I’ve had no luck, then again, I haven’t started looking that hard yet.
Mostly I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping you get some good answers in the comments…
Cheers,
Tara
16:00 Thursday 26 Apr 07
2
Fogbugz is the deal at http://www.fogcreek.com – I’ve used it in two companies and it is totally painless and you can’t get easier to install. Unfortunately, it isn’t free – but free isn’t always the best.
21:47 Thursday 26 Apr 07
3
David – I agree that free isn’t always the best, but buying a product means careful consideration. Looking through their tour I think there is too much in there that I would not use. This software is just for me, not the team. The rest of the team will need to be able to use it in some way to check tickets, but essentially it’s my tool. So collaborative features, error messages, assigning times, release notes etc are features there that are being paid for but will never be used. So the cost is more than the worth to me. I don’t think FogBugz is quite the tool – though I may take it for a spin. Thanks for the link!
21:57 Thursday 26 Apr 07
4
I noticed that Cerebrus, the help desk software that my host uses is free as long as you only have three users (or fewer) and one support address. It looks like a good value for the money.
My host has it hooked the software in to their login system and knowledge base. This means that all users have to login to create a ticket (no ticket creation via E-mail). I am sure that reduces their spam! Also, they cross check the ticket with their knowledge base and give users the opportunity to delete their ticket in the case that their question was answered by the knowledge base. Again, I am sure that cuts down on the number of tickets received. Good luck finding the best solution!
02:09 Wednesday 2 May 07
5
I just went back up and read your statement again… sorry to ramble on about the knowledge base thing (when you state you don’t need it). Regardless, I hope you find an application that meets your needs.
02:12 Wednesday 2 May 07
6
Hi Mark
Take a look at this. I have just used the instructions and everything went very well.
Help Desk and WordPress. This guy integrates Hesk into his wordpress blog.
Hope it helps.
Rich
P.S. What do we call you now – is it Mark?
20:09 Wednesday 9 May 07
7
Mark,
Try http://www.h2desk.com/. This is as close to what you are describing that I could find.
Brad
15:09 Tuesday 30 Sep 08
8
I recommend Help desk authority .
We’ve been using this solution since it’s name was Bridgetrak.
Initially be bought it because the price was right and it had a fair set of features. But now I would say that we really like how easy it is for our support staff to learn without any formal training.
14:11 Wednesday 27 May 09
9
I was looking for something that helps you support your customers rather then needing support yourself, and I was able to find it.
I’ve been using datatrack for years and am very happy: http://www.magnoware.com/
pros:
web access
email-to-ticket conversion
super easy to track who’s doing what
clean, thoughtful GUI
does what it says it does
cons:
mainly email based support, but we haven’t had a problem yet
not free – although it’s not free, the price is very affordable
I would recommend trying the free evaluation http://www.magnoware.com/Downloads.aspx.
If your search for a damn good help desk software is as daunting a task as it was for us, then I think you’ll appreciate this program for what it is.
15:19 Thursday 9 Dec 10