When something doesn’t work for employees or clients, they pick up the phone and the IT department or customer support becomes a switchboard. Emails with requests pile up and it’s not in the staff’s power to handle them. Sometimes one is forgotten because everyone has counted on a colleague to solve the problem. Does that sound like your nightmare? Then avoid it and choose a helpdesk – a system for easier communication that doesn’t overwhelm you.
What is a helpdesk
A helpdesk (or service desk) is a tool that allows you to manage requests from clients or employees and communicate with them. It’s used when anyone needs to report a problem or ask a question of customer support, the internal IT department, or perhaps something to do with building management.
For example, if a colleague’s printer doesn’t work, they contact support – instead of phoning or emailing, they make a request to the helpdesk. He describes what is not working in the form and sends the message. Technical support will see the request and someone will attend to it immediately or pass it on. They will advise the colleague remotely or come to fix the printer.
How do you know you need a helpdesk
Most companies don’t address the helpdesk at the beginning. For example, they use email, which customers or colleagues can use to contact them if something is not working. This is the simplest solution, but as the number of requests increases, it is no longer sufficient.
Do you know when it’s time to start a helpdesk in your company? Like when:
- your colleagues are overwhelmed with phone calls or emails,
- You offer complex products or services that receive a lot of enquiries,
- you have multiple people in your company working on a solution and you need them to share input effectively and know who is working on what,
- the handling of suggestions is chaotic and sometimes a request is forgotten or handled by several people in parallel,
- you lose track of which requests are processed and which are pending,
- you need to control and monitor the progress of queries and problems,
- You want to have accurate statistics on how many requests are coming in and how quickly they are being dealt with,
- You care about customer satisfaction and want to handle their suggestions in a timely and reliable manner.
If you have answered yes to at least some of the points, then it’s time to replace emails, phones and spreadsheets with a clear helpdesk system.
How to choose a helpdesk that makes your job easier
To make sure you don’t forget anything when making your selection, please review the following points:
1. Be clear about how you want to communicate
Do you want your customers or colleagues to use only the helpdesk form, or can they send you requests by email? It depends on your processes and what people are used to and use most often. Either you choose the one most appropriate way of communication or you can include all of them.
When selecting and setting up your helpdesk, just make sure that it allows you, for example, to transfer emails from clients directly into the system where you can see and work with them.
2. Think about interfacing with other systems
Ask your chosen helpdesk if it can be connected to your website or e-shop. And whether it will connect to other systems you use – for example, an asset management platform, an accounting or HR system, or an emailing tool. It will make a lot of work easier and save you the time you would have spent switching between tools and retyping data.
3. Select the appropriate type of helpdesk solution
There is a lot of helpdesk software on the market – some open source solutions, others customised by suppliers. Both types have their pros and cons:
- Open source helpdesk is usually cheaper, but you have no guarantee of the original creator and in some cases these systems do not have user support. You may be able to customize the solution, but in reality it means changing thousands of source lines, which not everyone will dare to do.
- Helpdesk as a box solution can be customized to your liking, but only within the limits of what the system configuration offers and what you can click.
So consider how much you can invest in the system and how specific your requirements are. Think also about possible future extensions and the fact that you may want to modify some features – then you may think that user modifications are needed or that the changes are so costly that a customised solution would be worthwhile.
HelpDesk SmartFP has a unified core that includes classic and most used functions. According to the clients’ wishes, we extend it with additional functions and thus customize it. In essence, we combine the best of boxed and open source solutions.
4. List the features your helpdesk must have
Map out the process by which you deal with customer or employee suggestions in your company. Based on this, you should clarify what functions you expect from the helpdesk and which ones you can do without. Think:
- what information you need from the author of the request,
- how and who works with the stimulus,
- how it communicates with the person who made the request, etc.
Also focus on what you don’t like about the current solution and what you would like to see different in the future.
You will get an overview of how the helpdesk should work and which functions are unnecessary for you. Then go through the system and see if the standard version is enough or if you need to modify it.
Think also about the planned growth of the company and make sure that it will not be a problem to add a feature in the future.
5. Think about user-friendliness
The most important thing for end users and operators who deal with the suggestions is that the helpdesk is easy to use. Any change tends to be uncomfortable for many people, so make the helpdesk as easy as possible for them to implement.
For example, instead of a complicated form, have the user fill in just a few fields to tell you the problem and add some necessary information. The solver can ask for the rest, or pull it from other systems thanks to the helpdesk connection.
For example, make sure that the help desk uses the same terms and terminology that your clients and employees are familiar with. Or that your troubleshooters can log in with the same credentials as other company systems.
Tip: Do you know the best way to verify that your chosen helpdesk solution is worth considering? Try creating a ticket without any information from the developers and without any instructions. If you can do this, then your colleagues will probably be able to work with the system too.
In any case, we recommend trying out the helpdesk – most vendors offer free demos to test how the system works for you. This also applies to the SmartFP HelpDesk. Try it for free and have it customised exactly how you need it.