it help desk case study

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Auxis Builds Customized 24×7 IT Help Desk Outsourcing Platform for Global Digital Media Company

Client profile.

With more than 13,000 employees , our client is a top-tier Canadian brand that operates multiple businesses, including movie theaters, restaurants, amusement and leisure, film digital commerce, and media. Auxis was tapped to support its industry-leading digital media company, which has provided end-to-end digital signage solutions globally for some of the world’s biggest brands for more than 20 years. The client’s digital merchandising solutions are commonly found in retail, restaurants, bank branches, healthcare facilities, government agencies, and more. Their mission is to ensure that every screen becomes a powerful connection point between a business and its customers while improving consumer engagement.

Business Challenge

The company’s signage solutions are powered by its own proprietary, cloud-based platform, creating a secure, scalable, and reliable foundation for its customers. These customized screens are installed at customer locations and can be fully integrated within the customer’s network.

As a result, the client must maintain a growing volume of digital content at various endpoints. Since these screens are essential to their customers’ operations, it’s critical that they remain up and running year-round with minimal interruptions.

To accomplish this, the client operates a two-tier model for technical customer support: an outsourced Level 1 help desk and a Level 2 internal team staffed by specialized engineering resources that can handle more complex issues. Support is divided into two main areas:

• Activations – Resources activate digital signage solutions for an entire store, including managing third-party vendors and troubleshooting faulty devices.
• Monitoring and support – Resources offer day-to-day remote support by phone and email to store owners, managers, and technicians onsite. They provide end-to-end support throughout a ticket lifecycle for customer locations.

Unfortunately, the company’s previous IT help desk outsourcing partner couldn’t keep up with its rapid growth, providing poor service from a low-tier location in Central America/the Caribbean. That created some significant challenges, including:

• A high volume of tickets requiring the involvement from Level 2 engineers and high-level resources in Canada
• High turnover and lack of available talent that met the expectations of the Level 1 role at the IT help desk outsourcing operation
• Inadequate documentation and lack of a proper structure to effectively train Level 1 staff
• All these limitations translated into long resolution times and poor service levels to the end customer

Staffing such a specialized skillset was a key concern; the previous outsourcer struggled to find employees who combined technical troubleshooting and network skills with the ability to successfully manage vendors and provide excellent customer service.

The previous provider also wasn’t equipped to meet the client’s need for 24×7 support to accommodate customer locations scattered worldwide. Instead, the organization was forced to utilize an answering service to handle after-hours calls or overflow during regular business hours.

Not surprisingly, the company’s in-house resources were bogged down with queries that should have been handled by Level 1 support. And unfortunately, that left internal IT staff with little time for higher-value projects, growth, and product development activities.

Solution & Approach

Auxis was engaged by the client as it searched for a new IT help desk  outsourcing partner  with the maturity, sophistication, and experience to support its accelerated global growth and high service quality expectations.

From the beginning, Auxis’ executive team brought its consultative approach to help the organization identify key gaps within existing systems and processes. These gaps needed to be addressed to build a best-in-class customer support platform. Some of Auxis’ early recommendations included:

Supported Products

• Digital Menu Boards
• Video Walls
• Directories and Wayfinding
• Media Posters
• Led Installations
• Other Custom Solutions

Proprietary software for customers to create and manage content no matter the number of locations or products

• The need to implement a more robust ticketing system and call center platform with the ability to track and monitor key operational metrics that were currently unavailable.
• Restructuring the support team. Under the old model, support calls could be answered by any help desk agent, whether they were new activations or ongoing maintenance inquiries. Auxis recommended dividing the support team by function. Creating teams with a specialized focus speeds resolution times by routing calls to staff with specific expertise while preventing day-to-day issues from clogging the activation pipeline. It also creates consistency among resources who work with field technicians.

With these recommendations in mind, Auxis worked hand-in-hand with the client to develop a dedicated resource model housed within Auxis’  Nearshore Delivery Center in  Costa Rica . Under this customized model, Auxis maintains a 24x7x365 support team exclusively for the company, developing deep expertise in its systems and processes. This type of solution also allows the customer to play a more active role in key operational areas, such as getting involved in the hiring/interview process. The client wanted to lead management of the new system implementations internally as well.

Nearly two years later, the relationship continues to be a proven success – offering 24x7x365 support for 44,000+ devices located in more than 25 different countries throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe.

While the client initially focused its partnership with Auxis on supporting locations in North America, it soon tapped the multilingual capabilities of Costa Rica to support its expansion into other parts of the world that require Spanish, French and Portuguese.

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Take IT to the next level with the right Nearshore Outsourcing Help Desk Partner

Auxis successfully implemented a world-class IT help desk outsourcing platform that continues to serve as a seamless extension of the client’s in-house team. With 24x7x365 access to skilled, multilingual help desk staff who can perform both remote diagnostics and proactive corrective actions, tickets are resolved quickly and efficiently – ensuring continuous operations for the client and its customers.

Some key benefits that have been achieved through the client’s partnership with Auxis include:

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Managed IT Help Desk Services

Help desk support for your it needs, reliable help desk support service.

Do you need more help desk support? When your business is growing, there are times when your current IT support team just can’t meet the long list of tasks that they are being asked to do.  As part of our recurring Managed IT Services, Ntiva offers a U.S.-based service desk team that’s on call 24/7/365.

No matter how big the problem (or how small), our help desk team is ready to serve your team to keep them happy and productive!

Why Choose Ntiva for Help Desk Support?

Our mission is to be a proactive IT partner, providing your business with what you need to succeed. That approach is reflected in the way we provide help desk support. Here’s what sets us apart.

Our Help Desk Is Based in the United States

We Offer Support 24/7/365

We Have a Proven Track Record of Success

What are help desk services.

Your IT help desk should be a true technology partner, assisting your business and employees anytime IT needs arise. From answering questions and troubleshooting problems to helping you prepare for new changes in tech, your help desk partner should be the resource you turn to whenever you need some support.

What Is a Help Desk?

An IT help desk is staffed by a team of technicians for the purpose of providing support to your internal users. A remote help desk should provide employees with easily accessible, accurate, and quick IT support.

Help Desk Outsourcing Benefits

There are many reasons to choose an outsourced help desk for your IT support, from improving the closing rates on your tickets to saving your business time and money. Here are a few of the biggest benefits you’ll enjoy by outsourcing your help desk services.

1. Save Money on IT Support

Outsourcing your help desk support is one of the best ways to save money on these services. Unlike internal hires, which in addition to salary come with overhead expenses like training, benefits, and equipment, your outsourced support comes at a much lower cost.

Help desks also tend to have high turnover rates. For an internal team, that can mean perpetually spending money on recruitment and hiring. When you outsource these services, however, you’ll always have expert support at your fingertips.

2. Greater Efficiency

Your internal IT staff probably wears many hats. Some days they’re taking support tickets, while others they’re trying to manage new software or product rollouts. Unfortunately, this creates a situation where nothing gets their full attention and in turn slows everything down.

When you outsource your IT help desk services, you get a team that’s fully dedicated to providing support. It also frees up the rest of your internal team to focus on strategic initiatives without the distraction of providing user support.

3. Better Cybersecurity

Cyberattacks are on the rise, and these threats are constantly evolving in sophistication. Does your internal IT team have the time to keep up? Or are they so busy with day-to-day operations they can’t keep up with new cybersecurity trainings?

When you outsource your help desk services, you’ll enjoy the benefits of working with a support team who understands state-of-the-art cybersecurity protocols. Your company will be safer, and so will your users.

4. Support for Hybrid and Remote Workers

These days, companies are more flexible than ever before, offering employees the option of hybrid or fully remote work. While these options are great for your people, they also come with a whole host of unique challenges that require support.

Rather than reduce your employees’ working options, you can outsource your help desk services to ensure everyone gets the help that they need. The results are happier workers and better productivity for your business.

5. Relief for Your IT Experts

Chances are that your IT team is full of technical experts, each of whom offers a unique set of skills. But when these individuals have to field support calls all day, they can’t do the jobs that you hired them for.

One of the best ways to provide them relief is to outsource your help desk services. This allows your internal team to get back to what they’re best at and to stay aligned to your top business priorities. Let your experts be experts, and leave the help desk services to your outsourced support.

Types of Help Desk Support Services Offered

Companies rely on Ntiva for help desk services because they know they’ll receive the support that they need 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our technicians are expert problem-solvers, and they’ll work with your users to resolve issues quickly and effectively.

Here are a few examples of the types of help desk support services Ntiva offers.

Software Support

Whether you’re rolling out a new piece of software or your users are having problems with applications they already use, there will be times when they need some help. We provide software support for email applications, operating systems, web browsers, office productivity suites, and more.

Hardware Support

When your users need help with their hardware, our support services can diagnose the issues they’re facing and help shepherd them along to resolution. Whether you need us to work with your internal IT team or a third-party vendor, our hardware support has you covered.

Network Support

Nothing hurts user productivity like network problems. We offer network support services for your in-office, remote, and hybrid teams to ensure they can access the resources they need to do their jobs.

Training as a Service (TaaS)

As part of our recurring service plans, Ntiva offers Microsoft Clip Training. This comprehensive on-demand training library helps your employees become skilled and productive with all the Microsoft applications, and includes quizzes and exams.

Remote Support

Sometimes the best way to resolve an issue quickly is for a technician to jump into the system. With remote support, our technicians can use remote access to quickly help your users fix problems while showing them step-by-step how it’s done.

Proprietary Application Support

Even if your company uses proprietary applications, there will still be times your users need support. Our help desk will learn how your applications work, help users through their most frequent issues, and escalate problems to your internal teams when it’s necessary.

What Are the Costs of Outsourced Help Desk Services?

Ntiva’s Complete Package starts at $84/month per user and offers a comprehensive plan for businesses that need around-the-clock support. Our Compliance Package starts at $99/month per user and includes enhanced security services for industries with advanced compliance requirements.

These packages come standard with our comprehensive onboarding program that ensures we can hit the ground running. Each package also includes core IT services like unlimited remote support, network monitoring and management, and backup and disaster recovery, along with cybersecurity services like endpoint detection and response and phishing prevention training.

Check out our full listing of the services each package includes .

How Does Outsourcing Help You Save Money?

Building out an internal help desk team probably costs more than you think. Beyond individual salaries, there’s a significant amount of overhead and expenditures for benefits, training, equipment, and other expenses. The cost only continues to rise if you’re trying to provide support to your users 24/7.

When you calculate the actual cost-per-ticket you pay to achieve resolution, you may be surprised to discover that outsourcing your help desk services saves your company money. You still get the expertise that you need, but without all the extra expense.

Want to learn more? Discover the cost savings of outsourcing your IT services .

What’s the Difference Between Help Desk and Service Desk Support?

Although the terms “help desk” and “service desk” are sometimes used interchangeably, there’s a difference between these two kinds of support. As you think about the type of outsourced help you might need, it’s important to keep them in mind.

Help desk support is focused on incident management. When something breaks for a user, the help desk is there to help fix it.

A service desk , however, offers additional support in the form of taking service requests and answering user questions or requests for more information. Both offer support for your users, but the one that’s right for your organization really depends on the needs of your users.

How Do Managed Help Desk Services Work?

When we talk about managed services , we’re referring to outsourced services from a provider like Ntiva. For help desk services in particular, this means our help desk team will serve as the single point of contact for your users when they’re in need of support.

When your users experience an issue, they can contact us at their convenience by email, by phone, or through a live chat. No matter when they need help, we’ll provide around-the-clock support for problems big and small, from resetting their passwords to shoring up their cybersecurity.

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Help Desk Services Case Study

Andy Lomasky, the Director of IT at the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, was struggling to find reliable help desk support for employees on both Macs and PCs. Then he discovered Ntiva.

“Now we have access to one place [that provides] a consistently high level of support, a great user experience, and great expertise on both platforms. We get the maximum benefit of all that.”

Now that Andy’s team is freed up from worrying about technical support, they can focus on the strategic projects that differentiate their company in the marketplace.

Read the full case study here.

Learn More About Help Desk Support

5 Things Your IT Help Desk Should Do For You

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A help desk is a software tool or team of human agents that enable a company to support its customers in real time.

The help desk serves two primary functions:

• It answers questions customers may have about products or services.
• It assists customers with technical support and solutions to problems.

A help desk system streamlines support requests within a single interface. It includes automation and categorization features to organize customer issues and prevent escalation. This enables help desk agents to cross-reference multiple engagements to quickly provide the best possible solutions to end users.

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A help desk significantly enhances the user experience (UX) for support teams and the users they serve. Specifically, it boosts IT support productivity to improve solutions and customer satisfaction. Here are five aspects of a help desk that benefit support agents as well as their customers:

• Knowledge base: Educates customers about their inquiries via relative documentation. Modern knowledge bases include automation that guides customers to the solutions they need before having to speak to a live agent.
• Tagging and analytics: Creates insights that help agents better detect and resolve service requests. This reveals critical information about customer needs, which can lead to fresh product offerings and documentation as well as new IT service protocols.
• Multichannel support: Enables agents to unify multiple channels (e.g. phone, video, email, chat) in one interface to better support customers. This sequences engagement to prevent support tickets from being “bounced around” different channels or getting “lost in the shuffle” of information technology and resources.
• Support automation: Enables agents to quicken their response and resolution workflow by automating repetitive tasks (e.g. tagging, help desk ticket management).
• Performance monitoring: Enables help desk managers to track and report customer engagement quality and quantity. This helps them measure department success and establish benchmark metrics for the future.

As digital transformation continues to rise, help desks are becoming critical to large and small business operations. Therefore, a service desk ecosystem must be both agile and adaptable. Here are three scenarios in which the modern help desk is most useful¹:

• Customer self-service :  Enables AI-powered automated help desk support via web, mobile and voice channels . This may include a chatbot that can respond to customer questions, find answers within knowledge bases and FAQs or route customers to human agents as needed.
• Employee self-service :  Enables AI-powered automated internal support that quickly answers human resources (HR) and IT inquiries around the clock. An automated self-service portal enables employees to complete their tasks faster, which helps enhance their productivity.
• Collaborative assistance:  Integrates chatbot and human assistance to resolve complex customer inquiries faster and more thoroughly. This type of help desk solution may use a chatbot as the primary point of contact before routing an issue to a human support agent.

As a help desk evolves, support agents and teams must expand their capabilities to remain efficient. This may require enhancing internal collaboration as well as expanding the scope of external communications. Here are two ways to round out your customer support team for departmental and organizational growth²:

• Cross-team collaboration:  Some help desks may require larger teams or collaboration between multiple teams and tiers. In these scenarios, team roles, rules and procedures must be well-defined and executed with clarity.
• Specialized training:  Cultural sensitivity and diction training enable distributed help desk team members to better collaborate and understand one another. In addition, industry-specific training helps agents better support a diverse clientele.

As help desks continue to grow in prominence within today’s business ecosystems, many misconceptions have emerged. Here are four help desk myths that you should dismiss before beginning your customer support journey:

• Self-help does not work:  Sometimes you can save time by rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself. According to  Programming Insider  (link resides outside ibm.com), up to 25% of help desk tickets can be self-resolved if customers look up the error code, switch browsers or reboot the device.
• Help desk tickets aren’t required:  A ticket should be created for any request for support—no matter how small or large the issue may be. It helps help desk agents track their work as well as store resolutions for future tickets that may be similar to yours.
• Issue descriptions aren’t required:  A generic description is not enough. Most incident forms include a space for you to specify your problem. It is important to thoroughly explain your issue to eliminate “back and forth” communication and quicken resolution.
• All help desk agents are experts:  Many help desk agents only have a basic knowledge of IT functionality. However, their real value is demonstrated in the ability to provide a quality customer service experience, which can come with routing you to the best solution possible.

Chatbots, with their advanced language capabilities like native natural language processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) are driving the future of help desk systems. In fact, a recent survey revealed that 58% of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) have adopted chatbots or are in the process of doing so.³

Emerging tools like virtual agents, chatbot toolboxes, automation aggregators and platform-specific chatbots provide perpetual service desk coverage and faster issue resolution. As a matter of fact, chatbots reduce Average Handle Time (AHT) by 10%, which reduces costs associated with IT service management (ITSM).¹

Deliver consistent and intelligent customer care across all channels  with conversational AI.

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Learn how Bradesco improved their customer support in their contact center and reduced their response time to 10 minutes.

Provide a faster way for health providers to access medical information by replacing outdated IVRs with an AI powered health desk.

IBM watsonx Assistant helps organizations provide better customer experiences with an AI chatbot that understands the language of the business, connects to existing customer care systems, and deploys anywhere with enterprise security and scalability. watsonx Assistant automates repetitive tasks and uses machine learning to resolve customer support issues quickly and efficiently.

¹ IBM,  Independent study finds IBM watsonx Assistant customers can accrue USD 23.9 million in benefits , Mar 2020

² IDC,  Effective Practices for Leading a Multilocation and Multicultural IT Help Desk Function  (link resides outside ibm.com), Sep 2019

³ Forrester,  Best Practices For Help Desk Chatbot Success  (link resides outside ibm.com), 29 Mar 2021

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10 IT Help Desk Best Practices for IT Professionals

• by Makenzie Buenning
• Last updated March 18, 2024

As the IT demands of modern-day business increase with more devices and different technologies becoming essential to operation, the necessity of a functional and efficient help desk cannot be overstated. With ticketing software , help desk teams can provide excellent and swift assistance that keeps end users productive and IT operations running smoothly. As these roles become increasingly important to maintaining efficient workflows, organizations should understand how to apply help desk best practices that make an impact.

What is a Good Help Desk?

A good help desk sets the foundation for a satisfying customer experience. The help desk is predominantly responsible for offering solutions to those who need IT support. They are also in charge of providing prompt services to employees or customers seeking answers to any technical questions.

10 Help Desk Best Practices

Help desks can become an essential part of what drives your business success. Yet, your success is limited by how well the help desk tools are used and how the help desk team functions. Here are some help desk best practices to implement to ensure you are making the most of both your help desk software and team:

1) Use designated help desk software

The first best practice is to use software specifically designed for help desks. Help desk software will have the necessary tools for your team to fulfill IT requests successfully. There are many types of help desk software available, but you should look for solutions that are easy to use and set up and provide an integrated, unified set of tools that reduce remediation time. This will make it easier for the help desk team to focus on solving end-user issues instead of spending time learning new software.

Ninja Ticketing is NinjaOne’s ticketing software designed exclusively for IT professionals. The software’s simple design, 360° visibility, and automated processes make it highly intuitive and practical for technicians.

2) Hire skilled technicians

Skilled technicians who know how to quickly solve IT issues allow the help desk teams to run smoothly. Having problems consistently escalate to the top-tier technicians simply because lower-tier technicians don’t know how to solve the problem wastes time and resources.

If finding knowledgeable technicians is an issue, you should consider developing documentation on how to resolve common issues and focus on regular training. Alternatively, organizations can partner with skilled managed services providers (MSPs) to co-manage some help desk or IT support needs and free your team up for higher-value IT projects.

3) Create a knowledge base

A useful knowledge base will contain all the how-to’s, steps for troubleshooting and answers to common questions for your help desk team. By documenting this vital know-how in a central location, your technicians will easily access the information they need to do their job effectively. Please read our blog post on IT documentation to start documenting your own environment.

4) Implement effective SLAs

SLAs (Service Level Agreements) are documents that define what services your help desk will provide. They also include how responsive the help desk will be and metrics used to track how the help desk is performing.

SLAs are a contractual agreement between the help desk and the customers it is serving. With this agreement, expectations from both parties are made clear. This prevents a lot of future misunderstandings that could occur. SLAs typically apply to MSPs but can also help set metrics and expectations for internal IT departments.

5) Automate your ticketing and processes

Automated ticketing involves the use of ticketing software to automatically create and assign tickets to agents based on their knowledge and skill level. With this kind of software, you can skip figuring out what area the request falls under and whom to contact. Automating this process cuts down on wasted time and unnecessary help desk costs .

At a higher level, automation enables your help desk to automatically detect an issue, create a ticket, and then remediate the issue. This type of automation is ideal for common help desk requests that resolve through the same repeated solution. By automating the resolution of these kinds of problems, your help desk will have more time to spend on tickets that require manual remediation.

For tips on improving your helpdesk through automation, check out our Helpdesk Efficiency Guide .

6) Add context to your tickets

Some of the most demanding and least helpful help desk requests tend to be something like, “Help! My computer isn’t working.” Unfortunately, that tells you close to nothing about the situation or where you can even start trying to solve the issue. What isn’t working? Is the internet slow? Did the customer lose any data?

Providing context to your tickets allows your help desk team to get to the root issue to spend less time figuring out what the problem is and more time solving the problem. Context helps quickly resolve issues and support the smooth operation of devices, resulting in happy customers. Fixing issues quickly also leads to increased productivity in your business.

7) Enhance communication with end-users

Good communication is essential for help desks. Technicians must actively listen to end-users about the technical issues they are experiencing, and they must communicate with end-users about resolutions to their IT problems. It should be short, simple, and straight to the point. Communication with users can also be enhanced through live agents or chatbots.

8) Encourage self-service

While many issues require the intervention of skilled help desk technicians, some could be solved through a help desk self-service portal. For example, self-service helps limit the number of easily resolvable tickets your help desk receives. In addition, end-users can access the portal to find the information or resources they need to answer a question or fix their technical issue.

9) Track your help desk metrics

Tracking help desk metrics give you a well-informed view of how your help desk performs. It acts as a visual for you to see what aspects of the help desk might need improvement and makes it easy to measure your progress.

Metrics such as resolution time, resolution rate, response time, and customer satisfaction are some measurements you can base help desk goals on.

10) Continually improve the process

The final best practice for help desks is always finding ways to improve. The difference between a good help desk and an excellent help desk is whether or not the help desk is continually progressing and making the process better.

Looking at your help desk metrics is one way to look for things to improve. Another option is to obtain user feedback. Since help desks serve end-users, it matters whether the users feel that their requests are adequately being resolved.

How do you know where to start building a good help desk? We recommend beginning with intuitive ticketing software since this will allow the help desk processes to have an excellent foundation to build from. Specific features that you may want your help desk software to include are context and automation because it will ensure you have the necessary details and decrease manual work. Building a practical help desk takes a lot of time and resources, but it is worth the effort.

Use Help Desk Software to Improve Your IT Management

Help desks are an invaluable asset to any successful IT business. Check out our IT self-service guide to learn more about these self-service portals.

Following these best practices will allow you to increase efficiency, improve end-user outcomes, and significantly reduce costs associated with IT management. Ninja’s software, rated #1 in customer experience , can help you achieve these outcomes. Sign up for a free trial of Ninja’s ticketing software today.

• Category: IT Ticketing , IT Ops

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Eddie and his help desk team were perplexed. They were experts in their field, yet their customer service survey ratings were terrible. How could their customers not appreciate their expertise?

As their comments spelled out, customers appreciated the help desk’s expertise, but not the way they handled contacts and communication.

Here are some tips Eddie and his team incorporated to improve their customer satisfaction scores:

• Problem Solving Without the Lecture. Remember that the customer is calling you to have their problem solved, not listen to a lecture detailing every aspect of the issue. Eddie and his team provided so much background information and detail, the customers felt overwhelmed.
• Respect Time Urgency. When customers contact you with an issue, remember that they’re busy with many things, and that particular issue has stopped them in their tracks. Be time efficient in resolving the situation, and help them get back to work. They need your respect for their time urgency.
• Provide a Reference Number & Summary. At the end of the contact, provide users with a reference number, and also email a summary of the contact. Customers appreciate the follow up and documentation on resolution.
• Provide Adequate Follow-up. If users contact you repeatedly about recurring issues, make sure you’re providing adequate follow up. Sometimes a terse email with links to self-support isn’t sufficient for every user. Take a few minutes to summarize the solution and email to the user. Make sure subject line spells out: solution to xyz issue.
• Empathize With the User. Think outside your support role. Think about how the user utilizes the technology you support. The more you understand the user’s perspective, workplace environment priorities, the more effectively you can provide expertise and service that wins top ratings in surveys.

Eddie and his help desk followed these tips and delivered their expertise in more time efficient ways during the contact. They also emailed summaries of resolutions following the call. They were also surprised that total contact handling time (including time to compose email) was shorter.

In all, Eddie and the help desk was amazed at how much their customer service approval ratings improved by following these 5 simple tips.

© Donna Earl 2015. www.HelpDeskCoach.com

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Donna Earl is an international expert in Customer Service. She specializes in helping technical help desks deliver world class customer service. To use this article, Contact Us for permission.

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TechValidate Customer Research Library / SolarWinds

TechValidate Research on SolarWinds Help Desk and IT Support

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54 Case Studies – Page 1 of 2

Case Study: Computer Services Company (USA) Replaces ServiceNow with Web Help Desk

“Compared to ServiceNow, Web Help Desk made my help desk management and IT support job easier by offering centralized knowledge base management.”

• Absence of centralized knowledge management and self-service
• Used ServiceNow prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• Affordable cost
• Built-in expandable knowledge base
• Integration with SolarWinds Orion® platform
• Saved technician time and effort with automation
• Saved up to $10,000 in resources, personnel, maintenance, overhead, and training costs by using Web Help Desk.

About SolarWinds Web Help Desk

SolarWinds delivers powerful, affordable, and easy-to-use tools to simplify IT service management from help desk ticketing to desktop support. Lower time-to-resolution of service tickets and improve customer satisfaction.

Learn More:

SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Case Study: Chariton Valley Telephone Replaces MantisBT with SolarWinds Web Help Desk

“We use Web Help Desk as a ticketing system, and it has made it easier to track work. It is very handy and helpful tool to have.”

“I’d recommend Web Help Desk as it works well and has great support.”

• Lack of automation for ticket creation, assignment, routing, and escalation
• Lack of monitoring and reporting for tracking ticket status and customer support needs
• Difficulty supporting increasing ticket volume
• Difficulty discovering and managing hardware and software assets
• Used MantisBT open source issue tracker prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• Ease of use
• Centralized and automated ticketing management
• IT asset discovery and inventory management
• Intuitive Web-based help desk interface
• Increased help desk productivity and operational efficiency
• Rates Web Help Desk as 5 out of 5 stars.

AP Gas & Electric Improves Ticket Resolution Time by 40-60% after using Web Help Desk

“Service has generally been strong. Web Help Desk works very well for us.”

• Complexity with handling tickets from multiple channels (email, phone, chat, etc.)
• Used no help desk tool prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• Ease of deployment
• Ease of configuration
• Scalability
• Reduced time-to-resolution of support tickets
• Minimized operational and overhead costs
• Improved quality of support and customer satisfaction
• Mean time to resolution for help desk and IT support is 40 – 60% faster since deploying Web Help Desk.

D’Youville College Speeds Up Ticket Resolution Time by 60-80% after using Web Help Desk

“[Before purchasing Web Help Desk,] we did not have any tracking system beyond email. [Web Help Desk has made our help desk management and IT support job easier by providing the] ability to create tickets quickly, and track resolution times, problem users and devices . We like the integration with Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) .”

• 5 IT technicians use Web Help Desk to support about 550 staff/faculty members and 3,000 students.
• Availability as on-premises software
• Improved quality of support
• Mean time to resolution for help desk and IT support is 60 – 80% faster since deploying Web Help Desk.

Case Study: The Pennsylvania State University Replaces JIRA with SolarWinds Web Help Desk

“I’d recommend Web Help Desk because it is easy to set up, easy to configure, and easy to use.”

• Used JIRA prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• 25 IT technicians use Web Help Desk to support 4,000 end-users.
• Mean time to resolution for help desk and IT support is up to 20% faster since deploying Web Help Desk.

Verizon Communications Inc. Benefits from Web Help Desk Integration with SolarWinds NPM

“I’d recommend Web Help Desk as it is easy to install, and works well with SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor.”

“We have it, and our users love it.”

• Used internal tools for ticket tracking prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Des Moines Public Schools Uses Web Help Desk to Support 40,000 End-Users

“I recommend Web Help Desk as the product is as good or better than any I have seen or used, and the price is significantly less.”

• Used School Dude prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• 40 technicians use Web Help Desk to support up to 40,000 end-users.

Central Florida Expressway Authority Replaces everything HelpDesk with Web Help Desk

“Ticket automation and routing, the approval process, internal tickets, and parent/child ticketing have all contributed to greater efficiency.”

“I’d absolutely recommend Web Help Desk. The ability to configure the system without resorting to a Dev team allows us to create a complex, flexible, and personal system. The active online community, as well as the open communication with the product team, is both fun and reassuring because we, as users, are not left outside the process of steering the further development of the product.”

• Used GroupLink everything HelpDesk prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• 8 technicians use Web Help Desk to support about 300 users. In addition to ticketing management, we use Web Help Desk for managing daily work orders, periodic tasks, and internal work tracking."
• Improved customer satisfaction
• Paperwork elimination with the approval process.

Case Study: Scientific Research Organization Replaces BMC Track-It! with Web Help Desk

“Web Help Desk does what we need and more. It works very well with other SolarWinds products.”

“I have used various solutions and this product is very good. I set this product up for my organization.”

• An absence of centralized knowledge management and self-service
• Used BMC Track-It! prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• 15 technicians use Web Help Desk to support 160 end-users.
• IT change management
• Rates Web Help Desk as 4.5 stars out of 5.
• Saved $50,000 – $100,000 in resources, personnel, maintenance, overhead, and training by using Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Educational Institution (TX, USA) Replaces SchoolDude with Web Help Desk

“Purchased Web Help Desk as it was more configurable to our needs.”

• Looked for a better ticketing system than SchoolDude, and decided to buy SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• Integration with DameWare® remote support software
• Mean time to resolution for help desk and IT support is 20 – 40% faster since deploying Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Mater Misericordiae University Hospital Replaces Zendesk with Web Help Desk

• Used Zendesk prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Replaces Spiceworks with Web Help Desk

• Used Spiceworks prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Educational Institution Replaces One or Zero Helpdesk with Web Help Desk

“Our previous solution, One or Zero Helpdesk & Task Management System, was very limited in reporting tools and “bells and whistles,” and didn’t always work. Web Help Desk is an improvement in every feature, including alerts/notifications, enforcement of SLAs, detailed e-mails to techs, and we love the pop-up notifications based on the Report Type selected by clients so we give them answers before they ask the questions."

“I would recommend Web Help Desk to others and I have done so. It is easy to use, easy to customize, and quick to get up and running into production.”

• Previous system was outdated. Not even LDAP support was available.
• Used One or Zero Helpdesk & Task Management System prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.

Case Study: NASA Simplifies Ticketing Management with SolarWinds Web Help Desk

“I’d recommend Web Help Desk because it is very user friendly on both the technician and administrative side, and the customers have a clean and elegant interface. It serves our end goal of a pain-free customer interface.”

• 20 technicians are using Web Help Desk, and we have process rules set up that will automatically assign tickets in some instances.

Case Study: US Federal Govt. Replaces BMC Remedy Service Management with Web Help Desk

“I’d recommend Web Help Desk as it is easy to use and configure as a ticketing system.”

• Used BMC Remedy prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• Purchased Web Help Desk to address challenges of cost of license, management and use of BMC Ready.
• 6 sysadmins, 3 network admins, and 50 users use Web Help Desk.
• ROI benefits and cost savings
• Saved $50,000 – $100,000 in resources, personnel, maintenance, overhead, and training costs by using Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Evangelical Christian Credit Union Replaces HEAT Software with Web Help Desk

“I would recommend Web Help Desk. It is easy to configure and it just works.”

“I can respond to our users from our phone. I don’t have to be onsite to resolve and update issues.”

• Used HEAT Service Management prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• 10 technicians use Web Help Desk to support about 190 end-users.
• Phone app, call notifications when I am not at work.
• Easy to configure.
• Mean time to resolution for help desk and IT support is 80 – 100% faster since deploying Web Help Desk.
• Saved $20,000 – $50,000 in resources, personnel, maintenance, overhead, and training costs by using Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Educational Institution Replaces CA Service Desk Manager with Web Help Desk

• We were using another more expensive system so cost was one of the attractions.
• Used CA Service Desk Manager prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• Over 400 technicians and multiple areas outside of IT use Web Help Desk in various ways.

Case Study: OneStream Networks Replaces Spiceworks with SolarWinds Web Help Desk

“After implementing Web Help Desk, it is much easier to organize tickets, research historical ticket data, and run reports. It’s a very good product for the price.”

• 16 technicians use Web Help Desk as a ticketing system to support 500 end-users.

Case Study: Contoured Solutions Replaces Spiceworks with SolarWinds Web Help Desk

“Web Help Desk offers an excellent balance between power and ease of use. It is much easier to adopt which has made my job easier.”

“I’d recommend Web Help Desk because of its ease of use and ease of deployment.”

• We are an organization of 300+ users. Web Help Desk is used by both IT and facilities staff.

Case Study: Educational Institution (USA) Replaces Zendesk with SolarWinds Web Help Desk

“Entering and updating tickets is made easier using Web Help Desk. Communication between level technicians has improved which has led to expedited ticket closure rates and customer satisfaction. ”

“Web Help Desk is a user friendly software application that is easy to navigate, easy to learn, and provides the functionality required for help desk support.”

• 70 technicians use Web Help Desk to support 5,500 customers

Case Study: Medium Enterprise Govt. Company Replaces ManageEngine SDP with Web Help Desk

• Used ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business Replaces SysAid with Web Help Desk

“Compared to SysAid, Web Help Desk has made my help desk management and IT support job easier by allowing technicians to review outstanding tasks and complete them in a timely manner.”

“I’d recommend Web Help Desk as the software provides ease of access and standard help desk functions in one place.”

• Used SysAid prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• Have 5 technicians that use Web Help Desk to support 1,500 students.
• Saved $10,000 – $20,000 in resources, personnel, maintenance, overhead, and training by using Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Charles County Public Schools Uses Web Help Desk to Support 5,000 End-Users

“Our previous solution was rudimentary, so much so that everything is better Web Help Desk.”

“I would recommend Web Help Desk as it was easy to set up, and fairly hands-off for the most part after setting it up. All in all, it was a painless process, and continues to be one.”

• Used Internally created tool prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• 60 technicians, spread across 40 buildings in a county district setup, support about 5,000 staff

Case Study: Web Help Desk Integration with DameWare Benefits McDonough District Hospital

“To be able to respond to the client by email, and having all the contact and hardware info assigned to the client in one place makes it so much faster and easier to support—which means resolving the issue faster.”

“I’d recommend Web Help Desk because it works and the price is not bad for what you are getting. You can set up the system how you want to organize the work flow. Linking to DameWare is just so helpful”

• Used in-house tool prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• Functionality
• To be able to see the client’s computer and remote right to it helps tremendously

Case Study: Web Help Desk Speeds Up IT Support for San Jose Unified School District

• Used No help desk tool prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• 110 technicians use Web Help Desk to support 1,500 end-users.
• Mean time to resolution* for help desk and IT support is 40 – 60% faster since deploying Web Help Desk.

Case Study: Chaffey College Uses Web Help Desk to Support 5,000 Staff and 22,000 Students

“Web Help Desk is a good product that is easy to set up and start using.”

“It works well and the price point to feature was better then most. The ease of use has been a plus. Setup was easily done in-house.”

• Used in-house access database prior to purchasing SolarWinds Web Help Desk.
• 30 technicians use Web Help Desk to support 5,000 staff members and 22,000 students.

Case Study: Wastequip, Inc. Replaces BMC Track-It! with SolarWinds Web Help Desk

“Web Help Desk is easy to set up, simple to learn, and reasonably robust.”

“Created a common System of Record for all needs, replacing fractured/heterogeneous/non-integrated tools, ranging from low-level ticketing systems, to SharePoint, to personal planning tools.”

• Have 20+ technicians that support 600 end-users in 25 locations.
• Ability to analyze historical ticket trends to direct action towards IT staffing, user training, etc.

Case Study: King Alfred’s Academy Speeds Up Ticket Resolution Time by Using Web Help Desk

“Web Help Desk gave us the ability to prioritize work, allowed us to manage a history of problems, and allowed us to report on where technicians were spending their time.”

• 15 technicians use Web Help Desk to support up to 400 end-users.

Case Study: Kernelsphere Achieves 80-100% Faster Resolution Time After Using Web Help Desk

“Experience is good. Currently using Web Help Desk for one of our clients, and it is very easy to manage.”

Case Study: Educational Institution (USA) Saves Up To $100,000 After Using Web Help Desk

“Web Help Desk is easy to use and manage. Overall, love the integration with various useful components.”

• About 25 technicians use Web Help Desk to track and manage tickets.
• Mean time to resolution for help desk and IT support is over 100% faster since deploying Web Help Desk.

More Research on SolarWinds Help Desk and IT Support

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TXM Lean Case Study – Improve IT help desk support processes through Lean Implementation

Client Health Technology Provider

Location China

The Challenge

Our client is a world leading health technology company focused on improving people’s health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. A core team in China with IT professionals are divided in care teams (such as hardware, network, telecoms and applications). These teams co-ordinate a range of third party suppliers, including an IT help desk services from Malaysia.

The quality of IT support services was a major source of frustration for our client office staff in China. Issues often took too long to resolve and in some cases were closed before they were truly fixed. Problems frequently occurred in the hand-over of problems between service providers (e.g. between application, hardware and network support) and this often lead to excessive delays and tickets being closed when the issue was not resolved. Our client selected IT helpdesk services as a pilot project in order to apply Lean to its business process.

The TXM Solutions

TXM employed our proven Business Process Value Stream Mapping and A3 Structured Problem Solving methodologies to analyse and improve the IT Help Desk Support processes at our client.

TXM facilitated a discussion with the project steering committee which included management stakeholders, IT Helpdesk Services and all of the User Care Teams. This approach was used in order to gain agreement in defining the problem and improvement objectives necessary for the IT Help Desk Services. 2 core value streams were selected these include mobile plan and non-standard hardware.

TXM facilitated our client team to use the business process value stream mapping to identify the problems and develop solutions that addressed the problems causing the greatest impact on users.

A detailed action plan was developed covering the steps needed by 0ur client to implement the new processes and address the key problems. These action plans presented in the A3 one-page plan format. These outlined specific improvement activities required to achieve the future state.

After the VSM workshop, TXM coached the Our client teams around 3 months to implement their A3 plans. TXM also coached the teams to use daily problems solving to find and fix the root causes of everyday service delivery issues. This approach meant that major issues were addressed through A3 problem solving and at the same time the teams addressed the root causes of minor service issues as they occurred.

The Results

After 3 months of Lean implementation of IT processes, great achievements were made which included:

• Lead time for mobile phone service request were reduced from 64 days to 9.3 days;
• Lead time for non-standard hardware were reduced from 37 days to 6 days;
• The number of ageing Telecom service request > 10 days is reduced from 140 (peak) to 30;
• Calls handled by communications team was reduced from 380 per month to 121 as fewer issues occurred in IT processes

The pilot Lean project in IT processes demonstrated how Lean can work across business processes and create a Lean awareness among IT processes and build a greater foundation for further improvements.

Author: Timothy McLean

Timothy McLean is the Managing Director of TXM Lean Solutions and is an author of Lean books.

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15 Service Desk Software Options Every IT Team Should Consider

IT teams have a lot on their plates. They manage both internal and external service requests, track assets, make sure networks are secure, and perform a host of other responsibilities. It’s a high-stakes juggling act that can go sideways easily. 

Simply managing all those different tasks is almost a job all on its own. Due to the complexity of their work, IT professionals rely on a number of tools to keep all those metaphorical balls in the air. One of the most used tools in their stack is a service desk. 

What is service desk software?

Service desk software is a tool that helps IT teams manage, organize, respond to, and track both internal and external service requests. Service desk tools often include features to track team performance and understand overall request trends through analytics reporting.

Benefits of service desk tools

There are a few key areas IT teams can improve using service desk software.

Service desk software often includes things like automation capabilities to reduce the amount of time teams spend on routine tasks. Some also include the capability to build self-service tools like knowledge bases and chatbots, both of which reduce volume for human agents, giving them valuable time back. 

Transparency   

A service desk often acts as a source of truth for IT teams. With a service desk as your single point of contact, you can see what everyone is working on, where bottlenecks happen, and what is trending in requests and issues. Increased transparency can also help issues get resolved faster, improving the overall customer experience, too. 

A number of service desk software choices include tools for asset management, helping teams keep track of all their different devices. You can also often have different permission levels for agents, making it easier to limit access to certain information, helping create a more secure environment.

Service desk vs. help desk: What's the difference?

Some might consider the difference between help desk and service desk software to be purely semantic. Since the terms are often used interchangeably, that’s understandable, but there are a few key differences.

Help desks focus on reactive support — something goes wrong with a product or service, customers contact the help desk, and the team works to resolve the issue. This is sometimes referred to as incident management or a break-fix model. 

Service desks provide some reactive support, but their main focus is proactive. Service management is about providing long-term solutions to emerging issues, preventing future incidents from taking place, and making strategic process changes to improve the organization’s level of service. They also may handle requests for new services or manage physical assets (computers, mobile devices, etc.)

Essentially, while both are concerned with product and service incidents, help desks center around the needs of the customer (or user) and service desks concentrate on the needs of the business. It’s a subtle but meaningful difference.

Recommended Reading

Help Desk Software: What To Look For and Must-Have Features

15 best service desk software.

Below is a list of 15 of the best service desk software options on the market today. Naturally, there is some feature overlap, but we did our best to call out what makes each tool unique so you’re best able to decide what tools you want to investigate further.

Help Scout 

Jira Service Management

Solarwinds Service Desk

ManageEngine Service Desk Plus

GoTo Resolve

Salesforce Service Cloud

Freshservice

1. Help Scout

Help Scout is an intuitive, omni-channel communication tool that helps IT teams manage requests effectively and efficiently. Help Scout is a suite of tools comprised of a few distinct parts:

A shared inbox. 

A knowledge base builder.

AI functionality.

Messaging tools.

The shared inbox helps IT teams manage, organize, and respond to requests quickly across multiple channels . Use features like saved replies to respond to user requests more quickly. Collision detection, which shows when another team member is currently working on a request, helps teams avoid duplicate work and keeps agents off each other’s toes. Along with those features, there are workflows which allow teams to automate a number of manual tasks and tagging features to help you keep incoming requests organized.

Help Scout’s knowledge base builder — Docs — makes it easy to create a self-serve option. You can create different sections to make navigating your help center easy, and a built-in search function makes finding what someone's looking for easier still.

Help Scout also has a number of AI-powered features that help boost productivity. AI summarize condenses long email threads into a few bullet points, helping team members get up-to-speed on cases quickly. AI assist can shorten or lengthen text, change its tone, or even translate it into a different language. Help Scout’s AI drafts feature can even draft an entire response to a request, basing it on past conversations and help articles in your knowledge base.

Rounding out the list is Help Scout’s Beacon tool, which allows teams to offer live chat for real-time support. You can also use it to create messages and surveys, which enables you to show relevant information to or collect user feedback from specific segments of your audience. This further saves viewers — and internal staff — time. 

When you sign up you get access to a number of powerful integrations, like Help Scout’s Jira integration , which helps with issue management. Finally, you get access to Help Scout’s reports , which show how team members are performing and give insights into request trends so you can be more proactive and less reactive. 

Price : Free trial available. Plans start at $20/user per month.

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2. Jira Service Management

Jira Service Management is an IT-focused tool that helps teams manage both internal and external requests. With it you can do things like create custom request forms to help streamline issue resolution, create self-service portals, and set and track SLAs to projects moving forward. 

Other key features: 

Asset tracking, management, and discovery tools.

Customizable approval workflows. 

Prebuilt integrations for tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams.

AI-powered virtual agent.

Price : Free plan available. Paid plans start at $22.05/agent per month.

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3. solarwinds service desk.

SolarWinds is an IT service desk solution helping teams of all sizes. They offer tools like employee self-serve portals to reduce strain on internal teams. Another standout feature is their ITIL problem management that lets you escalate and solve issues through your own ITIL framework. 

Hardware management. 

Benchmarking reports. 

Service desk chat.

IT service catalog.

Price : Free trial available. Plans start at $39/technician per month.

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4. spiceworks.

Spiceworks is a free tool IT teams can use to manage, track, and resolve requests. For a free tool it’s quite robust, offering things like automatic ticket assignment and routing. It also has some basic reporting capabilities and a knowledge base builder for self-serve support.  

Mobile app for on-the-go support.

Custom ticket queues. 

Automated ticket responses. 

Power BI integration. 

Price : Free.

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5. manageengine servicedesk plus.

ManageEngine is an offering from the Zoho corporation. While you may be familiar with their customer support tool , Zoho Desk, ManageEngine is geared toward IT professionals. The higher-cost plans let you create ITSM workflows as well as do things like asset tracking and management. It also includes useful help desk features like a shared inbox as well as self-service tools like a knowledge base builder. 

Task automation capabilities (auto-tagging incidents, etc.).

Robust analytics. 

On-premise or cloud deployment.  

Prebuilt integrations. 

Price : Free trial available. Contact for pricing.

The 7 Best Zoho Desk Alternatives on the Market Today

 6. zendesk.

Zendesk is well known as a help desk solution, but they do offer some features that also lend to an IT use case such as SLA management and the ability to tag requests to better track and report on trending issues. The tool features an omnichannel inbox to manage requests from a variety of sources like email, chat, voice, and social. It also integrates with a number of IT tools to help with things like asset management. 

Other key features:

Custom agent queues. 

Ability to create SLAs.

CSAT surveys. 

Skills-based ticket routing. 

Price : Free trial available. Plans start at $19/agent per month.

The 22 Best Zendesk Alternatives + Competitors for 2024

7. servicenow.

ServiceNow bills itself as an enterprise IT solution. It offers a good number of tools for things like change management, asset management, and request management. They also have a number of tools geared at DevOps, so if that’s important in your organization, then it’s certainly one to consider. 

Self-service portals. 

Virtual agent powered by AI.

Configuration management database.

Knowledge management. 

Price : Contact ServiceNow for pricing information.

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SysAid bills itself as an IT service management tool. They have features for things like asset management as well as AI-powered automations to help improve efficiency. They also offer a number of integrations to connect to other tools in your IT tech stack and keep projects moving forward. 

Out-of-the-box change and problem management templates.

AI-automated task and ticket assignments and prioritizations. 

Self-service tools.

Price : Contact for pricing. 

9. GoTo Resolve

GoTo Resolve is a strong offering with a number of IT-focused features. They offer remote access capabilities as well as remote asset management. You can automate certain routine tasks like software updates using the tool and even schedule automations to give team members valuable time back in their days. 

Zero trust security. 

A mobile app.

Agent collaboration tools.

User permissions.

Price : Free trial and plan available. Paid plans start at $57 per month. 

JitBit is an IT help desk solution you can install on-premise or access via the cloud. The feature set is fairly basic and includes things like a shared inbox to manage incoming requests. It also includes some basic reporting and automation options.

Mobile app. 

Request organization options. 

Canned responses. 

Conversation history. 

Price : Cloud plans start at $29/agent per month.

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Rezo is a service desk add-on that can add additional functionality to an existing service desk. It can analyze conversations — both voice and text-based — and help build automations to improve your customers’ experiences, all while saving your team time. It also has a number of tools geared at improving and tracking agent performance through AI.

Agent assist tools.

Agent audit tools.

No-code bots.

Dynamic scripts for agents.

Price : Contact Rezo for pricing. 

12. Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce’s CRM is what put them on the map, but it’s far from the only product they have. Their Service Cloud offering is a help desk tool IT teams can use to handle incoming requests. It’s not necessarily an IT-specific tool, but it does offer asset management and field service capabilities. You can also build a knowledge base for a self-serve option as well as answer questions live through chat. 

Prebuilt and customizable analytics dashboards.

Omnichannel support. 

Large array of prebuilt integrations.

Shared inbox.

Price : Starts at $25/user per month.

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13. happyfox.

HappyFox makes a service desk tool that includes some convenient features for IT teams. The shared inbox makes it simple to keep requests organized. They also offer a knowledge base builder for self-serve support, asset management tools, a service catalog, and integrations with IT-friendly tools like LogMeIn. 

Ticket templates.

Task management capabilities. 

Customer portal.

Ticket auto assignment. 

Price : Free trial available. Plans start at $29/agent per month.

The 9 Best HappyFox Alternatives on the Market in 2024

14. exalate.

Exalate isn’t a service desk, but it can help supercharge one by letting you connect to other tools. It’s billed as a synchronization app and essentially lets you send information both ways between tools. With it you can sync data across platforms to break down data silos and keep an open flow of information. 

Customizable API.

Synchronization automations. 

Custom mapping.

Real-time data synchronization. 

Price : Free plan available. Contact for paid plan pricing. 

15. Freshservice

Freshservice is a cloud-based IT help desk. It boasts features like machine learning-powered answer suggestions. You can also handle requests in a variety of platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams or from their own Freshservice chatbot. They also have a number of task automation options to keep teams as productive as possible. 

Self-service portal. 

Contract management. 

Multiple SLAs.

Audit logs. 

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Finding the right service desk or itsm software for you.

IT teams are responsible for a lot. Managing those responsibilities is much easier to do when equipped with the right tools. If you’ve not already invested in a service desk, we think it’s a tool every IT team needs to consider. If you’re ready to try one out, you can sign up for a 15-day free trial of Help Scout here .

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Jesse short.

After spending a few years working as a support agent, Jesse made the switch to writing full-time. He is a Help Scout alum, where he worked to help improve the agent and customer experience.

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