The most effective assist desk software program (in-depth assessment)

Disclosure: This content is endorsed by the reader. So if you click on some of our links we may receive a commission.

Disorganized support teams are a nightmare for everyone involved.

From two agents wasting time on the same request to customers or employees waiting hours for a response, things can get very hectic without the right tools and software. And it could even damage your reputation forever.

You don't want that and I don't want that for you either.

However, choosing the best help desk software for your team is not an easy task. There are hundreds if not thousands of options to choose from.

To make your life a little easier, I looked at dozen of the top options on the market and narrowed them down to my top six recommendations.

From small customer support teams to IT services to mobile field service, this guide supports everything. By the end of this post, you will know exactly which help desk software is right for you, whatever your situation.

The top 6 options for help desk software

Freshdesk – best for small to medium-sized businesses
Hubspot – best all-in-one customer service CRM
Zoho Desk – best for fast growing businesses
Freshservice – best for IT service management
Happyfox – best for mobile and field service teams
Cayzu – cheapest help desk software

How to choose the best help desk software for you

Before we dive into my top recommendations, let's talk about what makes these tools great and what to look out for when deciding which help desk software is right for you and your team.

There are tons of options to choose from. So don't forget to keep these considerations in mind as you go through the process.

Your use cases

Help desk software exists for a number of reasons, including: B. for reasons of internal employee support and external customer support. In addition, different tools offer different functions depending on the application.

Hence, it is important to consider how you intend to use the software before making a decision.

Number of agents

How many support staff do you have? Most help desk software is billed by the agent, so you need to have a good idea of the number of seats required.

Some vendors also set agent limits on certain plans. You will therefore need to upgrade to a higher level if you want to add more agents to your account. This upgrade can be very expensive, especially if you aren't expecting it.

So make sure you choose a plan that gives you some breathing space as you wax.

Ticket management

You can use tickets to organize, route, and save help desk requests. So make sure your software includes basic ticket management systems to make the process faster and easier.

In addition, some software includes ticketing capabilities for a variety of support channels, including email, live chat, social media, instant messaging, SMS, and more.

An efficient ticketing system is crucial, from automatically creating and organizing tickets to intelligent routing and everything in between.

However, some of the options on this list limit the number of tickets you can create daily or monthly, which may be too limited for large teams. And maybe it's better to go with an unlimited plan instead.

So keep that in mind when making your final decision.

Support channels

Which channels do you use to provide support?

Internal support teams might use instant messaging, live chat, or email, while customer service teams might use social media, text messages, and phone calls.

Regardless of the channels you use, it is important to implement software that will do whatever you need.

If you already have systems in place, make sure that the help desk software you choose is working properly. If you don't, think about where your customers / employees are and what communication methods they are most comfortable with.

You should also think about internal means of communication. An agent may need to forward a request to someone else or need help answering another person's questions.

It is therefore important to consider how your agents will communicate with each other and how you would like information to be passed from one department to another.

Other properties

The best help desk software offers a variety of helpful features that go beyond ticketing and communication. It is important to consider which functions you need to optimize and optimize your support systems.

Some typical features and extras are:

Knowledge base and self-service support
Escalation levels to the right people
Automated workflow creation
Open API integrations
Internal chat software
Cross-departmental collaboration
Customer and contact management
Analytical dashboards
Role-based access
Ticket sorting
Time tracking

It is also important to consider the specific features that you will need for your use cases.

Internal teams need different things than customer support teams. So keep that in mind as you go through the decision making process.

Analysis and reporting

Data helps managers and owners understand how their service reps work and what their customers are asking for. Advanced ticket tagging and categorization can also help with the latter.

From there you can optimize your support process and work on creating a self-service knowledge base or detailed instructions to answer frequently asked questions quickly and efficiently.

This frees up agents and gives them more time to deal with less frequent requests.

In addition, reports and data visualization help display information in an easy-to-understand way. That way, you can get a bird's eye view of your support system and even know how to better serve your team and customers.

The different types of help desk software

There are several types of help desk software. The best type for you will depend on a number of factors including your business size, budget, customization, and security needs.

Cloud or web-based – This is the most common type and is often called the SaaS tool as the user pays a monthly subscription to keep using the software.

In addition, everything is stored in the cloud or on the provider's server, so that the user does not need any additional infrastructure or dedicated IT. In addition, the vendor is responsible for the management and maintenance of the software, making it an easy and affordable option for businesses of all sizes.

All of the recommendations in this list offer a cloud or web-based solution.

On site – In contrast to cloud or web-based software, on-premise systems are installed on the user's servers. Typically, the end user purchases a license for the software and is responsible for its administration and maintenance.

While they are more difficult to install and manage on a regular basis, they tend to be more secure and customizable. It is therefore an excellent option for high security industries and anyone interested in a hyper-customized solution.

However, this means that a dedicated team is required to update and maintain the infrastructure.

Corporate quality – These are specially designed for extremely large companies. They have a variety of customizable features and solutions that are tailored to the needs of companies with huge budgets.

Enterprise help desk software comes in all shapes and sizes, from sole proprietorships to international conglomerates operating around the world.

For most of the users, this type of software is 100% excessive.

Open source – This type of software is best for developers or companies with knowledgeable IT departments because it gives you access to the source code. This means that you can adapt the way the software works to your individual requirements.

Essentially, this is a more cost effective way to get a highly customizable solution, provided you have the skills and expertise to make it work for you.

# 1 – Freshdesk Review – The Best Help Desk Software for Small to Medium Business

When manual email and social media customer service gets too much for your team, Freshdesk is a great way to take the strain off.

The ticketing system is easy to use and offers numerous helpful functions.

Plus, it's incredibly affordable, and there is a limited forever free plan with unlimited agents to try before you invest a single dime.

With Freshdesk you can optimize conversations across channels in one place, create contextual conversations with other people, automate repetitive processes to save time, automatically share solution articles and easily monitor your team's performance.

In addition, you get access to tons of support functions, including:

Multi-channel team inbox
Agent collision detection
Custom ticket status
Scenario automation
Ready-made answers
Shared property and crush
Linked tickets
Time tracking
Plan a dashboard
Event and time based automation
Chatbots with AI support
Knowledge base functions

In addition, they offer various training courses and a fully staffed customer support team so you and your team can get the most out of your new software.

Freshdesk has five different help desk plans to choose from, including:

Sprout – Free of charge with limited functions
Blooming – $ 15 / agent per month
garden – $ 35 / agent per month
estate – $ 49 / agent per month
Forest – $ 99 / agent per month

You can start with the free plan to try it out. However, I highly recommend upgrading to a paid plan if you can justify it to get access to more advanced features.

Each plan includes a free 21-day trial to test the water before making your final decision.

# 2 – Hubspot Review – The Best All-in-One Customer Service CRM

If you need a comprehensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool for your help desk software, Hubspot is a great choice.

And the best part about it? You can get everything you need to get started for free.

The free Service Hub gives you ticketing, scheduling, reporting, a team inbox, live chat + chatbots, email templates, and team email connections.

So it contains everything you need to streamline your customer support process.

But you also get various other features like tasks and activities, email tracking, contact website activity, contact management, custom fields and more.

Hubspot's free plan is excellent, but the paid plans offer a fantastic array of amazing features that can help you improve your entire support system even further.

Each tier has advanced features, but the cheapest plan ($ 40 per month for two users) includes:

Eight hours of VoIP calls and recordings
Conversation bots for creating and forwarding tickets
Simple automations for opening and closing as well as internal notifications
1,000 ready-made answers to frequently asked questions
Up to 1,000 email templates
Ten report dashboards
1,000 documents
Call routing
Two ticket pipelines
Up to five currencies

So it's quite a step up over Hubspot's free plan. However, if you meet these limits, you will need to upgrade to a higher-level plan. The next tier starts at $ 320 per month, so it's quite expensive.

Alternatively, you can opt for the Starter Growth Suite, which includes the starter plan for Hubspot CRM, the Marketing Hub, the Sales Hub and all of the above service functions.

It starts at $ 50 per month, making it a very affordable way to access a wide variety of marketing, sales, and CRM functions when you need access to all of them.

Note: This is special COVID-19 pricing with regular pricing starting at $ 112.50 per month.

# 3 – Zoho Desk Review – The Best Help Desk Software for Fast Growing Businesses

Zoho offers tons of business tools to businesses of all sizes in every imaginable industry.

All of their software is fantastic and their help desk software is no exception.

From affordable plans at all levels and a robust free plan to incredible support features, you can be sure that Zoho Desk has the ability to scale with you as your business grows.

Zoho Desk is essentially a multi-channel ticket system. This gives you world-class ticketing capabilities that you can use to organize and optimize support requests, whether they come from email, social media, live chat, phone or an online form.

And as your business grows, the need for a self-service knowledge base increases. With Zoho Desk, you can quickly turn support requests into knowledge base articles with just a few clicks to continually grow your database.

In addition, you get access to a large number of functions with which you can improve and consolidate your support processes. Some of the most popular features are:

Zia, a digital assistant with AI support
Tools for designing and building your knowledge base
Multiple ticket views and automatic ticket organization / prioritization
Advanced answer editor with predefined snippets
Visual process automation builder
Customization via APIs and built-in integrations
Dashboard center for analysis and reporting
Custom field options for web forms

With this in mind, it's important to note that child plans do not contain all of the functionality. So be sure to look at the features of each plan before choosing one.

And keep in mind that you may need to upgrade to a higher plan to get what you need.

Zoho Desk plans include:

Free – For up to three agents with e-mail ticketing and limited functions
default – $ 12 / agent per month with social channels, workflows and dashboards
Professional – $ 20 / agent per month with BPM, time tracking and ticket sharing
Companies – $ 35 / agent per month with Zia, live chat, and advanced customization

# 4 – Freshservice Review – The best for IT service management

If you're looking for a better way to manage IT support, Freshservice is one of the top options out there. As with Freshdesk, it is a Freshworks product. So you have a big brand behind the software.

However, it was designed specifically for IT teams, not customer service.

With more people working from home, strong IT support is more important than ever. And you might even see an influx of requests as people adjust.

This is where Freshservice comes in and saves the day. They have everything you need, including multi-channel support, hardware and software records, contract management, and a top-notch mobile app for iOS and Android.

You can also automate agent assignments and approval workflows to streamline the process. You also get access to powerful features like:

Incident, knowledge and SLA management
A user-friendly service catalog
Self-service portal and knowledge database
Internal contextual collaboration
Problem, change and release management
Project dashboards and analytical reports
Asset and inventory management
Lifecycle management
Automatic detection of assets
Interactive visualizations

And you can easily integrate any Freshworks software with Freshservice, as well as loads of other third-party software integrations.

So it's an excellent choice if you are already using or planning to use any of the other business tools.

Freshservice offers four different plans to choose from, including:

Blooming – $ 19 / agent per month with essential features
garden – $ 49 / agent per month for growing teams
estate – $ 79 / agent per month for large teams
Forest – $ 99 / agent per month for business

These prices indicate the annual pans paid for in advance. They also offer monthly plans for a higher fee, with the exception of the forest plan.

Try Freshservice free for 21 days to see if it's right for you!

# 5 – Happyfox Review – The best for mobile and field teams

Field workers have a unique set of challenges compared to support teams in the office or in a specific location. Therefore, you need a special tool that adapts to your needs.

Happyfox is field service software with which you can track agents, plan work and use real-time communication with a fully equipped mobile interface for seamless use on the go.

When agents travel continuously from one job to the next, they need to have an easy way to share and track status information from one agent to the next.

And the good news is that Happyfox does just that, with a variety of features like:

Ticket requests, status and categories
Multi-channel ticketing functions
Ticket threads and attachments
Canned actions and responses
Searchable and customizable knowledge base
Agent collision detection
Integrated asset management
Automatic assignments and intelligent rules
Concurrent routing rules
SMS support

And dozens of other helpful features especially for mobile teams.

Unlike the other options on this list, Happyfox does not display their prices online. However, they offer standard pricing per agent and special unlimited agent packages, making them suitable for field teams of all sizes.

For agent-based pricing, they offer four plans with different feature sets.

Each plan automatically includes SSL security, unlimited tickets, smart rules, knowledge base capabilities, multilingual support, rich text formatting, and mobile applications.

However, their unlimited agent plans limit the number of tickets you can have in a year. So, you need to decide which option makes the most sense for your situation.

Schedule a live demo today to see if Happyfox is right for you and your team!

# 6 – Cayzu Review – The Most Affordable Help Desk Software

If you're looking for budget-friendly cloud-based help desk software, Cayzu is exceptionally affordable with paid plans starting at $ 4 per agent per month.

It's easy to use too. Even so, it's not the most feature-rich option, but you are sacrificing some of the more advanced features at an incredibly affordable price.

At just $ 4 a month, you get access to all of the key features you need, including:

Secure data protection
Automatic backups
A mobile application
Unlimited customer support
Ticketing system
Ready-made answers
Knowledgebase functions
Create an email ticket
Multilingual support
Open APIs and Rest APIs
Support widget

Or, for just a few dollars ($ 9 per agent per month), you can upgrade to one of the higher plans and get time tracking, assignment rules, basic automations, due dates, custom SSL certificates, and more.

They also offer a freedom plan (up to 70 agents) if you're interested in an easy way to use all of the features. It starts at $ 469 per month but is likely to be over the top for most users.

In addition, more than 20,000 companies (including Verizon, Yahoo, and PBS) trust Cayzu with their help desk needs. So you are not alone and in good company when you sign up.

Wrap things up

Freshdesk, Hubspot, and Zoho Desk are my top recommendations for most users. They all offer loads of powerful features at affordable prices for businesses of all sizes.

However, they are not for everyone. Different situations require different solutions.

So don't forget to use the criteria we talked about as you choose the best help desk software for you, your team, and your customers.

What is your help desk software?