To better understand which help desk solutions small business owners rely on, we reached out to the general entrepreneurial community to see what they like about the platforms they use.
One of the biggest players in the scene, according to our research, is Zoho Desk, which received high marks in our research but was edged out because its 24-hour, five-day customer service – which is less than some other vendors offer – is behind a paywall. Still, James Boatwright, CEO of Code Galaxy, said his company uses the service for its affordable pricing and its feature set.
“Our small business chose the competitively priced Zoho Desk because the Enterprise edition was $25 per user per month,” he told business.com. “Some of its handy features include VoIP and social media integration, support for multiple brands in the customer portal, data analysis of advanced SLAs, report scheduling, custom ticket templates, and live chat support – and, importantly, [it] seamlessly integrates with our other apps.”
The popular Zendesk platform would have been a strong candidate for a best pick had it not kept common features behind an additional paywall. For DebtHammer CEO Jake Hill, the decision to move from Zendesk to Jira hinged on the latter’s more extensive features. “We used Zendesk previously but moved to Jira because there was more support for customization and more options for automation.”
Jira also received praise from Ravi Parikh, CEO of RoverPass Campground Management Software. The platform’s flexible, multipurpose ticket management system was a major selling point for his company.
“We use Jira for general support tickets, as well as a means of reporting bugs in our management software,” Parikh said. “Jira makes it easy to separate out these tickets so the appropriate employees can handle them. In addition to providing a record of support interactions, it lets us easily escalate tickets with all of the necessary information so the customer’s issue can be resolved as quickly as possible.”
While most respondents said they wanted feature-rich help desk software, Jonathan Newar, CEO of Captain Experiences, said his company wanted a more “baseline” platform without the bells and whistles. To that end, his company relies on Freshdesk, which can be as robust or simple as you need.
“My need is mainly internal, so I keep things simple,” Newar said. “I need the help desk to route a trouble ticket, modify and close it, and keep a record of it. For me, Freshdesk was the way to go because it’s intuitive and customizable. It meets all our needs and leaves room for growth as well.”