Acquiring customers is one thing, and keeping them is another. And who knows this better than SaaS business owners who are heavily dependent on recurring subscriptions?
But when customers are always complaining about bugs or inquiring about subscription prices, how do you resolve their issues in time and make them buy again?
The answer lies in a simple yet powerful tool.
The best SaaS help desk software can help your customer service team be proactive, flexible, and dynamic in their approach. You can automate your workflows, track bugs and issues from start to finish, and delight customers.
So if your SaaS business wishes to increase customer retention, get better reviews, and more referrals, the focus should be on providing delightful customer service.
In this blog, we will discuss some of the top benefits and features of SaaS help desk tools. Later, we will explore the top 17 ticketing systems that will perfectly match your support needs.
Ready to turn customers into lifelong subscribers? Let’s go!
What Is SaaS Help Desk Software?
Software as a service (SaaS) help desk is a business application designed for customer delight. It is hosted on the cloud and can be easily accessed over the internet. There is no need for any hardware configuration, and aspects like security, backup, maintenance, etc., are handled by the service provider.
SaaS help desk helps your agents assign, track, sort, prioritize, and resolve customer issues from a unified inbox. In addition, you can interact with customers on multiple channels, encourage self-service, and monitor key help desk metrics.
Read More: 15 Help Desk Metrics to Improve Customer Support
What Are the Benefits of SaaS Help Desk Software?
Why use a SaaS help desk system? There are several attractive benefits that your customer service team can enjoy.
1. Enjoy Anytime, Anywhere Acess
There was a time when customer service agents had to be at their respective office desks to support customers. However, with the best SaaS help desk software, agents can access their help desk platform anytime and anywhere.
So what does this mean? Well, modern help desk tools offer cloud access. This means that agents can simply log in to the portal from their desktops, laptops, tablets, or mobile devices, as long as they are connected to the internet.
2. Manage Issues on Multiple Channels
Different customers have different preferences when it comes to customer service channels. While some prefer the instant responsiveness of live chat, others prefer the reliability of email support.
Help desk ticketing solutions can help you capture customer requests, issues, and complaints from a variety of communication channels. You can monitor conversations on email, live chat, web forms, help center, and more. This allows you to track every ticket and ensure not a single message can slip through the cracks.
Read More: Choose the Best Customer Support Channels for Your Growing Business
3. Reduce Tickets With a Knowledge Base
SaaS businesses often get repeat inquiries related to product pricing, subscriptions, discounts, cancellations, and more. When you create a self-service help center with the best knowledge base software, you can allow customers to solve their routine queries on their own.
For instance, if customers have any questions about cancellations, they can simply visit your FAQ section and read about the cancellation policy. This will allow you to reduce the ticket volume and ensure agents have enough time to focus on high-priority issues.
Read More: 10 Best Practices for Creating Knowledge Base Articles
4. High Flexibility & Scalability
The top SaaS help desk tools offer greater flexibility compared to on-premise versions. Users can enjoy flexible pay-per-user plans based on their needs and cancel their subscriptions anytime they want. Instead of making a heavy, one-time investment, you can pay only for the features you need.
In addition, the tool can be easily scaled to meet your growing customer service needs. For instance, you can opt for top-tier plans to get more powerful features and accommodate more agents.
Must-Have Features of Best SaaS Help Desk Software
In order to choose the best tool, you must have a clear understanding of the most in-demand features. Here are some of the top features of SaaS help desk ticketing system:
1. Ticket Prioritization
Ticket prioritization can help you keep your inbox well-organized. You can categorize tickets based on their priorities, such as High, Low, or Normal.
This way, the moment agents log in to their portal, they can identify important tickets and work on them at the earliest. This ensures all high-priority tickets are given immediate attention by your support team.
2. Canned Responses
Many customer queries are repetitive and can hamper your team’s productivity. For instance, SaaS customer service teams get routine questions such as, “When will feature X be launched?” or “What payment options are available?”
Instead of typing a unique response for such questions, agents can make use of canned responses. These are pre-designed response templates that can save time and help agents respond faster.
Read More: 11 Best Canned Response Templates for Customer Support Emails
3. Web Forms
A customer service form, also known as a complaint form, allows customers to document and submit grievances related to a company’s products, services, or staff members.
Customer service forms can help your team get more information about tickets. For instance, you can include relevant fields such as “Date since the issue first appeared” to tap into more information. You can even add a description box at the bottom of the form to get the complete picture.
4. Chatbots
The best SaaS help desk tools have one thing in common – they offer the chatbot feature. You can choose to create your own chatbot from scratch or use pre-designed templates to get your bot up and running in minutes.
Well-designed chatbots can help your software business automate customer service, share product tours or demos with customers, generate leads, and grow sales. In addition, the bot can transfer the chat to a live human operator if it is unable to offer a relevant solution.
Read More: 12 Chatbot Mistakes That Can Be Fatal for Your Business
5. Customer Surveys
Surveys can help you monitor customer loyalty, satisfaction, and engagement with your brand. With a ticketing system, you can create CSAT and NPS surveys and share them with customers via email automatically.
Help desk agents can view survey responses in real time and get valuable insights into what motivates or frustrates customers. Surveys can also be useful in identifying any process or training gaps in your business.
List of 17 Best SaaS Help Desk Tools
After weeks of research, evaluation, and first-hand experience, we have compiled some of the best tools that are a hit among SaaS business owners. Let’s check them out right away.
1. ProProfs Help Desk
ProProfs Help Desk is considered the best SaaS help desk software for small businesses. You can communicate with customers on their favorite channels, whether it is live, email, or web forms. You can build powerful chatbots to generate leads and onboard new customers with product demos.
ProProfs Help Desk realizes that your SaaS business relies heavily on repeat customers. Therefore, the tool allows you to share automated CSAT and NPS surveys to monitor the customer experience.
Top Features of ProProfs Help Desk:
- Automatically assign incoming support tickets to your team members
- Set agent roles and permissions to control their access to the help desk platform
- Track all customer service mailboxes with the shared inbox feature
- Create an online knowledge base for customers and agents
- Send automated surveys to customers to capture their valuable feedback
Pros:
- ProProfs Help Desk offers a simple, Gmail-like interface.
- You can leverage multiple chatbot templates to automate customer service.
Cons:
- The tool comes with limited integration options.
- There is no provision to track social media tickets.
Choose it for: Knowledge base, ticket management, powerful reporting, simple UI
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Startups, small to mid-sized businesses, large enterprises
Case Study:
Horse Saddle Shop is a famous US-based saddler that sells customers western saddles and boots. Established in 1986, the saddle business has assisted over 40,000 clients and sold over 37,000 saddles.
In the beginning, when customers had queries related to saddle fittings, they would use phone support to seek help. To save time and enhance efficiency, Horse Saddle Shop used ProProfs Help Desk’s live chat feature to interact with customers and answer their questions in real-time.
Pricing:
Starts at $20/agent/month (billed annually).
2. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk is one of the best software for SaaS businesses that helps you create intelligent automation to speed up your workflow. For instance, you can use the round-robin ticket assignment feature to ensure uniform ticket distribution.
Zoho Desk offers an artificial intelligence called Zia that can identify the sentiments behind a customer message. This can help your agents understand whether a customer is angry or upset so that can share the best possible response.
Top Features of Zoho Desk:
- Allow customers to browse your help center for articles and FAQs
- Track open, overdue, and unassigned tickets
- Allow agents to share relevant knowledge base articles in chat responses
- Create templates for ticket forms or email responses
- Create response SLAs to alert your team when a response is pending
Pros:
- Users can connect with Zoho CRM to get more context.
- Create a vast community and allow customers to post questions.
Cons:
- With Zoho Desk, live chat is only available in the highest-tier plan.
- The knowledge base templates are quite outdated.
Choose it for: Agent productivity, insightful reports, process automation
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Startups, small to mid-sized businesses
Case Study:
HealthServe is a non-profit organization with a vision to bring hope and healing to the migrant community of Singapore. The organization helps low-wage migrant workers with counseling, medical care, social assistance, and multiple other support services.
HealthServe uses Zoho Desk to register every incoming grievance and ensure timely help is provided. Over the years, their team has been able to resolve the issues of over 200,000 migrant workers.
Pricing:
Starts at $12/user/month
Read More – Zoho Desk Alternatives
3. Spiceworks
Spiceworks is the best free SaaS help desk software that can help you get complete control of your IT support. Agents can easily track requests via email or the user self-service portal.
If you are a customer service manager, Spiceworks can offer you simple yet relevant performance metrics. For instance, you can track metrics such as open tickets, unassigned tickets, first response time, ticket close time, and more.
Top Features of Spiceworks:
- Use ticket rules to create automated workflows
- Allow remote employees to start a remote support session anytime
- Track all ongoing IT projects in one place
- Allow customers to track the progress of their tickets using the user portal
- Share tickets with team members for better collaboration
Pros:
- Use the Spiceworks mobile app to get push notifications.
- The company offers a vast FAQ section to help new users get started quickly.
Cons:
- You will have to see intrusive ads.
- Integration options are limited.
Choose it for: Affordable pricing, ticket management, IT project management
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Small to mid-sized businesses
Case Study: Not Available
Pricing:
Spiceworks is free for all users.
Read More: Best Spiceworks Service Desk Alternatives for 2023
4. HubSpot Service Hub
HubSpot Service Hub is another popular tool used by some of the leading SaaS businesses. The tool helps you create a secure customer portal to allow customers to track their ongoing conversations and monitor ticket progress.
The best part about this SaaS ticketing system is that you can easily connect it with HubSpot’s CRM platform. This powerful integration will allow support reps to get complete customer information and offer personalized service.
Top Features of HubSpot Service Hub:
- Assist website visitors and customers with live chat
- Initiate calls to customers with the HubSpot platform
- Convert commonly asked customer questions into a knowledge base
- Monitor the customer experience with CSAT, NPS, and CES surveys
- Set agent permissions to determine their access to the help desk platform
Pros:
- You can use the shared inbox feature to track all messages in one place.
- Access complete customer information with CRM integration.
Cons:
- The tool can often get slow, leading to frustration.
- Automation features need improvement.
Choose it for: Customer surveys, shared inbox, CRM integration, customer portal
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Small to mid-sized businesses, large enterprises
Case Study:
Studio Designer is a US-based digital project management and accounting platform dedicated to interior designers. The platform is used by 6,500 people across 3,000+ companies and design studios.
Studio Designer switched to HubSpot Service Hub bring their customer service, sales, and marketing processes under one unified platform. As a result, the team has achieved significant increase in customer satisfaction and recouped 25% of its time.
Pricing:
Starts at $450/month
5. Intercom
Intercom offers powerful messaging and automation features to deliver memorable customer experiences. Bring all your communication channels in a single Inbox to save agents’ time and enhance visibility.
With the help of the Resolution Bot, you can share help center articles with customers, answer their common questions, and reduce your team’s workload. In addition, you can create macros or canned responses to quickly tackle common customer questions.
Top Features of Intercom:
- Encourage self-service with an integrated knowledge base
- Use reports to discover new ways to improve performance
- Create robust workflows to manage complex tickets efficiently
- Integrate with the leading CRM, email, and ticketing tools
- Engage website visitors with proactive messages
Pros:
- Support and engage customers on WhatsApp and Instagram.
- You can perform actions quickly with keyboard shortcuts.
Cons:
- The tool is quite expensive.
- Intercom does not offer transparent pricing details on its website.
Choose it for: Chatbot, proactive messaging, help center, shared inbox
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Small to mid-sized businesses
Case Study:
Rigostat is a SaaS business that offers tools to help other companies analyze calls, return on investment, and grow sales. Headquartered in Odesa, Ukraine, the company helps business leaders make the best decisions for their teams.
Rigostat uses the Intercom platform to manage communications across the entire customer journey. Within a few months, the company successfully reduced its FRT (first response time) to just a minute and accomplished a 76% trial-to-paid conversion rate.
Pricing:
Get in touch with the company for a quote.
6. Help Scout
If your SaaS business uses email primarily to support customers, then Help Scout can be a good option. With the shared inbox feature, you can collaborate with team members in real time and manage all customer communications in one place.
It’s really simple to create your knowledge base with Help Scout. Without any coding skills, agents can add text, hyperlinks, tables, images, and videos to help center articles. This makes it easier for your team to publish articles and encourage self-service.
Top Features of Help Scout:
- Add tags to conversations to keep your inbox well-organized
- Share knowledge base articles directly from the chat widget
- Collaborate with team members to edit help center articles
- Monitor team performance for different communication channels
- Monitor the customer happiness score
Pros:
- You can track the performance of help center articles.
- View the complete customer information in the sidebar.
Cons:
- Help Scout’s reports need to offer more metrics.
- You will have to pay extra for the in-app messaging feature.
Choose it for: Shared inbox, proactive support, live chat, customer management
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Small to mid-sized businesses
Case Study:
As a Canada-based company, RealityNinja helps real estate agents and brokers build better websites and grow their businesses. The platform offers hundreds of website design templates for customers to get started quickly.
RealityNinja’s support team was consistently sharing logins and passwords with each other. However, with Help Scout on board, there is no need to share passwords, and team members can collaborate on customer conversations through internal notes. The customer service team also uses the saved replies feature to respond to customer questions faster.
Pricing:
Starts at $20/user/month
Read More: Best Help Scout Alternatives for 2023
7. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is an essential SaaS help desk software that deserves to be on your list. With an omnichannel approach, the tool allows you to connect with customers on their favorite channels, such as live chat, phone, email, and social media.
While creating knowledge base articles, members from different departments can join hands to ensure only the best content is published. In addition, you can leverage answer bots to help customers get the best answer from your help center.
Top Features of Freshdesk:
- Share the ownership of tickets with agents or departments
- Monitor help desk productivity and measure customer satisfaction
- Resolve complex issues with parent-child ticketing
- Assign tickets based on your agents’ skills or workload
- Integrate with Slack, Shopify, Salesforce, and multiple other tools
Pros:
- Create and share multiple ticket forms with customers.
- Automatically categorize and prioritize support tickets.
Cons:
- The Growth plan lacks round-robin routing and customer surveys.
- Customizing Freshdesk’s reports can be time consuming.
Choose it for: Time tracking, ticket prioritization, email notifications
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Startups, small to mid-sized businesses, large enterprises
Case Study:
Sentimo is a popular manufacturing company that produces top-quality radiator covers that are suitable for multiple types of horizontal radiators. Based in the Netherlands, the company has garnered a stable market position.
With the help of Freshdesk, all incoming web forms and emails are immediately converted into a ticket and routed to the right group of agents. Moreover, managers can get better clarity into which teams have the maximum workload and where extra forces are needed.
Pricing:
Starts at $15/agent/month
8. Kayako
Kayako can help you offer top-notch service to SaaS customers via email, live chat, and social media platforms. Agents can view past conversations and visualize the customer journey completely.
You can easily add your live chat widget to your website, help center, or mobile apps based on your requirements. Assist customers from anywhere, engage website visitors, and convert prospects into reliable leads.
Top Features of Kayako:
- Customize the welcome message of your live chat and greet every visitor
- Use pre-written responses to automate customer service
- Monitor customer satisfaction ratings with the help of surveys
- View the complete conversation history to gain relevant context
- Create an online repository of self-help articles, FAQs, and videos
Pros:
- Users can easily customize your live chat widget.
- Support customers over Twitter and Facebook.
Cons:
- Kayako is one of the most expensive tools in the market.
- Their customer service needs improvement.
Choose it for: Live chat, multiple integrations, social media ticketing, internal collaboration
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Large enterprises
Case Study:
Toshiba is a multi-national company that offers cost-effective B2B solutions for organizations operating in the industrial, power and energy, and retail verticals. The company was founded in Tokyo, Japan, and employs around 117,300 people.
The company’s diverse portfolio of products and services made it challenging for its support agents to quickly and accurately respond to inquiries. Thanks to Kayako, Toshiba was able to double service request capacity, streamline help desk workflow, enhance productivity, and boost customer satisfaction.
Pricing:
Get in touch with the company for a quote.
9. Zendesk
If there is one tool that ranks high in popularity, it is Zendesk. This powerful ticketing software is used by businesses from various industries – from SaaS to Automotive to Healthcare.
Whether customers contact you via messaging, live chat, or social media, you can ensure they receive high-quality support. Moreover, you can build AI-powered answer bots to automate your service process and give more context to live chat operators.
Top Features of Zendesk:
- Reduce your ticket volume with an integrated help center
- Access customer data to personalize each conversation
- Engage customers with proactive messaging and notifications
- Allow customers to interact with each other on your community forum
- Automatically escalate issues to relevant service reps
Pros:
- You can connect your help desk with Zendesk CRM.
- Reward top community contributors with suitable badges.
Cons:
- Expensive plans make this tool unaffordable for startups or small businesses.
- The tool’s interface seems quite outdated.
Choose it for: Community forum, help center, automated ticket assignments
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Large enterprises
Case Study:
GrubHub allows customers to search, order, and track food from wherever they are. Customers can find the restaurants near their location and order food in simple steps.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when takeaway became the only option for most Americans, GrubHub saw an unprecedented rise in orders. With Zendesk, their team could easily meet the rising demand and witnessed a 53% increase in help center article views.
Pricing:
Starts at $49/agent/month
10. Jira Service Management
Jira Service Management is another SasS help desk software platform that offers ITSM capabilities. You can gain complete control over ITSM practices such as request, incident, asset, change, and configuration management.
The tool allows you to bring together requests and incidents from email, live chat, web forms, and other channels. You can showcase your services through a self-service portal and make it easier for customers and employee to initiate necessary requests.
Top Features of Jira Service Management:
- Track the complete ownership and lifecycle of IT assets
- Create a self-service portal to empower end-users
- Set multiple SLA policies to keep track of ticket deadlines
- Create ticket forms to gain more information about issues
- Connect with Slack, Zoom, Amazon Web Services, and other tools
Pros:
- Collaborate using Slack and Microsoft Teams
- Leverage 325+ pre-built form templates
Cons:
- Reports can be overwhelming for new users
- The tool does not offer the chatbot feature
Choose it for: Asset management, incident management, self-service portal
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Small to mid-sized businesses, large enterprises
Case Study: Not available
Pricing:
Starts at $20/agent/month
11. HappyFox
HappyFox is an all-in-one ticketing solution that helps SaaS businesses offer better customer service. Convert email, chat, phone, and web requests into unique support tickets and keep them organized in a centralized location.
HappyFox helps you empower customers with a combination of a self-service knowledge base and community forums. Within a few hours, you can create an online knowledge base that is searchable and mobile responsive.
Top Features of HappyFox:
- Leverage automation capabilities to create smarter workflows
- Add more information about tickets with custom fields
- Respond faster using templated responses
- Sort tickets into categories such as customer support, returns, billing, etc.
- Connect with business apps such as Magento, Jira, Salesforce, etc.
Pros:
- You can pin high-priority tickets to never lose sight of them.
- HappyFox allows agents to perform bulk actions on tickets.
Cons:
- All plans require a minimum of 5 help desk agents.
- The tool lacks advanced reporting capabilities.
Choose it for: Knowledge base, canned responses, customer satisfaction surveys
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Small to mid-sized businesses, large enterprises
Case Study:
PDG+ Creative is a popular marketing company that specializes in website design and branding. Based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the company offers creative solutions in print, digital, and interactive formats.
Earlier, there was no place to track incoming customer issues raised via phone calls and emails. After switching to HappyFox, their team was able to sort messages into relevant categories and track every issue from start to finish.
Pricing:
Starts at $29/user/month
12. LiveAgent
LiveAgent claims to be a context-aware help desk software that offers support agents all the context they need to personalize interactions and delight customers. Agents can easily collaborate with each other using internal notes.
The tool offers a stylish live chat widget to engage visitors and assist them with their queries or complaints. In addition, you can invite customers to chat based on the time they have spent on your website or the specific pages they have visited.
Top Features of LiveAgent:
- Record customer calls for training and quality monitoring
- Prevent multiple agents from working on the same ticket with agent collision detection
- Use the drag and drop feature to add file attachments
- Easily create web forms from the contact form gallery
- Create custom roles for agents to control their access to the help desk platform
Pros:
- You can create multiple email templates for customer service.
- Export help desk tickets into PDF and HTML formats.
Cons:
- For call center functionalities, you will have to opt for the top-tier plan.
- The basic plan does not offer live chat functionality.
Choose it for: Internal ticketing, spam filters, private notes, ticket export
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Startups, small to mid-sized businesses
Case Study:
Refresher is an online lifestyle magazine that covers articles on everything that millennials love – fashion, technology, food, and music. The company went with LiveAgent in 2015 to streamline internal communications.
Using LiveAgent’s flexibility and internal collaboration features, their support team can resolve more than 1700 tickets per month. Moreover, automation rules helped them transfer tickets in the hands of the right people.
Pricing:
Starts at $15/agent/month
Read More: Best Live Agent Alternatives for 2023
13. Gorgias
If your SaaS business operates around the e-commerce industry, Gorgias can be your ideal tool. When talking to customers, agents can view all relevant information, such as their name, contact history, past orders, and much more.
When customers ask about your SaaS product on social media ads and posts, you can respond to them and grow your sales. In addition, you can track sales generated by agents via chat, social media, or text messages.
Top Features of Gorgias:
- Deflect routine questions with a self-service portal
- Create pre-made response templates that reflect your brand’s identity and tone
- Integrate your help desk with Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce
- Set your email signature to deliver consistent support experiences
- Create rules to automatically tag and assign tickets
Pros:
- Gorgias allows you to monitor the social media activities of customers in real-time.
- You can easily understand customer intent with sentiment analysis.
Cons:
- Gorgias is designed solely around e-commerce businesses.
- The tool does not offer pay-per-agent subscription plans.
Choose it for: Social media customer service, live chat, order management
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Small to mid-sized businesses, large enterprises
Case Study:
Montezumas is a UK-based company that offers chocolate treats for different occasions such as birthdays, corporate events, etc. Customers can buy chocolate bars, truffles, jars, and more from their online and offline stores.
Montezumas uses Georgias to manage all customer service inquiries from contact forms, emails, Facebook, and Instagram. The company successfully reduced its resolution time by 15% and saves more than 5 hours every week.
Pricing:
Starts at $10/month
Read More: Best Gorgias Alternatives for 2023
14. JitBit
JitBit is another impressive SaaS help desk tool that is available in SaaS and on-premise versions. From the ticket activity feed, agents can access all messages, live chat history, attachments, and other details.
With the help of JitBit help desk software, you can run your ticketing system in multiple languages, such as English, German, French, Hindi, Russian, Arabic, and more. Customer service agents can even create custom statuses for tickets, such as “refund” or “feature inquir,” for improved ticket management.
Top Features of JitBit:
- Use ticket filters to hide tickets that are irrelevant to your search
- Break a ticket into multiple sub-tickets and assign them to different agents
- Protect your sensitive data with SSL encryption
- Assign assets to tickets and track their usage over time
- Track time spent on tickets to view billable hours
Pros:
- Leverage free apps for Android and iOS.
- With JitBit, you can create email templates to share faster responses.
Cons:
- Limited integration options to third-party tools.
- The tool does not allow you to create reports on custom fields.
Choose it for: Asset management, multilingual help desk, custom fields
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Small to mid-sized businesses, large enterprises
Case Study: Not available
Pricing:
Starts at $29/user/month
15. Groove
Groove helps your SaaS company solve customer problems before they turn into major issues. With a simple dashboard, you can allow agents to organize, prioritize, and resolve customer issues with ease.
Groove offers powerful team collaboration features to ensure your service team works like a well-oiled machine. For instance, agents can discuss issues using private notes, see who else is responding to a ticket, and assign tickets to other members.
Top Features of Groove:
- Connect your support email to Groove’s shared inbox
- Offer assistance to customers on Facebook and Twitter
- Organize customer conversations with the help of Tags
- Monitor article performance metrics such as most viewed articles
- Integrate with powerful tools like Mailchimp, Slack, Stripe, etc.
Pros:
- Users can enjoy unlimited reporting history.
- You can leverage help center backgrounds provided by Unsplash.
Cons:
- Groove does not offer the chatbot feature which is a serious limitation.
- The mobile app needs significant improvements.
Choose it for: Shared inbox, email templates, ticket assignments
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Startups, small to mid-sized businesses
Case Study:
The Hoxton Mix offers virtual office addresses to multiple startups and small businesses that cannot afford an office location in London. Even businesses on a budget can receive their dream office addresses and gain credibility.
Before choosing Groove, the company was using Gmail to manage customer issues, and everything was a big mess. However, with Groove help desk software, The Hoxton Mix’s customer service team uses auto-responses and email templates to save 80 hours each month.
Pricing:
Starts at $20/user/month
16. Talkdesk
Talkdesk is a leading SaaS platform designed to help businesses monitor and enhance the customer experience. Talkdesk offers a complete set of integrated CX applications to help your team with self-service, omnichannel engagement, team collaboration, and more.
The tool helps you take call center management to the next level. For instance, agents can place calls directly from the help desk system, CRM, or any e-commerce platform. Moreover, you can route incoming calls based on IVR selection, agent skills, or business hours.
Top Features of Talkdesk:
- Track all ongoing tickets and conversations in one place
- Easily forward customer calls to other support representatives
- Integrate Talkdesk with Zendesk, Shopify, Salesforce, and multiple other tools
- Record calls for quality and training purposes
- Deploy surveys on multiple channels to capture customer feedback
Pros:
- Talkdesk offers a mobile app to connect with customers on the move.
- The live dashboard helps you view your team’s performance against SLAs and key metrics.
Cons:
- The tool is expensive and may not be an affordable option for startups.
- Talkdesk should offer more documentation and video tutorials for users.
Choose it for: Call monitoring, call forwarding, omnichannel engagement, IVR
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Medium businesses, large enterprises
Case Study:
ClickPay was founded in 2009 in New Jersey as a real-estate payment processing platform. To save property managers and landlords from the trouble of sorting and processing paper checks, ClickPay enables them to collect payments online.
ClickPay used Talkdesk’s advanced analytics and reporting features to identify areas for improvement and enhance agent accountability. Especially they used the Queue Callback feature to offer customers a frictionless experience.
Pricing:
Starts at $75/user/month
17. Google Collaborative Inbox
Google Collaborative Inbox is a shared inbox tool for support teams that use Gmail for customer communication. The tool is only available with a Google Workspace account and cannot be bought separately.
You can easily create groups and enable collaborative inbox features to manage group email accounts such as sales@, contact@, suppport@, etc. The tool even helps you organize your inbox conversations and workflows by applying labels to related conversations
Top Features of Google Collaborative Inbox:
- Set different permissions for Group collaborators to restrict access
- Leverage a simple and familiar UI to get started quickly
- Filter conversations by assignment or resolution status
- Assign a conversation to yourself and or other team members
- Mark a conversation as duplicate to lock the conversation
Pros:
- With Google Workspace, you can access multiple tools such as Gmail, Google Drive, Meet, etc.
- Users can select any conversation and click on ‘Report Abuse’ to automatically mark it as spam.
Cons:
- Google Collaborative Inbox isn’t very useful if you do not use Gmail or other Google products.
- The tool does not offer reporting capabilities.
Choose it for: Shared inbox, email organization, internal collaboration
3rd party integrations allowed: Yes
Suited for: Startups, small to mid-sized businesses, large enterprises
Case Study: Not available
Pricing:
Starts at $6/user/month
Why Is a Help Desk an Important Tool for SaaS Customer Support?
We all know the role of help desk tools in enabling support teams for delightful customer service. But this role becomes all the more important for SaaS businesses – that are constantly struggling to retain and acquire customers. Moreover, with rising customer churn rates, automating your support process makes all the more sense.
According to a recent study, 85% of customers will pay more for a SaaS product if there is a high-quality customer experience.
Let’s see how a help desk enables SaaS businesses to offer better customer service.
- Use proactive live chat messages to attract prospective subscribers
- Enhance the customer onboarding process
- Encourage self-service with a knowledge base
- Refer to ticket history to personalize interactions
- Monitor customer service experience with surveys
- Integrate with CRM to bridge the gap between sales and service
Overall, “software and support” is a powerful combination that can translate into growth for your SaaS business.
How to Choose the Best Help Desk Software?
Choosing the best help desk software for your organization can be a daunting task, as there are many options available in the market. Here are some key factors to consider when choosing the best help desk software:
- Features: Consider the features that are important for your organization, such as ticket management, automation, reporting, self-service, integrations with other tools, and more. Look for software that offers the features that you need.
- Ease of use: It is also important to choose software that is easy to use and requires minimal training for your support team. The interface should be intuitive and easy to navigate.
- Customization: Customization can help you tweak the help desk platform according to your unique needs. Look for software that allows you to customize the interface, workflows, and automation to suit your specific needs.
- Scalability: Choose a SaaS ticketing system that can grow with your business and accommodate an increasing number of users, tickets, and support channels.
- Security: Ensure that the software you choose provides robust security features to protect your customers’ data and your company’s reputation.
- Customer support: Look for software providers that offer reliable and responsive customer support. You’ll want to be sure that any issues or questions you have are addressed quickly and efficiently.
- Price: Consider the total cost of ownership, including licensing fees, ongoing maintenance, and support costs. Look for software that fits within your budget and provides a good return on investment.
By carefully considering these factors, you can choose the best help desk software for your organization that will improve your customer support and overall operations.
Comparison of Best Software for SaaS Help Desk
| Software | Price | Ticket Management | Shared Inbox | Multi-channel Communication | Alerts & Escalations | Live Chat | Self-Service Portal | IT Help Desk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ProProfs Help Desk | $10/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Zoho Desk | $12/month | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Spiceworks | Free | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Hubspot Service Hub | $45/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Intercom | Not Available | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Help Scout | $20/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Freshdesk | $15/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Kayako | $15/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Zendesk | $49/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Jira Service Management | $20/month | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| HappyFox | $29/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| LiveAgent | $15/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Gorgias | $10/month | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| JitBit | $29/month | Y | N | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| GrooveHQ | $12/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Talkdesk | $75/month | Y | N | Y | Y | N | Y | N |
| Google Collaborative Inbox | $6/month | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N |
Boost Subscriptions With the Best SaaS Help Desk Software
To become a million-dollar SaaS brand, you must keep customers at the heart of everything you do. In addition to an awesome product, you need delightful service to meet the rising customer expectations.
With the best SaaS help desk system, you can manage customer issues on multiple channels, automate repetitive tasks, offer 24×7 assistance with chatbots, reduce repeat queries with a knowledge base, and make customers fall in love with your SaaS products.
When customers get reliable and timely assistance, they will shower your business with great reviews and referrals. If you are looking for an all-rounder tool, you can use ProProfs Help Desk to automate your process and boost subscriptions. If you wish to support your internal employees, Jira Service Management can be a good option too. For powerful reports and ticketing features, you can even opt for Zendesk.
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