The 10 Best Help Desk Software for Your Small Business
May 15, 2023
As a small business owner, you know that excellent customer support is essential for customer satisfaction and success in today's competitive business environment.
However, with limited resources and personnel, managing customer inquiries and support requests can be overwhelming.
One tool that can help you ace your support game is help desk software.
In this article, we're going to explore the world of help desk software, why it's important for small businesses, what features to look for, and which ones are the best.
What Is Help Desk Management Software?
A help desk software is a specialized tool that helps companies organize, manage and respond to customer requests.
It enables organizations to efficiently receive, track, prioritize, and resolve customer requests and issues by assigning team members and enabling collaboration.
Help desk software typically includes features such as customer request management, automation, and integration with other tools and communication channels such as email, chat, and social media.
Some help desk management software can also be used to provide self-service options for customers, such as a knowledge base or live chat widget.
Why Do Small Businesses Need Help Desk Software?
Small businesses often face unique challenges when it comes to managing customer support. Limited resources, small teams, and high customer expectations can make it difficult to provide efficient and effective support. And considering that nearly 33% of customers consider switching brand after only one bad interaction with customer service, it's more important than ever to provide good support.
That's where help desk software can come to the rescue!
Using help desk software can help centralize all customer support in one place, making your entire support team more efficient.
Benefits of Using Help Desk Software for Small Businesses
Here are some reasons why it can be beneficial for your small business:
- Centralized Communication: Help desk software provides a single platform to manage all customer requests in one place, making it easier to streamline your customer interactions and respond promptly to important requests.
- Improved Productivity: Some help desk software comes with automation features that can handle tasks such as assignment and categorization, saving you and your team time and allowing you to handle a higher volume of requests more efficiently.
- Improved Customer Experience: With features like automated responses and live chat, help desk software enables you to provide quick solutions, resulting in a seamless support experience for your customers.
Give your small business the support it needs with help desk software and enjoy the benefits of streamlined communication, increased productivity, and improved customer satisfaction.
Features to Look for in a Help Desk Software for Your Small Business
Here are some of the features you should look for in help desk software for your small business:
- Management System: A ticketing/management system is a way to track customer support requests. It should allow you to create conversations, assign them to a team member, and track their progress.
- Live Chat: Live chat is a way to communicate with customers in real time. It can be used to answer questions, resolve issues, and provide support.
- Integrations: Integrations allow you to connect your help desk software to other software applications. This can help you save time and improve efficiency.
- Mobile App: A mobile app allows you to access your help desk software from anywhere. This can be helpful if you need to support customers when you are not in the office.
- Pricing: Choose a help desk software that fits your budget. There are many free and affordable options.
By choosing help desk software with the right features, you can improve your customer service and grow your business.
The 10 Best Help Desk Software for Your Small Business
1. Missive
Missive is a customer support tool with shared inboxes, live chat, rules, multiple communication channels, shared labels, flexible email setup, canned responses, and integrations with tools like CRMs. Missive offers integrations, like Grammarly and OpenAI, to make your team more efficient and offer the best experience possible to your customers.
Missive also gives you the ability to assign conversations to a whole team, a specific person, or multiple people.
Unlike other solutions on the list, Missive is much more than a help desk software, it is also a Team Inbox and team collaboration tool enabling all your teams to work together and collaborate on almost any communication they receive.
Ticket Management
Missive offers email and communication management with label/tag options. Missive offers advanced search and filtering options and a traditional email client interface, making it easy to manage conversations and find what you're looking for. Your team will certainly love the intuitive and friendly interface.
Missive also allows you to add labels to the sidebar to quickly access communications depending on their status.
Email Management
Missive is more than a help desk solution it’s also a robust email management tool, offering a variety of features such as collaboration on email replies, email delegation, and management of multiple email addresses from one Gmail account. It is ideal for small businesses needing to efficiently manage their email communications.
Native App for All Communications
Missive offers a native app on multiple platforms with a unified experience for all communications, allowing you to efficiently manage conversations in one place. With Missive, you won’t have to switch between different apps to handle different types of communications.
More Than Just Emails
Missive offers support for communication channels, including email, live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and more. With Missive, you can connect through integrations with the app on your phone, so you can handle all your communications in one place without having to switch between apps.
Automation with Fine-Grained Control
Missive offers rules to automate your workflows for incoming/outgoing messages and user actions. This feature allows for a more personalized and customizable experience.
Chat with Team Members
Missive offers a direct chat feature within any conversation for collaboration and communication between team members. You can also edit a live draft with team members.
Pricing
Missive pricing is one of the most affordable on the list. However, small business budget-friendly plans don’t mean that you’ll miss out on features and quality. In fact, even if we’re biased, we would argue that Missive is probably the best bang for the buck you can have. With Missive you also have a 30-day money-back guarantee with all paid plans.
| Free | Starter | Productive | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 / month | $14 / month per user | $18 / month per user | $26 / month per user |
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2. Help Scout
Help Scout is an email-based help desk that also offers some email management software functionalities. It aims at helping you simplify your communication between your business and your customers and manage your customer support operations.
Help Scout offers features like a knowledge base, ticketing system, and CRM system. it also offers integrations with external tools, shared inboxes, and rules.
Just like Missive, Help Scout has a shared inbox, which allows your team to manage shared emails, assign co-members to conversations, chat with teammates, and tag conversations for easy organization. The platform also includes live chat support.
Overall, Help Scout provides small businesses with a comprehensive solution for their customer service needs.
Pricing
Help Scout pricing starts at $25 per month per user for their basic plan. They also offer a free 15-day trial.
| Standard | Plus | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| $25 / month per user | $50 / month per user | Pricing information is not available |
3. Helpwise
Helpwise is a user-friendly help desk software aiming at simplifying customer service email management for small businesses. It offers features like shared inboxes, email templates, notes, rules, and assignments to make email collaboration easier and improve customer support.
Similar to Missive, Helpwise provides a shared inbox platform that allows teams to collaborate on SMS, social media, and live chat accounts. It also offers functionalities like assigning team members to conversations, tagging, and internal chatting for better communication.
With Helpwise, you can manage support requests, prioritize them, and respond to them in a timely manner.
In summary, Helpwise is a good helpdesk solution that combines shared inboxes, email management, and live chat in one place, making it a great option for small businesses to provide customer service.
Pricing
Helpwise pricing starts at $15 per month per user for their standard plan. They also a free 7-day trial.
| Standard | Premium | Advanced | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| $15 / month per user | $25 / month per user | $50 / month per user | Pricing information is not available |
4. Zendesk
Zendesk is a customer support and helpdesk software used by businesses to provide customer service. It's a cloud-based solution that can help your small business efficiently manage and resolve customer inquiries and support tickets across different channels.
It offers features like ticketing, a knowledge base, live chat, and reporting. Zendesk makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to interact with customers and deliver great support. Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise.
Overall, Zendesk is a good support platform that offers businesses everything they need to provide customer service.
Pricing
Zendesk pricing is for an annual plan billed on a monthly basis. They also offer a free 14-day trial.
| Support Team | Support Professional | Support Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| $19 / month per user | $49 / month per user | $99 / month per user |
5. Front
Front is similar to Missive in the sense that it’s a platform that helps teams manage shared email aliases, SMS, social media, and live chat all in one place.
It also acts as a help desk platform that centralizes customer requests in one place. Front also provides automation capabilities like rules to streamline customer support processes. It is a good solution for businesses looking to efficiently manage their customer support operations.
Front also offers advanced features like CRM and analytics for more in-depth customer support. However, as we’ll see below those features come with a hefty price tag.
Pricing
Front pricing is for an annual plan billed on a monthly basis and starts at $19 per month per user for their most basic plan.
| Starter | Growth | Scale | Premier |
|---|---|---|---|
| $19 / month per user | $49 / month per user | $99 / month per user | $229 / month per user |
6. Gmelius
Gmelius is a helpdesk platform that transforms email into a collaborative and efficient tool for customer support. This Gmail add-on offers features like shared inboxes, team collaboration, and workflow automation.
Gmelius makes managing customer inquiries and tickets easier for your team if you’re already using Gmail. Since it adds itself on top of the Google email client, it has an intuitive interface that will help your team resolve customer issues in a timely manner.
Gmelius also offers project management capabilities. It also comes with features like chats with your coworkers in an email thread, adding labels, and assigning team members to an email.
On the downside, Gmelius only support emails as a communication channel and is only an option for Gmail users.
Pricing
Gmelius pricing starts at $15 per month for 10 users on a pay-per-usage plan. They also offer a free 7-day trial.
| Flex (Pay for what you use) | Growth | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| $15 / month | $29 / month per user | $45 / month per user |
7. Hiver
Hiver is a help desk add-on for your Gmail account. It helps you assign emails to team members, set up reminders, track email threads, and tag emails to keep things organized and efficient.
Some key features of Hiver include shared inbox management, email delegation and assignment, email notes and comments, and email templates for standardized responses. Hiver also offers real-time collaboration features such as internal chat making it easy for teams to work together on shared emails and tasks.
Hiver makes it easy for teams to manage their help desk operations and improve customer support processes however it only supports emails and live chat as communication channels. You'll also need to be a Gmail user to take advantage of Hiver.
Pricing
Hiver pricing starts at $19 per month per user for 2 shared email inboxes. They also offer a free 7-day trial.
| Lite | Pro | Elite |
|---|---|---|
| $19 / month per user | $49 / month per user | $69 / month per user |
8. Groove
Groove is a customer support and help desk software that offers a unified inbox for managing your customer communications in one place. It provides features like ticketing, knowledge base, email automation, and reporting to improve your customer support processes.
Groove also offers integrations with popular tools, so you can incorporate it into your existing workflow.
Groove is similar to Missive since it is built as an email client and works in the same fashion. It's designed to help businesses deliver exceptional customer service and support through efficient and organized communication management.
You can also assign the conversation to a team member, leave notes in a conversation and mention someone in the conversation just like Missive.
Pricing
Groove pricing starts at $25 per month per user for one mailbox. They also offer a free 30-day free trial.
| Starter | Plus | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| $25 / month per user | $50 / month per user | $80 / month per user |
9. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a help desk software that helps small businesses manage customer interactions across multiple channels such as email, phone, chat, and social media.
Some of its key features include multi-channel support, automation, and collaboration options for team members to work together on resolving support tickets.
With Freshdesk, businesses can improve their support operations, save time with automation, and provide a great experience for their customers.
Unlike Missive which has a more “human” approach to support requests, Freshdesk uses a ticketing system for customer inquiries. It also offers additional features such as a support desk, contact center, and customer feedback management.
Pricing
Freshdesk offers a free option with basic features, and paid plans starting at $18 per person per month, which increase based on the number of agents and features needed. However, to access live chat functionality, a subscription to their Freshchat tool may be required.
| Free | Growth | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 / month | $18 / month per user | $59 / month per user | $95 / month per user |
10. Crisp
Crisp is a messaging platform that can be used as a help desk. It provides businesses with features to improve their communications with customers. These features include shared inbox, live chat, CRM, and email marketing campaigns. While Crisp does offer a free plan, its features are limited and do not include support for emails or social media.
Crisp's paid plans unlock advanced features and functionalities that can help your customer service team when interacting with customers, improve team collaboration, and improve customer engagement.
Pricing
Crisp offers a free plan with basic features, and paid plans starting at $25 per person per month.
| Free | Pro | Unlimited |
|---|---|---|
| $0 / month | $25 / month per workspace | $95 / month per workspace |
How to Choose the Right Help Desk Software for Your Small Business
With so many options out there, how do you choose the right one? Don't worry, We've got your back with some straightforward tips to help you find the best help desk software for your company.
Features That YOU Need
Look for help desk software that has all the features you need. Whether it's ticket management, live chat, automation, reporting, or integrations, make sure it's aligned with your business needs.
It is not about having software that can do it all, but about having software that can do what you need it for well.
Think Big
Your small business may be growing fast, so choose help desk software that can keep up and scale with you. Look for a solution that can handle more customer inquiries and team members as your company expands.
User-Friendly
Nobody got time for complicated software, especially for small companies where you don’t have the bandwidth to learn and train employees on new software for multiple days. Find help desk software that's easy to set up and configure, so your team can be up and running in no time.
Smooth Integrations
You are probably already using tools to manage clients, tasks, etc. Don't let a new help desk software force you out of it. Look for a help desk platform that integrates seamlessly with your existing systems, like CRM to keep things running smoothly.
Support That Got Your Back
Help desk software should have your back, and that includes customer support. Look for providers that offer reliable and responsive support, so you can get help when you need it.
Budget-Friendly Options
Every dollar counts for a small business owner. Compare pricing plans and factor in any additional costs to find help desk software that fits your budget.
Learn from Others
Chances are customers of the help desk software in the list have shared their positive and negative opinion about it. Read reviews and testimonials from fellow business owners to get insights into the pros and cons of different help desk software options.
Test Drive It
Don't commit without trying it out first. Take advantage of free trials or demos offered by help desk software to see if it suits your needs.
By keeping these tips in mind and choosing the right help desk software, you'll be able to level up your customer support game and keep your customers happy. After all, satisfied customers are the secret sauce to your success.
FAQ
What Is Help Desk Management Software?
Help desk management software is a specialized tool that helps companies effectively manage and respond to customer requests. It includes features like managing requests, automating and integrating with communication channels, and can also provide self-service options for customers.
How Do I Choose a Help Desk Software?
When choosing help desk software for your business, you should ask yourself the following questions:
- Does it have all the features that YOU need?
- Will it scale as your business grows?
- Is it easy to set up, configure, and use?
- Can it integrate with the tools you already need?
- Does it provide good customer support when you have questions?
- Are the pricing options within your budget?
- Are the reviews from other businesses positive or negative?
- Can you try the help desk before you commit?
Is a Help Desk a CRM?
No, a help desk is not a CRM. Help desk software manages and resolves customer inquiries, while CRM systems focus on managing customer relationships, sales, and marketing efforts.
