Blog

SaaS Help Desk Solutions can help small and mid-sized companies manage, track and respond to all the customer inquiries from multiple-channels like online forums, phone, social media and email. SaaS solutions enable employees to take advantage of business

intelligence functionality and process automation using web browser as client software. By using SaaS Help Desk Solutions, customers can get up and run quickly without any hardware requirement, software installation nor maintenance.
Today, most of the companies are looking for hosting their services on cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS). The customer service industry is not far behind, and many BPO’s and customer support service providers are looking out for a perfect customer support solution like SaaS Help Desk. The key reason behind this is that SaaS is designed considering a big list of priorities that help customer support. This kind of web-based help desk solutions not only improves the productivity, but will enhance the customer satisfaction by enabling self-service with plethora of options and features. However, one should know that not all the SaaS products are feature-rich and provide the same benefits.

It is must for organizations to evaluate vendor offering, before they choose the right SaaS help desk software. Below are the top 5 features one must consider while selecting SaaS Help Desk Software –

MULTI CHANNEL SUPPORT

SaaS help desk solutions enable agents to manage the support process centrally across multiple communication channels such as – online chat, social media, web, email, community forums, native support for mobile applications etc. To reach the customers and ensure that they continue to be your customers, you should have a solution that enables you to connect with them round the clock, regardless of the place they are living in.

Organizations should also make sure that that the SaaS product they are choosing supports multiple mobile operating systems like – iOS, Android, Apple, Blackberry etc. Social sites like – Facebook and Twitter have become significant channels for customer support, where more than 20% of people using Facebook and Twitter seek information about different products and services. Similarly, mobile platforms have become another key platform for customer support, where more than 60% users are using smartphones to connect to the internet, friends and the world at large.

Companies may waste their valuable time and money by choosing SaaS help desk, which don’t have the ability to synchronize multiple channels. Therefore, organizations evaluating SaaS help desk solutions should consider multi channel help desk support an absolute requirement.

AUTOMATED TICKET MANAGEMENT

To provide effective customer support and service, you need an automated ticket management system that is based on workflows, history of each ticket and the ability to close tickets. The automated ticket management feature should also be able to re-open the ticket, if the issue has not been resolved. The customer should be able to view the status of their tickets from a self-service browser.

The SaaS help desk software must provide support for existing business with notifications and rule-based triggers. Some of the requirements you should look for in SaaS product are – unified search, custom ticket fields, customer interface, customer support groups, etc.
Another important thing to look for is collaboration among the employees. For this, companies should consider a ticketing system that enables collaboration among the employees, so that the support team can view all the tickets and jump into help to reduce the time to respond to an issue.

GOOD REPORTING TOOL

It is important for organizations to run reports easily and use advanced analytic to measure the progress of work and customer satisfaction. By having good analyzing and reporting tools, you can make more informed decisions about your business. Choose the SaaS Help Desk software that help managers and agents to run reports easily and use advanced analytic to track metrics like – status of ticket, priority, type, tag, ticket resolution time, agent performance, customer satisfaction etc.
When evaluating SaaS requirements, companies should look for pre-built dashboards with metrics on top trends, along with the ability to generate custom reports. The SaaS solution should be able to offer data portability so that users can export data in XML and CSV formats. The SaaS help desk reports should show you an overview of all the important metrics and allow you to breakdown each metric based on the type and priority of the ticket.

APPS AND INTEGRATION

SaaS help Desk solution should be well integrated with other applications. Organizations can deliver outstanding customer service only through proper collaboration with other departments. SaaS products with pre-built integration’s can lead to solutions in areas like – analytic, authentication, content management system, E-commerce, CRM, Feedback management, Project management, Time tracking and Billing.

Perfect integration with 3rd party apps such as – Salesforce, Google Analytic and Net-suite will help companies create a single-point of view of customer. In addition to this, the SaaS product should allow users to perform custom integration using APIs. Different companies offer different level of integration, so decide how much integration you need and do some research until you find the best SaaS help desk solution that meet your requirements.

SELF SERVICE PORTAL AND GLOBAL SUPPORT 

Self-service or knowledge base portal is one of the features that customers look for, as it lets the customers to enter and track their questions and search for answers. A customer self-service portal will save money on telephone calls to the helpdesk and free up the customer service staff. However, it is really important for customers to switch to another mode of communication like email or live chat once they are inside the portal.
By providing a safe, responsive and reliable self-service portal, the initial concerns about security, service availability and response time will be diminished for many organizations. Companies will be able to implement SaaS solutions much faster than traditional software.

The above 5 features – Multi channel support, Automated ticket management, good reporting tools, integration and self-service portal are a litmus test for evaluating the effectiveness of SaaS help desk software. If you adopt a solution which supports these requirements, your customers will surely love you for providing great support and your employees will thank you for making their job easier.