Help Desk Software

Enterprise systems management software developer Quest Software Inc announced yesterday its managed services platform, PacketTrap MSP, is now available with Live Virtual Help Desk, a ‘Live’ Help Desk/Network Operations Center support service for Managed Service Providers.

According to the company, the new service allows the MSP a to delegate the general support calls while maintaining the company brand. The business focus can be shifted toward meeting Service Level Agreements and delivering higher value services. In addition, it enables MSPs to add more end clients without the related costs in technical staffing.

PacketTrap MSP is a services enablement tool that allows MSPs to remotely monitor and manage their clients’ IT assets. The solution provides granular details of problems associated with the desktops, servers and networking devices that need immediate action by MSPs.

PacketTrap simplifies the monitoring process required to navigate traffic bottlenecks and bandwidth constraints. The solution also offers network mapping, troubleshooting and resolution, SNMP Trap Manager and performance baselining, the company said.

No pricing details were disclosed.

Technorati Tags: Help Desk Software, Live Virtual Help Desk, Quest

Help desk software maker Zendesk struck a deal with Twitter to let companies monitor tweets to connect with customers over customer service questions and concerns. Many businesses use Twitter, which has more than 100 million users, to see what their customers are saying about them. Employees have e-mailed tweets, the short message methods popularized by the microblog, into existing ticketing systems to connect with customers.

Zendesk customers can now find tweets that reference their company and use Zendesk’s hook into Twitter’s favorite button to answer questions or address complaints. The integration extends to any desktop or mobile Twitter client employees use, including TweetDeck, HootSuite or Twitter for iPhone and Android.

Maksim Ovsyannikov, VP of product management, explained that Zendesk “listens” to, or monitors Twitter accounts Zendesk customers configure and converts key tweets into Zendesk “twickets” by favoriting tweets in Twitter. Users may also command that any Direct Messages sent to these accounts be automatically converted to favorites.

Agents responsible for converting tweets into twickets will log into Twitter.com or a Twitter client created by the company. Users and agents can decide to continue their discussion about problem resolution on Twitter, within Zendesk or both until the twicket is closed.

Users can also record Twitter conversations on a ticket and copy and consult with colleagues privately while interacting with Twitter users publicly. Users may also elect to move the conversation off Twitter to e-mail.

Once the twicket is created, Zendesk will pull in the conversation with the requester comment by comment until the twicket is closed. Users may send a tweet back from their Twitter client without logging into Zendesk, or add a comment from within the Zendesk twicket. The entire conversation will be recorded until the twicket is closed.

Zendesk customers may also turn on an out-of-the-box trigger that automatically tweets to the requester with a message and a link to the twicket. Requesters can log into Zendesk using their Twitter credentials.

If requester’s Twitter account has already been associated with their profile in Zendesk, requester can also view the twicket by logging in with their Zendesk e-mail address and password.

Though just launched broadly, Zendesk’s integration with Twitter sports several early participants, including HootSuite, TweetDeck, Seesmic and Twitpic.

Technorati Tags: Help Desk Software, Twitter, Zendesk

Help desk software is a necessary improvement in customer support. Service that relies on direct phone contact is inefficient and unpleasant. Effort is wasted when call representatives must handle a multitude of questions without prior information, in a process repeated with each customer. Any information sought by caller support is done after the fact, through multiple spreadsheets and databases with a pen and paper. Perhaps another phone call has to be made to clarify certain information, and the customer is delayed even longer.

Alternatively, help desk software takes advantage of available customer information to give immediately personalized support. The design of help desk software makes for more efficient data centers that pull up relevant, organized customer information. Web-based help desk software with cloud computing can retrieve this information quickly from single locations. Regular errors brought up by frequent customer calls can be tracked more easily. These efficiency solutions reduce costs and the number of representatives required to manage the help desk.

Help desk software also brings in new tools and ways of support. Additional, web-based media can aid customers: email, video, graphics. Menial, software-based support, like software updates, is readily given. Online business portals allow for self-service, automatic updates, customer postings, comments, and even social networking connectivity.

Technorati Tags: Customer Support, Help Desk, Help Desk Software, Self-Help Portal

Zendesk, the on-demand help desk software maker, is raising their prices by over 300% for some plans. The help desk company sent the bad news to their customers via email recently which has left some with a bad taste in their mouths. Coincidentally, Zendesk reported crossing the 5k business customer mark right before their drastic price changes.

The price changes:

Before

Single package: $9/month per agent, 1 agent only
Regular package: $19/month per agent, minimum of 3 agents
Plus+ package: $39/month per agent, minimum of 5 agents

After

Starter plan: $9/month per agent, 1 to 3 agents
Regular plan: $29 per month, 3 to 20 agents
Plus+ plan: $59/month, 5 to 100 agents

The help desk vendor is offering what they call ‘Grandfathering Terms’ which will allow current customers to remain on an existing price and feature plan by converting to an annual billing cycle. However, customers are still up in arms over the forced switch to annual payment.

Zendesk has recently faced a huge backlash on their company forum in the wake of the changes. The customers demand to know how the company can justify a 300% price increase for a commonplace commodity. Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane responded by issuing this statement:

“Yes we are raising our prices on two of our plans. We now have three plans at three different price points (starting at $9). This is the first time EVER that we have increased pricing. But we have added new functionality to the service for every week for the last two and half years.

And today we’re launching a lot more functionality for knowledge base and community support Zendesk has gone from a traditional ticket management system to a complete customer engagement platform, supporting 1-to-1, 1-to-many and many-to-many customer conversations and support interactions. Zendesk is investing heavily in new features and our customers will continue to experience great things with Zendesk.

We will deliver on our promise. Are we the cheapest show in town? No. But we do think that we have an excellent offering for almost every budget starting at $9 per agent seat. And we do offer to grandfather our existing customers for one additional year at their current price point with all of their current functionality grandfathered indefinitely.

The price per agent has gone up with $10 and $20 on the Regular and Plus+ plans respectively. That’s a 50% increase. Some customers may experience disproportional price hikes due to earlier introductory discounts, and we will look into these accounts on a case-by-case basis.
Let me finally point out, that we have been completely open and transparent about the price changes. We don’t try to sneak it in.”

Only time will tell if the response will appease the masses or if there will be a mass exodus of Zendesk customers to other help desk platforms.

Technorati Tags: Help Desk Software, Help Desk Solution, Service Desk Software, Service Desk Solution, Zendesk, Zendesk Help Desk, Zendesk Help Desk Price Increase, Zendesk Helpdesk Software, Zendesk Price Increase, Zendesk Service Desk

Help Desk staff often deal with a number of simple issues on a daily basis. Many of these problems can often be taken care of within minutes. However, many times it may take double or triple the amount of time to actually complete resolve the situation.

A typical call from an employee to a help desk department often involves long, inconsistent explanations that frequently make little or no sense to help desk personnel. Often, this leads to the department deploying staff to other parts of the building in order to understand and assist in resolving the technical issue. Although the trip and phone call may only take a few minutes, this problem quickly grows larger as one considers the multiple phone calls and multiple “field trips” help desk personnel may need to take in a single day. This can take up lots of time and is a very inefficient way of solving technical issues as much of the time is spent wasted in the phone call and the travel time.

A quick and easy solution to this dilemma would be the utilization of some type of remote access software. This software segment is rapidly catching on as IT personnel can easily access employee computers from their location in order to quickly identify and resolve the technical issue, completely eliminating the need for wasteful trips to the employee’s office. This also gives remote working employees the added benefit of technical support while on the run. Rather than waiting to get into the office for technical issues to be addressed, employees can have IT Personnel quickly log onto their computers and fix any arising issues.

There are many available Remote Access Software solutions available. At a fairly inexpensive price, companies with low budgets can utilize them as a relatively effective help desk solution.

Technorati Tags: Help Desk Software, Help Desk Solution, Remote Access

The many advances in technology have led to an increased use of business software platforms as companies look to capitalize on the many benefits associated with the use of business software. However, smaller businesses continue to have trouble finding solutions that are appropriate for them. With many of the help desk providers developing solutions geared towards larger enterprises, many smaller businesses are often left to come up with their own alternatives as these solutions don’t scale down well to smaller companies.

Costs also play a large role for smaller businesses who may not have the larger budgets that larger companies have. The availability of a cost-effective solution geared towards smaller business becomes extremely difficult to find. However, there are alternatives out there for smaller companies.

The introduction of free help desk software allows smaller companies to enjoy all the benefits of help desk software with little cost. Illient’s SysAid is one example of a free help desk platform that provides many of the same features larger platforms offer. Web Help Desk is also another popular free help desk provider. Although many free help desk providers also provide more comprehensive paid versions of their software, the free version is often more than sufficient for many smaller companies.

Free Help Desk software provides smaller companies with an alternative to the expensive packages which are often out of company budgets. Try a free help desk solution for your company to see whether it fits for you! With no cost to you, it could be the answer to many of your existing help desk issues!

Technorati Tags: Free Help Desk, Help Desk Software, Web Help Desk

Web Help Desk has continued to be a leading provider of help desk software for a number of industries in the past few years. Prior to all the new technological innovations such as Cloud Computing or SaaS, Web Help Desk was providing companies with its award winning help desk software platform. Web Help Desk has continued to innovate to maintain its position on top of the help desk software industry as it has recently announced new versions of its existing help desk platform.

 

As customer service gains in importance in today’s business world, help desk software is becoming a more popular choice for many companies. With tools that can still provide effective monitoring of its agents, Web Help Desk Lite is similar to the full fledged version of its popular help desk software. The main difference is associated with the cost and convenience as Web Help Desk Lite is aimed towards companies who cannot afford a more advanced solution and don’t have the resources to dedicate towards deploying a more complex help desk platform.

 

Web Help Desk Lite will be offered as a SaaS product as well as an on-premise “lighter” version of its existing help desk software product. This should provide companies the ability to afford a solution that can meet their company needs. For more information on what Web Help Desk Lite has to offer, you can find a list of features here.

Technorati Tags: Help Desk Software, On Premise Help Desk, SaaS Help Desk, Web Based Help Desk

GWI Software announced the release of its newest product, c.Support Version 8.0, which is a powerful web-based help desk solution geared for help desks of all types and sizes.

c. Support 8.0 has a number of improvements and enhancements which should improve performance and allow support centers to be much more effective in what they do. GWI Software’s committment to improve the help desk community is evident in its devotion to developing the best and most advanced help desk solution possible. Its investment in developing its product shows its committment to the help desk industry.

c.Support 8.0′s improvements includes a new interface as well as a more responsive solution. GWI Software made its support able to handle much larger loads at a much faster speed. This should help help desk organizations that are swamped with requests and enable growing help desk organizations to grow within the same solution.

GWI Software’s many new features should provide help desk departments the tools necessary to accomplish their jobs efficiently and much more easily. For more information on the exciting new changes, you can read the full article here.

Technorati Tags: Help Desk Department, Help Desk Software, Service Desk

Web Help Desk announced that Version 9 of its Help Desk Software solution will be available. The new version of Web Help Desk will provide a host of new features as well as a number of tools that should provide companies with a better user experience. The implementations of these new features are a result of the feedback provide to Web Help Desk from its loyal customers.

A Variety of new features in the newest version of its help desk software should help improve productivity within companies. Some of these new features include:

- Change Management Control
- Asset Discovery Data Importing
- Remote Computer Access
- Language Capabilities
… and more!!

For more on this newest offering from Web Help Desk, you can read the full article found here.

Technorati Tags: Help Desk, Help Desk Software, Web Help Desk

Resource Dynamics continues to improve its help desk offering as it announced the release of a new version of its help desk solution which should provider companies with better features to help improve customer service.

Some features include a tele-support help desk which allows agents to track inquiries in addition to a number of powerful help desk features. With the number of improvements in its help desk providing, companies should enjoy increased customer satisfaction as they resolve help desk issues much more quickly and effectiviely.

For more about tele-help desk and resource dynamics, you can read the full article found here.

Technorati Tags: Help Desk, Help Desk Software, Help Desk Support