In many of the trade shows and international conferences that I have attended, I am often asked, “What in your opinion is the best IT Help Desk Software?”
My response is always, “The best for whom, or what?” I am also often asked, “What features do I look for in the perfect IT Help Desk Software?”
Again, my response is the same.
First you have to evaluate what you are trying to accomplish. An IT Help Desk for a Fortune 500 company with 10,000 employees and a large IT department is obviously entirely different than one for an IT Help Desk that serves 150 end user customers, and a help desk of 10 agents. Those same agents most likely are also looking after the needs of 25-50 employees within the same company.
Instead of looking for IT Help Desk Software that does “everything” you could ever imagine, evaluate your needs and utilize something that fits you more appropriately. Of course, you have to consider that you’ll want something that you can grow with, but like most CRM Software packages that have evolved over the years, you will probably only use 50-60% of whatever you acquire.
Great customer service is rarely rewarded, but bad customer service pays a huge price. A great IT Help Desk should be a part of the marketing department of any great company. After all, great customer service leads to future customers (and retains the current ones).
Consider the following:
You want a package that allows you to easily:
1. Customize to your company (and customer’s) needs
2. Look up customer’s information and see current and past tickets.
3. Communicate with fellow employees as well as clients.
Also ask the following type questions during the evaluation process:
1. Was the staff attentive and easy to reach during the evaluation process?
2. Has the company in question been producing software for several years?
3. How much automation is available to assist your Help Desk Agents?
4. Is there a knowledge base or history available to allow new users to shorten their learning curve?
A great IT Help Desk is like a CAT Scan. It is supposed to find and correct problems before they get worse.
It can also create good will within any organization to feed information to other team members so that they can head off problems before they arise, or allow the members to repair problems that have taken place.
Also make sure the system has a rules engine that can automatically initiate a Customer Satisfaction Analysis Survey.
Great IT Help Desk Software contains a way to carry out Customer Satisfaction Surveys. That result can then assess the client’s perception of how well your services meet their needs. It can measure the processes and methods to give management feedback on how well you are doing as a trusted IT vendor.
Last but not least, after you have created a feature and performance matrix of your needs, test the application in a real environment for at least 30 days to insure it meets your needs.
