In times of operational crisis, being able to respond to queries from a horde your customers baying for your blood, can be the difference between a successful business – or a dying brand.
Being responsive is vital because we live in an era where people can communicate with companies in real-time. Customers can send questions live and in return, they expect to receive quick responses back. Therefore, all consumer-facing businesses need to use helpdesk systems.
What can it do?
Helpdesk systems allow you to track and manage your conversations and interactions with customers. Freshworks in particular offers one of the best helpdesk systems on the market today and here is why.
It is quick to deploy and is an affordable solution for sales, information technology, human resources, and customer support. This is all facilitated with the use of cutting-edge technology via Artificial intelligence (AI).
You might remember ‘Tweetdeck’ which was released back in 2008. It was a third party social media dashboard application useful tool to help for the management of Twitter accounts.
Businesses are now beginning to understand just how beneficial using good, reliable helpdesk software can be.
Well, Tweetdeck was discontinued in 2016 but since developers have learned from this and similar applications and several high-quality helpdesk applications have been developed.
So how does it work?
As an online retailer (selling gadgets or clothing apparel), good helpdesk software can help you store and manage multiple queries (sales, IT, post-sales) coming in from many places.
The system focuses on tickets created within its system. It uses a team inbox to manage incoming tickets from several channels to one location. It also designates and creates custom ticket statuses that work for an organization. These tickets then create canned responses (AI) to common trouble issues for customers.
This Saas software also uses a team huddle solution to bring in expertise on more complicated challenges. It can also integrate information from an array of channels including email, mobile phone, social media, and a chat system.
A practical scenario
Let us say a customer emails you to ask when a brand of shoes or models of your product will be available. But it will only be available in three months’ time.
When the customer contacts you again, say on Twitter, in three months’ time, a good helpdesk software will provide you with the context of the previous conversation. This way you know in advance what they are going to ask. You can use this kind of knowledge to respond to queries and even be proactive with your answers.
Such helpdesk software can also seamlessly merge these two conversation threads across a well set up Email system and Twitter.
The best part is that through the Freshworks system you will still get a response on the channel you contacted the company on. This helps to respect their preferred mode of communication – after all, the customer is always king, right?
Detailed features
On the business front, medium-sized to large business enterprises require scalable helpdesk software with powerful automation capabilities.
This automation function of Freshworks enables the respective support teams to focus purely on attending to support tickets, while the software simultaneously handles routine helpdesk tasks.
How Freshdesk can help
Automatically tag, categorize, and prioritize incoming requests and assign these queries to specific agents based on their roles.
Freshdesk is much more efficient than antiquated email systems since you don’t have to juggle the same inbox, folder structures, and logins between various team members. You can setup SLA policies to ensure your agents’ keep deadlines for solving customer problems. In case deadlines are not met, it can also automatically escalate tickets.
It helps to prevent duplication. It will automatically ensure that multiple agents aren’t trying to answer the same ticket and stop customers from being spammed by multiple responses.
How much does it cost?
Depending on your needs, a part of the core essential product and some of its add-ons are for free. Further specializations come at a cost. Naturally, the paid packages include a lot more functionality and allow for the afore-mentioned customizations.
Freshworks is continuously evolving and is regularly updated with useful features. An example is Freshping, which monitors your website every minute and notifies you instantly if your website goes down.
Then there is ‘Freshconnect’ which allows teams, partners, and agents to collaborate on one platform. There are many task-specific packages depending on your business needs.
Depending on the package, the price of a Freshdesk plan ranges from $15 a month for small businesses to $99 per user per month for larger enterprises, when billed annually and not monthly. Like with most cloud subscriptions, you can start with a free 14-day trial.
Connectivity
Automation lies at the core of any helpdesk software, including Freshworks. It, therefore, works seamlessly with other product platforms to manage workloads. Naturally, it integrates with many existing Customer Relations Management (CRM) solutions to help businesses to become more efficient and productive.
Here are several other practical linkages to popular software such as:
- Dropbox (File storage/sharing);
- Google Hangouts (Chat service);
- Dynamics 365 (CRM and ERP tools);
- MailChimp (Email marketing);
- Microsoft Teams (Collaboration);
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Soft Signals) software.
- WhatsApp (Chat service).
- Slack (Collaboration).
…and many more.
Extra bells & whistles
Helpdesk software can help by intelligently managing agent availability across shifts, geographies, languages, and route tickets to get the quickest response. All backed with a well-equipped resource center and knowledge base to help your agents deal with a growing workload.
On an enterprise level, teams also need a way to measure their team’s performance and implement strategies to improve rapidly where necessary.
Freshworks can, therefore, help with integrating with other business tools such as staffing, billing, and payment systems and package trackers. This brings your sales, marketing HR, and support teams together.
All of Freshworks’s solutions are compliant with industry standards for data protection like TRUSTe, ISO 27001:2013; SSAE – 16 & HIPAA; SOC I, II, III; and GDPR.
The software also has a number of Datacenters across the globe to help you manage your data security challenges as you grow while handling your customer’s data on the cloud.