11 Must-Have Help Desk Software Features
Is your team drowning in a sea of support tickets? Managing, tracking, and resolving issues can feel like a 24/7 job. However, help desk software exists to help you make the mess more manageable and improve consistency and outcomes. With so many options available, which help desk software features really matter?
Let's focus on the must-have features that will make a difference in your day-to-day operations. I've compiled a list of key elements to look for when choosing help desk software, especially for IT departments and other internal teams. These are the features that will help you and your team work smarter, not harder!
What is Help Desk Software?
Help desk software is a tool that manages and organizes customer support requests. These platforms typically offer a ticketing system to help you track, prioritize, and solve customer issues efficiently. It’s essentially a virtual service desk that lets your team automate responses and access a knowledge base for quick problem-solving.
Help desk solutions save your support agents’ time by centralizing communication channels and streamlining support processes. Meanwhile, they help to improve the service experience by providing self-service options for end users. IT help desks are sometimes referred to as IT service management (ITSM) systems.
Top 11 Help Desk Software Features
When searching for the right help desk software, familiarity with the most common and popular features helps set you ahead. When you understand what you’re looking for—and which features are most important to you—you’re better able to narrow down your options. This way, you can find one that best fits your business needs and provides the help desk software benefits you're seeking.
Here are some of the most popular features of help desk software that contribute to smoother operations and a better overall customer experience:
1. Ticket Management
Ticket management is the heart of help desk software. Your help desk ticketing system collects essential information from incoming customer requests, which is then relayed as an open ticket to be handled by the team. Notifications may alert team members when new tickets come through or move from one stage to the next, keeping everyone updated as issue resolutions progress.
Overall, ticketing systems make for much more organized and efficient support operations. Your customer support team will know what issues they’re responsible for and the ticket status of each one. Meanwhile, the support experience will be smoother for end users because the ticketing software ensures no request falls through the cracks.
2. Automated Workflows
Many help desk solutions come with workflow management and automation capabilities. These features help teams standardize and streamline their IT processes, and alleviate the manual work of repetitive tasks. This not only improves response times, it also creates more consistency in the customer experience.
Automation capabilities aren’t a feature you want to overlook. As IT operations continue to advance, the need for exceptional automation tools is also increasing. The Stonebranch 2024 Global State of IT Automation Report finds that:
82% of respondents plan to update or expand their IT automation tools to better orchestrate complex, hybrid environments.
Some common automation capabilities include ticket sorting and prioritization, and assigning tickets to the right team member based on their skills or knowledge. This way, the end user is sent to the right point of contact and the first response is helpful. Automated responses might also be set up to answer common FAQs or help users with basic troubleshooting needs.
3. Knowledge Base
A knowledge base is a very useful feature to have in any help desk environment. It’s essentially an internal wiki that your team can refer to when they’re managing user issues. Your knowledge base holds tons of information to help your team provide better support, and can also contain things like:
- Internal processes
- Templates
- Best practices
- Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
Once established, your knowledge base helps with everything from onboarding new agents to cross-training and standardizing how things get done. Everyone on the team is referring to the same documentation to resolve user issues in a speedy and consistent manner. In turn, your end users will also have an improved experience!
4. Custom Filters and Tags
When tickets come through, support teams generally categorize them so they can be sorted and assigned effectively. Many help desk software allows for custom tags and filters, making for more personalized categorization practices. Especially for IT departments, this is super helpful to get the platform to better match your team’s operations (and not the other way around).
In addition to sorting incoming tickets, custom filters and tags might also exist for setting up your knowledge base. This means you can apply your internal shorthands and company-specific nomenclature to enable speedier search and problem-solving for your support team.
5. Multi-Channel Support
Omnichannel help desks centralize incoming requests from various support channels, such as email, chat, phone, and social media. This is a super helpful feature because it reduces the need for app-switching among agents, and brings all requests together in a single space for sorting and prioritization.
Especially for scaling businesses, getting multi-channel management set up early helps you stay ahead. Fielding requests from Slack, email, and form submissions gets tedious quickly, and all the more so as the number of end users and agents increases.
6. Reporting and Analytics
Your help desk software’s reporting and analytics tools give you a clear picture of the efficiency and performance of your IT support operations. These features help you track key metrics and KPIs like ticket volume, resolution times, and customer satisfaction levels. Some platforms have real-time dashboards that let you track tickets through to resolution and monitor agent performance.
Reporting and analytics tools help you spot trends, identify bottlenecks, and measure your team's performance. You can see which issues are most common, which agents are most productive, and where there's room for improvement. Some advanced reporting tools even use AI to predict future trends or suggest process improvements.
7. Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management
Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management is a crucial feature in help desk software that helps your team meet and exceed service expectations. It automatically tracks response times, resolution deadlines, and other performance metrics based on predefined agreements. This ensures you're delivering top-notch support to your users or customers. SLA features might include things like:
- Customizable policies
- Escalation rules
- Reporting tools
These will help you tailor the system to your specific needs and keep your team accountable. By implementing SLA management, you'll boost customer satisfaction, increase efficiency, and demonstrate the value of your IT department to the organization.
8. Role-Based Access
By assigning specific roles to team members, you ensure data security and clear lines of approval and ownership all around. Some software solutions have established roles, while others allow for customization. Many also have authentication tools like single sign on (SSO) to uphold user permissions.
Access permissions are particularly important for IT consultancies and service providers working with external organizations. You’ll need to provide certain levels of access to your end users but maintain security for your team. Conversely, you’ll also need to demonstrate that you have the right permissions in place to keep their data safe and secure.
9. Self-Service Portal
A self-service portal helps offload some of your team’s work and allows users to seek their own solutions. These portals typically allow users to submit tickets, search through FAQs and help articles, and access other resources. They might also have automated chatbots to help with common issues.
It’s up to your team what you set up for your end users to access. You might only offer a few basic how-to guides, or you could populate it with tons of tutorials or even make your internal knowledge base accessible. It will depend on your unique case, so consider what specific features you want to see in self-service portals when you’re browsing solutions.
10. Integration Capabilities
Like any new piece of technology you’re adding to your stack, you definitely need to consider what integrations are available. Of course, the specific software solutions you’re looking for will depend on what tools you’re currently using, but here are a few types of platforms you might want to connect your help desk to:
- Customer relationship management (CRM) software
- Documentation management software
- Project management software
- Billing and invoicing software
- Team communication and collaboration tools
- Intranet or internal wiki platforms
These integrations allow for easier data exchange and management and will help you streamline and automate your workflows. Some help desk software has native integrations built in, while others rely on third-party integration tools like Zapier. Pay special attention to the integrations available with any software provider you’re considering.
11. Collaboration Tools
The ability for your team to collaborate and solve problems together in real-time is a really useful functionality for help desk software to have. Collaboration tools help your team tap into their collective intelligence and speed up resolution times. Here are some key features to look for:
- In-app messaging
- File and document sharing
- Commenting and tagging
- Collaborative knowledge base
- Shared inboxes
The less your team has to switch apps to work together, the less app-switching will slow them down. Bringing collaboration directly into the platform they’re all using the most reduces inefficiencies and supports teamwork.
How to Choose Help Desk Software
When shopping for help desk software, it's easy to get swept up in analysis paralysis. Does it have the right features? The right integrations? Can you customize it? Is it user-friendly?
Breathe. You've got this. Use this handy pre-purchase checklist for your evaluation and selection process to find the perfect help desk software for your needs:
Help Desk Software Buyer's Checklist
| Criteria | How to Evaluate |
| Scalability | Can the software grow with your business? |
| Integrations | Does it work with your existing tools? |
| Value for Money | Is the pricing fair for the features offered? |
| Customizability | Can you tailor the software to your needs? |
| Industry-Specific Features | Does it cater to your sector's requirements? |
| Ease of Use | Is it intuitive and easy to navigate? |
| Security Safeguards | How does it protect sensitive data? |
| Reporting Capabilities | Can you get the insights you need? |
| Mobile Support | Does it offer on-the-go access? |
| Customer Support | What level of assistance is available? |
| Storage | Is it on-premises, cloud-based, or hybrid? |
Top 10 Help Desk Software
Here are our top picks of the best help desk software to help you in your search:
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