Web-based help desk designed for better customer experience
4.7/5 (163 reviews)
Most companies using Help Desk software are in software development, tech or online commerce of some kind. We're in the boring, traditional business of veterinary medicine practice, and deal with hundreds of emails a day from clients and the rest of the outside world. We're the only vet company I know of that uses a help desk, and we use Help Scout - and absolutely LOVE it. We did use Zendesk previously, but found that it's way too complicated and not very personal. Pet owners don't want to be given a ticket # and feel like they're speaking to a robot. Help Scout solved that immediately when we switched. We have a lot of complex conversations via email that require multiple people being involved, communicating internal messages to each other about certain threads, etc. etc. Help Scout is absolutely fantastic, because it's very elegant in it's simplicity - but tremendously powerful in it's capability. On top of that, we've found their support team to be kick ass, highly responsive and always eager to try and figure out a solution to any issue we bring them. We are very loyal Help Scout clients, and plan to be for a long time.
Pros
- extremely simple to use and understand as a user
- treats communications like human beings and provides a much more personal feel to communication (as opposed to making people feel like numbers)
- fantastic support team that's very responsive and solution focused
- solid API that allows you to bring in data from other apps so that you have a consolidated view of a client, beyond just their email history
Cons
- wish that the interface could be a little more customized for our specific needs
- really don't have any downsides to it - it's a great product
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
Excellent. While there is some admittedly cool functionality that other CRMs offer at higher prices, they don't make sense for our current business needs and you really can't beat Helpscout when it comes to their customer service and help resources. It's excellent working with a team who really care what their customers and their customers' customers think.
Pros
Their entire philosophy is centered around customer satisfaction and success. This mirrors our own approach and it's great seeing that in action. They are also great at handling questions and service requests, and I love all the support and information resources they offer.
Cons
I wish the reporting functions were better and more detailed. Sometimes when something wasn't functioning in a way that worked for it, their response was suggesting a work around that would require a service plan upgrade when I figured out a work around that could work at our current level, but that is a very minor gripe.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 9/10
Help Scout helps out in a pinch. I definitely recommend any company or business that has a customer support component to it to use their software and platform to start.
Pros
When I used to work at ActBlue as a support associate, I really liked Help Scout's ticketing system. It was straightforward and less confusing than Intercom. Escalating and de-escalating issues was pretty easy. Help Scout is a huge help for customer service, people oriented folks like me.
Cons
This is just a theory but I feel like Help Scout works better with certain email addresses than others. For people who have older emails such as hotmail, aol, or yahoo - their messages don't come across so clearly, which makes helping our customers and clients a real challenge.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 8/10
When looking for customer service platforms, a lot of people will want it to feel human. Oddly, I love that it can be used to send confidential documents securely, and I don't have to interact. It's a great timesaver that way, especially when the people on the other end are using it for the same reason. Yes, you can add more personality and humanity, but in my case, I like being able to work uninterrupted, and no one ever has to say "have a nice day" because all we're doing is sending documents. If you're looking for something a little more personal -- it can absolutely be used that way. The notes and chat functions are helpful, and Help Scout is pretty adaptable to whatever your customer service philosophy entails.
Pros
-Extremely easy to set up, add employees to, and use on a daily basis without hassle.
-Love the option to assign communications and update the status of them.
-Simple, straightforward design.
-Did I mention is was easy? Almost no training required.
Cons
-It would be nice to have more customization options. The simplicity is of appeal here, but the limitations are noticeable.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 8/10
Help Scout is a very user intuitive and helpful tool to keep all your customer support interactions gathered and managed in a single place. Very responsive and easy to use Web app console which I am making use of on a daily basis.
Pros
I was impressed by the overall features and functionality of this product. In the basic pricing plan it allows you to create up to three support mailboxes and thus supporting three organizations with a single account. Each mailbox can be configured with an associated beacon, i.e. chat and customer support monitoring with customizable behavior depending on what end user experience you wish to offer to your customer support. Last but not least Help Scout features documentation pages which act as a knowledge base for supporting your users and thus eliminating support calls.
Cons
I would like to see more granular configurations made available in the aesthetic side of a knowledge base. I would also like to see the basic plan to support up to three knowledge bases out of the box without an extra charge beyond the first one.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 9/10
Basic: $15 user / month, or $10 user / month billed annually
Standard: $25 user / month, or $20 user / month billed annually
Plus: $40 user / month, or $35 user / month billed annually
Help Scout serves businesses from small to enterprise. Plans range from Free to keep everyone on the same page, to Standard for automation features and reporting, to Plus for advanced reporting & features designed for large teams.
All Plans include 24x7 support, unlimited volume & storage, and 40+ third party integrations.
Help Scout is an invisible, email-based help desk for companies who value their customers. A great customer experience thrives on effortless communication, and Help Scout facilitates this by focusing on creating conversations. One key feature of Help Scout is that from a customer standpoint, communication is personal. From the support side, you can manage multiple inboxes and brands, track and organize your customer’s conversations, add notes, collaborate with team members, and a lot more.
Help Scout’s features are deliberately designed to support the front line, helping your customer service team to provide excellent support. Some of these features are integrated knowledge base, real-time reports, workflows that filter emails and automate actions, saved replies, and collision detection.
Help Scout is a web-based help desk with an intuitive interface that keeps all of your support requests in one place. With a robust API, real-time reporting, an integrated knowledge base, and features that enhance team collaboration, the end result is tailored to focus on what matters: your customers.
Created for companies committed to providing a delightful customer experience, Help Scout is used by businesses of all sizes - freelancers, authors, nonprofits enterprises, e-commerce, and SaaS.
Help Scout is trusted by 5,000 customers in 70+ countries, including Basecamp, Buffer, GrubHub, AngelList and Timbuk2.
This design feature represents Help Scout’s core value: It’s about conversations, not ticket numbers. Customers don’t feel like they’re just a number or waiting in a long line. Instead of a corporate template, Help Scout’s email response layout is designed to be personal.
Help Scout offers Docs, a knowledge base that you can install in just a few clicks. Everyone on your support team can easily create step-by-step articles and tutorials to help customers 24/7 and keep support requests to a minimum.
Creating articles in Docs is simple. You can create them from scratch, or upload existing HTML, Markdown or text files. Links, images, videos, and file attachments are all supported. With a simple style guide, content can be formatted in many ways from top to bottom. Once installed, you can also upload your company’s logo and instantly get a website that looks good on any device.
Help Scout is equipped with real-time reporting, helping managers understand what’s happening on the support front, no matter the time of day. Viewed within the dashboard, Help Scout reports are categorized into four categories: Conversations, Productivity, Team, and Happiness.
Conversation metrics show the busiest time of day, conversations answered, number of customers, and more. Productivity focuses on the help desk’s efficiency metrics, such as time spent answering conversations, first response time, and resolution times. Team/User reports allow high-level insights into the metrics of each team member, such as the number of customers helped and the handle time. Happiness scores are derived from customer feedback to gauge the overall customer experience. Help Scout’s report filters (tag, folder, or conversation type) helps focus your reports on the data that you’re interested in.
Help Scout’s workflows function like Gmail filters or other email client rules. Workflows can both be manual or automatic. Automatic workflows are IF/THEN statements, where actions take place automatically when conditions are met, i.e., if a conversation has “billing” in the subject line, then it’ll be assigned to the appropriate person. The user can apply manual workflows at any time to a single conversation, or in bulk. Manual workflows require user action.
The “auto-reply” is a mailbox-specific feature that sends when new messages are generated, i.e., “Hey, we got your message and we’ll be in touch soon!” Everyone on the team can use Saved Replies (often called “canned responses”) to quickly answer common questions.
Whenever you work on a conversation in Help Scout, you see visual indicators that tell you if a colleague is working on the same task and what actions they’re currently performing, e.g., viewing or replying — a feature referred to as the Traffic Cop, which prevents duplicate replies from being sent. If someone has replied ahead of you, Traffic Cop allows you to review the updates and then gives you the option to send your pending reply as is, edit it, or discard it altogether.
Each message flagged by Traffic Cop is flagged in a Needs Attention folder located on the sidebar. Once the threads are addressed, the folder automatically disappears. Traffic Cop is on by default but, although not recommended, can be disabled upon request.
Help Scout integrates with over 40 third-party applications that include AgileCRM, [Capsule] (http://www.getapp.com/capsule-crm-application) and [Highrise] (http://www.getapp.com/highrise-crm-application) for CRM, [HipChat] (http://www.getapp.com/hipchat-application), [Slack] (http://www.getapp.com/slack-application) and Talkdesk for communication, [Constant Contact] (http://www.getapp.com/email-marketing-from-constant-contact-application), [Infusionsoft] (http://www.getapp.com/infusionsoft-crm-tool-for-small-businesses-application) and [MailChimp] (http://www.getapp.com/mailchimp-application) for marketing, [BigCommerce] (http://www.getapp.com/bigcommerce-application), [Freshbooks] (http://www.getapp.com/freshbooks-application) and [Magento] (http://www.getapp.com/magento-application-1) for ecommerce and invoicing, and FullStory, [KISSmetrics] (http://www.getapp.com/kissmetrics-application) and Segment.io for analytics.
Help Scout has one price with no surprises – $15 per user per month. They also offer a free plan that includes a maximum of three users and one mailbox. There are no email storage or processing limits on either plan.
Docs is offered at a flat rate, $25 per month, and not tied to any user accounts . Customer support is readily available for all customers, and there aren’t any customization fees.
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