I'm looking to move my customer support to a help desk and bring CS inhouse.... what are you guys using software wise for a help desk?

thanks

D

Hi Dave,

I think you are missing out a few key facts here.

How do you provide, or want to provide, the support? Is it telephone, online chat or email? Perhaps all of them.

What sort of follow up system and logging system do you need?

Do you need reports to track your customer service rep's productivity?

What exactly is the nature of the support you are providing?

What is your budget?

There are lots of nice and free web based systems out there. I use an open source system and it works very well. The only software I paid out for was phplive which cost me £80 as I liked some of the features. I didn't have to spend out on this though as suitable free alternatives were available.

Here are a few links to some free open source systems. If you are not a technical person then get a techy to set it up, it should not take long.

OTRS::Enterprise Open Source Trouble Ticket System - Service Support System::Welcome!

Open source trouble ticketing: SimpleTicket

osTicket:: Open Source Support Ticket System

If these don't suit your needs then just google for more or check out the main script sites as they have lots there.

just looking for something simple and EASY to use.

and thanks for the linkage

You should be aware about making sure whatever system you use is responsive to your customer's needs. The worst thing you can do is to be unresponsive to your customers. that way lies ruin for a marketer.

Something to think about when choosing the system or script. It might not be a bad idea to have a system where the user does not "have to" register. Some people don't want to give up their info, or they would rather be anonymous when, say, leaving feedback.

Just a thought.

My current support/ticket system is register only, I'm probably going to switch to something that doesn't require it.

If you do that then make sure that there are no public links to the page that contains it or you will be found by the spambots and get a load of nonsense advertising tickets. You can write code to protect you but its a hassle.

Oh, of course, I've gotten more than my fair share of spam and have "locked up" all of my online forms. Actually on some directory sites I have, I coded my own protection that stopped all my spam. So far..

Is a good point to keep in mind though.

I remember the days when blog spamming was the new way to market and the 1,000's of spams I had to remove. Not much fun.

best way I found is to block certain words or phrases like "viagra" or "href"

Dave,

There's been a few threads on Warrior on help desks.

One that was recommended to me and I have had good results with it is Maian's Free Help Desk. Here's a link:

Maian Script World - Maian Support - Free Support Ticket PHP Script

Hope that helps,

Mike

We have organized our customer support with bridgetrak suite - powerful helpdesk solution from scriptlogic.

It was very easy to implement and to customize it for our website environment. The user's interface is very intuitive as well and allows users to create issues, to view issue status and to use built in knowledgebase in the most easiest way.

The tool is based on modules structure - you can select from the several modules with the features you need so you won't pay for something that you don't need at all.

Hope this helps!