The Best Helpdesk Software of 2016

Keeping customers and employees happy is a vital consideration for business owners; in fact, it's one of a company's top priorities whether it's a small to medium-size business (SMB) or a large organization. Customer service and service management businesses tick thanks to the right helpdesk software. No matter what size business you own, it's vital to choose the right helpdesk software that can satisfy your company's particular needs.

Fortunately, you are not short of options as there is a wide range of different helpdesk software available—some better suited for SMBs while others more suited for larger organizations. But not all helpdesk software was created equal. The differences between them can be both large and small, with features often minor to one business but game-changing to another. For example, helpdesk software such as Cayzu, Freshdesk, HappyFox, Vivantio Pro, and Zendesk include social tie-ins that allow tickets to be raised from websites such as Twitter; this could be an important feature to one company but pointless to another. Or helpdesk software such as Jira Service Desk and Revelation provide additional security measures and identity management (primarily single sign-on) features, which may be key differentiators to some companies but not to others.

In this roundup, we tested 15 different helpdesk software offerings including Cayzu, Desk.com, Freshdesk, Freshservice, HappyFox, Jira Service Desk, Kayako, Mojo Helpdesk, Revelation, Samanage, ServiceDesk Plus (SDP) 9.1, Teamwork Desk, TeamSupport, Vivantio Pro, and Zendesk. All of these helpdesk solutions are available as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This means you don't have to install any of the helpdesk software onto a local machine. As SaaS solutions, all of the helpdesk software tested can be run on someone else's servers—a fact that could appeal to many owners of SMBs.

ITIL Adherence

During testing, we discovered that some helpdesk software stood out from the others due to their adherence to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). ITIL is a framework within which many IT management companies work. It is a set of best practices that include many processes, procedures, tasks, and checklists. Having ITIL effectively govern how your company does things can be both constraining yet beneficial, depending upon your particular industry. We believe that ITIL should be followed whenever possible, even if it does seem to be a bit overbearing for smaller enterprises.

The helpdesk software tested fall into one of two camps: those that follow ITIL's guidelines and those that don't follow them. The software that does follow ITIL—which were the more advanced services tested such as Freshservice and ServiceDesk Plus (SDP) 9.1—would make more sense to larger businesses working in the service management industry, perhaps overseeing data centers or large corporations in which service-level agreements (SLAs) and penalties are more than simple buzzwords. If your business follows ITIL, then you should opt for a helpdesk software offering that adheres to ITIL's framework.

But not all businesses that need helpdesk software follow ITIL or even need to. For example, if you are a software developer looking for something to handle incoming support requests from customers, then strong change management (something ITIL governs) probably isn't something you need. And Freshdesk, one of the helpdesk software offerings tested, is not likely to be useful to a company that's in charge of maintaining a large data center. Some businesses that don't adhere to ITIL may focus more on customer service where tickets generated from social media are offered. These businesses would benefit from helpdesk solutions such as Cayzu, Desk.com, HappyFox, and Zendesk. So, first determine whether or not ITIL is something your business needs to follow and shop accordingly.

Key Capabilities

All of the helpdesk software tested contain key features required to make the grade as even the most rudimentary of helpdesk applications. Some of those common features include giving agents the ability to create support tickets, edit the tickets, and then close the tickets when the issue or question has been resolved. This ticket handling, and whether or not they do it well, was one of the basic standards we had in mind while testing the helpdesk software in this roundup. Another feature common to all of the helpdesk software tested include the ability to receive tickets by email. And finally, most of the helpdesk software offer a knowledge base, which provides different content for agents and customers. Freshdesk, for example, lets you create separate sections of the knowledge base that are accessible only to some of your customers or you can create private documentation for your agents with in-depth technical information.

Another key feature any good helpdesk app should have is the ability to communicate with other apps. The data gathered by service desk consoles can be invaluable to several other areas of the average business. For example, if you're using your helpdesk app to handle customer service calls regarding a product or service the company is selling then the data tghe system generates can give a serious boost to your customer relationship management (CRM) database, thus empowering your sales staff. If you're using social media as a service desk channel, then making sure your social media management tools are tracking customer interactions is another great data source.

These are all examples of very basic capabilities that any helpdesk software offering should provide, and most of the helpdesk software tested met these requirements. So keep those basic requirements in mind as you read the 15 reviews. HappyFox and Vivantio Pro were the two helpdesk software offerings that won our Editors' Choice awards. HappyFox would satisfy the customer service needs of SMBs while Vivantio Pro is more suited to large businesses with its focus on ITIL and asset management.