Best Help Desk Ticketing Systems for Budget-Conscious Small Businesses (SMBs)

Find a SMB-focused Help Desk In Just 40 Seconds, Saving You 11 Hours of Research.

How Does a Help Desk Benefit Customer Service for Small Businesses?

There is a myth that small businesses can’t afford to invest in help desk technology. But, the cost of not investing is higher.

Research shows that disgruntled customers vote with their feet. And then express their displeasure on social media, putting off potential new customers and garnering the company’s reputation for shoddy service. Poor customer service costs global organisations $3.7 trillion annually.

Compared to larger concerns, small businesses often have:

• Fewer support desk employees
• Less capital to invest in technology
• Lower ticket volumes
• No dedicated IT team for the implementation and maintenance of a help desk
• Numerous existing tools and applications that need to be integrated into the support desk system
• Support agents who need to wear multiple hats

Small businesses often feel they have to choose between low costs and having multiple nice-to-have features. In reality, the goal should be somewhere in between – a help desk system that ticks the specific checkboxes required by the business and that comes in within budget.

This may mean eschewing big, complex help desk platforms. At least in the short term; most enterprises started as small businesses.

Enhances the Overall Customer Experience (CX)

For small businesses as well as enterprises, good customer service reduces customer frustrations when they have a problem. Contributing to a positive customer experience creates a good employee vibe that is passed on to the consumer. The result is brand loyalty from customers and staff.

Improves a Company’s Financial Bottom Line

A recent Forbes Advisor poll conducted by market research company OnePoll found that customer service was the top factor affecting customer loyalty (74% of respondents). Forty-eight per cent of respondents said they would pay more for quality customer service and 44% said they would buy more if given a more personalised experience. These factors have a significant impact on an organisation’s return on investment (ROI).

Streamlines Ticketing Processes

A streamlined ticketing system ensures support queries don’t fall through the net. Some systems can convert support queries from multiple channels, like email, phone, chatbots, live chat, social networks, and web page forms into formal tickets and keep them organised.

Help Desk Software helps small business teams to categorise tickets, prioritise tasks, automatically route queries to the appropriate agent, keep track of progress, maintain a collaborative workspace for users, escalate complex and unresolved queries, keep a record of tickets and their status, automatically send out canned replies, and analyse ticket resolution metrics.

Allows Access to Multiple Applications From a Single Location

A help desk integrates with other small business applications like customer relationship managers (CRMs), accounting systems, word processing applications, feedback and customer survey tools, project management software, messaging software, online collaboration workspaces, and conference and meeting software.

Centralises Customer Support Issues Raised on Social Media and Other Digital Channels

Arguably one of the toughest challenges small businesses have is to address issues raised on the internet. It can be a full-time job to keep a finger on the pulse of, and mitigate, negative company mentions.

Help Desk Software for small business can help to scrape digital channels for customer feedback and conversations about their company. AI feedback analysis is a process used to collect and analyse customer feedback, brand mentions, and reviews from various sources.

Guides Future Product Development

Analysing customer and employee feedback helps a business to understand what its users want, inspires innovation, and reduces the new product development cycle.

Speeds up the Execution of Routine Tasks

Ease the workload of internal customer support teams. The automation of mundane processes and self-service frees staff up for more challenging tasks and gives them the time to add the much-vaunted personal touch.

Reduces Training Requirements

Knowledge bases reduce the learning curve for staff and customers who can get up to speed at their own pace.

Managed Support Through a Single Pane of Glass

Help desk tools provide a single pane of glass for different types of users. Self-service options include self-paced training, logging and resolving support issues, using integrated software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, accessing product guides, onboarding documentation, FAQs, workflows, and reporting for managers and company executives.

Enhances Business Reputation and User Trust

According to a PWC survey, 90% of business executives think customers trust their companies but only 30% of consumers say they actually do. Eighty-six percent of business executives think employees trust their company but only 67% of employees say they actually do.

Consumers say quickly responding to and resolving their concerns is their second concern (74%) after protecting their data (79%).

Monitors Service Performance

Dashboards give small businesses support teams fast and easy access to standard help desk metrics, like ticket volumes, response and resolution times, and customer satisfaction and agent performance ratings.

When Is the Right Time to Upgrade Your Support Desk?

The writing is on the wall when:

• Competitors are ranking higher on Google
• Customer retention rates are low
• Customer reviews on social media are negative
• Support response times are high and tickets slip through the cracks
• Your business receives multiple support queries daily
• Your support team is unhappy, drowning in mundane and repetitive tasks

But, with a plethora of options available, how do SMBs and small independent concerns choose the right help desk software for their needs?

Important Considerations For Small Businesses Choosing a Help Desk Solution

Brainstorming Your Requirements

• Who will use it: Internal teams, customers, 3rd parties like vendors and partners
• How will users access it: Locally or in the cloud?
• How many users will use it: Some commercial options have subscription plans that may be priced per user
• What features do you need: Consider first what functionality you currently make use of

Standard Features That Benefit Small Business Operations

• AI assistance
• Automation
• Community forums
• Customer self-service
• Customisation
• Easily implemented
• Free trial before you buy
• Integration capabilities
• Intuitive to use
• Multi-channel support
• Reporting and analytics features
• Scalability
• Security
• Short learning curve
• Social media support

4 Overlooked Capabilities That Give Small Businesses the Edge

The cost of a help desk varies. The more features you want, the higher the cost is likely to be. But focusing exclusively on finding a cheap product could cost you more in the long run. For instance, the cost of a security breach could shut a small business down.

1. Scalability and flexibility: Does the software offer upgrades to an enterprise-level solution as your business grows?
2. Security, data privacy, and regulation compliance: Is your customers’ data secured like Fort Knox?
3. Backups and recovery: Does the software do automated backups and offer a data recovery solution?
4. Vendor support: Does your software vendor manage updates, maintenance, and security?

Challenges Small Businesses Should Address

• Limited resources (money and staff): Choose a cost-effective help desk solution that is scalable in the long term
• IT complexity: Choose a plan that includes vendor support
• Staff of necessity performing multiple roles: Review employees’ job responsibilities and use AI assistance where possible
• Knowledge and skills gaps: Do a complete overhaul of existing documentation
• Security: Never stint on security and take out insurance, however grudgingly

What Is the Cost of Help Desk Software for Small Business?

Almost 40% of customer service managers view customer service as an expense rather than an investment.

Assuming you have decided to do away with brown paper and string, viz. MS Office or iWork, what are your options? And can you afford it?

There is a case for small businesses using enterprise-level help desk tools if they can afford it. The overriding consideration, however, is whether they afford it.

Googling help desk software, you may notice that the pricing page invariably seems designed to confuse consumers, and it is really difficult to compare digital apples and pears. The best way to navigate this minefield and find a ballpark figure is to create a shortlist of products that match your help desk requirements, like:

• How would you like to log help desk incidents?
• What type of incidents do you usually log?
• What kind of help desk do you use (e.g. internal, external, or both)?
• What features will address your help desk requirements?
• How do you currently manage your help desk?
• How many incidents do you log a month?
• How many users use your help desk?
• When do you envisage implementing your help desk?
• What industry is your business?

How Small Businesses Can Implement a Help Desk In 13 Steps

1. Assign a team to research your options and create a project plan.
2. Perform a survey or poll to get feedback from internal staff and external customers about what they expect.
3. Identify the channels you wish to monitor for user feedback.
4. Identify the components/features you want, e.g. live chat, a knowledge base, chatbots, documentation software, etc.
5. Review what integrations you may need, based on the software you currently use.
6. Assign one or more team members to check out solutions offering free trials.
7. Determine user roles and access privileges.
8. Create a shared email inbox and add customer service representatives to it.
9. Create first (canned) responses to queries.
10. Compile knowledge base resources (an opportunity to ditch outdated documents).
11. Make a list of reports and metrics you will use to monitor the efficacy of your help desk.
12. Perform agent training.
13. Test your help desk.

Nifty and Affordable, Best Help Desk Software for Small Business

Some of the most highly ranked help desk solutions may be overkill for small businesses – Zoho, Help Scout, Freshdesk, Zendesk, HappyFox, HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.
Here are some alternative workspaces that tick two of the most attractive features of help desk software small businesses look for; low cost and ease of use.

• Cayzu: Cayzu allows small businesses to create multiple branded self-service portals. It is designed for businesses with multiple products, brands, and agents. Each entity may have a custom interface, but tickets and conversations from all portals are funnelled into a single shared inbox and merged to reduce duplication.
• Hiver: The familiar look and feel of Google Workspace helps diehard Google Workspace fans turn their inboxes into a help desk. It allows micro concerns and small teams to service customer queries across multiple channels, including emails, chats, voice calls, and WhatsApp.
• JetBrain’s YouTrack: YouTrack has a simple interface that is as intuitive to use as your computer’s file manager. It allows micro businesses to create and manage internal and external knowledge bases and store their key business collateral. For small businesses, there’s a fully functional ticketing system. And it’s free for ten or fewer users.
• Suptask: Billed as an integrated ticketing system for Slack, Suptask claims a 76% increase in customer service response times. With Suptask, users who are already working together in Slack never have to leave the platform to manage customer support issues.
• Tidio: With AI assistance, up to 70% of customer inquiries may be answered without human intervention. Waiting times, response times, and staff volumes are reduced.