Oftentimes, clients looking for software solutions to provide support for end users have trouble finding what they’re looking for. This stems from vendors conflating terms for two distinct types of software: help desk software and customer service software. Though similar in concept, they ultimately serve different needs, and clients become frustrated when the two are mixed up. Other terms like service desk, customer relationship management and customer success make the matter more confusing still. If you’re unsure as to whether you need a help desk vs customer service software solution, here are some key points about each.
What Is Customer Service Software?
Customer service software, as the name indicates, provides a platform to connect customers in need of assistance with agents that can provide that assistance. This is also often referred to customer relationship management (CRM).
Traditionally, customers would reach customer service by phone and be redirected to relevant help by the operator. However, in the Internet-centric modern day, there are many more potential channels of communication—customer service may be accessed by email, social media, chat, mobile apps, embedded forms on the business’s website, etc. A major function of customer service software is to integrate these channels into a single interface for agents.
To do this, customer service software contains features such as:
• Ticketing system to track customer requests, allowing agents to prioritize them, refer back to them, etc.
• Access to centralized customer information, including records of previous interactions
• Routing requests to the relevant departments/agents
• Automated responses to emails to confirm receival of requests
• Scripts and templates for agents to follow/use
• Internal chat to allow collaboration between agents
• Tools for helping customers perform troubleshooting on their own, e.g. forums, frequently asked questions, chatbots
All of these are oriented towards ensuring customers get timely and useful responses to their issues, allowing the business to foster good relationships with its customers. The customer service software may also provide customer satisfaction surveys and allow managers to review agent performance.
What Is Help Desk Software?
Like customer service software, help desk software is a platform and set of tools for employees to work efficiently, often focusing on automation of tasks. Also like customer service, help desk software makes use of a ticketing system to track issues. Depending on what you have in mind, though, the similarities may end there.
Help desk software is typically inward facing, as opposed to customer service software being outward facing. The issues being tracked and responded to generally are IT issues and requests from employees. This is often also referred to as IT systems management (ITSM) software. Such software focuses on primary features like internal communication tools and a centralized database of information on managing IT assets. The intent is to aid IT teams in performing their work.
The IT Information Library (ITIL), which describes a framework of best practices for IT services, defines a service desk in this way: “The single point of contact between the service provider and the users”, through which agents track incidents and requests and communicate with users. The help desk, in the ITSM sense, would be a subset of this, as would CRM software.
Which Is Right For You?
Though similar in how the platforms and interfaces are set up, customer service software and help desk software are oriented towards different end goals and contain features specialized for those. The former enables agents to provide effective customer service, while the latter is intended to help IT agents solve in-house requests and problems. The two concepts don’t compete with each other, and a business could find use for both together. Some software solutions even integrate the two together. Because of the confusion with terms, it’s often a good idea to inquire about products by describing your needs instead of navigating specific categories of products. Cazyu Help Desk offers software solutions for handling requests, ticketing incidents and centralizing relevant information for organizations of any scale, including schools and non-profits. Contact us today to see how we can help you.
