Best Online Help Desk Software Shortlist
Here are the top 10 online help desk software I’d like to highlight out of the 20 I cover in this article:
Online help desk software acts as a single point of contact for customers to get a hold of your business and an opportunity for your managers to handle customer communications and queries. These tools provide your customers with a way to submit questions and complaints for your teams to resolve. They also give managers a central information and management source where they can gather and organize customer communications, solve inquiries, and manage support teams.
Using online help desk software can help your customer support teams improve workflows, manage requests, and enhance customer experiences. Studies show that 72% of customers will share positive experiences with six or more people. So, you can see how implementing a help desk platform in your business will be your best bet - and it’s why I put this list together to help you choose the right tool by listing its vital features and pricing details.
What Is Online Help Desk Software?
Help desk software is a tool that will help your organization manage employee or customer queries and requests. These platforms provide customers with features to help them quickly get help without going through a long process. Your business can use online help desk software to centralize customer requests, allowing your customer support team to send them to the right agent, maintain an interaction history, and develop self-service tools, such as knowledge bases and ticket statuses, for quick resolutions.
Typically, help desk software will connect your company to customers through various contact points, such as text support, email, and chatbots, and route the requests to your service desk team. They will give your teams actionable insights for better resource management and solve any bottlenecks in your ticket pipeline. Modern tools also provide analytics and in-depth learning features to help you enhance your help desk capabilities.
How I Selected The Best Online Help Desk Software
Perhaps you're wondering how I selected the best online help desk software for this list? To build this top 10 list, I evaluated and compared a wide range of online help desk software with positive user ratings.
After determining my long list of top choices, I further honed my list by using the selection criteria below to see how each platform stacked up against the next one. I also drew on my years of CX experience to pinpoint the features that add a lot of value.
If you have general questions about online help desk strategy or how to pick the best online help desk software for your organization, take a look at our frequently asked questions section below. Or, you can skip directly to my detailed software summaries, if that's what you need the most.
Selection Criteria
Here’s a short summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best online help desk software for this article:
User Interface (UI):
Too much complexity in a platform’s user interface can be misleading. You should focus on implementing a system that makes it easy to locate and use the features your agents need most. When choosing the online help desk software for this list, I look for tools that provide a simple user interface and a demo or free trial that will allow you to experience the UI for yourself.
Usability:
The help desk software’s usability is a crucial criterion when deciding the right tool for your organization. A platform that’s easy to implement and use will help decrease the amount of training your teams will need to understand the tool. I look for help desk tools that provide easy-to-use features that will enhance your team’s productivity.
Software Integrations:
Software integrations will enhance help desk adoption among your team since they can connect the tool with the tech stacks they’re already using. Also, if your services include hardware support or device maintenance, or your teams handle any type of hardware in any way, it’s best to implement a help desk solution that can integrate with IT asset management systems. So, I look for online help desk software that can synchronize with various platforms and provide a free API that will allow you to create custom integrations.
Pricing:
Typically, online help desk software offers businesses different pricing options. The most common being pay-per-ticket or pay-per-user. When shopping around for options to add to this list, I look for tools that provide the most significant number of features for a reasonable price to help you get a return on your investment. Also, some vendors provide an open-source solution, which means the tool will be free, making it beneficial for smaller businesses or startups.
Overviews Of The 20 Best Online Help Desk Software
You can use the simple overviews of each tool below to understand how each tool stands out from other online help desk software.
LiveAgent
Best for simplicity
LiveAgent focuses on simplicity while providing businesses with robust online help desk capabilities.
Why I picked LiveAgent: Like many help desk platforms, LiveAgent provides many features you can use to give your customers excellent experiences from a simple tool. The platform’s easy-to-use interface and intuitive features are similar to what you might find in popular social media platforms. LiveAgent also provides your agents with a universal inbox where they can work on incoming customer tickets, tag and add notes to issues, and automate canned messages.
LiveAgent provides an online help desk platform for small and medium-sized businesses searching for a solution to help them provide excellent experiences to customers around the globe. All of the tools within LiveAgent are easily customizable, which allows you to create and simplify workflows to your requirements. Also, the software offers intelligence tools, including analytics, performance reports, agent rankings, and other data features.
LiveAgent Standout Features and Integrations
Features include agent collision detection, agent ranking, canned messages, automated ticket distribution, chat history, time tracking, ticket export, service level agreements, max queue length, customer feedback and suggestions, and website visitor tracking.
Integrations include CloudTalk, ProjectManager, GetResponse, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, Slack, Post Affiliate Pro, Zapier, Shopify, AWeber, Wufoo, Klipfolio, OpenCart, and Highrise.
LiveAgent costs from $12/user/month when paying monthly or $9/user/month when billed annually. LiveAgent offers a free 30-day trial for new subscribers who sign up under a company email or a 7-day trial for anyone signing up under a free email address.
Pros
- Tracking pending tickets is simple
- Easy to navigate
- Real-time chat ensures efficient data flow
Cons
- The mobile application needs improvement
- Some early implementation issues
NinjaOne (formerly NinjaRMM)
Best for ticketing automation
NinjaOne helps IT businesses simplify how their teams work by providing robust ticketing automation capabilities.
Why I picked NinjaOne: The platform is another help desk solution that focuses on providing IT organizations with features to enhance customers’ experiences. With NinjaOne, your business will get a comprehensive ticket automation platform to help with manual tasks. The platform will automatically populate critical information into service tickets and use robust automation rules and alerts to create, route, and escalate tickets. This will help your organization ensure every IT technician receives the correct ticket so they can properly utilize their expertise.
NinjaOne is suitable for any sized IT organization that needs online help desk software that will help technicians be quick on their feet when it comes to remediation. NinjaOne provides your businesses with help desk capabilities that facilitate advanced ticketing capabilities by linking the tickets the tool generates to respective end users, devices, and companies. With unified tools and features, your technicians can use the software to provide efficient support from a centralized area.
NinjaOne Standout Features and Integrations
Features include customizable branding, interaction tracking, knowledge base, document storage, IT asset management, omnichannel communication, network monitoring, incident management, real-time chat, and a self-service portal.
Integrations include Supportbench, HaloPSA, ConnectWise, TeamViewer, Okta, OneLogin, Liongard, Narmada, BrightGauge, ScalePad, PagerDuty, Slack, StorageCraft, and SherpaDesk.
NinjaOne offers custom pricing upon request. NinjaOne provides a free trial but doesn’t specify its length.
Pros
- Easy to deploy
- Excellent user interface
- Helpful customer support
Cons
- Alerts and notifications need work
- Updating the software is complex
ProProfs Help Desk
Best for customer interaction management
ProProfs Help Desk helps businesses focus on enhancing customer interactions so everyone has a positive experience.
Why I picked ProProfs Help Desk: The platform provides your business with customer interaction management capabilities that enable your agents to respond to customer queries, offer 24/7 assistance, and connect with them. ProProfs Help Desk helps your agents offer promptness, personalization, empathy, and assurance when interacting with customers. You can use the platform to get an overview of past customer interactions and activities so your agents can provide a personal touch to future conversations. For more effective customer interaction management, you can use ProProfs Help Desk’s team collaboration capabilities to help your agents work together and make customers happy.
ProProfs Help Desk works for organizations of all sizes that need a solution catered to the growing needs of customers within their industries. It’s a cloud-based ticketing system that is well known for its shared inbox feature, where your agents can access, view, and assign tickets to the right team member while working in a collaborative space. Your managers can use ProProfs Help Desk to prioritize, label, and mark tickets that require immediate attention.
ProProfs Help Desk Standout Features and Integrations
Features include shared inboxes, notification templates, customizable agent availability, ticket exporting, team management, ticket history, roles and permissions, internal chat, omnichannel support, SLA management, real-time chat support, and automated responses.
Integrations include Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Pros
- Easy-to-use interface
- Ensures excellent customer experiences
- Incredible customer support
Cons
- No API is available
- A small number of integrations
Freshdesk
Best for call center support
Freshdesk is a multi-use online help desk software that works well for businesses that operate a call center setting.
Why I picked Freshdesk: After implementing Freshdesk, your call center will get access to various tools, such as a shared inbox, knowledge base tools, and chat capabilities, which make it simple for you and your teams to manage support requests. Freshdesk also provides an incoming call minutes allowance so your customer support agents can handle customer phone calls. If your organization needs a wide range of integrations, Freshdesk will be a great benefit, thanks to its ability to integrate with over 1,000 third-party apps.
Freshdesk helps any sized business implement a help desk in their operations that’s customizable to their requirements. It provides an AI tool it calls Freddy, and what Freddy allows you to do is automate ticket routing to your best agents. Freshdesk has built-in reporting and data capabilities that enable you to refine support processes across multiple communication channels. You can also use the platform’s social media integration to convert brand mentions and messages into tickets your agents can respond to.
Freshdesk Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a team inbox, agent collision detection, SLA management, ticket field suggester, custom ticket status, team huddle, linked tickets, shared ownership, ticket dispatch, intelligent ticket assignment, and time-triggered automation.
Integrations include Google Calendar, Slack, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, Office 365, Freshsales, Dropbox, HubSpot CRM, Microsoft Teams, Harvest, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, Chargebee, 3CX, Asana, Magento, and Zapier.
Freshdesk costs from $18/user/month when paying monthly or $15/user/month when billed annually. Freshdesk offers a free 21-day trial for new subscribers. The vendor also provides a free forever subscription tier.
Pros
- Impressive automation capabilities
- Incredibly intuitive and user-friendly
- Excellent customer service email organization
Cons
- Integrating with existing processes is tedious
- Some technical issues
Help Scout
Best all-in-one help desk software
Help Scout provides an all-in-one help desk software that enables businesses to prioritize customer satisfaction.
Why I picked Help Scout: The platform is an all-in-one solution that provides you with nearly every feature you need to simplify help desk processes. Help Scout helps you and your support agents manage customer support requests from a centralized location. So, your customers can reach your company using the channel they prefer, and your team can handle their requests from a single source.
Help Scout helps businesses of any size that need online help desk software that provides the necessary tools to deliver excellent customer experiences. The platform comes with pre-built dashboards out-of-the-box, so you can see your team’s performance immediately. You can also create custom reports within Help Scout that will allow you to focus on the metrics that matter most.
Help Scout Standout Features and Integrations
Features include a knowledge base, queue management, workflow management, email management, live chat, performance metrics, a self-service portal, network monitoring, real-time chat, IT asset management, document storage, and automated routing.
Integrations include HubSpot, Jira, Salesforce, Slack, Mailchimp, Freshbooks, CircleLoop, Olark, Shopify, Pipedrive, Infusionsoft, Mixpanel, WooCommerce, Aircall, Constant Contact, Magento, Campaign Monitor, and Zapier.
Help Scout costs from $25/user/month when paying monthly or $20/user/month when billed annually. Help Scout offers a free 15-day trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Simple to get started
- Easy to organize and track issues
- Straightforward navigation and user interface
Cons
- The mobile app needs improvement
- Reporting can be limited
HelpDesk
Best for team collaboration
HelpDesk provides businesses with a robust feature set that enables teams to collaborate and become more efficient.
Why I picked HelpDesk: The platform provides your organization with a ready-to-use, out-of-the-box help desk platform that helps your teams collaborate effectively without overcomplicating things. HelpDesk offers ticket management tools that allow your agents to tag customer support tickets and group them based on common solutions, so your agents can work together and resolve customers’ inquiries. The software’s automation tools allow you to establish ticket routing rules that ensure customer tickets go to the right agent.
HelpDesk works well for startup businesses to enterprise-level organizations that need a platform to help them improve customer service. It uses a single dashboard to create tickets from requests from sources such as incoming emails, contact forms, live chat, and other channels. HelpDesk also provides features like automated task assignments, custom automated workflows, and canned responses to optimize response times.
HelpDesk Standout Features and Integrations
Features include AI text enhancements, custom fields, email templates, automated workflows, ticket management, bulk actions, canned responses, collision detection, ticket assignment, and reports and analytics.
Integrations include LivEchat, Zapier, Shopify, Jira, HubSpot, Salesforce, and GitHub.
HelpDesk costs from $34/user/month when paying monthly or $29/user/month when billed annually. HelpDesk offers a free 14-day trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Provides real-time reports and insights
- The user interface is very user-friendly
- Effectively tracks and follows up on requests
Cons
- Some connection problems can occur
- Multiple email threads are messy
Front
Best shared team inbox software
Front is a shared inbox platform that allows agents to communicate with customers from personal business email addresses within an online help desk solution.
Why I picked Front: With Front, your business can connect email, social media, and SMS messaging within a shared inbox. It includes features to help enhance agent productivity, such as internal notes and automation capabilities to reduce repetitive, manual work. Since your agents will be working on customer support tickets from a shared inbox space, they’ll be working from the same ticket queue, and the tool’s built-in message assignments will let everyone know who’s working on what. If an agent is absent, your other team members can pick up where they left off, thanks to Front’s conversation history feature.
Front is suitable for any business needing a collaboration tool to help them grow robust relationships with customers. Your teams can work together in the team inbox with collision detection to ensure they’re not duplicating work. Front also provides in-depth analytics to help you get a better understanding of team workloads, customers’ experiences, and other vital details.
Front Standout Features and Integrations
Features include workflow automation, omnichannel communications, reporting and analytics, shared inbox, scheduled messages, message templates, automation rules, load balancing, SLA reports, data export, and team management.
Integrations include Aircall, Asana, Dialpad, ClickUp, Zapier, Zendesk Sell, Shopify, Slack, Zoho CRM, Salesforce, Ringover, Intercom, Pipedrive, Dropbox, HubSpot, and JustCall.
Pros
- Great for team collaboration
- Excellent tag recommendations
- Easy-to-use email inbox
Cons
- Locating archived emails is complex
- Not much analytics flexibility
Hubspot Service Hub
Best CRM capabilities within a help desk platform
Thanks to the software’s CRM capabilities, HubSpot Service Hub enables agents to get full customer data for every issue.
Why I picked HubSpot Service Hub: The platform provides your business with the standard conversational tools that you might find in other online help desk software. But where HubSpot Service Hub sets itself apart is the CRM functionality you get when using it. All of the data your agents receive or input into the system feeds back into the CRM, enabling your customer support teams to improve customer relationships.
HubSpot Service Hub helps businesses of any size across all industries that need a solution to help them provide an excellent customer experience. It enables you to build self-service help solutions to help your customers find the answers they need without speaking with an agent. HubSpot Service Hub also lets your teams respond to customers’ questions in real-time.
HubSpot Service Hub Standout Features and Integrations
Features include contact management, ticketing, live chat, team email, conversation routing, simple ticket automation, a reporting dashboard, shared inbox, multiple ticket pipelines, help desk automation, a knowledge base, customer portals, and conversation intelligence.
Integrations include Zendesk, Brandfolder, Klipfolio, Wrike, monday.com, Pendo, Okta, Dialpad, Chargebee, Intercom, Aircall, Outgrow, Salesforce, Slack, Zapier, SurveyMonkey, and CallRail.
HubSpot Service Hub costs from $20/month when paying monthly or $18/month when paid annually. HubSpot Service Hub offers a free forever subscription tier.
Pros
- The software is scalable
- Easy-to-use, intuitive navigation
- Provides excellent agent performance visibility
Cons
- No notifications regarding updates
- Difficult to assign ticket collaborators
Zoho Desk
Best for prioritizing tickets based on the severity
Zoho Desk helps businesses prioritize customer tickets based on severity to agents can resolve the most pressing inquiries immediately.
Why I picked Zoho Desk: Among all the best online help desk software available, Zoho Desk provides your business with features that will categorize customer support tickets based on importance or overdue flags. It uses contextual AI to help simplify your customer care and prioritize an enormous number of tickets that your agents receive across various channels. Your teams can filter tickets in the Zoho Desk platform to find on-hold or overdue tickets, so they can see what they need and focus on what matters most.
Zoho Desk is an ideal help desk tool for small and medium-sized businesses looking for a solution that will enable their agents to provide support across multiple channels and self-service capabilities. The software allows users to provide support on channels such as phone, email, live chat, social media, and web forms. Zoho Desk uses an AI assistant the vendor calls Zia, which can speak to customers, perform sentiment analysis, and auto-tag customer support tickets.
Zoho Desk Standout Features and Integrations
Features include omnichannel support, instant messaging, a multi-department help center, ticket auto-tagging, sentiment analysis, AI notifications, reply assistance, guided conversations, embeddable self-service, and ticket assignment automation.
Integrations include RingCentral, Twilio, GoTo Connect, Pipedrive, Zadarma, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Slack, Zoho CRM, Microsoft Teams, Trello, Jira, Zoho Analytics, Zapier, and JustCall.
Zoho Desk costs from $9/user/month when paying monthly or $7/user/month when billed annually. Zoho Desk offers a free 15-day trial for new subscribers.
Pros
- Centralizes customer interactions
- Efficient ticket handling
- Affordable pricing
Cons
- Limited customization options
- The user interface is outdated
Zendesk
Best for omnichannel support
Zendesk simplifies customer experiences across multiple channels and enables businesses to have efficient, natural customer interactions.
Why I picked Zendesk: When operating a help desk, you’re likely relying on different communication channels to interact with customers, including social media, SMS, and live chat. Zendesk offers omnichannel capabilities that allow your teams to communicate with customers across these channels in a central platform. The platform’s omnichannel features will help your agents meet and help customers wherever they choose to reach out to your organization.
Zendesk works well for businesses of any size that need a solution that will enable agents to track issues, trouble tickets, changes, and assets while providing excellent customer experiences. The software’s ticket management workflows allow your agents to search your customers’ history and get a personalized view of ticket statuses and where you can track ongoing performance. You can use Zendesk to make your team’s work easier thanks to the tool’s built-in scripted responses that the tool automatically sends to customers, making the work easier for your employees and saving them time.
Zendesk Standout Features and Integrations
Features include smart triggers, canned responses, SLA management, real-time updates, asset management, omnichannel support, custom views, feedback management, trend analysis, knowledge management, and sentiment analysis.
Integrations include Zoho Analytics, Klaviyo, monday.com, Aircall, Zapier, Mailchimp, Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Shopify, Quickbooks, Trello, Wrike, 3CX, CloudTalk, Domo, Pandadoc, Recurly, and GetResponse.
Pros
- Role permissions work well
- Easy to manage ticket routing
- Robust support features
Cons
- Limited ticket search queries
- Automation rules aren’t explained well
The Best Online Help Desk Software Summary
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | LiveAgent Best for simplicity | 30-day free trial | From $15/agent/month | Visit Website |
2 | NinjaOne (formerly NinjaRMM) Best for ticketing automation | 30-day free trial | Customized price upon request | Visit Website |
3 | ProProfs Help Desk Best for customer interaction management | 15-day free trial | From $30/user/month | Visit Website |
4 | Freshdesk Best for call center support | 21-day free trial | From $18/agent/month | Visit Website |
5 | Help Scout Best all-in-one help desk software | 15-day free trial | From $25/user/month | Visit Website |
6 | HelpDesk Best for team collaboration | 14 days free trial | From $34/agent/month for the team plan | Visit Website |
7 | Front Best shared team inbox software | Free trial available | From $19/user/month | Visit Website |
8 | Hubspot Service Hub Best CRM capabilities within a help desk platform | Offers free forever subscription tier | Starts from $20/month when paying monthly | Visit Website |
9 | Zoho Desk Best for prioritizing tickets based on the severity | Freemium version + 15-day free trial of paid plans available | Plans start at $7/month | Visit Website |
10 | Zendesk Best for omnichannel support | 14-day free trial | From $49/user/month | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best online help desk software list:
- ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Best for IT service management
- Salesforce Service Cloud
Best for personalizing interactions with AI
- GreenRope
Best for combining sales, marketing, operations, and support tools
- Gmelius
Best for third-party integrations
- SolarWinds Service Desk
Best asset management solution
- HaloITSM
Best for out-of-the-box ITSM help desk capabilities
- InvGate Service Desk
Best web-based help desk
- Hiver
Best for turning Gmail into a robust customer support tool
- Bitrix24
Best open-source help desk tool
- Intercom
Best for resolving queries without human support
People Also Ask
Here are a few popular questions answered for your convenience!
What are the Key Features of Online Help Desk Software?
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Choosing the Best Online Help Desk Software For Your Team
Implementing a new help desk platform will be a significant investment for your customer support team, customers, and business. After reading this list of the best online help desk software, you’ll find that many options offer the same common features. Even so, you should always consider the aspects I listed above that make them unique despite these commonalities. A long feature list is good to have, but remember to make a choice with a broader framework in mind.
Remember, the cost of not focusing on enhancing your customer’s experience with your business can be high. So, taking the time to make informed decisions will be a significant benefit for your organization and customers. To help with this, we put together the CX Lead newsletter with the latest customer experience advice and tool list that will help you encourage your customers to keep coming back. Sign up today and get the latest information directly in your inbox.