Support tickets. Free and premium ticket systems of support services - List of the best. RSTickets Pro control panel
With the advent of new technologies and online services, the customer service sector has reached a qualitatively new level. In particular, this concerns the satisfaction of consumer needs. Now, if the user has a problem, he can leave a request with a description of the issue and a request for help in solving it. Thus, the site provider can consider this request and give the consumer its answer.
However, the process of submitting support tickets is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. This includes filling out a form, sending confirmation emails, assigning a complaint to a specific support person, analyzing and resolving the problem, updating accounts, and sending notifications. emails And so on. Companies with a large client base you should use the request system to quickly, in an organized and efficient way to solve the problems of your customers.
In our article you will find a list of the best free and advanced premium systems for technical support users. We will cover the options they offer, plans and other details.
Free technical support systems for users
Let's start with five support systems that you can download for free. Decide what exactly you want from them, and make your choice.
- one of the most popular and publicly available technical support systems for users. OsTicket has two versions: downloadable and hosted. The downloadable version is free and hosted on your own service. As for the second version, which is called SupportSystem, this paid service with reliable and secure cloud hosting.
is free software for customer support. It offers options such as enrollment, spam protection, email notifications, apps, knowledge base, access restrictions, template responses, reports, ranking, etc.
It is a free software suite for IT professionals and companies. The service offers many tools such as a network manager, helpdesk software, questions/answers, and more. Their support program is equipped with features such as ticket acceptance via web portal or email, ticket organization and automation, knowledge base, and more.
It is a free, publicly available help desk software that offers its users query and database management, a self-service interface, time estimation, reporting, research, access control, and more. The functionality can be extended with addons.
is a free software release tracking system. The system offers a wide range of options, including a toolbar, functional dependency graphs, an optimized interface for mobile devices, time tracking, PGP email support, knowledge base and more. others
Paid user support systems
Are you willing to pay for a more reliable support system with more options? Then we have something to offer you.
One of the best software suites, specially designed to meet the needs of the consumer, agent and manager. The easy-to-use interface allows users to submit requests through various channels (website, email, phone, Facebook, etc.). Agents can get user profiles and the whole thread of conversations, and managers get the corresponding reports and analytics.
Available for various mobile devices, including Android, iPhone, Windows phone, BlackBerry, etc.
It is very popular among premium user support programs. As part of the Sprout plan, up to three of your employees can get Freshdesk for free. This program no worse than Zendesk in terms of functionality and ease of use. With Freshdesk, your users can easily submit tickets and your employees can easily manage them.
This is a multi-channel web-based user support program. It compares favorably with its other associates with an excellent set of properties, which include a satellite customer support system, request accounting, and more. In addition, Vision Helpdesk is able to combine several separate support services into one central one. Optionally, you can add Vision Helpdesk additional options using modules and external applications. In addition, the program is also available for mobile devices.
It is a comprehensive web application for user technical support. It is ready to offer you many useful options such as centralized helpdesk portal, ticket management, filters, automation, mobile optimized interface, customer resource management, time tracking, multi-brand support, benchmarking, executive reporting and more.
It has two options: web and SaaS (software as a service). The program can be downloaded (after purchase) and placed on your server. Here are the options at your disposal: knowledge base, email integration, reporting system, customizable interface, unlimited agents, etc.
Bonus: User Support Systems for CMS(content management system)
This support system offers great amount options and is available in two versions. Free plan holders will receive a basic set of features, while premium account holders will be offered more features for a more efficient and easier consumer experience.
This is a premium support system for Joomla, offering creation and management of requests, automatic distribution of requests, an integrated knowledge base, emails, a dashboard for quick access to all areas of customer support.
The sponsor of the article is the system integrator of IT solutions Karma Group - http://www.karma-group.ru/ which offers its customers server solutions and network equipment from such famous brands like: IBM, DELL, HP, Cisco Systems, Fujitsu, etc. All offered equipment is from vendors of the first division - and this is a guarantee of the reliability of your company.
Over time, software solutions no longer meet the needs of the company. The reasons can be very different:
- the development of the instrument went in a different direction or stopped altogether;
- you yourself decided to change business processes;
- a suitable toolkit with a lower cost of ownership has appeared on the horizon, or the price of the current solution is not comparable to the benefits of using it.
One way or another, it becomes necessary to replace the ticket system for technical support.
Changing the ticket system is not a disaster, however, like any transformation, it is a kind of shake-up for business. We offer a list of recommendations and reminders to minimize the consequences.
Ticket system. What not to forget when choosing or changing a decision?
- Key moment — allocation of resources within the company. They will be required for any conversion, even if it is performed by third-party contractors. Implement without this information system that meets the needs of the company is impossible.
- Before starting any transformations, it is necessary to identify the processes for which the existing ticket system or its analogue is responsible, as well as to determine the people who are involved in them. It is important to new system automation opened the way for the development of the company, so it will be necessary to “sort” the processes: to understand which should remain unchanged and which require modernization. Moving to a new solution with the modernization of business processes or “process moving” is a topic for a separate discussion.
- You need to evaluate the use cases and the relationship of your existing ticketing system (or whatever is currently in use) with other IT systems in the company. As with processes, you only need to keep the involved scripts and relationships. And if there are integrations, schedule work in this part.
- Migration should take place in close contact with users because they will have to change their working habits. To make the move easier for employees, you need to plan training and follow-up consultations, and even better, involve the users themselves in choosing a new product.
- Perhaps, the hardest part of migration — data transfer. The main thing here is to understand what data is really required in the new system. The first desire of any company is to transfer all the data accumulated over the years of work into a new solution (after all, they contain historical information to track the dynamics and make subsequent decisions). But is it necessary? In most situations, no. For historical data, you can leave the old solution available for a while. If the data is needed only to evaluate some KPIs, then it is easier to store them in the form of already compiled reports. It is better to immediately transfer the actual client information “hidden” in the old system to CRM, with which to integrate the new ticket system in the future. In situations where, for some reason, you really need full transfer, the data must first be “matched” (create a table of correspondence between entities and attributes of the old and new systems). And only then migrate the data, which, most likely, will require a separate budget and additional time for transformations. As noted above, in most cases, for help desk systems, it is enough just to transfer unclosed (actual) requests.
The test environment (sandbox), as well as the test period of the new solution, will allow you to work out the planned migration without affecting the entire infrastructure or without mastering the entire budget. So you can make sure that data and processes are transferred correctly, without distortion, and the system works as stated by the manufacturer.
Migration often includes a period when old and new support ticket system live in parallel. This is a rather difficult stage for employees, because simultaneous work in two systems can cause confusion. This period can be reduced if you understand exactly how motivate employees to use the new solution — to complete the process faster. In fact, the new solution must be re-sold, but already within the organization - to colleagues.
As noted above, training and clear instructions will help you cope with most of the issues in the operation of the new system. It must be remembered that notifications about the transition to a new platform, as well as instructions for quick start are needed not only by employees, but also by clients, if the change of decision somehow affects them (i.e. if the incoming mail address where applications are received, or the interface of the personal account has changed). Customers, as well as employees, need to understand what benefits a change of tool will bring specifically for them. If you forget about it, customers may go to a competitor, the interaction with which they understand better.
Before turning off the old system, you need to check that the new system is operational - you need to go through all the business processes that it must support, from creating and executing an application, to generating final reports.
Implementing from scratch or changing the Ticket System is always a difficult process. Even if, as it seems, everything was foreseen for initial stage, there will be negativity from employees associated with the need to get used to the new environment, and even outright sabotage. You need to prepare for this, trying to show colleagues the benefits of the solution for them (and not for the company as a whole).
Okdesk is one of the best ticket systems on the market. Simple interface, flexible settings, mobile app and telegram bot
Ticket system for working with clients
#Application-system
Ticket system for interaction between technical support and customers "Everything works"
Outsourcing of IT services is the best way to maintain IT infrastructure for small and medium-sized enterprises whose activities are not related to information technology. However, many companies are afraid to cooperate with external contractors due to a lack of understanding of how to interact. They believe that contractors cannot be controlled, while staff member always at hand.
The company "Lamantin" pays Special attention quality of interaction with partners. Our experts work in such a way that you do not notice the difference between setting a task for a full-time employee and an outsourcer. This is possible thanks to the use of a modern and convenient OTRS ticket system.
Ticket system OTRS— a system of interaction between the customer organization and its contractors providing technical support services. It guarantees instant communication with the contractor, ensures the transmission of trouble tickets and simplifies the control over their implementation.
Schematically, the system looks like this:
- You find a problem and want to report it to a Manatee representative.
- You are entering account OTRS, describe the problem, attach screenshots if necessary, and send a message.
- Reply to a message with Email or in personal account ticket systems. Also, a specialist can contact you by phone if the situation requires it.
On the side of the contractor, automatic sorting of applications is performed. If necessary, the responsible person connects specialists of a narrow profile to the solution of your issue. Thanks to the use of the ticket system, you have the opportunity to cooperate with us at the same level of interaction as with regular administrators. In particular, you can set tasks and control their implementation, involve specialized specialists in resolving issues, promptly ask questions and receive answers from Lamantine experts.
The range of our services in IT
The company "Lamantine" maintains the IT infrastructure of partners, acting as an outsourcing contractor. In particular, we provide the following services:
- Computer maintenance in St. Petersburg. The range of services under this item includes monitoring the state of the hardware of user PCs, carrying out preventive cleaning, scheduled and emergency repairs of working machines. We also keep up-to-date software and working on protecting computers from viruses.
- Administration of local networks. This complex includes the deployment and maintenance of corporate networks, as well as ensuring their security.
- Maintenance of office equipment. The list of services includes consultations on the choice of equipment, as well as installation, configuration, scheduled maintenance and emergency repairs.
- Conducting an IT audit. Auditors of "Manatee" identify the needs of your organization, determine the problems of IT infrastructure, suggest the best ways to deploy and maintain networks and work complexes.
History of the issue
You can discuss one issue within one ticket - this is convenient, because the history of requests is saved. Tickets cannot be deleted or corrected by any of the employees of Smart Logistics.
What is a ticket?
Ticket - a way for Smart Logistics users to contact technical support. There are no restrictions on the text: ask questions related to working in the program, write suggestions for improving functions and reports, order personal improvements to the program.
Each ticket has its own status:
"New"- the ticket has been created, but has not yet been accepted for work by the manager.
"Performer Appointed"- your message was sent to the manager.
"Waiting for clarification"- the manager wrote a clarifying question and is waiting for your answer.
"Closed"- the issue is resolved.
"Wish Created"- the wish written by you on the finalization of the program was transferred to the engineers for the question of implementation.
"Request Created"- the manager passed your question to the engineer to correct the error.
Responses to tickets go to "Main" → "My tasks".
How to write a ticket?
1. Find the "Tickets (technical support, wishes, tasks)" tab in the "Main" section.
2. Click "Create a ticket".
3. The ticket form has opened - select the type of appeal: consultation, wish or error. Then enter the text of the message to the technical support specialist.
Here you can attach any document so that the specialist can see what exactly your request is related to.
- Tutorial
The previous article about the organization of the work of our technical support service was the subject of a lively discussion. Many readers expressed doubts that effective communication between support engineers and users can be carried out exclusively through the ticket system. Our practice shows that this is quite possible, provided that certain conditions. In order for new customers to have no doubts, and communication to be even more efficient and productive, we decided to publish a set of tips for working with the ticket system.
As we already wrote, the main channel of interaction between customers and technical support engineers is ticket system. With it, clients can:
- contact our specialists with questions about the services provided;
- make suggestions to improve the quality of services provided;
- report faults found.
- information on each ticket is quickly transferred between engineers, which allows the entire technical support department to be aware of the client's problems;
- the history of all messages on a particular issue is preserved, and the loss of messages is excluded;
- you can attach graphic files in png, gif, jpg formats, as well as files in pdf format to messages;
- customers can evaluate the work of technical support staff themselves;
- prompt response is guaranteed by our company.
The first thing that help desk engineers see is the title of the ticket. It should be short, concise and reflect the essence of the problem being described as much as possible. If the ticket is about server malfunctions, then it is advisable to indicate its number in the title.
Here are examples of correct and incorrect headers:
Short and precise titles will later help you better navigate your own tickets and find the right one among them.
The more accurate, detailed and logical the problem is described, the faster our specialists will be able to solve it. It is desirable that the description be supported by specific examples. If, for example, you write about problems with network availability, then attach responses to ping requests and trace data to the ticket (they can be obtained using both standard traceroute/tracert utilities and the more specialized MTR utility).
Quite often you come across descriptions of this kind:
Good evening.
My server is down again. What happened?
This kind of wording can cause a lot of trouble for technical support employees: it may take them a lot of time to figure out what exactly happened to you.
A good description should be written differently. For example, like this:
Good morning,
Yesterday I changed the IP address c (....) to (...) on the cloud server. I checked all the settings several times - everything seems to be correct, but for some reason the new address does not work.
(The results of the ping request are also attached to the description).
If you suspect a hard drive problem, also try to provide a detailed description of the problem. Sometimes our support engineers receive statements like:
My hard drive is dead.
Such a request can hardly be called clear: it is absolutely not clear on what basis the conclusion about the "death" of the hard drive is made. Statements of this kind are best supported by examples:
A hard drive failure is suspected on csXXXX dedicated server. SMART table data: (....)
SMART (self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology) is a technology that allows you to evaluate the condition of a hard drive using internal self-diagnostic equipment, as well as predict when it will fail. You can read more about S.M.A.R.T. tables and their interpretation, for example, (in Russian) and also (in English).
If you suspect that your server has memory problems, try to attach the findings of the memory diagnostic utilities that will help determine which particular memory bar is faulty.
If you have problems with our control panel or settings (for example, monitoring settings, firewall, cloud storage), it is recommended to attach screenshots of the settings pages to the ticket - this will help to diagnose and fix errors faster.
All actions that are performed with the server (including sudden reboots and other unforeseen moments) are reflected in the system logs. Excerpts from system logs can also be (and in some cases even necessary) attached to tickets. Even if you cannot decrypt the system logs, our specialists will definitely help and give specific recommendations on how to solve the problem. On Linux systems, logs are usually stored in the /var/log directory, on Windows - in the %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log directory.
Some errors only occur when working with certain browsers. In this case, you need to specify the version of the browser you are using and attach the appropriate screenshot.
Avoid too short descriptions: tech support staff will be forced to ask you additional questions, and it will take a lot of time to figure out the details, which could be spent directly on fixing problems.
Another important rule is formulated as follows: one problem - one ticket. Create a separate ticket for each of your problems - this will help to better coordinate the work of support engineers and speed up the resolution of the problem. In addition, following this rule will also help you search through tickets faster.
If a problem that you have already reported and that has been resolved suddenly makes itself felt again, do not create a new ticket, but write about it in the one that was devoted to this problem earlier.
You only need to close the ticket when the issue is finally resolved. Even if you didn't write anything, closing the ticket for technical support engineers is a signal that nothing else bothers you.
