With over 100 Support Desk vendors in the market, prices ranging from free to over $5,000 per advanced user (i.e. Technical Support Rep or Customer Support Rep) and an overwhelming array of architectures, internet services, and features to choose, choosing the right help desk software for your company can be a time sucking and frustrating process.
The purpose of this post is to try and simplify the procedure for you. This article will deal with general issues that everyone in the help desk software market should understand before making the ultimate selection. Considering these issues will help you make a more knowledgable conclusion.
Customer Service Software – Architecture
The issue that seems to cause the most uncertainty in our industry is client/server web-enabled solutions (C/S) vs. 100% web-based solutions. In general, C/S architected solutions are quickly depreciating. At one point, an excellent step up over main frame solutions, C/S technology has been phased out due to the accesability and rewards of web-based solution architectures. The main reason some helpdesk software vendors continue to sell C/S solutions is due to the conclusion that they do not have the development resources to adapt their older product to a web-based architecture. Some of the rewards that web-based solutions include over C/S solutions include:
- No client-side software installation, updates, or support
- Log in from anywhere on the web, anytime with any browser
- Full access to all features and functions at anytime and from anywhere
When you start to try different customer support software solutions please take notice if you are required to load code on your computer to starts the demo. If so, you are not dealing with a vendor that offers a web-based solution. True web-based architectures need only a URL in order to do a demo.
So, if the vendor sends you a 5 MB exe. file to demo their solution, you are not looking at a 100% web based helpdesk software solution. The file that business is sending you is either front ending a C/S system or is a entire canned demo on your computer. Make sure you assess the solution you are going to purchase! If you do buya C/S solution, please note that web-enabled add-on modules will not give you full access to all of the features when you are at a remote location.
