If your customer service team is operating without a SaaS help desk, then your business is missing out on the key features that make delivering a great customer experience a reality.
Help desk software provides essential tools such as ticketing systems, ticket assignment capabilities, and knowledge base software that enable support agents to resolve customer issues and service requests quickly and efficiently. Advanced features might include omnichannel support like phone, live chat, and email, project management tools, self service tools like FAQs and support articles, and integrations with Jira service desk or other third-party apps.
And yet, according to HubSpot’s Annual State of Service report, only 50% of customer service leaders have enabled their support teams with the most basic key features of a help desk, knowledge base, and shared inbox. This is despite the fact that 91% of customer support teams agree with the statement: “our help desk system increases productivity”.
Clearly, there’s a disconnect between what customer support teams need to do their job and what help desk tools they’re actually provided with.
So whether you’re a customer support leader who’s yet to understand the benefits of a SaaS help desk, or a support agent who needs to convince the leadership team of its merits, then this blog is for you!
But first, let’s get back to basics with a primer on what a SaaS help desk is.
What is a SaaS help desk?
“SaaS” stands for “software as a service” and provides users with access to software and apps over the internet. This differs from “on premise” software, where access is typically locked down to a company’s network, and is installed and maintained in-house by an organisation’s technical teams.
It’s likely that you use SaaS products on a daily basis, perhaps without you even realising. Whenever you access emails, speak to a customer support agent on live chat, or work from your company intranet, for example, you’re interacting with a SaaS product.
Businesses often choose to partner with SaaS companies because they look after the entire tech stack for them. This means that SaaS companies are responsible for maintaining the software, installing security patches, adding new features, and managing the infrastructure and hosting. This can save businesses a lot of time, money, and resources from doing it themselves, because the software, maintenance, and customer support are included in one subscription package.
Whilst many SaaS companies specialise in providing SaaS only subscriptions, some – like Claromentis – offer a mix of on-premise and SaaS solutions as well. This can give businesses a lot more flexibility, which is especially important for those who have their own in-house technical team or corporate firewalls.
The SaaS industry in general has exploded over the past seven years alone; global spending of SaaS applications has grown from $31.4 million in 2015 to $176.62 in 2022 – more than a five fold increase. The industry shows no signs of slowing down either, with projections estimating that spending will increase to $208.1 million in 2023. Given the cost savings, time efficiencies, and convenience of SaaS solutions, this is hardly a surprise.
(Source: statista.com)
So a SaaS help desk is simply one of many products that make up the growing SaaS industry. In a nutshell, SaaS help desk software provides customer support agents – and the customers themselves – with a customer service hub that’s easily accessible online. This means that both customers and customer support reps can access support requests, self service support tools, and track tickets with just a Wi-Fi connection and login.
What are the benefits of a SaaS help desk?
Now that you know what SaaS help desk software is, you may be wondering what the benefits are. What is it about this help desk solution that’s got 91% of customer support agents singing its praises? And how does the software benefit your customers?
Let’s take a look at what benefits the best help desk software will bring.
Streamlines the customer support process
Help desk software streamlines the customer support process, pure and simple. Why? Because help desk solutions include built-in workflow automation that handles the repetitive tasks that usually require manual input.
For example, without a SaaS help desk, customer support reps would need to triage customer issues as and when they come in, and assign tickets on an individual basis. This makes it slower for support teams to respond to customer queries, increases the risk of customer issues getting missed, and is generally a poor use of your teams’ time.
SaaS help desk software such as Claromentis completely automates the ticket assignment process. When a customer submits service requests, the workflow automation assigns it to the relevant team member and will even ping a notification to the customer to let them know their ticket is being looked after.
Watch our video below to see how Claromentis’ workflow automation tools help you build a streamlined SaaS help desk solution:
Improves the customer experience
Gone are the days when a support mailbox that shipped out canned responses constituted a good customer experience. Indeed, customer perceptions have changed over the years. According to data compiled by TrustRadius, 66% of customers now expect businesses to understand their unique needs, yet 66% feel they’re treated as just another number.
Help desk software enables teams to improve the customer experience by providing them with the tools to make data-driven decisions to personalise customer interactions.
For instance, by using a SaaS help desk to manage all incoming tickets, teams can access meaningful customer data such as submission rates, common issues, and SLA timers to formulate personalised responses to each customer query.
SaaS help desk software also gives your customers a self service portal. With easy access to knowledge base tools, video explainers, and other self service features, customers have the power to resolve their own issues before contacting customer support. In fact, 67% of customers rate self service as their preferred method of support.
In this way, help desk software provides a powerful combination of tools that brings customer service in line with expectations, and increases customer satisfaction levels in the process.
Increases team productivity
SaaS help desk software increases team productivity and your team’s performance by centralising all your communication channels and support tasks into one service hub.
Rather than working from a single shared inbox, which can become difficult to maintain as requests stack up, your support team can use project management tools to create dedicated communication channels to organise requests, delegate tasks, and add internal notes.
In addition, SaaS help desk software can integrate with other tools that are essential to your business operations, and bring them all together into a single platform. This will eliminate app switching, reduce distractions, and consolidate information into one place, helping your teams to remain focussed.
