The times they are a-changing, and that goes double for the small business world. Customers, their habits and preferences, they’ve evolved a lot over the last several years—and customer support teams are sprinting to catch up.
A whopping 87% of consumers say brands should put more effort into creating consistent support experiences. With changing customer needs and constantly evolving technology, that takes a lot more than just service with a smile.
That’s why the best help desk software for small business isn’t the help desk of yesteryear—it’s the one designed for the modern customer and today’s business world. A far cry from impersonal tickets and complex escalation, today, your help desk solution should empower your team to provide effortless and personal support to every customer.
Let’s talk about what that means, so you can decide on the best help desk software for your team.
What does your small business need in a help desk solution?
For small businesses, complexity is the enemy of growth. Everything from your computer operating system to your website and, yes, your help desk software has to work and work for you. The features that one business uses daily might just get in your team’s way.
That’s why the first step in choosing a help desk software for your small business is to step back and audit your individual needs.
What kind of support do your customers expect from you? What experience do you want to provide them? What about your existing customer support, can you improve? Deciding what you’re hoping to get out of implementing a help desk is the vital first step to help you identify the specific features your team needs to help them provide effortless customer support.
Help desk software that doesn’t complicate your life
The best help desk solution shouldn’t complicate your life. It should have fewer of the irrelevant features you don’t need and more of the powerful features that take your customer support game to the next level.
That’s why small businesses can benefit from a help desk solution that’s completely customizable — so you can tailor the software to your team’s unique needs, even as they evolve over time.
Multi-channel support to meet customers where they are
One of the biggest shifts in customer support recently is the growth of channels where customers can access (and expect to find) support. Gone are the days of traditional phone and email support.
Now, customers want support everywhere they are, from mobile app to social media to brand websites. In fact, Accenture found that as much as 89% of customers are frustrated when they have to repeat their problem to more than one support agent.
Your small business needs a help desk solution that enables your team to meet customers where they are—and continue the conversation seamlessly across support channels. The best help desk unifies conversations into one central hub, so your team can keep track of ongoing customer queries regardless of how many channels they hop across.
Powerful context to provide better, more efficient support
As customers demand faster and higher quality support, your small team has probably started to feel the heat. When push comes to shove between speed and quality, one or the other usually loses out. That’s why your small business needs a help desk solution that makes it easier to provide top notch support, fast.
That’s where powerful context comes into play.
Imagine how much more effective (and quick) your agents can be when they start with a complete and holistic view of the customer’s entire journey.
Kayako’s Customer Journeys and User Profiles give your agents that context—and powerful integrations serve up even more comprehensive customer information, ensuring agents have the whole picture. So your team can cut down the time they spend on back and forth, and provide the best, most informed solutions from the start.
Another way to lighten the burden on your team? Do-it-yourself support. Self-service support (like knowledge bases and FAQs) makes your life easier, but the best part is that customers love it, too.
Scalable customer support that grows with your team
One of the biggest challenges when shopping for software for your small business is finding a solution you can settle into. Too many help desks cater to small teams or enterprise—not both. But the last thing you want your team to spend time doing is relearning a new help desk every time you grow.
The best help desk software offers features that enable it to grow with your team—scaling and meeting your needs as they evolve with the business.
As your business grows to serve more and more customers, your team may or may not follow suit. You need a help desk that makes it easier for a small team to handle more customers and offers a seamless way for agents to collaborate as your team grows.
One way to stretch a small teams bandwidth is with the self-service support tools we covered above. Another way is by automating workflows, assignments and notifications. None of these need to eat away at your agents’ time. The same integrations from the last section expand your options for automation, too.
As your business grows and customer issues get more complex, your support team will need to rope in resources from across various departments to solve customer problems more effectively.
Your help desk should empower your team, not hold you back
Like any tool your small business invests in, help desk software has the power to make your support team’s life easier or much, much harder. With customer demands changing and most support teams getting left behind, your small business has the opportunity to turn effortless customer support into a competitive advantage.
Don’t settle for the clunky and bloated help desk of yesterday. Empower your team with a solution that frees up bandwidth and enables them to provide better, faster customer support.
We built Kayako’s integrated customer support software for today’s businesses and their customers. For more information about how we stack up against other help desks, compare Kayako to other popular solutions.
If you’re ready to put an end to customer support headaches and start creating better customer experiences now, start your 14-day trial of Kayako today—absolutely free.