Help Desk software has become a helping hand for the service team, they come up with numerous advanced features and functionalities but these systems can be costly.
When you're working on a tight budget, you need to get affordable help desk software. Well, there are some free options available. Of course, there's a trade-off.
It is also a fact that free help desk software may impose limits on users and functionality limits, still, they'll get the job done in a pinch. And when you find it comfortable to upgrade, you can always buy the paid version or switch to a more robust system with a fee.
Here are some of the best help desk software and support solutions that you can use for free or with a small investment.
Zoho Desk
A cloud-based customer service application, Zoho Desk has the power of contextual AI that helps your company build stronger relationships with customers.
With the platform, users get control over tickets submitted to the support team through email, phone, chat, social media, a self-service portal, web forms, and forums.
Moreover, it allows the team to build a knowledge base of customer support articles, so the support team can instantly find the right solution for customer tickets.
The help center features allow customers to create a ticket and track it online themselves.
The AI and automation take into account an appropriate resolution time according to your business hours when a customer creates a ticket.
It presents detailed reports and analytics about your support center’s performance.
It can integrate with Zoho customer relationship management and with other Zoho Apps.
Monday.com
Monday.com is a specific platform for IT professionals that helps them to manage their IT-related operations. It is a collective software and works as an operating system.
This help desk software provides amazing functionalities that will let you streamline and execute requests. It is also helpful for closing more tickets with fewer redundant distractions.
It is a highly protected and reliable software.
It brings various types of views like map view, calendar view.
You can find here features like advanced search, forms customization, and time tracking.
Monday.com also provides collaboration features for numerous employees.
It comes up with the features of private boards, automation, custom tags, as well as dashboards.
Freshdesk
Among the Top 10 Help Desk Software, Freshdesk is a great option. It allows you to streamline your support channels (email, phone, chat, and more) and you notice trends and assign tickets accordingly.
The tool brings various features to work for the automation of repetitive tasks, dissemination of tutorials to customers, and form and community management.
The only drawback of this tool is that it does not accommodate the uploading of larger documents or files, which may not be ideal in multiple circumstances.
Freshdesk comes with the ability to set service-level agreements and check on them via advanced reporting.
It allows you to set reminders on tickets that are an asset for anyone whose workload is demanding.
The tool brings features to automate repetitive tasks.
It has integration with Google Apps, JIRA, and various live chat apps, Dropbox, OneDrive, MailChimp, etc.
LiveAgent
Specially made for small and medium-sized businesses, LiveAgent is an impressive helpdesk ticketing system to engage with customers by providing live chat and help desk support.
This help desk software includes all communication channels: calls, emails, live chat, and social media into a shared company inbox, providing an all-in-one help desk solution.
LiveAgent is designed uniquely and allows companies to handle large volumes of customer queries in a proper way.
LiveAgent is a valuable service desk software solution that provides great quality customer service at a very small price.
The ticketing functionality of LiveAgent is highly customizable.
It is easy to set up the platform to distribute and allocate customer tickets automatically.
The tool is designed to handle large volumes hassle-free.
It includes all communications channels from calls, live chat to social media and emails.
ProProfs
Another name in the list of Top 10 Help Desk Software, ProProfs offers an easy-to-use ticket automation system with round-robin ticket assignments. This is a perfect software solution for those companies that manage most of their customer interactions via email.
With this tool, team members can collaborate using shared inboxes, attach files to support tickets, and solve complex tickets using parent-child ticketing.
ProProfs has amazing internal integrations such as Live Chat, Knowledge Base, Survey Maker, and more that make this software a complete powerhouse.
ProProfs allows users to prioritize tickets, add internal notes, or simply leverage the Canned Response feature to resolve tickets quickly.
With it, you can share CSAT or NPS surveys to gauge customer satisfaction after tickets have been closed.
Besides, ProProfs is compatible with mobile, tablet, and desktop.
ProProfs Help Desk begins with $10/user/month and offers a free premium trial for first-time users.
Slack
Slack is an immensely popular messaging app but very few people know that Slack can also be used as an amazing help desk software.
It easily integrates with numerous help desk apps, allowing agents to use Slack’s beautiful interface and powerful features to bring all support interactions and services into one place.
Like, in the Slack for Zendesk Support app, agents can create tickets, add comments, and get real-time notifications on new and existing tickets delivered to any Slack channel.
Slack is a super powerful and multipurpose tool.
You can set up channels for your unique purposes, build-out automation.
It can be used to collaborate with team members more effectively by using video, text, images, and media sources.
Hiver
Previously known as G Suite, Hiver is specially built for Google Workspace. It empowers teams in customer support service so they can deliver fast and empathetic customer service right from Gmail.
Besides, Hiver can be used to assign customer emails, track the regular workload, and collaborate smoothly on queries in real-time. Moreover, this help desk software also comes up with advanced analytics and automation — to further enhance customer support efficiency.
Hiver’s auto-assignment functionality helps to automatically assign queries to team members in a round-robin format.
It presents a 360-degree view of what each team is working on and the status of all tasks, in real-time.
The tool has an advanced analytics dashboard to track key metrics and various types of reports.
It allows you to deliver fast and empathetic customer support.
HubSpot
HubSpot has introduced a powerful Help Desk and Ticketing Software that soon has become one of the top 10 help desk software.
It is effective in keeping track of customer requests and works as an all-in-one solution that you can log, organize, and keep track of customer issues from a single platform.
Depending on the forms or emails by customers or through a live chat, the tool can create a ticket automatically. It will also send the ticket to the right person.
HubSpot allows creating a help desk by adding routing and automation to tickets.
It is also helpful in resolving critical problems faster by letting you prioritize the issues.
The feedback collection functionality allows building a better customer experience.
It offers many other features such as Team Email, Conversations, Knowledge Base, etc.
HappyFox
The full-featured, cloud-based IT help desk software solution, HappyFox is built keeping multiple purpose needs in mind and it is suitable for different types of industries and team sizes.
The software covers all the essential features of a help desk from smart automation, ticketing management, to advanced reporting, and many more.
There is one drawback about this tool is that HappyFox offers neither a free plan nor a free trial, which means you’ll have to pay just to try the software.
HappyFox provides live website chat options.
Its advanced reporting and ticket routing streamline the process a lot.
There is a knowledge base management and multi-channel communications functionality.
It is created for a variety of industries and team sizes.
Jitbit
The last name of this list of top 10 help desk software is Jitbit Helpdesk. This help desk software is built basically to help you provide email support to customers.
In terms of pricing, Jitbit is a perfect solution for medium and large businesses in different industries. Whether you are looking to host the app on your own server and just want to use it internally, Jitbit offers an on-premise version.
Well, email is the primary channel here, still, Jitbit supports different other channels, such as live chat, web portal, API, as well as various built-in integrations with third-party apps.
Jibit offers various ways to collaborate on customer issues with your team.
The help desk tool updates in real-time and helps you to resolve issues faster.
It provides more than 10 built-in reports and a custom report builder
So, these are the top 10 help desk software solutions. If you are confused and not able to decide the perfect fit, always consider your customer's needs and your agents’ workflow.
Also, keep in mind that not all systems offer the full set of features so, you may not need go with tools to achieve the desired results.