Help desk software comparison guide for customer support managers

It’s hard to manage B2B support across channels like chat, email, Slack, and Teams: Customer info is scattered, your team gets overwhelmed, and response times suffer. But the right help desk software fixes this and makes it easy for your team to improve customer satisfaction. 

In this help desk software comparison guide, you’ll learn how to pick software that simplifies your team’s work and gives them tools to increase retention.

What’s help desk software (and why does it matter)?

Imagine that a customer emails your support team with a complex issue. Later they ask a few questions via chat, and then they reach out through Slack. Each time, they have to repeat their problem and details, because your team is tracking 3 separate conversations instead of an ongoing discussion.

A good help desk software solution pulls all those channels into one place. You have context on the full conversational thread, alongside context like account history and past tickets. 

This means your team can offer more useful support, and customers get answers faster with less frustration. This support quality typically leads to higher customer satisfaction and retention rates.

How to choose the right help desk software

To pick the best support desk software for your team, you need to understand what problems they’re facing. This way you can look for features that actually solve those issues.

Here are some tools that could help:

• Omnichannel ticket management. Omnichannel support desks bring channels like email, chat, Slack, and Teams into one workspace, so you get a complete 360-degree view of all customer interactions and data. This helps your team make fast fixes and easily find the context they need to give personalized support.
• AI-powered automation. AI systems can handle a lot of routine tasks your team would otherwise have to spend time on. With AI, you can set up automations to categorize tickets, draft responses, route issues to the right people, and even independently deal with simple customer requests.
• Self-service options. A knowledge base helps customers find answers to common issues on their own, which reduces tickets for your team. Your team can also link to knowledge base articles in issues responses as a resource.
• Reporting and analytics. To improve support, you need to track key performance indicators like average response time, resolution rate, customer satisfaction score, and net promoter score. Reporting tools help you find bottlenecks and spot trends, so you can make data-backed decisions about what to change.
• Easy-to-use interface. Everyone on your support team will use the help desk, and other teams could need access too. The platform should be easy for anyone to learn, and have a clear interface so your team can carry out tasks without getting confused.
• Plenty of integrations. While the right help desk gives your team most of the support tools they’ll need, they’ll probably use other software. A help desk should integrate with those platforms easily and share information, so your team doesn’t waste time switching back and forth.
• Flexible pricing. Help desks often charge based on the number of users, and offer different plans based on team size and features. Make sure your tool has a plan that fits your needs but doesn’t make you pay for what you don’t want.
• Room to grow. Even if your team is small now, make sure the tool you choose can scale, so you don’t have to rebuild workflows from scratch when your team grows from 5 to 50.

Help desk software: 5 tools compared

Not all help desk tools are built the same, and they serve different types of companies and industries. For example, B2B teams need support desks that go beyond simple ticketing. That usually includes features to manage complex customer accounts and drive retention over the long term.

Here’s our comparison of 5 popular help desks, so you can pick the one that best fits your needs.

Build a strong support team with Pylon

The right help desk software helps your team respond to customers faster and give them accurate, personalized support every time. Avoid simple ticketing tools, and look for a complete solution that brings all your customer support operations and data into one place. 

Pylon is the modern B2B support platform that offers true omnichannel support across Slack, Teams, email, chat, ticket forms, and more. Our AI Agents and Assistants automate busywork and reduce response times. Plus, with Account Intelligence that unifies scattered customer signals to calculate health scores and identify churn risk, we're built for customer success at scale.

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