Customer Support on a Budget
When a customer purchases from your company, their journey doesn’t end there. In fact, that is just the beginning of another critical phase of customer interaction. What’s more, first-time consumers might turn to loyal customers after a pleasant experience with the services or products. A satisfied customer can even be converted into a promoter of your brand. They can promote it by always recommending it to other people they meet.
Using a help desk free software open source solution is one of the best ways to ensure customer satisfaction. That is why many companies are now using this solution in their eCommerce store or website.
Why choose a Help Desk Free Software Open Source Solution?
When software is termed as open-source, it simply means that it has a publicly available source code. That way, third parties can modify and use that software. A few examples of open-source software include Linux, Android, and Apache.
Many companies choose open-source software because of the many different benefits they offer. Benefits like:
- Flexibility: These solutions are flexible in that they can be customized to meet any business’ needs. So, you can hire the services of developers to include your desired features.
- Transparency: This solution’s code base visibility also means it is transparent and thus can be trusted.
- Reliability: Open-source software is developed online by experts. That way, you can rest assured you have a solution whose performance can be relied upon.
- Security: These solutions come with excellent security standards. That is why you will notice that security gaps get closed fast as soon as they’re caught.
- Independence: You will have independence when using open-source software solutions in that you do not have to commit to one IT service professional.
- Development: Open-source software is continually evolving owing to the fact that communities develop them. As such, any expert may create an addition that needs to be made to make the solution even better than before.
Sub-domain Creation
By now, you must have noticed that most businesses’ support pages have URLs with subdomains, e.g., support.business.com. A subdomain is a different website section using a prefix and your primary domain name. Most businesses don’t host their subdomains on the same server. This is to ensure that:
- The performance of the main website isn’t affected. The primary domain can be affected if there are things like videos, screenshots, and heavy documentation.
- There is a clear indication of different company departments. That way, it is easy for clients to reach out to and remember the department.
- There is excellent site uptime because the issues taking down the primary domain won’t affect the support system.
Once a support domain name is created, the next step is to make the A record mapping that subdomain to that primary domain. The process depends on your hosting provider. Then, you got to set up the open-source helpdesk software.
Getting a Help Desk Free Software Open Source System
Whether you settle for on-site pages or a subdomain, you will have to obtain a helpdesk tool to set up client support. There are many different choices available to you:
- HelpDeskz: It’s PHP-based, multilingual, grouping function, canned responses, has a knowledge base, can be personalized, and has bulk query and actions management.
- UVdesk: It has eCommerce integration, knowledgebase, examination of agent performance, supports multiple channels, can be integrated with social media, ticket administration, and offers mail & task management.
- Faveo: Priority and SLA management, In-app & API notifications, canned responses & custom forms, multilingual, in0built knowledgebase, responsive design, and can avoid agent collision.
- SpiceWorks: Exchange integration, automated & custom reporting, instant mail & mobile integration, knowledgebase, integrated with active directory, supports multiple sites, a customizable dashboard, and has both advanced & essential ticket management.
- Liberum: Fully customizable, activity & time reports, pager/SMS notifications, configurable e-mail notifications, web-based interface, and also runs on IIS.
- osTicket: Has internal ticket notes, dashboard reporting, ticket filtering, transfer and assignment, custom support and forms portal, an automated & configurable reply system, SLA management, and avoid agent collision.
- Katak Support: has a simplistic & basic design, ticket filtering & assignment, seamless functioning, is fully customizable, has a pop-up function for e-mail, and is PHP-based.
Conclusion
The listed are just some of the many free, open-source help desk software solutions currently available. While there are many to choose from, the good news is that most, if not all, will make your enterprise or business systematic and efficient. Using them is the path-breaker to making your business profitable and efficient.