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How to Select the Best Ecommerce Helpdesk for Your Store?

Last Updated: March 2024

As your eCommerce business grows, dealing with the large number of support tickets that come in every day can become overwhelming for your customer service team. That’s why having an effective help desk system becomes so important.

However, the market is flooded with Helpdesk platforms, each of which is designed for different business requirements. This guide will teach you everything you need to know about selecting the best help desk software to manage all of your customer interactions and communications in one place.

We’ll go over:

What Exactly is an Ecommerce Helpdesk?

Ecommerce clearly simplifies a customer’s shopping experience, but can fall short to provide the same personalized customer service users would find in a physical store. This is why most E-commerce businesses need a helpdesk set up to help streamline all of their customer service processes

This would include addressing customers’ questions about:

  • Products
  • Shipping charges
  • Exchanges
  • Return or refund policies, and more

before, during, and after online sales. A helpdesk system can better prepare your team to handle these inquiries quickly and effectively.

Advantages of Using an Ecommerce Customer Service Helpdesk 

Many small business owners may be under the impression that investing in help desk management software will only increase their costs. The truth is that you can incorporate the benefits of a help desk ticketing system into your customer experience whether you run a small startup or a large B2B enterprise. 

  • Seamless customer experience: 

Who doesn’t want a smooth experience when doing business online? With a helpdesk system in place, customers can be met with a consistent experience regardless of how or where they contact your customer support team.

  • Quicker problem resolutions:

Is it difficult for your company to respond to customer inquiries on time? A helpdesk system that monitors your team against predefined KPIs will allow for efficient management of tickets raised and closed.

  • Improve team efficiency:

Incoming customer inquiries can be tagged, classified, and prioritized as needed to improve efficiency, in addition to being assigned to the appropriate support agent. Canned text for routine responses and resolutions will further improve your team’s efficiency. 

  • Self-service: 

A Helpdesk allows you to set up a self-service portal that provides information and solutions to simple and repetitive issues to help customers in resolving problems on their own. This can relieve some of the pressure on your customer service team.

  • Identify customer trends:

A helpdesk system can assist you in determining what your customers find most difficult, as well as tracking metrics to learn how to best support your customers.

  • Provide proactive service: 

Helpdesk systems can help identify and address potential client issues before they become problems. In the long run, proactive customer service can significantly reduce the number of customer support inquiries you receive.

As you can see, a helpdesk system is great for any modern organization that needs to manage multiple customer service issues.

Important Helpdesk Features to Look For

Before you begin researching options, you must first define and prioritize the tasks that the new solution should perform. Let’s go over some of the features you should look for in your new help desk.

  • Customizable dashboards

Every helpdesk requires a customizable dashboard that provides a comprehensive overview of the customer service process and allows managers to easily analyze the workflow. The dashboards should allow you to see all the tickets, filter by category, and analyze metrics such as response times, durations, and agent time spent.

  • Multi-channel support

It’s safe to say that single-channel support is a thing of the past. The helpdesk you choose should be able to get all your customers’ messages from multiple communication channels into a single location. This allows your team to respond directly to different queries without having the need for your agents to navigate across various channels.

  • Ticketing system

A system for managing, assigning, and prioritizing customer queries is a must-have feature. When customers contact your company, their inquiries can be recorded as tickets. A ticketing management system allows you to keep track of all your client communications in one place. Emails, messages, and phone calls should be included, as well as the client’s previous communication history.

  • Number of agents

Another significant challenge is determining the budget. Most helpdesk subscriptions are billed per agent per month, so determining the number of seats required will provide a baseline for cost projection for any helpdesk platform you choose. Make sure that a temporary increase in the number of agents does not cause your subscription costs to skyrocket.

Keep in mind the limitations of each help desk. It is important to check whether each plan has a maximum number of agents.

  • Self-service enablement

Find a solution that allows you to collect customer questions and organize them into searchable FAQs or how-to articles. A self-service knowledge base allows your agents to quickly find answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs). By answering basic questions in this manner, your agents will have much more time to focus on solving more pressing issues.

  • Social media integration

The social media integration features enable you to communicate with customers no matter where they are. You can use this feature to import social media direct messages, tweets, post comments, account mentions, etc.

  • Data-driven insights

To keep track of your service levels and overall performance, your helpdesk system should be able to measure data and provide reports on key metrics. Helpdesk data can be useful for making strategic decisions and getting a clear picture of what needs to be improved.

  • Ease of use & Scalability

One of the most important characteristics of a good help desk solution is its ease of use and adaptability. No matter how comprehensive a help desk ticketing system is, if your team struggles to understand the features or navigate the platform, it will slow down your support process and increase the likelihood of user error. It’s also about how that software adapts to your team over time. Is it scalable? Choose a platform that can scale with your team and allows you to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel your subscription in real-time based on business needs.

  • Automated workflows

Manual tasks in customer service workflows can be time-consuming and error-prone. Your helpdesk system must be capable of automating service request management via ticket creation, assignment, routing, and escalation. Some advanced help desk solutions will include customizable chatbots in addition to automated routing. The helpdesk will have to perform the desired actions automatically based on the conditions you’ve specified. 

  • Tools for collaboration

A good helpdesk system allows your teams to communicate openly and effectively. If you want your team to operate entirely within the helpdesk, the helpdesk should have collaboration tools for inter-team communication to ensure that tickets are resolved as quickly as possible.

7 Best Ecommerce Helpdesk Tools

There are numerous eCommerce helpdesk options available, some of which are more comprehensive than others. To make things easier, we’ve selected some of the best helpdesk solutions that can lend a helping hand to your eCommerce business.

Let’s take a look at some of the options available:

Saufter

Image Source – saufter.io

Saufter is the tool for you if you’re looking for an all-in-one platform for improving customer service and quickly resolving issues. The helpdesk provides a unified platform for communicating with customers via their preferred channels, such as email, chat, social media, and so on. This tool’s support features are unique in this list, as they provide automated agent training, AI-drafted emails, etc. It also includes an AI-suggested responses feature based on previously handled tickets to help your team’s response time and productivity.

Pros:

  • The helpdesk is inexpensive and simple to set up, and your team can get started with it with little to no training.
  • The option for one-click integration with e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Magneto, and Woo-commerce, among others, can be convenient.
  • Saufter integrates email support and provides AI-drafted emails.

Cons:

  • Users discovered some workflow issues, which have since been resolved.
  • Visual customization options are limited.

Zoho Desk 

Zoho Desk is a cloud-based help desk support software that provides the tools needed for your service agents to quickly answer your customers’ questions. The platform offers a variety of ticket views that automatically organize your tickets based on priority, due date, status, or CRM status.

This allows you to address and categorize users’ problems based on the type of problem they are experiencing. In comparison to the other options, the Zoho desk is also reasonably priced.

Pros:

  • Zoho support is very responsive and can quickly identify and resolve issues. 
  • The platform includes an easy-to-use dashboard that shows the status of all tickets.
  • To provide useful articles that can answer the user’s question, the knowledge base articles are integrated with the ticket description.

Cons:

  • Users have complained that the mobile application is lacking in functionality.
  • The helpdesk is not always easy to use and may take some getting used to.

Zendesk

Zendesk is a well-known help desk platform with a wide range of features and a straightforward user interface, making it an excellent choice for small and medium-sized businesses.

One of the key features of Zendesk is that it enables support agents to maintain a conversation across multiple channels with no gaps in continuity. This provides a more natural customer experience while increasing your team’s productivity. They also provide comprehensive tutorials and it comes with a user-friendly help center.

Pros:

  • To free up time for your agents, repetitive tasks such as closing inactive ticket alerts and notifying a manager of a new issue can be automated.
  • There are numerous integration options available to centralize all of your support tools in one platform.
  • Returning customers can be identified by tagging visitors with their name or company.

Cons:

  • In comparison to other CRM solutions, Zendesk is more expensive.
  • Reporting capabilities are limited, and all reports must be exported manually.

Intercom

Intercom is an all-in-one customer communication tool that allows you to message your customers, send emails, provide customer support, etc. It is not only a useful tool for customer communication, but it can also be used to display company news, knowledge base articles, and other information.

The one thing we liked best about Intercom is that it is simple to use, resulting in a very user-friendly experience for both the support team and the customers. Other key features include incoming request and message tracking, chatbot automation, integration with various third-party tools, and so on.

Pros:

  • Intercom’s user interface is simple to use, making it easy to train your agents.
  • It is simple to collaborate with other members of your team when responding to customers.
  • You can manage multichannel customer interactions at scale with their automated workflows and custom bots.

Cons:

  • It lacks the resources needed to learn about more complex use-cases.
  • There is no audit feature to determine if one of your users changed other accounts, removed articles, etc.

LiveChat

LiveChat is a customer service helpdesk that provides a variety of tools for interacting with customers through various channels. They provide an easy-to-use dashboard for organizing your communication, which includes chats, emails, and apps, among other things. It also works with other software platforms like Facebook, Salesforce, WordPress, Messenger, Dropbox, and others. The ability to send personalized greetings to your customers based on their time spent, location, and pages visited in your store is the platform’s standout feature. Other important features include saved responses, auto messages, chat surveys, and so on.

Pros:

  • LiveChat’s design is straightforward, with a variety of user-friendly tabs and dashboards.
  • It is simple to transfer an existing chat session to a more appropriate individual or team.
  • It includes a daily chat summary, which gives you a quick snapshot of your team’s performance on a daily basis.

Cons:

  • When there are many customers waiting in a queue, the system can start to lag.
  • Their notifications can be inconsistent at times. On mobile devices, we’ve seen push notifications being missed at times.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk might be the platform for you if you need a multifunctional but simple helpdesk and ticketing system software. The platform includes advanced analytics, Freshdesk chatbots, a gamification system, and other features. The first thing we noticed was how easy FreshDesk is to set up and use. In our experience, integrations with third-party platforms were also seamless. You can even create a pool of predefined responses for common queries to reduce response time for your team.

Pros: 

  • Users have found Freshdesk’s UI to be extremely user-friendly.
  • Integrating with collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams allows your agents to receive immediate notifications.
  • You have the ability to drill down and define the properties of each field in the ticket form.

Cons:

  • The mobile app is not designed to manage tickets.
  • Customizing reports can be time-consuming.

HubSpot Service Hub

Hubspot’s Service Hub is a versatile customer service solution with features for customer engagement, data collection, ticket automation, chatbots, etc. This service helpdesk is easy to use, reduces repetitive tasks, and can help you increase the productivity of your team. 

The platform also enables you to respond to customer inquiries and reach out to them proactively via automated personalized chats. HubSpot’s mobile app for iPhone and Android has a comprehensive set of features as well.

Pros: 

  • HubSpot’s Support team is excellent, and they are always available via chat to resolve urgent issues.
  • It has a user-friendly interface and numerous customization options.
  • The pipeline view allows you to monitor your team’s progress toward business goals.

Cons:

  • Paid/premium plans can be expensive for small businesses.
  • Some workflows can be challenging for new users to create and manage.

Wrapping Up

Choosing the right helpdesk solution can undoubtedly make a significant difference in your customer support and satisfaction. Comparing your company’s needs to the features listed above will help you refine your search and find the best help desk ticketing software for your team.

Also, each tool mentioned in this article has its own set of features that can be tailored to your specific requirements. We hope this guide helps you in selecting the platform that best meets your business needs.

Saufter could be the platform for you if you want to make it easier for customers to contact your service team while also empowering your support reps to provide the best service possible. If you’re starting from scratch, managed customer support services tailored to your company start at $399 per month.

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