If your business is receiving a lot of sales, service or support requests, you’ll probably need helpdesk software or a ticketing system.

Helpdesk software makes it easier to manage an overload of requests and helps improve business productivity.

These systems are automated and online, so you no longer need to rely on call centres to manage your day to day business requests.

There’s a lot of helpdesk software on the market, and it can be tricky to find the one that is right for your business. Each business is different and has different requirements; however, some criteria, such as volume handling, integration, and cost, generally apply to any business that receives a significant amount of requests.

In this article, we’ll highlight the best helpdesk software available in 2021, so you can make an informed decision about the right one for you and your business.

The best helpdesk software in NZ 2021

LiveChat

  • The best all-rounder
  • Price:
    • Starter – USD$16/month, per agent
    • Team – USD$33/month, per agent
    • Business – USD$50/month, per agent
the best helpdesk software in nz 2021 LiveChat

LiveChat is a versatile helpdesk platform that is great for supporting customers and sales teams. Not only does it provide a very good live chat function, but it’s also an easy-to-use ticketing solution.

It’s compatible with multiple communication channels, email, chat, apps and SMS. And these can all be accessed from the same intuitive dashboard. You can import questions or queries from Facebook, WhatsApp, email, SMS and more directly to the dashboard, so it’s easy to keep track of requests. And it’s great for a business where there are multiple departments as chats can be transferred between agents.

LiveChat’s main positive is its chatbox. It allows customers and agents to send links, send calendar invites, and set up automated responses to commonly asked questions.

The UI is straightforward. Like popular messaging apps, chats are queued on the left and the agent can easily click on those, read any questions the customer has and answer accordingly.

At the lowest pricepoint, LiveChat offers a lot of features; however, if you’re looking for more in-depth reporting and customisation, you’ll need to upgrade to a more expensive plan.

HappyFox

  • An incredibly flexible helpdesk solution
  • Price
    • Prices aren’t openly advertised, so you will need to contact the HappyFox team for more information.
the best helpdesk software in nz 2021 happyfox

HappyFox provides a powerful ticketing system, it’s incredibly intuitive and won’t take hours of training to learn. 

Tickets can be generated manually, via a customer portal, via email, or social media. And the information is handled by an automated process that links the request to existing requests or other tickets from the same source. 

HappyFox is also a multilingual system that supports 35 languages. And it’s very good at reducing the agent workload and streamlining responses to enquiries. Agents can merge tickets; there’s code that prevents two agents from trying to resolve the same issue, it works well. 

HappyFox also allows for a lot of customisation. If you don’t like the look of the dashboard, you can change it all to your liking. You can create custom fields, categories, statuses, priorities and lots more.

The one issue with HappyFox is there isn’t a free trial option to see if it’s going to suit your needs. You can get a 30-minute run-through with a developer, however, that doesn’t feel like enough. 

Zoho Desk

  • A feature-full customer management solution
  • Price:
    • Free – 3 Agent Limit
    • Standard – AUD$12/month, per agent
    • Professional – AUD $20/month, per agent
    • Enterprise – AUD$35/month, per agent
the best helpdesk software in nz 2021 Zoho

Zoho Desk boasts a massive amount of features. Each pricing plan contains the features from the plan before and adds more. The enterprise package boasts a massive feature list, however, even the free version has an impressive array. 

At the core of Zoho Desk is its customer management system. It’s a multichannel system meaning customer support interactions can be performed via email, social media, phone and live chat. 

When a customer lodges a request, tickets are automatically organised. Zoho Desk has artificial intelligence, Zia, that can speak to customers, tag tickets, alert agents, and even be trained to perform specific actions for your business. 

Zoho Desk allows you to control what can be edited for each ticket, such as owner, classifications and channel, and you can view the ticket’s history. 

The problem with Zoho Desk is its unintuitive UI. The dashboard is cluttered, and it’s a bit overwhelming, but once you get your head around it, it’s an effective and powerful helpdesk solution.

LiveAgent

  • An affordable live chat and ticketing solution
  • Price:
    • Free
    • Ticket – USD$15/month, per agent
    • Ticket+Chat – USD$29/month, per agent
    • All-inclusive – USD$39/month, per agent
the best helpdesk software in nz 2021 LiveAgent

To get the most out of LiveAgent, you’ll want to subscribe to the Ticket + Chat package.

LiveAgent is great for connecting customers and your support team. You can place a chatbox on your website or your app. And you can easily create multiple chat boxes for different departments.

Ticketing with LiveAgent is effortless. Auto-routing can be set up, so every support request is answered, you can limit the number of tickets a single agent receives, and tickets can be assigned ownership at the agent or department level. The best feature about LiveAgent is tickets created by a returning customer will be automatically re-routed to the same agent that helped previously.

LiveAgent can integrate with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, so messaging is unified; however, SMS is no option.

The interface is easy to use, with tickets being automatically assigned new, open or answered titles. You can see how many support queries there are in your chat or ticket. You can also open multiple chats in tabs which makes it easy to manage multiple conversations at once.

LiveAgent also has iOS and Android mobile apps, so you can use push notifications.

Zendesk Support

  • A multilingual ticketing system
  • Price
    • Support Team – USD$19/month, per agent
    • Support Professional – USD$49/month, per agent
    • Support Enterprise – USD$99/month, per agent
the best helpdesk software in nz 2021 Zendesk

Zendesk Support is a helpdesk management system. At its core is its ticketing system.

It comes with many features. Tickets can be routed to agents based on their skills, and automation can be set up to update tickets based on events or elapsed time.

Within the Zendesk Support app, agents can communicate via Slack or email and integration is provided across many channels, mobile, email and social media.

Zendesk Support’s interface supports more than 40 languages, and dynamic content means agents can communicate in the customer’s language without having to do translations themselves.

Zendesk support’s UI is simple and easy to use, but the need for other external apps holds it back. If you’re looking to do reporting, you’ll have to download Zendesk Explore, which is a separate program and, therefore a separate tab. Zendesk Explorer has it’s own navigation, and it just doesn’t feel as integrated as other helpdesk software on this list.

Helpdesk software buyers guide

If you’re looking to implement helpdesk software, you should investigate some criteria to ensure the software is right for your business.

There’s a lot of helpdesk software out there, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Some helpdesk software is explicitly designed for ticketing, while others are ideal for live chat support.

Installation

If you don’t want to be forced to rearrange your business completely, when implementing helpdesk software, it’s important to consider how easy it is to install it in your business.

It’s also important to consider what the software implements. Does it come with a documented database? Does it support open standards? Is it cloud-based, or based on the premises?

Automation

If you’re looking for helpdesk software to automate your workflow, be sure to find out what it automates. 

Does it create tickets from emails? Does it automatically assign tickets to technicians? Does it automate notifications for technicians? 

This is important to consider to ensure the helpdesk software improves your businesses productivity.

Reporting

In most businesses reporting is very important. If you need this, make sure the helpdesk software you select creates reports that your business requires. These can be KPI tracking reports, query reports and much more.

Mobility

If you require the helpdesk software to be mobile and used on phones or tablets, make sure it’s compatible with the platform you use like iOS, Android, Windows or Mac. 

System Requirements

It’s important to find out if the helpdesk software is available on your business systems. If you use Linux, make sure it’s compatible with Linux, similarly with Mac or Windows. However, you should also make sure the software is compatible with databases your business uses like Oracle, SQL, and MySQL.