If your business has a customer service component and you don’t have a help desk ticketing system, it might be a good time to consider getting one. While a lot of help desk ticketing software comes standalone or cloud-based, there are also options to integrate the software right into your company website.
But isn’t that complicated and time-consuming? Not as much as you’d think — and the potential advantages are numerous.
Help Desk Ticketing Software
But what is a ticketing system? If you’re not familiar, here’s a quick breakdown. A help desk ticketing system is a software suite that manages incoming customer support requests, queries, or issues. A ticketing system creates a ticket for each individual customer interaction, routes it to the correct agent or department, and tracks its status from creation to closure. Having a help desk ticketing system is a great way to ensure nothing “falls through the cracks” when it comes to customer service. A ticketing system provides automation, tracking and metrics to make your support team’s job that much easier and more efficient.
But what are the advantages to integrating the ticket system into your website? For one thing, it allows for quicker and easier customer support. Having a ticketing system that’s separate from your website means customers have to go to another website and create another login and password — not ideal for customers who want their issue solved ASAP. Integrating with your company website allows for more streamlined support and better issue tracking, since it capitalizes on ticketing software’s biggest strength: consolidating everything in one place.
Best of all, integrating a help desk ticketing system into your website doesn’t have to involve a major website overhaul — it’s easier than you might think, and could potentially be done without knowing or using any custom code.Â
6 Steps to Integrating a Help Desk
Now let’s walk through a step-by-step process that shows how you can best integrate your help desk ticketing software with your website.
1. Assess Your Website’s Capabilities
First, the good news — if your website runs on a platform like WordPress or Shopify, those come with out-of-the-box support for third-party applications, including help desk ticketing software. In fact, unless your website is built on old or custom-built code, chances are good it comes with strong support for third-party integration. You only need to make sure you have enough bandwidth, memory, and other resources to implement another feature.
2. Choose the Right Software
There is plenty of help desk ticketing software out there, for all kinds of budgets, team sizes, and customer service needs. Before you commit to anything, compare the features of various help desk software systems for not only ease of integration, but other features you might want, such as AI support.
3. Determine the Best Integration Method
Now it’s time to think about how you’ll implement the help desk system. There are three ways to go about it:
- No-code / low-code. This means using a built-in plugin or widget that allows for quick embedding, instead of custom code or a more sophisticated solution. This is the quickest solution, but it’s the least customizable.
- API integration. This is a middle-of-the-road solution that has some of the quickness and convenience of a no-code approach, while offering better customization and seamless data flow between systems.
- Custom development. If you have the time and budget for it, you can also pursue a dedicated, custom-built solution that doesn’t involve embedding or using an API. This is by far the most sophisticated and customizable option, and best if you want to create a dedicated client portal, but it’s also the most expensive.
4. Customize Your Help Desk
Once your software is installed, it’s time to make it your own so you can best tend to your customers’ needs. For instance, you might consider adding other features such as AI chatbots, a knowledge base for customer self-service, or troubleshooting resources. The more self-service options customers have, the more burden is taken off your human support teams, so making use of these features is always a good idea.
5. Train Your Customer Support
Of course, your support team can only work at their best when they’re fully conversant on how to use the software — so it’s crucial that they be thoroughly trained on how the new help desk ticketing system works. After all, if your support team can’t effectively use the software, how are they going to help customers that have trouble with the help desk interface itself? It’s a good idea not to skimp on this step.
6. Test the System
Finally, remember to test the system to work out any possible bugs or trouble spots. You don’t want to have to troubleshoot issues “live” when customers are using it, so it’s a good idea to test thoroughly before you unveil it to customers.
Also Read: Best Payroll Software for Small Businesses to Simplify Payroll Management
Lastly,
A help desk ticketing system is one of the most powerful customer service tools you can have in your arsenal — the automation features and metrics tracking alone can help your productivity soar. If you’re worried that integrating help desk ticketing software into your website will result in a ton of downtime, struggle and expense — relax! There’s strong support out there for most major website platforms, and you may find it’s much easier than you think.
