It is not adequate to be amongst the top-rated ecommerce businesses and not being able to give the required support to your online audience. In case of any concerns or disputes, you need to stand out in being there for the online shoppers. Helpdesk for ecommerce has the potential to make or break the company. Just as upfront customer support brings in positive reviews and high rankings, lack of quality support can lead to frustrated shoppers which eventually turn out to be negative reviews and feedbacks. The impact of negative reviews and feedbacks need not be discussed, it can plainly kill the reputation of your ecommerce business.

Helpdesk/ Customer Service or Retail Customer Service for ecommerce can be termed as software that helps ecommerce websites or stores to provide seamless support to their online customers/ visitors.  When customers pick products from your ecommerce website or store, they might have queries regarding the products they chose, the payment methods, delivery options, return policies, and much more. Before investing money in purchasing any products online, online consumers prefer to resolve such queries and decide to connect with the customer support for assistance. During the interaction between the seller and the buyer, the experience provided by the customer support can be termed as a helpdesk for ecommerce. In this article, we will be discussing the best helpdesk software available for ecommerce.

What is Helpdesk Software?

Majority of ecommerce businesses would agree that the success rate of the business corresponds to keeping their customers happy. Helpdesk software helps the IT department of the ecommerce business to manage the user problems and reduce the time required to resolve the issue for them. Helpdesk software is vital to businesses, especially ecommerce. In fact, it is known to be on the top of the priority lists of ecommerce businesses, irrespective of the size of the business. Thanks to the wide array of helpdesk software in the market today, no ecommerce is short of options. However, some helpdesk solutions may be helpful for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs), while others would be best suited for large businesses. Usually, no two helpdesk software is created equally. For instance, some software may help customers raise questions through a ticket system on social media platforms. While other software may offer identity management and additional security which may be not provided in some other companies.

How does helpdesk software help an ecommerce business?

Helpdesk software is created in a way that helps ecommerce businesses talk to their customers at every stage of the buying process. Customers can reach you with queries regarding the products you sell, return policies, refund conditions, and so on. Customers may connect through emails, messages, social media platforms, website, or online store. Sometimes, customers prefer getting instant replies and would choose to chat with your support team online through a website or even a mobile phone. Whatever is the mode of interaction, your visitors and customers expect a prompt response with acknowledgement from your end. They would like to get a response back from your team acknowledging that you have heard them out and that you’ll be looking into it really soon. That’s when helpdesk software comes handy. There are many software available for helpdesk integration and management online. It is you and your business that decides which software works the best to streamline your customer support services to provide exceptional customer support to your online viewers.

Why does an ecommerce business need helpdesk software?

Ecommerce is an industry wherein customer retention is amongst the crucial success factors of a business. It is extremely important to satisfy your customer requirements and keep them happy. With the increase in the number of queries you might get, it could be difficult for your business to manage it and respond to every query to provide an effective solution. If you do not provide seamless customer service, they are bound to get frustrated and turn back from your store at the earliest. Therefore, it is empirical that your ecommerce business must be well-equipped to handle masses of queries at one go or at least as soon as possible. This is where the role of helpdesk software comes in.

What is the best helpdesk software available for ecommerce?

As mentioned above, there is no one-best-fits-all when it comes to helpdesk software. If you browse online, you might find many software available that can be used for a helpdesk in ecommerce. However, each software could be distinct based on the features, the support, the pricing, and the flexibility. Here are a few best ones that we found could be helpful for your ecommerce store, irrespective of the size, niche, and type of business:

Zendesk Support

From all the endless helpdesk software available online, this one is our personal favourite recommendation. Zendesk offers a broad array of support solutions for ecommerce businesses for varying business sizes and requirements. It simply has everything you could possibly ask for in helpdesk software. It is a powerful fully customizable tool that can be integrated with above 500 distinct third-party applications. Some prominent features of the software include omnichannel integration, multiple brand support, pre-defined ticket actions, ticket forms, custom ticketing, conditional ticketing, and various collaboration tools. Zendesk has a pricing plan for every ecommerce business to provide services for chat, guide, and talk. Moreover, there is a 30-days free trial provided with this software.

Desk

It is amongst the premium helpdesk software that all kinds of ecommerce businesses must consider employing. Not many helpdesk software offers all-in-one support in desktops as well as mobile phones. The desk is one such software that emphasizes on the use of social media platforms to engage for customer support. This method eases the process of collecting customer demographics as it is the most convenient platform used by online shoppers to connect with a seller. If you have a good business page on some prominent social media platforms such as Facebook, you can assure high conversion rates with speedy customer services with Desk. Moreover, the real-time live chat provided for the website by Desk is simply outstanding.

Freshdesk

It is known to be the best helpdesk software for small-scale businesses offered by Freshworks which is a renowned company offering a high-quality business solution with a customer-centric approach. It is the most popular helpdesk software available in the market with above 1 lakh integrations. It is an easy-to-use and effective way to provide seamless customer support to your visitors. It allows businesses to collaborate with other members, simplify communications, and automate repetitive tasks. The best part is, it has a free plan for Startup and Small-Scale businesses that have just tapped into the ecommerce market. Moreover, with increasing requirements of customer service, Freshdesk offers four other pricing plans to serve the varying business requirements.

LiveAgent

It is a powerful web-based live chat and ticketing helpdesk software that is inclusive of advanced helpdesk features. It offers support to businesses of all sizes. It collects the queries from the customers through multiple channels, organizes them, and enables the business representatives to find a solution. There are tons of features for customer support such as multi-channel ticketing system through social media, live chat, phone, email which is organized based on the level of importance. It eliminates all the unnecessary fuzzes of account monitoring, account sharing, device monitoring, and duplicate answers. The automation features of the tool help in creating comprehensive reports and much more which can be SLA, action, or time triggered. The software is also equipped with self-service features such as FAQs, suggestions, forums, and feedbacks which are completely customizable. Its extensive features include a free trial period, lifetime-free account, and a product demo.

Essential features to consider while choosing the best helpdesk software

Although a rightly managed chatbot can completely change the way your ecommerce help desk works, it is not a mandatory feature till date. When you pick helpdesk software, it should be able to:

1. Identify and create a query support ticket, modify the ticket as needed, and collect tickets from more than one sales channel. The later feature would be imperative for some and would not work for some.
2. However, with the continuously increasing online population, it has become more than essential that an ecommerce website solves queries of their visitors from multiple platforms in a short time. Therefore, many ecommerce businesses offer their customers the option to send queries via social media platforms.
3. Also, many businesses use self-service portals to let the consumers resolve their queries from the knowledge base provided by the businesses in form of blogs, FAQs, newsletter, etc that provides both, knowledgebase information as well as ticket registration feature.
4. Some helpdesk software helps you integrate other apps for efficient multichannel customer services at a go.
5. The important feature of helpdesk software is that it knows what consumers are shopping, their likes, their shopping patterns, and their dislikes.
6. Lastly, helpdesk software features could include the systematic arrangement of the customer data based on their collected information and demographics.