Welcome to the definitive directory and guide to On-Demand Help Desk Software, and articles with links to popular On-Demand Help Desk Software, websites and tutorials. Whether you are looking for a hosted help desk software solutions or just want to learn more about the topic in general, this website should help you getting started. Please see below for list of popular On-demand help desk software solutions, providers, and directories, recommended articles and web links.

Table of Contents

What's On-Demand Software?

On-Demand Software is a software delivery model in which application software is delivered to users via a web browser. Users do not buy the license for the software, but only a right to use it on a subscription basis. A user may subscribe to all the features/functionalities of the software or just a portion of them. Also On-Demand Software can be defined as the SaaS model as hosted software and/or hosted application.

The software resides on a central server and not on the customer's computer. The user accesses the application via a web browser and the On-demand provider is responsible for software maintenance and performance. The primary value delivered by On-demand is the continuous and ongoing support for the application by the service provider. Network-based access allows maintenance, support and upgrades to the software from the provider's data center

What's Help Desk Software?

A help desk software is an information and assistance resource that provides the users a central point to receive help on various computer issues. The help desk typically manages its requests via incident tracking system, that allows them to track user requests with a unique ticket number.

On-demand help desk software solutions and providers

  • Avensoft
    Features include user self help portal, knowledge management, service management, product catalog, asset management, billing, service level agreement, Active Directory integration. Price: $ 15,00 /1 rep/month.

  • Bankoi
    Helpdesk/email management application designed to streamline the operation of managing emails or support requests. Built in tracking and response logging. Price: $ 15,00 /1 rep/month.

  • bigWebDesk
    Service request/helpdesk and asset management software solution. Price: $ 163,00 /50 rep/month.

  • ezSupport
    Easy-to-use customer support solution that helps eliminate many of the customer emails and gives a robust and scalable system that expands. Available version for integration with eBay. Price: $ 39,95 /1 rep/month.

  • CRMdesk
    Cost-effective solution. Combines features with an elegant user interface, allowing seamless integration with customer's website. Price: $ 49,00 /5 rep/month.

  • h2desk
    Integrated knowledge base, file management, troubleshooter, self-service and mobile support. Price: $ 19,00 /1 rep/month.

  • Elementool
    Offers bug-tracking, time-management and help-desk software. Price: $ 69,99 /1 rep/month.

  • Consultant's Help Desk
    Integrated set of help desk tools; service requests, inventory, sales, billing, a knowledge base, task calendar. Price: $ 25,00 /1 rep/month.

  • HelpDesk Connect
    Simple web based help desk solution. Featuring bulletin board style communications, file attachments, e-mail based ticket submission, automated escalation and embedded customer database. Price: $ 19,00 /1 rep/month.

  • Alcea Technologies
    Alcea's FIT | IssueTrack implements an issue tracking solution using a template tailored to team oriented issues which must maintain ownership and follow a structured process. Price: $ 6,90 /1 rep/month.

  • HelpDesk Pro
    Incorporating auto-emailing, auto-SMS messaging, asset database, alert whiteboard system, and asset barcode generator. Price: $ 29,00 /20 rep/month.

  • SupportPortal
    Integrated with user forum and live chat functions and features. Price: $ 10,00 /1 rep/month.

  • HelpSpot
    Simple and one of the best in the class. Strong developer API, mobile support, and more. Price: $ 10,00 /1 rep/month.

  • Numara TrackIT
    Numara shosted solution is ideal for organizations of any size that want to centrally manage and automate their customer support, service desk solution, or other request-driven processes, but don't want to manage IT infrastructure.

  • TheMind
    The Issue Tracking product is a comprehensive solution for managing internal help desk issues, tracking product defects and bugs, and managing customer support requests. Price: $ 10,00 /1 rep/month.

Articles and recommended links

Key concepts and features

If you are new to on-demand help desk software, please see below for a short summary of the key concepts and features of help desk software and solutions. This should also be a good starting point to learn more about the most important features when evaluating and selecting a on-demand help desk software.

  • [Basic] Requests Submission
    Customers are able to ask, review or update questions to the support staff.

  • [Basic] Customer Questions Management
    Ability to resolve or update customers' questions as well as searching through a questions database for a related answer.

  • [Basic] Automatic email notifications
    The system automatically notifies support staff when the new request has been sent or when the existing issue information was updated by the customer.

  • [Basic] Security
    The site is secured by a unique User ID / Password combination to prevent unauthorized access to the site.

  • [Basic] Assignment Rules
    The system allows setting rules for automatic questions assignment to customer service representatives according to the product, company or domain.

  • [Basic] Escalation Rules
    Ability to set rules for automatic escalation of customer request according to the time, status, product and other criteria.

  • [Basic] Role-based permission
    Ability to manage user access rights for different site resources, as tabs, reports, and forms.

  • [Basic] Reports
    Build-in reports to gather statistical informational with optional charts.

  • [Basic] Spell Checker
    Checks spelling online in customer support replies.

  • [Basic] Response Templates
    Ability to create typical response templates to streamline support staff answers.

  • [Basic] Staff Management
    Ability to create, update and delete support staff records.

  • [Basic] FAQ Knowledgebase Management
    Customer support staff has an easy way to create and update the FAQ Knowledge base records or to search through FAQ database for a related answer.

  • [Advanced] FAQ / Knowledge Base access restriction
    Access to certain FAQ topics may be restricted for each customer individually.

  • [Advanced] E-mail Interface
    Allows customers to submit requests via email. Attachments will be linked to the request.

  • [Advanced] Mail Rules
    Ability to assign certain products/services for different groups of questions coming through email interface.

  • [Advanced] Custom Fields
    Ability to create custom fields for the user registration and request forms.

  • [Advanced] SSL security option
    Secure customer communication through the on-demand site using 128-bit encryption.

  • [Advanced] Custom Registration Integration
    It's often useful to log and watch variable values separately from log messages in order to follow variable values and system information such as database connections, thread count and memory usage.

  • [Advanced] Product/Service Management
    Ability to create, update and delete your company's support site product/service catalog.

  • [Advanced] Easy Customization
    All features may be customized through easy to navigate web-based forms.

  • [Advanced] Newsletters wizard
    Allows sending newsletters to customers.

  • [Advanced] Third-party Software Integration
    Ability to integrate with third-party software products.

  • [Advanced] Web-Query
    Ability to create web-query to the database. Query result is available in the XML or HTML format.

  • [GUI] Highly customizable
    Ability to change customer desk appearance.

  • [GUI] Multilingual user interface
    Ability to use, change and add multiple user languages.

  • [GUI] Integration with website
    Designed and developed to allow fast and complete integration with existing customer's website.