If you have a business or are planning to start one, hope you already know the critical importance of fast and efficient customer service. According to a Zendesk report, poor customer service is a reason why 61% of customers tend to switch to other brands.
When too many customer responses start coming together simultaneously in a short time, it becomes really difficult to maintain the quality of service. With a helpdesk plugin, you can easily manage these tasks and support your customer support team effectively.
In this article, we’ll help you explore some of the best WordPress helpdesk plugins, including how they can benefit your business. Keep reading this post to the end to discover the best one that perfectly fits your business.
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Why Do You Need a Helpdesk Plugin for Your Business?
A help desk plugin enables you to efficiently track user requests, address their problems, and convert potential leads into customers through continuous nurturing. It allows you to organize messages, emails, and phone calls from a centralized platform.
In this section, we’ll explain the benefits of using a help desk plugin for customer support management.
- Ticket Management
Customers contact the support team for various issues, like information, instructions, and complaints. The helpdesk ticketing system eases the process of prioritizing requests and delegating them to the right representative for quick solutions.
- Increase Sales and Conversions
According to a HubSpot survey, over 19% of customers love to talk with a salesperson before buying a product. If communication is easy, more customers will love to do that. The helpdesk plugin enables customers to ask any questions to the support team and receive quick solutions.
- Improve Team Performance
Helpdesk plugins empower the support team admins to manage multiple channels (email, phone, social media, chat). Once a problem is identified, admins can instantly delegate it to the respected team for solutions.
- No Request Lost
If you receive hundreds of requests manually a day, chances are that you’ll forget to answer some of them. But with a helpdesk plugin, you can be sure whether all tickets have been answered. You can also check how many times the same customers have reached out to you.
- Take Data-Driven Decision
Helpdesk plugins can help you make data-driven decisions. Each plugin comes with an analytic. You can use it to analyze the requests you receive a day, the forms of requests, and how much time each ticket takes to resolve.
Who Needs a Helpdesk Plugin?
the helpdesk customer support system is a must for any profiteering and non-profit organization with an online presence. Below, we have listed several organization types for which a help desk plugin is a must.
1. eCommerce
Helpdesk plugins enable eCommerce websites to handle return, refund, and coupon requests without causing any errors. They also simplify the process for eCommerce administrators to address potential customer inquiries promptly, ensuring quick and satisfactory responses.
2. Bank and Financial Corporations
Banks and financial corporations handle countless support requests every day, like opening new accounts, money transferring, currency conversion, loan requests, etc., almost every day. With a helpdesk plugin, you can easily handle the load of 5-10 support agents alone.
3. Software Companies
Most software companies offer 24/7 live support to their customers. Suppose a company has over 300,000 active premium users. Is it possible for them to track and handle their requests manually? Only a helpdesk plugin can make the customer support system smooth and easy.
4. Online Booking Agencies
Online booking agencies have become popular for selling travel tickets, hotel and resort reservations, theatre tickets, and more. During the holidays, booking requests increase dramatically. Without helpdesk software, it’s impossible to handle such enormous requests simply.
9+ Best WordPress Helpdesk Plugins for Your Business
We’ll now talk about 7+ best WordPress helpdesk plugins in this section. We will discuss their key features, pros-cons, and pricing so you can choose the right one for your website. Get started!
1. HubSpot
HubSpot is a cloud-based CRM platform. It empowers organizations of all types to track leads and deliver top-notch customer service experiences from one place. It is highly suitable for B2B and B2C businesses across all industries.
Note: HubSpot is a broad platform. It has five separate hubs: marketing, sales, service, CRM, and operation. For the helpdesk, you should choose the service hub. Visit how to integrate HubSpot with WordPress.
Pros of HubSpot
- Flawless monitoring of inbound and outbound leads
- Record your customers’ issues in one dashboard
- Prioritize tickets to solve the important ones urgently
- Limitless customization options to personalize everything up to your brand
- Manage email campaigns and performance tracking as well
- Its Free Plan of the Service Hub allows live chat, chatbots, shared inbox, and other basics
Cons of HubSpot
- Premium plans are highly expensive for small enterprises
- Users need to complete over a 10+ hours long course to learn how to this entire software
Price of HubSpot
HubSpot has comprehensive pricing plans. You can subscribe to its entire platform or specific modules only. The price of its Service Hub starts from $50/month. Its free version is available.
2. WSDesk – ELEX WordPress HelpDesk
WSDesk is another wonderful helpdesk plugin. It can help you manage ticket creation, track them, and satisfy customer queries in a user-friendly way. Its AJAX-based intuitive design makes it easy for support agents to view the entire interface without loading the page.
Pros of WSDesk
- Creates unlimited tickets and agent profiles
- Block the spammers by blocking specific IDs
- Easy to back up all the tickets to an XML file and restore them later
- Compatible with WooCommerce, EDD, and Contact Form plugins
- Provides you with the last 7-day report to analyze and improve customer services
- Lets you create tickets directly through emails and reply to them through the same channel
Cons of WSDesk
- Many tutorials and documentation of the plugin are still incomplete and confusing
- Doesn’t have the multi-lingual feature, and the most exciting features are available in the premium version.
Price of WSDesk
The price of WSDesk starts from $99/year with a 30-day money-back guarantee. A free version is available.
3. Zendesk
Zendesk is a SaaS-based helpdesk plugin. It seamlessly converts any comment to active tickets, which is impressive. So you won’t miss even a single query. Its interface is easy to understand. If customers are already registered on your site, they will automatically be logged into Zendesk.
Pros of Zendesk
- Easy to specify rules for Zendesk to automate emails and requests into groups
- Integrations with numerous WordPress plugins
- Provides a widget that you can embed anywhere on your site
- Embed the Zendesk Dropbox tab anywhere on your site pages
- Its powerful analytics will guide you to ensure customer satisfaction
- Compatible with mobile phones and has multi-lingual features available
Cons of Zendesk
- Requires you to complete the technical setup
- Must upgrade the collision detection feature so multiple agents can’t reply to the same ticket at once
Price of Zendesk
The price of Zendesk for service starts from $49/year. You can check their available free versions before upgrading to the premium.
4. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is another great SaaS-based helpdesk plugin used for ticket management. Users love it mostly for its ease of usage. You can easily automate the self-services, manage SLAs, and generate analytical reports.
Pros of Freshdesk
- Prioritizes, categorizes, and assigns tickets to dedicated agents
- Unifies multiple channels (email, phone, social, and chat) on a single platform
- Facilitates collision detection so multiple agents can’t reply to the same ticket at once
- Has multi-lingual and various time-zone features
- Automatically assigns tickets to agents based on their skills and current workload, which boosts productivity
Cons of Freshdesk
- Its reporting module should be improved
- It should allow customers to choose a category when submitting a request
Price of Freshdesk
The price of the Freshdesk plugin starts from $18/month. A free version is available.
5. Awesome Support
Awesome Support is a feature-rich helpdesk plugin. Even its free version has so many features to amaze you. If you already use a different helpdesk plugin and have tickets, you can easily import them to the Awesome Support plugin. It also has 28+ premium add-ons.
Pros of Awesome Support
- Allows you to handle unlimited tickets, agents, and attachments
- Its time tracker lets you monitor the time each ticket takes to solve
- It seamlessly works with numerous other extensions
- You can customize the form fields so users can make requests specifically
- It has multi-lingual features available
Cons of Awesome Support
- Awesome Support lacks features like autosuggestion and AJAX
- Premium prices are relatively high for small and medium enterprises
Price of Awesome Support
The price of Awesome Support starts from $149/year. Its free version is available.
Explore more about Awesome Support
6. Help Scout
Help Scout is another great plugin that offers a pretty decent set of features in its free version. It currently has automation features with 50+ integrations. You can generate in-depth reports in both CSV and XLS formats.
Pros of Help Scout
- Allows you to receive all requests in a shared inbox
- Has a great knowledge base by which you can instantly reply to customers
- The live chat option helps you speed up the support process
- Customers can add CC and BCC while replying to tickets
- It has an interesting feature- ‘private note’. When an agent wants to pass a ticket to another agent, he can use it to pass a guide.
Cons of WP Support Plus
- Beginners may find its interface quite complicated
- Users have to purchase premium extensions to enjoy advanced features
Price of WP Support Plus
The price of WP Support Plus starts from $25/month. Its free version is available.
Explore more about WP Support Plus
7. ThriveDesk
If you are a small enterprise or a SaaS startup and looking for a premium helpdesk plugin, you may consider the ThriveDesk plugin. It is a simple and easy-to-setup plugin that can scale up your customer support efficiency tremendously.
Pros of ThriveDesk
- ThriveDesk has a clean, clear, and easy-to-follow UI
- Works perfectly with WooCommerce
- Easy to track customers’ orders, shipping, license info, and more
- Enable automated replies from docs or the knowledge base
- Allows you to offer real-time chat support to customers
Cons of ThriveDesk
- ThriveDesk must care a bit more about its documentation system
- Some terms they used in the documentation might be confusing to many users. ThriveDesk must rewrite them with easy terminologies.
Price of ThriveDesk
The price of ThriveDesk starts from $8/month. Its free version is available.
8. bbPress
If you are looking for a completely free solution to offer customer support, you must look into bbPress. It is open-source forum software. It allows you to add multiple sites to a single forum, use customizable templates, and built-in spam prevention solution.
Pros of bbPress
- Extremely lightweight plugin, so your site will never get bloated
- Easy and beginner-friendly plugin
- Since Automattic develops this plugin, you can be sure it won’t disappear
- Has a large third-party extension library from where you can source new equipment
Cons of bbPress
- You won’t get expert technical support as this is a free plugin
- Though lightweight, it’s not as flexible as other helpdesk plugins
Price bbPress
bbPress is a free plugin. It has no premium version.
9. Jivochat
Jivochat is a super cool WordPress plugin to facilitate live chat services. It has a creative and customizable mobile chat wizard by which you can optimize the support chat option perfectly for mobile phone users. It offers limitless options when it comes to customer interaction.
Pros of Jivochat
- As this is a SaaS solution, you don’t need to download any new software
- You can track view history, chat logs, and real-time visitors
- Helps you provide omnichannel support from one point
- Customers can communicate with support through email, WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, Instagram, or else they want
Cons of Jivochat
- Jivochat must enable the feature that allows the same account to be used from different desktops simultaneously
- Its UI and analytics are a bit old-fashioned
Price of Jivochat
The price of Jivochat starts from $19/month if billed annually. Has a free version available as well.
10. Fluent Support
Fluent Support is another great helpdesk plugin that has made the support ticket management system super exciting. Whether you are an online shop, digital agency, support agent, entrepreneur, or self-service provider, this plugin can make your customer support system whole a lot easy.
Pros of Fluent Support
- Allows to manage unlimited tickets, agents, and customers
- Integrate it with WooCommerce, EDD, and many other plugins
- Lets you receive notifications directly in Slack, Discord, and Telegram
- Reasonable in price and generates in-detailed stats and reports
Cons of Fluent Support
- Fluent Support doesn’t have a live chat feature, which is a big disadvantage
- Using Email Pipping and Web Support together may often cause you trouble
Price of Fluent Support
The price of Fluent Support starts from $129/year. Its free version is available as well.
Explore more about Fluent Support
FAQ on Best Helpdesk Plugin for WordPress
Here, we’ll cover some most frequently asked questions commonly found online related to the topic best helpdesk plugin for WordPress.
How do I create a helpdesk in WordPress?
The process is very simple. You just need a helpdesk plugin for that. There are many good-performing helpdesk customer support plugins online. You’ll get a list of them in the above parts of this article. Install any of them and set up its wizard. A helpdesk window will be created on the front end.
How do I create a live chat option in WordPress for customer support?
Most of the WordPress helpdesk plugins have a live chat feature. You can easily add this option to your website by installing any of them. HubSpot, Freshdesk, and Jivochat are some proven tools to do that. To know more about them, explore the above parts of this article. We’ve discussed their pros, cons, and key features.
How do I improve helpdesk customer support?
Improvement is a continuous process. You have to follow the right formula persistently with devotion to reach there. In the following ways, you can improve your helpdesk customer support system.
a. Understand what customers are expecting from the support desk.
b. Enable multichannel communication so each customer can reach you.
c. Prioritize support requests based on their importance.
d. Train the support agents if necessary.
e. Build an internal knowledge base or documentation.
f. Take feedback from customers if they are satisfied.
g. Use analytics to check the regular progress in customer satisfaction.
What are the qualities a customer support agent must have?
Support agents are the frontline spokesperson of any organization. Their performance means a lot to the company’s goodwill. So, while recruiting support agents, ensure they have the following qualities.
i. Patience
ii. Honesty
iii. Respect for others
iv. Presence of mind
v. Analytical mind
vi. Empathy toward customers
vii. Eagerness to learn
Which companies/industries must offer 24/7 support?
Whether you should offer 24/7 support depends mainly on your customer base. If your customers have the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as you, it may not be important to offer 24/7 support.
But if you are an international organization, or working in such industries (health, travel, finance) where customers may need support anytime, you must have a 24/7 support desk.
Final Takeaways
Customer service connects customers with an organization. It retains customers and tries to extract more value from them. Today, the global market size of customer experience management is around $11.34 billion. It will keep going up in the coming days as well.
According to a survey of Fit Small Business, 68% of customers would love to spend more money on brands that offer them good services. You’ll find many similar statistics like that. It means good customer service will be the game-deciding factor for any organization in the future.
Hope the plugins we have covered in this article will help prepare your customer support management system. Subscribe to us for more interesting articles like this one, and follow our Facebook and Twitter channels for regular updates.
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