How to choose the best ticketing software

Commitments

Become familiar with ticketing solutions and learn about the software commitments. These include base pricing, software or hardware requirements, built-in features, integrations, supported customer communication channels, and even customer support for help desk users. Once you get all the vital information, you can make an informed decision about what software is best for your situation.

Pricing

The most common issues regarding choosing the best ticketing software for your business include pricing options. Ticketing software prices depend on a few factors, such as basic features, custom integrations, reliability, and more. Make sure to consider all of these options and compare pricing tiers to ensure you will get the software you need without overpaying.

Support

Any help desk software should provide stellar support for its users. Therefore, user-friendly self-service options and direct contact options are a necessity. LiveAgent customers can contact our 24/7 support line via email, live chat, or phone at any time. You can also browse through our external knowledge customer base for self-service options.

Provided contact options

Provide stellar customer service with a selection of tools that help you reach every important customer channel. For example, give your customers the options to contact you via email, live chat, calls, or even social media. With the addition of a customer portal and external knowledge base, you can ensure your customers will find their preferred option.

Ability to scale up/down

Are you feeling overwhelmed with incoming requests? Every good ticketing software can help you scale up whenever necessary and help you create room for more customer support agents. It works the other way around too. Feel free to downgrade whenever you feel like you’re overpaying for features you don’t use.

Software limitations

Your customer support team should have everything necessary to provide support. Software limitations don’t have to be a necessarily bad thing, especially for help desks that don’t require every tool and feature software can offer. Consider everything you need and pick the best options for a fair price.

Collaboration options

Customer service reps should work as a unit. Take advantage of help desk collaboration tools, share customer profiles, and easily cooperate on customer issues. Anyone can pitch in. LiveAgent can help you with notes, tags, contact information, and splitting customer tickets when necessary.

Top 8 providers of ticketing software

1. LiveAgent

Recommended for everyone looking to provide stellar customer service across every channel

LiveAgent makes a great general-purpose help desk system capable of handling almost any type of customer support. It comes with the support of email, live chat, call center, social media, and customer portal with a knowledge base. LiveAgent also offers a variety of productivity features, analytics, and a large number of native integrations with other helpful software. Furthermore, LiveAgent customer support agents are available for everyone 24/7.

LiveAgent customers

LiveAgent customers include some of the very well-known companies such as BMW, O2, Yamaha, Slido, Forbes, Nascar, and Airbus.

LiveAgent pricing

LiveAgent offers four plans with a variety of features and access to communication channels. Pick the one that suits your needs for a fair price. Furthermore, you can always buy separate features without upgrading your plan.

Free  $0 per agent/month
Our free account offers ticketing features that will serve you well if you're not looking to provide customer support on a large scale.

Ticket  $15 per agent/month
LiveAgent ticketing that can handle all of your email communication. The plan comes packed with useful ticketing features that can help your day-to-day activities, as well as a customer portal with external and internal knowledge base.

Ticket + Chat  $29 per agent/month
Add the fastest live chat widget on the market as an addition to your website. Get a fast and popular communication channel as an addition to your ticketing. You also get powerful website tracking and other great chat features.

All-Inclusive  $39 per agent/month
Our All-Inclusive plan contains everything mentioned in previous plans and adds call center capabilities with unlimited call recordings, IVR trees, and video calls. Social media multi channel support is also included so you can add your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Viber accounts.

Key LiveAgent information

LiveAgent has thousands of customers from various business areas and industries worldwide. Customers are individuals and businesses of all sizes. LiveAgent is a multi-channel help desk that lets you provide support via every important customer channel. Our ticketing system software can help you handle emails, live chat, calls, social media, and a customer portal with a knowledge base. Everything is supported by more than 130 features, and you can create over 195 integrations with other software. LiveAgent also offers 24/7 customer support for every client.

Detailed LiveAgent comparison with other ticketing software

2. Zoho Desk

Recommended for everyone looking for a well-rounded help desk software with easy use

Like LiveAgent, Zoho Desk provides an all-in-one customer support solution for an affordable price. It lacks some features, such as geotargeting or website visitor tracking but excels in everything it offers to customers. Zoho Desk is one of the most well-established and reliable help desks available today.

Zoho Desk customers are Daimler, McAfee, RioTinto, Rogers, Essilor, Cummins, and Lycamobile.

Zoho Desk pricing

Free  $0/month
The free plan includes three agents and offers ticketing features and supporting features, such as SLAs, a private knowledge base, a help center, and mobile apps.

Standard  $14/month
Includes advanced ticketing key feature, social & community channels, and access to integrations. It also has many additional features that enhance help desk support.

Professional  $23/month
The professional plan includes multi-department ticketing, telephony, time tracking, agent collision detection, and other valuable features that further enhance your Zoho Desk.

Enterprise  $40/month
The most expensive plan includes a live chat and the support of Zia - artificial intelligence. This plan consists of all available Zoho Desk features such as multi-level IVR, custom functions, multiple business hours, and a lot more.

Key Zoho Desk information

Zoho Desk is one of the most used help desks in the world. It helps thousands of help desks provide fantastic support. Zoho Desk is suitable for businesses of most sizes, and it offers an excellent solution for most help desks. The plans include a variety of useful features and separate customer channels that companies can utilize depending on what they need. In addition, Zoho Desk offers fair pricing and reliability.

LiveAgent vs Zoho Desk comparison

3. HappyFox

Recommended for those looking for a help desk with a focus on live chat

HappyFox makes a help desk and dedicated live chat business software packed with various features. The app comes for both Mac and Windows operating systems, as well as Android, iPhone, and iPad devices. HappyFox can be used to handle tickets, chat with website visitors and track their page activity.

HappyFox customers include Sennheiser, Whirlpool, M4Research, Power Quality Consultants, ORD Capital, and Rockhurst University.

HappyFox pricing

HappyFox pricing starts from $29 per month. It can increase depending on the plan you decide to opt for. HappyFox offers four plans to choose from.

Mighty  
The Mighty plan offers features such as omnichannel ticket creation, knowledge base, migration assistance, and SLA management.

Fantastic  
The Fantastic plan offers everything from the Mighty plan, plus the addition of a multi-brand help desk, custom ticket queues, 24/7 email support, optional EU data center, and SLA breach notification.

Enterprise  
Besides everything from the previous two plans, the Enterprise plan offers proactive agent collision, task and asset management, 24/7 email and chat support, and uptime SLA.

Enterprise Plus  
The Enterprise Plus plan offers every possible feature from previous plans and adds agent scripting, 2 TB attachment store, all-time reporting history, 24/7 support via email, chat, and phone, as well as customer success manager.

Key HappyFox information

HappyFox is a well-known help desk and chats application suitable for businesses requiring call center capabilities. It’s used worldwide, and it offers comfort and reliability in use. HappyFox offers hundreds of features with an easy-to-use interface in each plan. It’s used by over 12 000 companies worldwide.

LiveAgent vs HappyFox comparison

4. Zendesk

Recommended for people looking for a flexible and reliable help desk solution

Zendesk is another well-established and one of the most well-rounded help desk solutions available on the market. At a slightly higher price, Zendesk is made for customer support desks that expect top service regardless of price. You can stay in touch with customers via all-important channels supported by premium features.

Zendesk customers include Dropbox, Etsy, Nokia WiFi Help Center, League of Legends, Kickstarter Support, Zoom Helper, or Ultimate Ears Help Center.

Zendesk pricing

Foundational support  19€ per agent/month
Includes essential support for email, Facebook, and Twitter.

Suite team  49€ per agent/month
The Suite team plan offers a ticketing system and messaging across web, mobile and social media. Furthermore, you get access to automation, workflows, up to 50 AI-powered automated answers, unified agent workspace, apps, and integrations, amongst other useful features.

Suite growth  79€ per agent/month
In addition to features from the previous plan, you get access to a customer portal, AI-powered knowledge management, customizable ticket layout, SLA management, and multilingual support, amongst other features.

Suite professional  99€ per agent/month
The Suite professional plan includes every feature from previous plans and adds conversation routing based on agent skill, community forums, private conversation threads, advanced voice capabilities, customizable dashboards, and much more.

Key Zendesk information

Zendesk is used by approximately 170 000 customers worldwide. They are businesses of any size or industry that require a reliable help desk solution. Zendesk is one of the most feature-rich solutions you can get for a heftier price. It provides top-notch service, great usability, and a problem-free experience.

LiveAgent vs Zendesk comparison

5. Teamsupport

Recommended for those that prefer simplicity with standard help desk features

Teamsupport is a ticketing tool with customer management capabilities and many integrations. It’s a great software for collaboration and teamwork, product and inventory management, as well as for analytics.

Teamsupport customers are Asure Software, ICANotes, Form I-9 Compliance, Multi-Systems, Suntell, or RealPlus.

Teamsupport pricing  
Teamsupport pricing offers quote-based plans with prices starting from $50 per month. In addition, you can pick between Essential, Professional, and Enterprise plans that provide a variety of features for every part of Teamsupport.

Customer support

Plans include ticket management, customer self-service, knowledge base, collaboration, CSAT, customer support, API, SLA management, and many more useful features.

Real-time chat

No matter what plan you choose, real-time chat can have CRM and help desk integrations, security, multi-channel incident management, and standard support as essential features. You can get additional features with higher plans and get chatbots, advanced security, onboarding services, or even premium support.

Customer success

Features in the plan include subscription revenue management, customer health profile, customer segmentation, email integration, CSM productivity monitoring, and more.

LiveAgent vs Teamsupport comparison

6. Freshdesk

Recommended for people who want an adaptable general-purpose help desk software

Freshdesk is another well-rounded help desk tool that comes with powerful features and the ability to add every important customer channel into a single system. It is one of the most popular help desk solutions used worldwide.

Freshdesk customers include Bridgestone, Lesley University, Pearson, Exabytes, Decathlon, Hired, or 360training.com.

Freshdesk pricing

Free  
The free plan includes email & social ticketing, ticket dispatch, knowledge base, ticket trend report, data center location, and team collaboration features.

Growth  15€ per agent/month
This plan includes everything from the free plan and extra features. Automation, collision detection, marketplace apps, helpdesk report, SLA & business hours, and other useful features.

Pro  49€ per agent/month
Everything from previous plans and adds custom reports & dashboards, extendable API limits, CSAT surveys, custom apps, multilingual knowledge base, multiple products, and more.

Enterprise  79€ per agent/month
Enterprise plan includes everything mentioned before and adds skill-based routing, sandbox, audit log, agent shifts, IP range restriction, email bot, assist bot, auto-triage, article suggester, robo assist, and a lot more.

Key Freshdesk information

Freshdesk is used by small and medium businesses worldwide thanks to its fully-featured help desk that supports almost every important customer channel. It is also highly adaptable and adjusts to agent workflow.

LiveAgent vs Freshdesk comparison

7. HubSpot Service Hub

Recommended for people looking for powerful CRM ticket software and help desk in one solution

HubSpot Service Hub is a part of a wider package of separate business tools by HubSpot. It offers support of all major communication channels in one help desk platform with everything from ticketing to VoIP calling.

HubSpot customers include Chargebee, iZooto, POSist, Truegrowth, Roambee, E-Zest, or Niswey.

HubSpot Service Hub pricing

Starter  41€ per month
Starter plan removes branding from live chat, meeting scheduling, documents, and 1-to-1 email. The plan includes a shared inbox, team email, ticket pipelines, simple ticket automation, basic bots, calling, slack integration, templates, and other useful features.

Professional  331€ per month for five paid users
The Professional plan adds help desk automation, ticket routing, external knowledge base, video hosting, standard contact scoring, forecasting, customer surveys, custom reporting, and much more.

Enterprise  1104€ per month for ten paid users
The Enterprise plan includes everything from previous plans and adds user roles, hierarchical teams, field-level permissions, calculated properties, record customization, conversation intelligence, goals, playbooks, and more.

Key Hubspot Service Hub information

Hubspot offers a wide range of solutions, including a marketing solution, customer communication hub, and sales solution. Hubspot is not an all-in-one solution, as they sell their products with separate subscription plans. Hubspot Service Hub is a dedicated customer service platform that can help users handle tickets and connect with other solutions if they wish to do so.

LiveAgent vs HubSpot Service Hub comparison

8. Solarwinds

Recommended for those who want a powerful IT management tool with help desk capabilities

Solarwinds offers a wide IT management solution with its own help desk platform that focuses on ticketing service portal and chat. It makes the ideal package for businesses that need to focus on network management, infrastructure monitoring, and other technical services.

Solarwinds customers are AT&T, Ford Motor Company, CBS, MasterCard, Nestle, Blue Cross, and Blue Shield.

Solarwinds pricing

Team  $19 per user/month
This plan includes incident management, a service portal, and unlimited requestors.

Business  $39 per user/month
Besides features from the previous plan, the Business plan includes a service catalog, change management, SLA, groups, custom roles, internationalization, and real-time 24/7 chat support.

Professional  $69 per user/month
The professional plan adds more features, such as custom fields and forms, advanced automations, network discovery, contract management, license compliance, scheduled reports, API access, and further support options via chat, phone, or email.

Enterprise  $89 per user/month
The Enterprise plan includes every mentioned feature from the previous plans and adds visual CMDB and dependency mapping, multi-factor authentication, onboarding services, and up to 1500 API calls per user per minute.

Key Solarwinds information

Solarwinds provides a customer service platform with a primary focus on businesses that deal with network management and IT infrastructure. This makes it ideal for IT service teams who need to handle network and IT infrastructure issues with the users.

LiveAgent vs Solarwinds comparison

What is the best ticketing software?

LiveAgent offers a state-of-the-art system that can handle every vital customer channel. Every customer channel and powerful tool is backed up by advanced features that help you quickly and reliably solve incoming tickets. Connect other apps with LiveAgent thanks to our integrations and create the ultimate customer service hub for your agents. We care about customer loyalty, and that’s why you can discuss anything with our customer support team 24/7. Get access to our solution for a fair price and get the best value for your money.

Mistakes to avoid when buying a ticketing software 

No trained staff

Unless you want to focus only on canned responses, your staff should be trained in both basics and advanced sides of ticketing and customer support. That’s why ticketing software should be easy for everyone to learn, even in complex event scenarios, and help your agents learn how to use a fully-featured help desk software. LiveAgent system offers a handy start-up guide that will teach anybody how to set up everything and get started. Our website also includes an Academy. It’s full of articles that cover the entire spectrum of help desk systems such as ticketing, live chat, call center, and more. Furthermore, it can help your agents learn how to become full-fledged help desk experts and reliable customer service agents.

More features don’t equal a better product

Customer interaction doesn’t always require every tool, channel, or feature at your disposal. Different businesses require different solutions with regard to ticketing challenges. Overpaying for features you won’t ever use can decrease agent productivity and lead to complications with your customer service platform. Make sure to take full advantage of free trials to find out what works for you and what doesn’t.

Not taking full advantage of a trial

Trials are important because they allow us to try out the system and its interface with features. Don’t skip on a free trial because of fancy talk just because you read the information on a website. Free trials let you try out basic features and show you how to handle complex events and situations in everyday customer support.

Not thinking ahead of expansion

The help desk interface with features you currently pay for may be enough but have you considered what will happen when you upgrade? Most ticketing systems offer various paid plans that come with or without some features. Make sure to pick a solution with a customizable user interface that will allow you to upgrade and cater to your needs when necessary.

Cost of ticketing software

The pricing for ticketing help desk software can range from free to very expensive. This depends on many factors. You always need to consider a few things before you decide to pick a system. The costs can vary because of features and their quality, the number of integrations, the popularity of the selected brand, usability in various scenarios, scalability, and many other factors. There are a few pricing models that need to be considered to make sure a help desk system is worth it and suits your business model.

Pricing models of ticketing software

Per ticket  
Per ticket pricing models let you pay for what you need. This pricing model is ideal for help desks with low numbers of customer tickets. The biggest downside might be a lack of motivation for agents to handle support, as every handled ticket equals a larger sum paid to the service provider.

Per license  
License pricing models can include licenses for one or more users. Everyone who has it can use the software indefinitely as long as the price has been paid. The price for a license can be a lump sum or on a subscription basis.

Per device  
Similar to the license pricing model, you can pay a lump sum or a subscription fee that lets you use ticketing software on multiple devices. The final sum stacks for each device used in a help desk.

Per agent  
The agent-based model is the most common and the most preferred as it gives you fair conditions. Your price depends on the number of software users. They can use the software with every paid feature with no limits set by ticketing or runtime.

What to ask on demo call about ticketing software

Customer queries

There are a few key things hundreds of organizations ask on demo calls. First of all, you need to find out what you’re going to pay for. Ask about supported customer communication hub or channel options, as well as features included in plans or supported integrations with other software. Then comes pricing. The total cost of ownership is one of the key priorities.

Implementation of ticketing software

The implementation of ticketing software is generally an easy process that can differ in a few regards. The main difference is between web-based or application-based software. In general, you skip the installation process with web-based solutions and start using them right away. All you need is to provide your email address and register for a free trial. Once you confirm your email, you can log in and get familiar with the help desk platform. As an example, LiveAgent offers a handy getting started guide right from the start. It leads every new user through a few simple steps that help them get set up their new solution.

Conclusion

Ticketing software has become one of the most essential tools for handling customer support. Managing customer incoming request via ticketing can help you provide faster, more reliable advice, as well as allow agents to handle a larger number of customer requests. Ticketing systems can provide added value to any help desk. This depends on customer communication channels, features, and integrations you decide to rely on, as well as trained customer support agents. Respond to requests with ease, and get the right ticketing software for your help desk.