A help desk is a service a company offers to support computer users and offer technical advice. Most technology companies have traditionally had help desks, but today, nearly every company is a technology company. For this reason, help desks have become common at all types of companies. They serve to provide answers to customer issues and frustrations, helping customers navigate interfaces such as ecommerce checkout, website search, and more.

Why Do Help Desks Matter in Customer Service?

Customer experience is critical to all types of brands, and time is a valuable resource. Fail to give your customers the support they require, and they’ll quickly move on to another option. Having a process in place to give customers both quick response and personalized attention is important to their overall experience. If your customer experience involves technology at all — like an app or mobile customer service — you need a help desk to serve customers who require support.

Why Mobile Help Desks are Important

With more and more people doing more and more things from mobile devices, customer experience today is largely about mobile capability. This macro trend has a side effect: when it’s possible to do almost anything in the moment from a phone, tablet, or smart watch, the expectation is high that you will get instant answers whenever you need them.

How Helpshift Supports Help Desks

Time to first response is a critical KPI (key performance indicator) for customer service organizations. Helpshift supports quick response by connecting your automated and human support options across platforms and within single interfaces. In-app FAQs and AI-enabled bots can provide a quick first point of contact for customers, and if unable to resolve their issues, can then seamlessly connect them to a human help desk representative.

An efficient help desk setup should also automatically collect critical information about the customer at the point of contact so you don’t have to waste valuable time asking for standard details such as name, username, and account number. A help desk system should also automatically collect technical details about app version, device, and usage that may help describe or troubleshoot the customer’s experience.