Help Scout is an example of an app that focuses on doing a single thing right. If you are looking for your first help desk check them out. Help Scout is one step above of just using a shared mailbox. It is well designed and has no learning curve. However, if you have more than 5 people in your team, have SLAs or other business policies Help Scout is probably not going to work for you. Plus plan is used for the comparison.
ServiceNow ITSM is an enterprise-class IT service management solution targeted at large corporations. In addition to help desk ticketing, it provides asset management (with automated discovery), change management, lifecycle and release management etc. It's probably an overkill to use it just as a helpdesk unless you have really deep pockets.
Helpscout | ServiceNow | Jitbit | |
---|---|---|---|
A simple help desk focused on email. | Enterprise-class ITSM solution | Help Desk Software built for email. Trusted by thousands of companies across 50 + countries. | |
Pricing: 3 years / 5 agents |
$6300
|
$18000
|
$3897
|
Pricing: 3 years / 10 agents |
$12600
|
$36000
|
$8367
|
Active Directory |
✔️
Only Azure AD is supported
|
✔️
LDAP, SAML authentication
|
✔️
Integration via a script for your server or ADFS and SAML
|
Activity Dashboard | ❌ |
✔️
Live activity dashboard
|
✔️
Live overview dashboard
|
Asset Management | ❌ |
✔️
Full fledged asset management with automated discovery
|
✔️
A complete asset management module tightly integrated into the rest of the app
|
Canned Responses |
✔️
They are called Saved Replies. You can insert them in ticket replies
|
✔️
Response templates
|
✔️
You can also assign canned responses to specific ticket categories if you need to
|
Community Forums | ❌ |
✔️
Yes
|
✔️
Ideas Forum comes out of the box
|
Custom Fields |
✔️
Up to ten custom fields per mailbox
|
✔️
Custom fields via additional database columns
|
✔️
Many custom field types, including dependant fields. Various privacy options.
|
Custom Statuses | ❌ |
✔️
Custom statuses for tickets and incidents
|
✔️
Add custom statuses, customize how your customers see them and assign different colors to them
|
Customer satisfaction survey |
✔️
Comes with CSATs and a Happiness report
|
✔️
Separate satisfaction surveys, not tied to tickets
|
✔️
Optional CSATs in email notifications and a report
|
Design Customization |
✔️
Customize Knowledge Base with externally hosted CSS files
|
✔️
Custom forms layouts only
|
✔️
Unlimited customization options. Change colors with a live preview, add custom CSS and JS
|
Email Notification Templates | ❌ |
✔️
WYSIWIG/HTML templates
|
✔️
You are able to completely change a template for any notification type
|
Escalation | ❌ |
✔️
Manual or via triggers
|
✔️
Possible to set up various escalation scenarios via automation
|
Exchange Integration | ❌ |
✔️
Native integration via a plugin
|
✔️
Native EWS support instead of IMAP. oAuth support for Office 365
|
Import and Export |
✔️
Can be done via API
|
✔️
Import/export from Excel, export to PDF
|
✔️
Import and Export tickets via CSV files
|
Internationalization |
✔️
You can manually translate some parts of the app
|
✔️
Extra languages via a plugin
|
✔️
Available in 16 different languages
|
ITIL Compliance | ❌ |
✔️
Full ITIL/ITSM
|
✔️
Support for most ITIL processes
|
Knowledge Base |
✔️
It's called Docs and it is highly customizable
|
✔️
Knowledge base and the self-service portal
|
✔️
Customizable Knowledge Base optimized for search engines
|
Live Chat | ❌ |
✔️
Yes
|
✔️
A free live chat component in the web widget
|
Mobile Apps |
✔️
iOS and Android
|
✔️
Only via 'Now' mobile app
|
✔️
iOS and Android
|
Multi-channel support | ❌ | ❌ |
✔️
Possible to add unlimited channels via integrations and API
|
On-premise Version | ❌ |
✔️
Yes, but only the highest pricing tier
|
✔️
A full on-premises version that runs on Windows Server
|
Reports and Analytics |
✔️
Most must-have reports are included
|
✔️
Yes
|
✔️
13 reports with an ability to build your own and to export everything to Excel
|
REST API |
✔️
Sparate APIs for KB and tickets
|
✔️
Included
|
✔️
API covers all the app features
|
Single-Sign-On |
✔️
Separate add-on for $5 per user per month
|
✔️
SAML, LDAP
|
✔️
SAML, Google login, Windows-integrated etc.
|
SLA Management | ❌ |
✔️
SLA policies available
|
✔️
Full SLA automation via actions/triggers
|
Support Widget | ❌ | ❌ |
✔️
Two different versions of a web widget
|
Third-party Integrations |
✔️
80+ apps
|
❌ |
✔️
30 native integrations and 500 more via Zapier
|
Ticket Collaboration | ❌ |
✔️
Transfer and CC, but no live updates and collision detection
|
✔️
See when other techs are viewing tickets in real-time, assign multiple people to a ticket
|
Workflow Automation |
✔️
Very basic automation features are available
|
✔️
Automation Designer in the 'Now' platform
|
✔️
Automation Rules are very powerful and can go beyond simple if-this-then-that logic
|
Looking for help desk software? Check out Jitbit. We offer a fully-featured app at a very affordable price. It comes with all the must have features like knowledge base, two-way email integration (including native Exchange and Office 365 support), automation, hundreds of integrations with third-party apps and much more. Available both as a hosted "SaaS" version and an on-premises version you can install on your own server.
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