How's our Helpdesk different?

I was not sure if this post should go to my personal blog or the "official" one. But I still decided to put it here. Heck, one of the things we're trying to do differently is "being personal", so why not.

Every time someone asks me how our helpdesk software is different from Zendesk/Freshdesk/Helpscout/Groove/Kayako/whatever I'm tempted to say "it's not!"

But wait, aren't you supposed to innovate and disrupt? Aren't you supposed to stand out of the competition?

No. "Me too" products are just fine. I already blogged about this here almost 4 years ago, and the post went hugely viral on HN/Reddit/etc, so I won't repeat myself.

But it's not just this.

Why all helpdesks are kinda similar?

Helpdesk software apps are targeted at IT-people. And IT-people are usually very good at describing their needs and formulating their requirements. It's not like you're talking to a landscape designer or a marketing person - you're talking to a technical guy. A technical guy who's doing a routine job every day, over and over, 9 to 5. So he knows exactly how to automate it and ease his life.

And guess what. That is the reason most help desk software apps are so similar. They all have tight email integration. They all have a knowledge base, file-attachments, automation-engines. They all come with iOS/Android apps, they all organize incoming support requests as "tickets". Some of them are SaaS, some are "on-premises" (we do both by the way, that is one of the actual distinctions that puts us aside), but the feature set is pretty standard.

But in spite of it all, we love creating products for IT people. Even though it is sometimes very hard to compete in these niches. IT pros are "dream customers". No offense, but I will never go back to selling software tools to sales people or management accountants.

Why all helpdesks are still different?

A BMW is very similar to a Mercedes. They're both just cars. They both do one simple thing of letting you drive from one location to another.

But then we have Tesla.

And there's also Reliant Robin

And, of course, THIS

Are they all similar? No doubt. Are they all same? Of course not.

So, answering the question "How's Jitbit different?" it all comes to this:

1. Our helpdesk is simple and easy, but still we tried to add every possible feature that people expect from a helpdesk app.
2. Our helpdesk is affordable, not priced "per agent" and even comes with an "on-premise" version you can install on your server
3. Our helpdesk (surprise) is not targeted at just IT-people, we do our best to make it friendly to non-technical folks.