5 Alternatives to HappyFox
HappyFox is one of your best options for tracking and managing helpdesk tickets due in large part to its combination of intuitive automation and self-service tools. These key components of an efficient helpdesk reduce ticket workload in order to help provide faster customer service.
HappyFox starts at $29 per staff member per month but can be bumped up to $69 per staff member per month depending on your needs. The $69 plan, which contains all of the features of the cheaper plans, gives you access to an unlimited number of ticket categories, 10 custom-branded interfaces, password policy management, and SMS notifications, among many other incredible features. You'll be able to create tickets by email, from social media, and via third-party software through HappyFox's REST application programming interface (API).
Although HappyFox is the best helpdesk tool on the market, it's not the only one. This is a good thing, especially for organizations that want certain features which HappyFox doesn't offer. For those companies, we've compiled this list of five solid HappyFox alternatives. Some are less complex, some are more flexible, and some are just flat-out cheaper. Regardless of your helpdesk needs, this list should have you covered.
Vivantio Pro
A mature and feature-rich helpdesk solution, Vivantio Pro is a barebones tool designed to keep service tickets moving. For customers with entrenched business processes or specialized equipment, Vivantio Pro supports custom help form creation and process automation. By letting IT managers create custom forms and fields in ticket forms, Vivantio Pro lets them better support specialized assets, technologies, and business processes. Built with an "a la carte-style" pricing format, Vivantio Pro comes in two tiers: Pro and ITSM. Pro's features can be compiled into a package that will cost up to $60 per month per user. The ITSM package will cost up to $90. The Pro package doesn't include ticket triggers, out-of-the-box integrations, custom web hooks, or data permissions. However, any of those features can be made available at the ITSM pricing level. Although we think the tool can be quite expensive depending on how it's configured, and it does require some training before usage, we still think it's an amazing package for larger and more mature enterprises.
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is simple to use, with an advanced feature set and an affordable price. Freshdesk excels in its ticket management, which allows helpdesk tickets to be assigned to individual agents depending upon what work is required. The system itself does a good job of automatically performing certain tasks based upon what an incoming ticket requires; this means those commonly asked questions can have useful replies automatically generated and delivered by the system. Freshdesk offers five different pricing plans, from a free service to a $90-per-month, custom-built enterprise package. If you run a small business and you're looking for software that can scale with your company as it grows, then Freshdesk is an ideal tool.
Freshservice
Freshservice isn't the most well-known helpdesk software but it's an ideal tool for small businesses that don't need all of the bells and whistles of better-known tools. What is most appealing about Freshservice (especially for small to midsize businesses or SMBs) is that it offers a free plan that's good enough to help you get started. No, this isn't a free trial; it's an actual free service that requires no payment whatsoever. With that, you'll gain access to online help and tutorial videos that will show you how to get started and optimize your service operation. Like Freshdesk, Freshservice comes in multiple tiers so that your organization can grow within the tool. Paid plans start at $29 per user per month and escalate to $79 per user per month. Although Freshservice doesn't have the robust reporting you'll find in other tools, and its asset management capabilities are lacking, it's still a great tool for entry-level and growing businesses.
ServiceDesk Plus
ServiceDesk Plus 9.1 (SDP) from ManageEngine (now a Zoho company) is probably the best helpdesk tool when it comes to combining service and asset management functionality within one tool. Targeted at larger organizations, ServiceDesk Plus is not your mom and pop's helpdesk tool. It features a large assortment of service functionality, including extensive incident management, problem management, and business rule and self-service automation—all of which is directly tied to an entire asset management suite. Because of this deep functionality, ServiceDesk Plus is among the most expensive tools we've tested. The tool starts at $395 for two technicians and 250 nodes.
Jira Service Desk
If you're looking for an affordable and solid tool, then look no further than Jira Service Desk by Atlassian. Although somewhat limited, this tool offers fully customizable dashboards, a host of easy automation options, and a REST API that lets you connect to third-party tools. The cloud-based version of the tool starts at only $10 per month for up to three agents, making it the cheapest paid plan we've reviewed. Larger businesses can opt for the more robust plan that starts at $20 per agent per month. What's especially cool about Jira Service Desk is that security-minded businesses can host the software internally rather than store data in the cloud, which is pretty atypical among Service Desk competitors. Unfortunately, Atlassian Cloud doesn't support multiple separate domains, subdomains, or domain aliases, which means users with email addresses only on your primary domain are able to access the tool.
This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.