A locally developed helpdesk service, which can be rented on a monthly basis, is enabling small organisations to offer the same support as a large helpdesk centre.
Dynamic Software (DSL), an Auckland development and consulting company, uses HelpLink to support its customers. “We’re a small business and this product makes us look a lot more professional,” says DSL's Geoff Greenwood.
Customers use a web browser to log calls and track requests for help. The system provides email and SMS alerts to support staff, and can do customer satisfaction analysis. It was built on Microsoft SQL Server.
HelpLink is priced at a minimum of five seats and costs $300 a month; 10 seats is $550 a month and 20 seats is $1000 a month.
Gulf Harbour-based Alistair Chater, who runs HelpLink, says the software is simple and was designed to do 85% of what users want. It’s not over-populated with features.
Support staff can publish frequently asked questions and answers to provide a knowledge base that allows customers to help themselves.
Chater jokes that the best way to seed the knowledge base is get support staff to sit around with a couple of bottles of wine and come up with questions that are asked repeatedly. From there the base grows organically.