TeamSupport: collaborative customer support

We’re no strangers to help desk support software, and TeamSupport is another competitor in the market for online customer support management in the cloud. TeamSupport is designed for both B2B technology companies and internal support desks. It helps manage support through channels that customers are most comfortable with, including phone, web, email and chat.

Usability

Tickets are logged in a very straightforward interface. Technicians can add a new ticket by typing the incident straight into the form and selecting the customer details, product details, logging time etc. Setting reminders and tags, associating tickets with existing tickets, assets and users can all be done with a few simple clicks. Most features in tickets are also customisable, so customer service team leaders can develop them as they see fit.

We found that associating new customers with tickets can be a bit awkward. If a new customer reports an incident to the team, you would need to input their details in the customers section first before going back to create the ticket. This is a basic usability snag which could be improved.

Recent tickets are displayed across a toolbar at the top for easy access. When viewing tickets, they appear in a simple, user-friendly layout. Most items in blue can be clicked for quick editing or to view further information, and it’s easy to find the information you need to help resolve the incident or problem.

Every action you take on a ticket can be logged. That includes logging the time you have spent working on an issue as well as the time spend administrating. All tickets keep a history of any changes.

Tables show open, closed and unassigned tickets. Tickets assigned to you are also displayed in the My Tickets section. Again, this is another series of tables showing open and closed tickets, tickets in your group, your queue and any reminders you have set. The tables allow you to take ownership or request an update from the current owner of the ticket with a simple click. There’s nothing unique here, really, although it’s interesting to note that tickets can be exported to a .CSV file.

The list of customers can be easily accessed from the admin area. Immediately, this screen shows the amount of open and closed tickets they have. You can set contacts within an organisation, products that these users are working with, and you can also associate attachments. Further details of the support you are providing them can be viewed, you can set SLAs and SLA expiry dates and with a list of tickets associated with them. This feature is useful for quickly finding any issues that the customer has already reported, and we found that this was a really effective way of reducing the amount of time you need to contact a customer to resolve their problem.

Other features include a knowledge base, chat, wiki and a nifty ‘water cooler’ to post messages for the support teams in your organisation. A wide range of Reports are also accessible and can be customised to suit your needs. All reports can also be exported should you need to edit them in another application.

Customer portal

For an additional $50 per month, TeamSupport customers can purchase the Advanced Customer Portal (only available with Enterprise and Support Desk licenses). This is an interesting feature which can help you break down the barriers between the customer and the support teams. Apart from giving them the ability to directly open tickets, customers can view and close their tickets, add extra information and attachments and use the knowledge base and forums. Another great feature of the Advanced Customer Portal is the ability for customers to record and embed their screens into a ticket – a very effective tool to help support teams replicate an incident or problem.

Integration

TeamSupport has a number of of integrations with other software, from a simple button to place on a Facebook page to mailouts using Mailchimp to integration with Zoho CRM and Zoho Reports. That broadens the appeal of TeamSupport, ensuring the software integrates easily with existing cloud applications that your business may already use.

Package Details

There are three package options for users wishing to purchase the TeamSupport cloud software. The Express license is well suited to small support and maintenance teams that just need to log a ticket and manage it through to resolution. This license costs $20 per agent per month. The Support Desk license costs $25 per agent per month and is designed for full internal help desk provision. This license includes an integrated customer database and the ability to create second and third line support groups to help collaborate on the resolution of any issue.

The Enterprise version enables the full product features and allows your Customer Support, Product Development and Product Management teams to effectively collaborate using the same tool and information. The Enterprise license comes in at $35 per agent per month. For an additional fee, TeamSupport also offer professional services including training, consultation, API development and help converting your existing data so that you can retain your current ticket history.

Our thoughts

We’ve reviewed a fair few customer service and helpdesk applications over the last couple of months, including Zendesk, Help Desk Premier and Ticksy. Of all the applications I’ve looked at, this one reminded me most of TriggerApp in that its strength is in its integration. If you’re a Zoho user, the convenience of being able to link TeamSupport with your existing data can’t be denied.

I also liked the fact that different channels are supported, particularly live chat, a support medium which is ever more popular with users who want a quick fix for a problem.

Other than that, I’m not sure TeamSupport has the edge against other customer support SaaS products in its field, but the foundations are there. It’s a shame that some of the basics are lacking, such as creating tickets for new customers, but in time, TeamSupport could become a real contender in a competitive niche.

Tags: customer service, customer support, help desk, review, SaaS, TeamSupport

Category: Collaboration, CRM, Initial Reviews, Project Management