Deskpro is way to overpriced imo, and im not going to spend another $500 after i spent $700 on version 1, which didnt contain many updates anyway.

Anyone got some good helpdesks they suggest

SitePanel 2 and Cerberus have both had good things said about them.

http://sitepanel2.com/
http://www.cerberusweb.com/

Bookmarking this thread, as I'm in the market myself.

Perldesk: Cheap and good. Easy to customize. Downside seems to be lack of support and the fact it's cgi and not php.

Cerberus: Also rather affordable at $99 for an owned licence. Don't know how well they are respected at this time. Don't know if my eyes will put up with all the bright colours.

Kayako esupport: Seems well liked. More expensive though. Leased licences are available.

Inverseflow: Have used it in the past and liked it, but a licence again is more expensive ($264.96 USD, not sure if that's owned or yearly).

Sitepanel: I like the look of it, but as it lacks the ability to have different departments, it's of no use to me.

i've used Kayako's eSupport and Perldesk, and i feel that Kayako is the better solution.

www.kayako.com
www.perldesk.com

eSupport Lite Monthly License--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unlimited Tickets, 2 Users, 2 Departments, 50 Knowledgebase Articles, 50 Troubleshooters, 1 Email Handler, 5 Downloads. A new key will be dispatched to your email address 7 days before the old one expires. Upgrades and support are free for lifetime.Anybody know what they mean by one email handler? Does this mean you can only pipe email from one address? The 2 departments would suit me, but I would want to be able to pipe email to both of them.

Also, how easy is it to put in your own header? I wouldn't want kayako plastered on my site like that.

ProPanelSystems Support will be released around the end of December. It is a highly customizable, easy to use, and advanced support ticket management system.

Not much on the site yet, but Ive seen screenshots of the script and it looks pretty amazing.

http://propanelsystems.com

I've used the last free version of PerlDesk extensively in the past and highly recommend it. Rock solid and easy for users and staff.

My vote goes to Kayako Esupport :p

Originally posted by Tazzman
Anybody know what they mean by one email handler? Does this mean you can only pipe email from one address? The 2 departments would suit me, but I would want to be able to pipe email to both of them.

Also, how easy is it to put in your own header? I wouldn't want kayako plastered on my site like that.

i think that's what they mean by 1 email handler, but i'm not positive. you may want to ask on their forums. and kayako lets you use your own header/footer from what i've seen others do

Client Exec http://www.clientexec.com

We use "Support Center" from http://isolsoft.com

The only feature I find lacking is the ability to pipe incoming emails into new tickets.

Totally kayako for me. It looks great and its very user friendly. :D

We implemented Request Tracker (http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/) a few weeks ago and so far it's not too bad.

The only gripe I have is that it runs a bit slow, but that could be the machine. It's running on a Pentium II-350 box here in the office.

Email is forwarded from the main email server to Exim running on this machine, which then pipes it into RT.

Primarily email based, although it does have a web interface. However, as our outgoing bandwidth is limited (and often taken up with VoIP), only staff know the URL to the web interface.

We had a web based support system previously, but hardly any of our customers actually used it - they all used email.

-Shaun

go for kayako, you will not be let down. our clients LOVE it, and actually dont mind using it and we we get less phone calls :D TWo thumbs up!

None of them are perfect. I was torn between Cerberus and Kayako eSupport. Both are excellent, "full-bodied" apps. I chose eSupport and I'm delighted with it, the tech crew loves it and its features have really enhanced customer interaction.

Originally posted by Tazzman
Also, how easy is it to put in your own header? I wouldn't want kayako plastered on my site like that.

That's a piece of cake. But even with an owned license you are expected to keep the copyright notice on the page footers.

Originally posted by Tazzman
Cerberus: Also rather affordable at $99 for an owned licence. Don't know how well they are respected at this time. Don't know if my eyes will put up with all the bright colours.

You do know that you can change the colors as quickly and easily as editing like 4-5 lines in a CSS file, right? That is one of the best features of Cerberus, the ability to change virtually anything about it quickly and easily. Unlike a majority of their competitors, they provide full source code access to the GUI and have a very active third party development community. If you frequent their forums, you will see many people like myself who contribute addons for Cerberus. This is something which simply isn't possible with products like Kayako because of their encryption. I personally feel that no matter how good a product is, there will always be "that one little thing which I wish was different". With Cerberus you have that ability to make that change, where as with most other products in their category you do not. Besides, their price currently is unbelievably cheap!

We use Perl Desk and have had no problems with either client or staff support use.

We switched from Perldesk to Kayako and could not be more happy, as you may or may not know it also comes with a nice setup with a built in FAQ and Troubleshooting system you can setup a nice little download area to place scripts for customer downloads and the helpdesk works great including the email piping feature.

One other big plus is that if you open a support ticket in Kayako it does a scan of your FAQ so if it sees a few possible solutions it will show the end user and maybe solve the problem for them without even needing to open a ticket which is nice :o) I have no proof that it comes in handy that much other than a few clients mentioning it.

We too just converted from PerlDesk to eSupport. The cost difference is a lot, but it's well justified. eSupport is simply a much more robust help desk application.

Been running PerlDesk for a year or so and pretty happy with it.

We're implementing ClientExec. But I have worked with Kayako's eSupport in the past and it is a very stable system and can integrate wonderfully within your site.

Regards,
Mark

PerlDesk is good software, at least it was the last time we used it.
Couldn't say the same for PerlBill, but John is a good guy overall, just seems to have to many things on his plate.


Kayako is awesome, I am a little concerned about the update process. If I understand what I read correctly it doesn’t save any of your changes because they re-wrote allot of stuff. I did just glance through the doc so maybe I am not understanding correctly.

ClientExec is great BILLING software, I think the support end of it is pretty weak. I have requested on the forums numerous times for them to make a simple on off switch so people who didn’t want to use the CE support center could turn it off. Hasn't happened yet.


If you are a smaller company CE is your best option because it includes billing/support, however if you have a larger client base and need a more sophisticated support system go with kayako.

Zach

Here is another one that we are looking at.

http://zsupport.zhisoft.com/

is Kayako owned open or closed source?

Originally posted by Zach


ClientExec is great BILLING software, I think the support end of it is pretty weak. I have requested on the forums numerous times for them to make a simple on off switch so people who didn’t want to use the CE support center could turn it off. Hasn't happened yet.

Zach

I agree with you , there is an easy way to take out the tabs for the supportdesk in the template , that what we did .

wow guys. :P

You picked up a thread 2 months old. :D

To the mods, is that "no bumping old threads" mod ever going to be implemented?

Originally posted by cMark
wow guys. :P

You picked up a thread 2 months old. :D

To the mods, is that "no bumping old threads" mod ever going to be implemented?

I think theres a difference between bumping and adding to but hey what do I know ;)

I guess, but it should belong in a thread of its own.

I'm putting my money in CE revamping the HelpDesk. :)

However, Kayako E-Support IS VERY nice.

Like my grand daddy once said, `If it aint broke, why fix it`. IF a system works out for you and your company then i would stay stick with it.