3 Best Magento Help Desk Extensions For Impressive Customer Support

Magento is definitely a leader when it comes to running online stores of all types. It offers merchants a great variety of features to fit their needs, but every client has different requests and priorities and sometimes basic features are just not enough. If you think you are one of those online merchants then Magento help desk extension is useful for what you are looking for! Nowadays, there are lots of extensions available in the marketplace that will make online selling experience a lot more enjoyable for everyone, merchants, customers, and all the staff.

Using extensions has become a necessity for online merchants, as it is nearly impossible to stand out and succeed without them, due to the high competition going on within the industry. However, with extensions becoming more and more popular, the selection is getting bigger and bigger and it becomes hard to choose the best one. We will help you pick the best extension for your online business.

In this article, we will discuss customer service related extensions. It is crucial to provide customers with high quality support service as it directly affects sales and success. If they are not receiving the support they expected, then they will not return to your store any time soon. Check out these statistics to realize the true importance of customer service:

• 55% of the customers would recommend a store due to outstanding service, more so than product or price.
• 85% are willing to pay 25% more to ensure superior customer service experience.
• 96% of unhappy customers don’t complain, however 91% of those will simply leave and never come back.
• It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience.
• A customer is 4 times more likely to go to a competitor’s site if the problem is service-related than price- or product-related.
• A dissatisfied customer will share his or her experience with 9-15 people. Around 13% of those customers tell more than 20 people.

Helpdesk module for Magento allows you to organize an efficient customer support in an online store. It allows you to connect to an email box that receives messages from customers and creates new tickets for them. The tickets can also be created by a client via his or her personal account or a contact form available on the site. Tickets can be assigned to specific departments or store administration team. When an administration team member responds to the ticket, the client receives a notification. Customers and store administration team are able to track the history of the ticket, therefore all the important info is organized and no time is spent looking for answers.

There are many different help desk extensions for Magento nowadays. We have chosen three of the most popular help desk modules. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss their pros and cons with you.

Help Desk Ultimate by Aheadworks

This extension was developed in 2009 and was one of the first modules for help desk operations. It would not be fair to say that this module is deprecated due to its release date. The extension is updated constantly so that it works with the latest versions of Magento. Some of the key features of the Help Desk Ultimate by Aheadworks include:

• ability to set up unlimited departments or moderators
• ability to submit tickets in various ways (via Magento, email, live chat, etc.)
• ability for customers to choose department or priority and view the entire thread of a ticket
• ability to attach tickets to orders, auto-update ticket status,
• easy-to-manage response templates, etc.

One of the greatest features of the Help Desk Ultimate is that it ensures fast resolution and response on the tickets, thanks to the 2-way email parsing. The email parser automatically converts messages into tickets or their responses. Once the email parser receives a response from staff, it will be processed and recorded in the Help Desk and it would be then forwarded to the customer.

Pros for customers:

• The Help Desk Ultimate offers customers improved selection interface for creating and editing tickets. Being logged in is no longer a necessity.
• Customers receive faster and more accurate replies when the tickets are organized.
• Clients can track all their communication with the merchant.

Pros for support teams:

• It is easier and faster to manage the workflow by assigning tasks through unlimited departments. There is no limit to creating departments and each one of them has a title, an email address, a set of email templates, and a unique access. Different support tickets can be directed to different departments. The ticket can be automatically assigned to the relevant department once a visitor submits it. Merchants also have an option of displaying or hiding the department selector to the visitors.
• Ease of crafting an email template with new macro fields.
• The extension offers complete visibility on the help desk through reports based on the ticket number and status.
• Tickets are automatically closed if there is no activity by an end user for the number of days specified by the merchant. This lets the help desk focus on the active tickets.
• Merchants also get to take advantage of some advanced multi-store support mechanisms. Department visibility can be specified for a certain store. Primary ones can be assigned for stores and automatic store-department email parsing can be established.
• Ticket management is much simpler with the extension as it offers specifically modified system.
• Keeping track of the entire thread is possible with the Help Desk Ultimate.
• History of all communications can be traced.

Help Desk MX by Mirasvit

This module was developed in 2013 and includes the most modern and convenient features to organize Help Desk work properly and efficiently. The fact that this extension is one of the newest ones in the market, gives it a great advantage over all others. It has all the features that the old ones had and also presents some of the exclusive and unique possibilities for the help desk team.

The Help Desk MX by Mirasvit offers online merchants some unique opportunities when it comes to customer service. It provides an opportunity to:

• create custom fields for tickets
• ability to conduct customer surveys and evaluate customer satisfaction level
• offer good quality reports on various indicators with graphs, etc.

Mirasvit makes the relationship with the clients less formal and friendlier by offering an option of removing the ticket number from the message header. Help Desk MX allows every customer to submit a support request in any suitable format that suits him or her.

Pros for customers:

• Option to create and submit tickets in the several ways:
  • by sending an email to the support service
  • by using a contact form available on website
  • by offline chat (Zopim, Livezilla, etc)
  • by using a personal account
• Several options when replying on a ticket:
  • by replying the email received from support service
  • via personal account
  • via contact form (direct link, without login)
• Tracking the communication history is very easy.
• Option to set up the priority of the ticket and to assign the department.
• Ability to enclose files within the email.
• Customer satisfaction surveys, which allow customers to rate support team responses.

Pros for support teams:

• Full integration with Magento.
• Multi departments provide an opportunity to include the support team member into several departments.
• The tickets received from different channels or mailboxes can be automatically assigned to the department.
• Ability to set up ticket statuses:
  • Ability to assign a ticket to a specific team member or department
  • Ability to leave an internal messages, marks and notes that will be visible only to the team members
  • Ability to enclose files within the message
  • Powerful search system
• Ability to track ticket history.
• Ability to reply to an email via email.
• An email notification about new tickets.
• It has a Pre-defined Responses feature that allows merchants to create templates for the typical email responses. It significantly speeds up the work of the support team.
• There are many reporting styles:
  • Tickets reports where teams can analyze the following data:
    • New ticket number
    • Solved tickets number
    • Solved tickets (in percentage)
    • Total tickets number
    • First reply time
    • First resolution time
    • Full resolution time
  • Customer satisfaction reports where teams can analyze the following data:
    • Number of votes (Great/OK/Bad)
    • Total Responses
    • Satisfaction Score
    • Response Rate
    • 2-way email parsing
    • An effective spam protection

Help Desk MX is fully integrated with Magento, easy to install and upgrade, and 100% open-source. Also, a significant advantage is the price, which is considerably lower than its competitors. It is definitely one of the top choices in the market nowadays.

Help Desk Pro by Mage World

Help Desk Pro by Mage World provides merchants with some unique opportunities, but it has certain limitations as well. The extension offers:

• ability to install working hours of support team into the backend business and display their availability
• ability to link different tags to tickets
• create rules for ticket management, etc.

As for the limitations, the module has a weak protection against spam. There is no spam protection using rules. The only option is to add emails into the prohibited list. In addition, this extension is the most expensive one among these three and it is quite hard to justify such a difference.

Pros for customers:

• Submitting a ticket is easier when there are several options available:
  • via Magento contact form
  • via customer’s account
• Tracking and responding is easier as well. Customers receive email notification of new ticket and staff response. These tickets’ statuses can be tracked in customers’ account.
• Customers also get to use some advanced features like the ability to attach multiple files in rich text format.

Pros for support teams:

• Tickets are easier to create on the backend. They can be created from Help Desk menu or directly on Customer page.
• All tickets can be tracked on the backend.
• Departments are easier to create and manage as well. Multiple departments are also supported.
• Departments can be assigned to multiple stores.
• Ability to set a department code that is used in the ticket ID and appeared on email subject line.
• It is simple to manage staff members by assigning them to multiple departments.
• Email getaways can be managed in a more simple way and multiple email getaways are supported.
• The extension allows the administrator to create rules on managing tickets. (These rules will be processed automatically when the ticket is created or updated.)
• It is also helpful with ticket statistics: statistics by staff members and departments can be viewed.

Help Desk Pro by Mage World is optimized for large-scale businesses and has HTML/CSS validation. It has a friendly and flexible communication and is easy to install and upgrade. The extension supports multiple stores and multiple languages and is 100% open-source. Some of their customers include Lufthansa City Center, ShirtofHolland, NUOE.co.uk, Gordon Rush, Thomas Hill Interior, Fitness Direct and Vitality4Life.

Wrap-up

Magento is definitely a great choice when it comes to an ecommerce platform; however, there is not much of a difference if you do not make the most out of the extensions that are available nowadays. One of the key factors that lead towards the success is choosing the right extension for your online business and we believe that the three options mentioned above are the best ones. Now, it is up to you to take a closer look at them and choose the one that fits your needs the best!

If you know any other help desk extensions for Magento, do let us know in the comments section below.

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Abdur Rahman

Abdur Rahman is the Magento whizz at Cloudways. He is growth ambitious, and aims to learn & share information about Ecommerce & Magento Development through practice and experimentation. He loves to travel and explore new ideas whenever he finds time. Get in touch with him at [email protected]

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