Zendesk is cool - just had to say that up front - it's COOL. This customer support platform offers both user help ticketing and a self-service web portal, and it's one of the most powerful and easy-to-configure tools I've used in quite a while.
OK, you say, but why do you care so much? I care, and you should too, because everything is customer support. EVERYTHING.
After your product or service is launched and out in the world, every(!) user experience, good or bad, is a potential tweet, blog or Facebook post away from millions of sympathetic souls, ready to pile on the cheers or jeers.
I believe that web-based self help is one of the best models for effective customer support. Admittedly, some products will always need phone-based help, but to my mind, we're all too busy to spend time on hold, waiting for an agent to walk through a canned script, only to discover that the agent doesn't have the information and you find yourself on hold again, until someone with the more experience becomes available. Argggh!
And, while traditional forums have their place, fully customer-created help isn't always the most effective solution for every product or service. It can take as much time to moderate helpful user-provided help than it does to build a knowledge base in the first place.
Why Zendesk? Simple: it's easy to use, and out of the box, Zendesk just works. No need for extensive customization or design - in a few minutes, you can set up a free trial account and immediately have a functional help ticketing system that automatically tracks user requests. And, as fast as you can create knowledge base articles, you can publish them.
Or, if your support model is forum-based help, that's built in as well: fourms can be article-based (curated knowledge base), idea-based (new feature requests) or question-based (traditional forum where members offer help and advice).
When you create your site, it's pre-configured so your customers can:
- create an account (at yourwebportal.zendesk.com)
- create and submit help tickets, view ticket status/history
- search your knowledge base to find help and advice
- comment on existing articles and engage with other customers to solve issues
- participate in your newly-created community
If you're ok with simple branding (logo, favicon and color selection), you're good to go. (Additional branding is easy via CSS/JavaScript widgets).
Previously, I used Remedy and Oracle/RightNow to build user help knowledge bases, and it always took weeks (or months) to set up, and required the additional cost of a professional services team to complete the implementation. Yes, these solutions may offer more powerful features, and some organizations may require all the bells and whistles, but for many of us, this "good enough" tool is a great middle ground.
Besides, you gotta love a company that does this: S**t Customer Support Agents Say