Next step from a shared inbox for customer service?

[AnimalMother]

Have 10 users sharing a typical sales@ inbox for customer service, all currently using Thunderbird with the same login & flags. We get quite a few problems and it pretty obvious this isnt a scalable solution.


Whats the next step for handling a single sales@ inbox and a small team? Should I be researching desk.com, MS exchange, any other suggestions?

[BJG1]

These guys are fantastic and cheaper than some of the bigger players. Highly recommend. https://www.groovehq.com/

[buggalugs]

What are the main problems that you are having?

[AnimalMother]

buggalugs said:

What are the main problems that you are having?

There is no audit trail for one thing. As we are using a single user we cant trace who did what. Also running out of colours when assigning emails to staff members.


We also have problems with folders getting moved and sometimes the contents of the inbox seams to get permanently deleted. Initially we thought it was being caused by incompetent staff, but its actually looking to be a problem with Thunderbird or maybe server, tbh having 10 Thunderbird installs and having to check setting on all of them is a pain in the arse. I could try trouble shooting the issues but as we are always growing the team we think its better to start looking at the next step.

[AnimalMother]

BJG1 said:

These guys are fantastic and cheaper than some of the bigger players. Highly recommend. https://www.groovehq.com/

Thanks, that looks pretty good.



Do you know how it compares with desk.com?

[HappyMidget]

Use Spiceworks. https://www.spiceworks.com/

Free, good community, and can extend it to network management etc.

[BJG1]

AnimalMother said:

Thanks, that looks pretty good.



Do you know how it compares with desk.com?

I had trial periods with pretty much everyone including desk and found this was by far the best feature and price wise. It'll do pretty much everything desk.com does and is very easy to use

[buggalugs]

AnimalMother said:

buggalugs said:

What are the main problems that you are having?

There is no audit trail for one thing. As we are using a single user we cant trace who did what. Also running out of colours when assigning emails to staff members.


We also have problems with folders getting moved and sometimes the contents of the inbox seams to get permanently deleted. Initially we thought it was being caused by incompetent staff, but its actually looking to be a problem with Thunderbird or maybe server, tbh having 10 Thunderbird installs and having to check setting on all of them is a pain in the arse. I could try trouble shooting the issues but as we are always growing the team we think its better to start looking at the next step.

Yeah you need some kind of ticketing or CRM system, I've used Zendesk, then moved on to Asana, it's whichever you click with really. If it's 'just' service then a full CRM might be overkill.

[AnimalMother]

buggalugs said:

Yeah you need some kind of ticketing or CRM system, I've used Zendesk, then moved on to Asana, it's whichever you click with really. If it's 'just' service then a full CRM might be overkill.

Thanks, we were just talking about what exactly a CRM is compared to these "helpdesk" solutions. Its a bit confusing, our sale processing software already sends automated emails when order are received and dispatched, on back order, etc. So we sort of have a little crm as part of that, if you can call it that. We also use mailchimp for marketing. A CRM would be something that integrates with everything, right? But we cant do that at our level, not without using enterprise or custom sales order processing software.

[NorthDave]

Could you not have a "manager" who is the only one to access the support inbox and forwards emails to individuals for action? The manager could also forward mails to themselves so they can action - it doesn't have to be a full time job.

I've never used any of the recommended packages though so they may be better.

[buggalugs]

AnimalMother said:

buggalugs said:

Yeah you need some kind of ticketing or CRM system, I've used Zendesk, then moved on to Asana, it's whichever you click with really. If it's 'just' service then a full CRM might be overkill.

Thanks, we were just talking about what exactly a CRM is compared to these "helpdesk" solutions. Its a bit confusing, our sale processing software already sends automated emails when order are received and dispatched, on back order, etc. So we sort of have a little crm as part of that, if you can call it that. We also use mailchimp for marketing. A CRM would be something that integrates with everything, right? But we cant do that at our level, not without using enterprise or custom sales order processing software.

It's hard to draw a fixed line between ticketing systems, CRM, and systems that venture into accounting, stock and order processing getting into ERP territory. ERP would combine everything under one roof, CRM is looking to capture and manage everything about your relationship with that customer i.e. every contact you have with them, which is good for auditability, mining for opportunities and also possibly trying to make the relationship partly with the business rather than one member of staff.

In an ideal world it's nicer to have more things under the same system because you're de-duplicating work, and being able to pull all that data together more easily.

Anyway I'm rambling, if a ticketing/helpdesk system was tied into your CRM system then when the service call comes in the ticket becomes just another bit of info in that contact's history. A standalone helpdesk system would probably not tie into your existing customer database so would potentially end up duplicating it, solely for ticketing.

[BJG1]

buggalugs said:

Anyway I'm rambling, if a ticketing/helpdesk system was tied into your CRM system then when the service call comes in the ticket becomes just another bit of info in that contact's history. A standalone helpdesk system would probably not tie into your existing customer database so would potentially end up duplicating it, solely for ticketing.

Plenty of ticketing systems (inc the one I linked to) have good APIs that will allow you to integrate with any CRM and often plug and play solutions for the big CRMs

[Audicab]

Hi another one that some of our clients have used is https://www.richmondsys.com/ and they seem to say some good things about it.

Like most software purchases there are lots that are available, the key is to understand exactly what you are looking to achieve and then find the best solution. I know it's a lot easier said than done but the effort put in up front will certainly pay off.

[buggalugs]

BJG1 said:

Plenty of ticketing systems (inc the one I linked to) have good APIs that will allow you to integrate with any CRM and often plug and play solutions for the big CRMs

You'd have to pay someone to do that project and maintain it though unless there happens to be a good system that already has ties to the existing crm.

[chippy348]

BJG1 said:

These guys are fantastic and cheaper than some of the bigger players. Highly recommend. https://www.groovehq.com/

As ever i find post of PH very useful, i went and looked at Groove and thought wow that is good i can see that working very well for us.

Then i downloaded at it and looked at the pricing and it is $15.00 per month per user (if i have it right) so for the OP it would cost him $150.00 per month ($,1800 per year) to deal with his email.

Is it just me but that just sounds a high price to pay ??

[Bikerjon]

chippy348 said:

Is it just me but that just sounds a high price to pay ??

Depends, if it's sales or order enquiries then a more efficient way to manage that could pay for itself. If it's a low value shared mailbox then yes, sounds a bit expensive. Some of these systems offer way more than just email though.

[BJG1]

chippy348 said:

As ever i find post of PH very useful, i went and looked at Groove and thought wow that is good i can see that working very well for us.

Then i downloaded at it and looked at the pricing and it is $15.00 per month per user (if i have it right) so for the OP it would cost him $150.00 per month ($,1800 per year) to deal with his email.

Is it just me but that just sounds a high price to pay ??

Zendesk and starts from $25 and Desk.com is $100 a month but with multiple agents, you can probably negotiate that price down. Groove HQ is priced for small businesses so I guess 10 users is pushing its cheapness. Will almost certainly be able to negotiate down though

[HappyMidget]

chippy348 said:

Is it just me but that just sounds a high price to pay ??

Yes, especially when I have linked to a free solution that can also do a hell of a lot more that I have personally used to manage a support ticket queue...