An Automated Support E-Mail System? 46
qm_37 asks: "I work for a small software company with a growing customer base. Our current support desk system has worked well for us in the past, but is going to become very unwieldy if it has to grow any more than it already has. We're looking for a more automated system that will do things like filter and direct incoming support e-mails to the support worker assigned to that task, assign and track support issue numbers, and give us a nice searchable database of previous customer issues. We've looked at various solutions ranging from commercial software packages to PHP/CGI-based server scripts, and nothing has really grabbed our attention. We have also considered writing our own system, but the trade-off is that we need to find the time to do it. Does anyone have any experience with a situation like this? Which route do you think we should take for our support system?"
First National uses E-Gain for customer email. (Score:3, Informative)
New emails get a ticket ID, and you log into a web interface to download new tickets. It keeps messages for the same ticket associated together.
It also supports autoreplies, template/scripted replies, and some non-email-related things like a knowledge base, quick-message-forwarding address book, etc.
The whole point for going with a system like this, of course, is for performance monitoring, tracking, and reporting.
--Michael Spencer
Re:First National uses E-Gain for customer email. (Score:1)
Kayako? (Score:4, Informative)
Suggestions (Score:2)
http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBUGZ/
or Bugzilla.
or buy some big commercial product like Peregrine Service Center.
Re:Suggestions (Score:2)
I can vouch for FogBugz. We used it in my last position, and it was a great quick bug tracking system. Lots of integration capabilities, and they let you try it online free for 30 days. If you purchase it they ship you the database so you don't lose any data. A little easier to understand than Bugzilla, but only if you don't mind using ASP.
Ticketsmith (Score:2, Informative)
Does everything you need, and nothing you don't.
Remedy (Score:2)
Re:Remedy (Score:2, Interesting)
STAY AWAY. STAY VERY FAR AWAY. Hire some college kids to code you a nice replacement in PHP or something.. You'll be happier.
Just my 2 cents.
tech support! (Score:5, Funny)
lots of options.. (Score:2)
Of course, if your rich, look into HEAT.. it does some damn amazing things...
Re:lots of options.. (Score:3, Interesting)
best of all, it's free.
Easy! (Score:2, Funny)
"RTFM"
Bonus points if you actually include a link to the manual, but no need to go overboard...!
Okay, so that's just what I would do. Why, yes, I am still looking for a job.. why do you ask?
Re:Easy! (Score:1)
Cerberus (Score:2)
Call center software Linux resource page (Score:3, Informative)
Good luck! Cheers, Joel
Eventum - it's good enough for MySQL (Score:3, Informative)
Web Help Desk (Score:2)
Well, its a little unorthodox, but if you have (Score:1)
Then again, I usually prefer the in house custom solutions, because when you have them finished, you end up with something better suited to your needs, and you have a strong familiarity with the system when something goes wrong.
Re:Well, its a little unorthodox, but if you have (Score:2)
It sounds weird at first, but it works so well it's almost silly that we didn't think of it earlier.
Another nice thing - it runs on a Linux server using a PHP based syste
RT: Request Tracker from Best Practical (Score:3, Informative)
If you need a serious customer support email + web based issue/ticket tracking and management system then you need to check out Request Tracker.
RT (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:RT (Score:1)
Request Tracker + RTFM (Score:5, Informative)
FAQ Manager: http://www.bestpractical.com/rtfm/ [bestpractical.com]
Request Tracker (RT) (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially considering it's free (GPL), I don't know many better solutions.
Non-commercial (Score:2)
Re:Non-commercial (Score:1)
Re:Non-commercial (Score:2)
Re:Non-commercial (Score:2)
Besides, I'm pretty sure that Skynet was programmed in Prolog or Lisp.
Roundup (Score:2)
http://roundup.sf.net
My next customization will probably be some mechanism for techs to check "resolve and add to knowledge base" and have it dump out the discussion to a Blosxom format blog entry with a selected category. Then it becomes searchable using either one of Blosxom's search plugins or our current htdig search function (roundup supports search, but
Windows Solution (Score:2)
http://www.liberum.org/
www.beyourown.net (Score:1)
We use RT (Request Tracker) (Score:1)
RT Home page [bestpractical.com]
RT (Score:2)
RequestTracker! (Score:2)
RequestTracker [bestpractical.com]
IRM - The Information Resource Manger (Score:1)
Hire Me... (Score:1)