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The 4 Best Software Support Ticket Systems

When we are talking about support for software systems, it’s important to have the ability to escalate tickets to both developers and operations staff to obtain the right expertise. This type of ticketing system may go beyond a traditional service desk offering and require ITSM - IT Service Management. These systems are focused more on integrating IT and incoming querying (internal and external), whereas regular ticketing systems can be for more general external customer service.

Regardless, certain products work better for different organisations, so take a look at our top four to see which will be your best fit. All of these contenders have a user-centric UI and are built for IT service management.

Jira Service Management

If you’re already using Jira and/or other Atlassian products as part of your software lifecycle management systems, then Jira Service Management can be a natural choice. In 2020, Atlassian has rebranded Jira Service Desk as Jira Service Management, as an ITSM solution, and now includes features like asset management and conversational ticketing.

Some of the highlights of working with Jira Service Management include:

  • Comprehensive service management platform across software and other teams
  • Templating for types of service offerings, with drag and drop workflows
  • The ability to drill down by incidents, then associated deployments, seeing which commits are made by which team members
  • Being able to use Confluence as a self-service knowledge base (some of the best documentation software around for software development)
  • Employees can get help from directly from Slack or Microsoft Teams, without leaving these comms platforms
  • Easy ticket routing from agents to development and ops teams within the platform

Jira Service Management is cloud-based, with pricing starting at $0 per month for 1-3 agents on the Free Tier, through to $40 per agent per month on the Premium Tier.

Zendesk

Despite its reputation as an external-facing customer service tool, Zendesk works well as both an internal and external service product. One drawback of Zendesk is that it doesn’t include asset management as part of the product - you’ll need to integrate it with another tool for this functionality.

  • Easy to use
  • Good for organisations that already use Zendesk for other ticketing systems
  • AI with Answer Bot for automatic resolution - or routing to an agent
  • Integrations from the likes of Slack, Trello, SLA Timers, and Geckoboard

Cloud-based plans for Zendesk start at $5 per agent per month with limited features, through to $49 per agent per month (Professional) and $99 per agent per month (Enterprise). For most workplaces requiring a software support ticket system, the more expensive plans will be needed to unlock the required functionality.

ServiceNow

ServiceNow is well known in the business for being market leaders in the ITSM space. In fact, they have managed to be named as Leaders for the 7th year running in the Gartner ITSM Magic Quadrant. It is the highest performer in the category. Unlike competitors’ it looks to bridge the gap between ISTM and non-IT workflows. Buoyed by intelligent AI, ServiceNow is the world’s premium ITSM platform - with the associated price tag.

ServiceNow’s offering includes:

  • Service Level Management, performance analytics, AI-boosted virtual agents, configuration management, and industry benchmarks
  • Intelligent automation that saves time, plus built on a single data platform
  • Integration with products from Cisco, Jira, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Slack and more
  • Meets 100% of the PinkVERIFY ITIL v3 2011 general, core, and integration suitability requirements

ServiceNow offers custom quotes for organisations seeking to use their platform. The platform can cost upwards of $10,000 per year, however, check in with the sales team to find your best offer.

Freshservice

Freshservice is Freshworks’ Service Management solution for IT, which sits alongside their other products such as Freshdesk (for customer support), Freshteam (for HR and recruiting), and Freshworks CRM, among others. Freshservice is used by IT service professionals the world over,

  • Knowledge management, automation, and service catalogue tools
  • Designed to conform with ITIL
  • Integrates with crowd favourites such as Trello, Slack, Jira, MS Teams, Amazon Eventbridge, and more, plus developer portal
  • Supports Agile and waterfall development methods
  • Asset management included

Pricing plans with FreshService start at $19 per agent per month, and go up to $109 per agent per month, with additional features added at each tier.

The bottom line

With software support ticket systems, the one you end up choosing should scale with your business, providing options that you might want to implement in the future and/or services that could be offered later. By balancing your budget needs with where your business could go in the future, one of the above options should be a good fit.

When looking at each solution, you should assess:

  • Pricing
  • Whether self-hosting is an option (a lot of this is being phased out in favour of cloud hosting)
  • Basic feature set
  • Additional features
  • Whether missing features can be built or integrations can be added (consider cost)
  • Longevity in the market
  • Integrations with current tools
  • Feedback from all user groups who will use the tool (both internet reviews and with trial versions - if you get that far)

For more info about software support ticket systems, or which one will be the best fit for your business, get in touch with us at CodeFirst.