New Ticket Export Features: Export Filters and Recurring Exports

Mojo Helpdesk is excited to announce new ticket filters and recurring exports inside our Export tickets feature.

To access the new Export features from your helpdesk, click manage >> click All Settings >> Managers column >> Export

Filter your ticket exports.

New ticket filters give you added precision in selecting the tickets that appear in your exports. Filter your ticket exports based on ticket submitter, ticket queue, ticket status, due date, and several other conditions. Have the export sent immediately or schedule a recurring export.

To set up an export with filters:

1. Click new ticket export
2. Add your filters
3. Click send now to send the export immediately to your email.

Schedule a recurring export

To set up your first recurring export:

1. Click new ticket export
2. Add your filters.
3. Click schedule recurring.
4. Give the recurring export a title.
5. Set the frequency of the export.
6. Enter the emails of those who should receive the export.
7. Click save.

Each recurring export can then be sent immediately, paused, deactivated, or deleted from the Export dashboard.

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The Value of Help Desk Software

A graffiti artist's rendition of the word "value." (Photo credit: Rebirth Cycle)

If you're just starting to think about purchasing help desk software or just had it recommended to you by your company's IT manager, you might have a few questions:

-What problems does help desk software solve?

-What value does it add?

-Why do I need it?

When I started migrating from email-based support to help desk software, I had the same questions. Email systems like Gmail were free while help desk software can be very expensive so the ROI of help desk software would need to be very compelling in order to justify a switch.

Here's what I've learned about the ROI of help desk software over the past 11 months using it both as a website owner and a help desk staff member.

1. Makes you money.

- Businesses. Not having help desk software with a ticket tracking feature makes it more likely that you'll forget the occasional customer email or misplace a sticky note that documented a customer call. Over time these human errors add up to many lost customers. Conversely, one delighted customer who spreads the word about your company's fast customer support response times and expert service will make you money.

- Managers.  Good help desk software will help you get raises and promotions. If you have a help desk system in place that tracks customer support metrics and you can demonstrate constant improvement in customer satisfaction, then you've hit the first step of getting a raise which is showing measurable proof that you add value to the organization.

2. Saves you time.

-A good knowledge base incorporated into your help desk can reduce the number of support emails you receive by 50%.

-Ticket assignment features let you quickly delegate to topic experts rather than spending a lot of time mulling over a customer issue and trying to solve it yourself.

3. Reduces stress and improves morale.

- People who are organized are generally less stressed out. Being able to see everything that needs to get done in a single view makes you feel more in control.

- Clicking a 'ticket solved' button is magical. It offers reinforcement that you're getting stuff done and solving real problems for your customers. Some help desk software even offers a ticket rating system that can give you instant feedback on how fast and how well you solved the customer's problem.

4. Helps you make better decisions. 

- Document and track feedback requests and bug reports to decide which product developments to prioritize.

- View all the support tickets assignments to see who's busiest and determine which team member should be assigned the next customer support request.


5. Gives you more freedom. 

- Stop being chained to your desk by customer phone calls. Try taking your organizations phone number off the website and give users a place to search for answers to their questions and submit support tickets.

- Help desk software backs you up when you need to be out of the office. An online ticket form and email integration system can take all the notes for you and can even send automatic replies to your users.

6. Fosters creativity and strategic thinking

- The fewer things you have to actively keep track of, the more room you have in your brain to be creative.

- Let your help desk software track the tedious details and minutiae while you focus on the bigger picture.

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3 Signs Your Startup has Outgrown Gmail Support

Has your startup outgrown Gmail as a customer support tool?

Startups are typically strapped for cash but still need a way to get feedback from users so they can improve their product and start gaining traction in the marketplace. That's why they typically start out using Gmail as their customer support tool.

They quickly set up a group email address, such as support@mydomain.com, and then have support emails automatically forward to their Gmail inboxes. When a support email comes in, someone on the team replies to the customer and BCC's the other employees. Voila, free customer support tool.

For a while, the Gmail method works great. And then one day the startup hits product-market fit, signups take off, and all hell breaks loose.

The startup team starts to lose track of who's replying to who. Two employees reply to the same email. Or worse, someone assumes that someone else is covering a support email and the customer's question goes unanswered.

At this point there's usually a mad dash to Stack Overflow or Hacker News to figure out a better solution.

To avoid a fire drill here are some warning signs that your startup might be outgrowing Gmail support.

1 - More than 2 people need to be BCC'd when you reply to a support email.

BCC-ing multiple employees on support emails quickly becomes repetitive and annoying. It also inhibits collaboration because BCC'd participants no longer receive messages in the thread when the customer replies.

With a helpdesk ticket system in place, everyone on the team receives a notification when a new support request is received. They can also track the progress of the ticket as notifications are sent when new comments are added.

This means the startup can bring more of the team into the process so they can at least see the incoming support requests to get an idea of user feedback - this would quickly get out of hand with a simple Gmail setup.

2 - Multiple people are replying to the same support email on accident. 

Usually startup employees share the load when it comes to providing customer support and as more support requests start rolling in, the more difficult it becomes to stay organized and not step on each other's toes.

If you find yourselves replying to the same customer emails and duplicating efforts, it's time to consider a help desk software.

With help desk software, a ticket comes in the system and is assigned to one person for resolution. That person is accountable for resolving the ticket and keeping the support team and customer informed of progress. This prevents duplication of effort and bystander effect, where all employees assume someone else is handling the support request and no one actually handles it.

3 - Hiring and firing is starting.

As your startup begins to have employees come and go, it becomes more important to have a centralized location to store all support requests and user feedback. The last thing you want is for an employee to leave the company and then someone has to sort through all their emails to see if they were in progress on a customer support request. Even worse, if someone deletes their old email account, then all the support emails and user feedback stored in their account will be lost.

Help desk software provides an online, centralized, single view of all requests so if an employee leaves the company, all of their tickets can quickly be reassigned to another employee for resolution.

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If you're a startup or small business considering help desk software, then check out Mojo Helpdesk. It has built in ticket tracking and a self-service knowledge base. There's a free 30 day trial and a $24/month Plus plan that's perfect for startups.

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8 Quick Tips to Becoming a Successful Helpdesk Technician

The infamous IT Helpdesk Wheel of Responses (hat tip: reddit/ITdept)

Starting a new helpdesk job soon? Congratulations. Here are some tips from the helpdesk experts on Reddit that can get you headed towards that first raise and promotion.

1. Document everything. Screenshots help. Managers and supervisors want to see what you've accomplished.

2. If you can't fix it immediately, ask for help. Your co-workers will understand that you're trying to learn so you don't have to ask next time. 

3. Learn Windows products like Office, Exchange, Active Directory, XP/Vista/7, Internet Explorer, etc. Familiarity with Google Apps is also becoming increasingly important.

4. Remember the 5 R's: Reboot, Reinstall, Replug/Reset, Reimage, Replace

5. Understand how share folders/network drives/network printers work in a domain environment. 

6. Become the helpdesk support person who's known for explaining clearly to users what is wrong, why they have an issue, and how to solve it. By just fixing their problem, you aren't teaching the user what happened and why it's happening. Show the user basic things they can do themselves before submitting a ticket. 

7. Reinforce the helpdesk ticketing system by prioritizing submitted tickets. Let users know that tickets submitted in your help desk ticketing system take priority over phone calls and office drive-by visits

8. Always follow up with help desk tickets, even after they are closed. It makes the end users happy and they'll remember the courtesy when responding to your performance review.

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UPDATE: FIXED: We Know It's Slow: Upgrades are in Progress

Update Saturday, Sept 7: All systems go. Mojo Helpdesk has been upgraded. Everything is running smoothly. Thank you for your patience.

Mojo Helpdesk has been very slow the last few days. We understand the frustrations our users are experiencing. 

To fix the problem, we are upgrading our search engine. We are working as fast as possible and will have Mojo running smoothly by Tuesday, September 10th. 

During this upgrade, new tickets may be slow to appear in your helpdesk. 

Thanks for your patience. 

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New Feature: Restrict Users from Creating Tickets

Mojo Helpdesk has added a new feature that lets organizations determine which users and help desk staff are able to create tickets. We've paired this with our group access feature so that some users can be permitted to read & comment on tickets but not be able to open or close tickets.

The default setting allows all users and help desk staff to create tickets. If you want to disable a user's ability to create tickets, here are the steps.

Turn off the ability for a user to create tickets:

Click manage >> click Users or Helpdesk staff from the drop-down menu >> find the person in the list >> click edit >> Deselect the check box for Can create tickets >> click save

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