Automated help desk software

The online consumer experience is evolving year after year, and businesses are seeing the power of seamless, efficient interactions. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2025, 81 percent of consumers believe AI has become part of modern customer service, showing just how important AI and help desk automation are in today's market.

In this guide, we will explain how help desk automation software works and its role in a comprehensive customer experience (CX) and highlight 16 options in detail to help you decide.

More in this guide:

• What is help desk automation?
• Benefits of help desk automation software
• Features of automated help desk software
• Help desk automation software comparison chart
• The 16 best automated help desk software
• Frequently asked questions
• Try help desk automation software for free

Help desk automation is a technology that uses automation to eliminate repetitive work, create custom workflows, and streamline support. These capabilities are often further enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI).

For help desks, automating repetitive work like ticket routing frees them up to focus on more important tasks. For those receiving support, automation provides a more consistent and impactful CX or EX.

Service desk automation is often included as a feature of larger end-to-end customer service software. When integrated, these platforms offer scalable support solutions. IT and HR support teams can also benefit from help desk software.

Here are a few benefits that help desk automation software can bring to your operations.

Improve customer satisfaction

Help desk automation software is an additional pair of hands that can act with lightning speed and pinpoint accuracy. Businesses can use automated customer service to answer customer queries instantaneously, send automated messages and reminders, and deliver a more holistic CX. The result is more satisfied customers who know they can rely on your business to provide timely, helpful support.

Heighten agent productivity

Much like a line cook supports a Michelin-star chef by doing prep work and basic cooking, automation aids support agents by completing the more trivial day-to-day work. This frees up agents to focus on more nuanced tasks that technology can’t handle on its own.

Whether you have a smaller support team or an enterprise help desk, a partnership between agents and technology means your employees accomplish more while doing less, boosting overall productivity without burning your team out.

Lower support costs

Staying in the kitchen, Michelin-star restaurants have sous chefs, line cooks, and others who all earn a salary. Automation software, however, acts as a “chef” that provides the same level of support for a fraction of the price of employee payroll.

In addition to lowering support costs, the right ticketing system can improve ROI and drastically reduce time to value (TTV). At Zendesk, we prioritize agility, meaning you can get up and running in days and start seeing the value of your investment immediately.

Create consistent customer experiences

According to Zendesk Benchmark data, 70 percent of consumers purchase more from companies that offer seamless conversational experiences. Using help desk automation enables teams to develop streamlined workflows, which results in increased team efficiency and a consistent customer experience.

Collect greater insights

Automation can give organizations a comprehensive view of customer interactions. With advanced analytics related to ticket times and performance, customer feedback, and automated reporting, automation platforms provide important insights for businesses to improve their operations.

Here are a few features a reliable automated help desk software should offer.

Below is a comparison chart of the top 16 help desk automation software. You’ll find a rough breakdown of each software’s price, free trial options, and features.

Now, let’s jump into an extended breakdown of each software, including its pricing and features, so you can invest in the best one for your business.

• Zendesk: Best for AI and automation

• HelpDesk: Best for no-code workflows

• HappyFox: Best for canned responses

• Salesforce Service Cloud: Best for Salesforce users

• Freshdesk: Best for cloud-based service

• ServiceNow: Best for IT teams

• ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus: Best for Zoho integration

• SysAid: Best for service desk workflows

• Zoho Desk: Best for Zoho users

• Spiceworks: Best for teams on a budget

• Jira Service Management: Best for Jira users

• Hiver: Best for email support

• SolarWinds: Best for incident response

• Gorgias: Best for eCommerce businesses

• Tidio: Best for fintech businesses

• Front: Best for sales teams

1. Zendesk

Best for: AI and automation

Any company can claim its product has automation, but it only offers one or two features. For a truly business-altering product, you need an option that brings automation to your entire operation—something only Zendesk can provide.

Zendesk brings a full breadth of automation capabilities to help desk software:

• Advanced AI support: AI agents can autonomously handle customer requests, provide 24/7 support, and improve your CX. Also, AI copilot can act as a virtual second-in-command for your support agents, providing proactive and contextually relevant assistance that your team members can use to streamline customer interactions.
• Advanced routing: With advanced routing from Zendesk, teams can route queries to the right team member based on intent, sentiment, and language, as well as agent availability, capacity, skills, and ticket priority.
• Triggers and workflow automation: Be it notifying users when you're out of office, sending satisfaction score follow-ups, automated responses to high-volume requests, or more advanced capabilities like bot deflection and 24/7 support, Zendesk can help you automate your most common tasks to save your team time.
• Real-time reporting: Real-time reporting and analytics features can help teams stay on top of customer trends and improve operational efficiency. This allows you to pivot and adjust to disruption or change in the moment.
• Workforce Management (WFM): Zendesk WFM is an AI-powered solution designed to optimize internal operations, reduce costs, and enhance agent productivity. By analyzing historical data, Zendesk WFM provides accurate staffing forecasts, ensuring the right number of agents are scheduled at the right times to meet customer demand.
• Quality Assurance (QA): AI-powered quality assurance, like Zendesk QA, helps you review every customer interaction to understand what’s working and where improvement is needed. By identifying churn risks, performance outliers, and coaching opportunities, it provides insight to managers so they can proactively
• Flexible agent workspace: As AI and automation become increasingly central to support operations, the agent’s role remains essential. With tools like our AI Agent and integrated Copilot, the software unites both sides, enabling agents to provide personal service while working seamlessly with AI.

Additionally, all our capabilities come with no-code implementation, so you and your team can get up and running quickly. With over 1,800 different apps and integrations that allow for customization, Zendesk is the ideal solution for customer service help desks, HR help desks, or IT help desks.

User reviews:

• "Very solid and easy to use support service."
• "Our sales and customer relationships have been strengthened by Zendesk."
• "Zendesk has made a huge impact on our Support team. We doubled our efficiency immediately!"
• "Zendesk is by far the best platform for customer support companies."

Explore more Zendesk pricing plans.

2. HelpDesk

Best for: No-code workflows

HelpDesk is an automation platform that provides no-code workflows for businesses to address customer issues. This browser-based product allows users to set up condition- and action-based workflows to automate daily customer communications.

HelpDesk also helps users assign tickets to agents based on skills or availability, identify VIP customers, and categorize customers and tickets. Other predictive features include email templates, custom fields, ticket summaries, and text enhancements.

User reviews:

• "The best HelpDesk for small business website owners."
• "Simple ticketing system for unifying our small team."
• "Not terrible; however, nothing special."

3. HappyFox

Best for: Canned responses

HappyFox is a customer service platform with automated help desk capabilities for businesses of all sizes. Its ticketing system lets users convert requests into tickets from multiple channels, including email, chat, social media, and the phone.

HappyFox also has features like smart rules, service level agreements (SLAs), and auto ticket assignments for automation. The platform also has canned responses to help agents respond to customer inquiries, and reporting and analytics features.

User reviews:

• "HappyFox is a versatile help desk and customer support platform."
• "Reliable platform."
• "Strong basic functionality—unclear how to get the most out of it."

4. Salesforce Service Cloud

Best for: Salesforce users

Salesforce Service Cloud is a customer service platform that offers AI-powered workflows and automation. With this product, businesses can connect customers with knowledge base articles, automate business processes, and route cases. Salesforce users can also integrate this platform with the wider Salesforce ecosystem, allowing teams to sync all data into one interface.

The platform also has chatbots that can handle common requests and integrates with other systems, such as Zendesk. However, while Salesforce Service Cloud is highly customizable, it tends to have a high total cost of ownership because it often requires expensive technical resources and partnerships.

User reviews:

• "Flexible service solution for businesses of all sizes."
• "Great detail—slower technology."
• "Efficiently not efficient."

5. Freshdesk

Best for: Cloud-based service

Freshdesk by Freshworks is a cloud-based automated service desk platform. It offers a ticketing system and multichannel support capabilities over channels like email, phone, and chat.

Teams can automate ticket assignments and set automatic email notifications to notify customers of changes to their requests. Its features include agent routing, AI-powered workflows, and self-service software, such as customer portals. That said, Freshdesk does have limitations to its reporting capabilities, and its agent interface is disconnected, forcing users to go into different screens for detailed information on individual channels like phone or chat.

User reviews:

• "ITSM simplified."
• "Still leaves a lot to be desired."
• "A lot of potential, but needs to improve on customer success to maximize subscription features."

6. ServiceNow

Best for: IT teams

ServiceNow offers help desk software that specializes in IT service management. It also has a customer service management (CSM) tool that focuses on automated issue resolution and self-service capabilities. 

Automated service desk features include intelligent routing, tracking tickets throughout the resolution process, an AI-powered chatbot, and automated self-service. Teams can also engage in omnichannel support and communicate with each other through agent workspaces.

User reviews:

• "CSM helps the customers and the business connect, shortening the resolution time."
• "Simple, reliable, powerful workflow management platform."
• "Not very updated for the technology available now."

7. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Best for: Zoho integration

ManageEngine is an IT service management platform that aims to supplement help desk capabilities. It combines service management, asset management, HR, finances, and more to deliver workflows that help the customer service experience.

The product offers no-code ticket automation, reporting functions, and customization to address tickets in all stages of the ticket lifecycle. ManageEngine also partners with Zoho to utilize Zia, a conversational AI chatbot. This bot acts as a virtual assistant and first point of contact, providing customers with an alternative avenue for assistance.

User reviews:

• "Good system for managing our devices."
• "An acceptable software, but it has a lot of issues."
• "Just okay, there are better products on the market."

8. SysAid

Best for: Service desk workflows

SysAid is an IT service automation platform that creates workflows for service desks. Its no-code software allows businesses to automate tasks related to customer support tickets, daily tasks, and general workflows.

The platform features self-service automation to assist support agents in finding resolutions to common problems, such as password resets, ticket automation, and asset management. Additionally, reporting features can help businesses monitor the status of active and archived support tickets.

User reviews:

• "A Swiss army knife of ITSM."
• "Good program."
• "[It's] ok."

9. Zoho Desk

Best for: Zoho users

Zoho Desk is a help desk software that helps users create automated resolutions for customers. It can integrate with the wider Zoho ecosystem and has omnichannel capabilities, AI workflows, analytics, and other workflow-related features.

Other aspects include self-service options that enable customers to find answers on their own, ticket organization and accessibility to help support agents keep track of open tickets, and time tracking so managers can keep an eye on employees' productivity. Additionally, integration features allow businesses to use Zoho alongside many of the other tools they use daily.

User reviews:

• "A powerful and flexible customer support platform for growing teams."
• "Good experience with Zoho Desk."
• "Decent experience so far."

10. Spiceworks

Best for: Teams on a budget

Spiceworks is a cloud help desk with a free-to-use plan, alongside a premium option that gives a few more features and eliminates ads. It's designed for businesses with tight budgets and helps to automate daily projects and user requests. 

The platform features automated ticket routing, responses, knowledge base creation, and advanced reporting. Spiceworks seems to offer fewer capabilities than the other options on our list, but it does include the basics to get businesses up and running.

User reviews:

• "My smooth sailing journey with Spiceworks Helpdesk."
• "Functional but clunky."
• "Good for a free tool, searching is a pain."

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11. Jira Service Management

Best for: Jira users

Jira Service Management is an automated help desk software within the wider Jira ecosystem. With it, teams can engage in IT support, employee support, customer service, and more.

AI and automation features allow users to streamline repetitive tasks, while customization capabilities empower teams to customize their help center. The platform also has a free plan, allowing businesses to try the software with limited features.

User reviews:

• "Excellent ticketing system and approval application."
• "Very flexible for tickets but not self-service."
• "Decent service desk tool."

12. Hiver

Best for: Email support

Hiver is an automated help desk software focusing on customer service across email, chat, voice, and WhatsApp. Shared inboxes allow teams to create a centralized hub of data that includes customer information and past conversations across channels.

Workflow automation capabilities enable users to route conversations and establish workflows within Hiver or a third-party integration. Hiver also features several email-specific capabilities that help teams track conversations, assign owners, respond with templates, and more.

User reviews:

• "Hiver is the best way to manage shared Gmail inboxes."
• "Helpful in some ways with a learning curve."
• "Doesn’t make it easy."

13. SolarWinds

Best for: Incident response

SolarWinds is an automated help desk software focusing on IT support and ITSM. The platform features several incident response features that help teams stay ahead of IT outages.

On-call management assignment ensures the right team members are on staff to handle outages, unified observability aims to eliminate silos, and AI can automatically alert teams to any issues. Businesses can also choose one of three options depending on their needs: self-hosted, SaaS, or a combination. 

User reviews:

• "Service desk tool that is trustworthy and user-friendly."
• "Solid ticketing system, some post-acquisition growing pains."
• "Works okay, but not great."

14. Gorgias

Best for: eCommerce businesses

Gorgias is a conversational support platform geared to help eCommerce businesses with sales and service. The platform features an AI agent that can help customers resolve inquiries and drive sales and conversions. 

Through a Shopify integration, businesses can edit orders, access real-time product information, and run promotional campaigns directly on Gorgias. Teams can also use the centralized inbox to manage all customer communications across channels. 

User reviews:

• "Simple but powerful—with a great support team and product development."
• "Great UI, but not the most accessible between various platforms/sites."
• "It was great, but ultimately, after a long trial run, we went with another company."

15. Tidio

Best for: Fintech businesses

Tidio is an automated help desk software designed for fintech, e-commerce, and education businesses. The Lyro AI Agent is a chatbot that can resolve customer questions through automation and access relevant information from a business's support content.

Teams can set ticketing preferences related to prioritization, adding notes, custom tags, and more. With third-party integrations, users can connect with customers and team members through email, live chat, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

User reviews:

• "Versatile and easy to use."
• "Helpful tool, but still has room for improvement."
• "Honest review—there are better options out there!"

16. Front

Best for: Sales teams

Front is an automated help desk software that prioritizes customer service. The platform has an AI agent that can resolve customer issues, surface relevant help center articles, analyze consumer interactions through quality assurance, and more.

The unified ticket feature can help teams route tickets, distribute workloads, and access all customer and conversation history. Front also has inbound sales features that can help salespeople communicate with customers, automate workflows, and streamline escalations.

User reviews:

• "Front has transformed the way we work and boosted our productivity."
• "Has potential but needs upgrades, which customer support always delays."
• "Good, but not enough features."

Not every solution will be suitable for every team. Here are some tips and questions to ask when choosing help desk software:

• Make sure it’s easy to use: If a product is too complicated for your team, you won’t see any value from it. Prioritize ease of use so your support agents can get up to speed quickly and realize the product's full value.
• Test drive the software:If the software offers a free trial, take advantage of it to get a sense of the product’s feel and capabilities before committing to a purchase. Pay close attention to the look and function of the user interface, and ensure the platform can meet all of your needs.
• Consider time to value and ease of implementation: Be sure the product you select is simple to set up and allows your organization to get value from it quickly. For example, Zendesk is a top vendor when it comes to low total cost of ownership (TCO), resulting in a rapid time to value.
• Look for a dedicated customer success team and built-in best practices: Prioritize vendors that offer robust support options, training opportunities, and easily digestible online resources to help you use your automated help desk effectively.

Whether you need an enterprise solution or a small business help desk, look for something that checks all the boxes above. If you need world-class features like an industry-leading omnichannel agent workspace, robust reporting, and 1,700+ apps and integrations, look no further than Zendesk.

Here are a few frequently asked questions about help desk automation software.