A web-based system is preferable to an email-based system because in the case of the latter there are chances of more than one technician trying to solve the same problem. Help Desk Software systems allow a customer request to be assigned to one or more technicians as per the service requirements and only those designated technicians can work on these requests. Some help desks enable their customers to create their own trouble ticket which is nothing but a format similar to a web application form that takes all the information necessary to trouble-shoot and cohesively record a customer request. As an administrator, you can display information from the recorded history of requests made by a customer. This will help you provide a customized quick solution to your customer.

A web help desk software solution may also provide FAQ and knowledge bases to customers. This enables customers to solve their problems independently and without taking much time. The problems that cannot be solved this way can always be logged in through the ticket system or sent through email. You may think that being a software application this solution comes with a cost. The fact is that most of these solutions are freely available or priced inexpensively. In addition, the so called installation procedure may just be registering to a web site, specifying the settings and copying the source code to your location. This is the least you would need to do for an up and running web-based help desk. If you still find the need to test it out, you can take a trial before you register yourself. Like most software, trials are for free. In case of commercial software, after you register for permanent use, you may need to pay a subscription fee at a monthly, quarterly or annual rate.

Once you are satisfied with the trial, be sure to check out other aspects of the web help desk software. For example, certain solutions may charge you later sighting updates and chargeable components as a reason. To check these out, ask as many questions as you can such as whether there would be updates, the number of times the updates would be made, the number and names of components and whether they are charged as a whole and so on.