Help Desk Software RFP

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Writing a Help desk software RFP is never easy. Check out our Essential Handbook to Writing the Modern Customer Service Platform RFP for a cheat sheet to writing an RFP.

Building a help desk RFP is about more than just feature listing. It takes careful planning, understanding of your goals, and outlining the experience you want to create for your customers. It’s an opportunity to evaluate your existing help desk and support procedures, and build the ultimate vision that you want for your department.

Many companies have been stuck with the same help desk and support platform for over 20 years. These legacy platforms have limited companies in their ability to create the experience their customers deserve, and they’re ready for a change. One that will help them deliver the seamless experience they want to deliver, no matter the channel. That will help their customers feel known and valued. And one that will empower their agents to deliver these seamless, personalized experiences at scale, in the simplest way possible for support teams.

[Read more: Change Management for Transitioning Support Platforms]

Writing the Help Desk RFP

Writing your help desk RFP is a sizable project. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed as you go down an endless list of help desk software vendors and features. Below you’ll find a series of questions you’ll want to ask in your Help Desk Software RFP.

Help Desk Software RFP Questions to Ask Your Team

Given that most contact and help centers last looked at technology a decade or two ago, it’s important to think about the requirements you need from a modern platform. Technology has changed quite a bit since your company last looked at help desk software, so evaluate and ask questions about tools for social media, live chat, and more. Here you’ll find some of the very first questions you need to ask yourselves to begin writing your RFP.

• How can your team ensure they are thinking about what their customers expect of them, and the service they receive, and incorporate that perspective throughout the vendor selection and product evaluation process?
• How can your team identify and transcribe those requirements into an RFP document to start evaluating vendors?
• Help Desk is about connecting your customers with agents who can help them, so shouldn’t your Help Desk platform requirements
  represent both parties equally?

Common Help Desk RFP Questions to Ask Vendors

After your team has come to some decisions on the above questions, you’ll want to determine what questions you should ask in your Help Desk RFP. These are the questions that you want Help Desk software vendors to answer, so that you can determine if they will be the right fit for your team.

Sample Help Desk RFP Questions

• How does your system route customers by default? What configuration options are available?
• How does your platform maintain continuity between a customer and the last agent they interacted with?

• How does your Help Desk and call center platform integrate with external CRM systems to pull contextual information about the customer in real time? Once pulled in, where does it live on your platform and how easily can agents access it? Please provide a screenshot of your agent’s view of key customer information.
• How does your help desk platform support the creation of custom attributes/fields about a customer?
• Does your voice offering come built-in with an IVR, and does it include speech recognition capabilities? If so, please describe how it works. If not, how does it get added on?
• How much time, on average, does it take to train a single agent on your platform. And how much time does it take to train on each additional channel as they get added / introduced?
• Does your knowledge base automatically suggest answers that your agents can use to respond to a customer? If so, please describe how your platform decides which answers to surface.

• Does your platform display the current trending topics and issues in your contact center? If yes, please provide screenshots of the user view.

If you want to find the complete list of help desk RFP Questions, then you’ll want to get a free copy of  our Essential RFP Handbook. The Help Desk RFP guide contains a series of must-ask questions, sample templates, and all of the information you need to align your vision for service with the reality of your own operations.

Download the Modern Help Desk RFP.

Writing the Modern Help Desk RFP is a handbook designed to help companies with the seemingly daunting task of putting together an RFP for a modern Help Desk platform.

What You’ll find in the Help Desk RFP Handbook

• Jumpstart your customer support team’s RFP process with detailed requirements and sample RFP questions
• Start a discussion around your company’s vision for service, and the infrastructure you need to get there
• Plan your Help Desk platform project for 2023
• Identify the characteristics of a modern platform built with today’s consumer in mind

• Discuss the ideas and requirements you’re looking for in your next platform with your contact center operational team

Download a copy of the RFP Handbook here.