The modern business landscape is fast-paced, making it essential for teams to have access to powerful tools and resources to stay ahead of the competition. Project management tools like Jira and Trello have come to the rescue. These handy tools help teams to collaborate, plan and track projects.
But, when it comes to customer service, the two solutions can't always meet the needs of your business — until now. This post will provide a brief overview of service desks from Jira and Trello. We'll explain how these options can take your service management to the next level by comparing the two options.
What is a service desk?
Let's start with the basics. A service desk is a tool that centralizes customer service requests and inquiries. It can be used to streamline support processes, increase productivity and handle customer service tasks. In other words, it's the point of contact between your customers and the IT service management team.
When integrated with a project management tool like Jira or Trello, a service desk becomes a central hub for customer support queries and responses. All team members can collaborate effectively on customer service tasks, allowing them to resolve issues quickly.
Similarities & Differences Between Jira Service Desk vs. Service Desk for Trello
Jira Service Desk is the service desk feature of Atlassian's Jira project management software, while Hipporello's Service Desk is a robust Trello Power-Up. Both of these solutions provide a comprehensive range of features to help you streamline customer service operations.
Similarities
First, you'll find a robust customer ticket management system in both, with the ability to create custom forms and ticket templates. Customers and stakeholders needing support can submit tickets directly from their browsers or mobile devices. These tickets are then organized, assigned, and tracked on the task management tools: Jira and Trello.
Two-way communication is another integral part of service desks. You can communicate with customers right from the platform, and customers can interact with their tickets as well. Jira Service Desk provides a full range of integration features with other apps like Slack, while Service Desk for Trello (Hipporello Service Desk) mainly focuses on email integration. Finally, both options come with reports and analytic features to help you understand your organization's customer service trends and usage patterns.
Differences
Our first difference pertains to those analytics. Jira service desk offers basic and customized reporting features, while Service Desk for Trello only offers basic analytics, but it's considered a strong alternative to Jira for small to medium-sized businesses. Another difference is the type of project these tools are geared towards. Jira is more suitable for large, complex projects that require a lot of tracking and collaboration. Service Desk for Trello is best for smaller teams and therefore provides a more user-friendly interface.
Finally, the knowledge base feature lets your customers find answers to their questions without submitting a ticket. Jira Service Desk has a powerful knowledge base feature that integrates with Confluence. Confluence is a wiki system that allows your team to collaborate and document customer service processes.
Similarly, Hipporello offers a Knowledge Base Addon to its service desk, allowing you to create Even though Service Desk for Trello does not have this feature but provides basic FAQs for customers to search, Hipporello offers Knowledge Base Power-Up, which runs on Trello, that can be added to the Service Desk for Trello portal.
Who is it for?
Jira Service Desk
The simple answer to this question is that both Jira Service Desk and Service Desk for Trello are for anyone who needs a better way to manage customer service tasks. If you're already using Jira, it only makes sense to take advantage of its service desk feature, and vice versa for Trello users. However, the general rule of thumb is that Jira is more suitable for developers thanks to its Scrum boards and Agile workflows. As Jira is designed to manage complex projects, the onboarding process can be a bit challenging for those looking for a simple ticketing system.
Service Desk for Trello
As such, the Trello help desk might be more flexible for other types of teams, such as customer service, HR, or marketing. Ultimately, it all comes down to what type of project your team is working on and how they want to manage customer service tasks. Trello is an easy-to-use tool with a Kanban board. Service Desk for Trello also utilizes Kanban workflow which allows an average user to easily set up their service desk and run it smoothly.
This is where Hipporello proves a good alternative to Jira for those looking for an easier to use service desk.
Pricing: Jira Service Desk vs Service Desk for Trello
Speaking of budget, a deciding factor for many users is the price. If you're just looking for a test run, you'll be pleased to know that both Jira Service Desk and Service Desk for Trello offer free trial plans. Of course, you might be limited in the features and number of users you can add.
Jira Service Desk
As for paid plans, Jira Service Desk pricing offers three tiers of pricing depending on the size of your team. Their standard plan is free for the first year, gives you over 100 times the file storage(250GB,) and includes unlimited email notifications. The free limited-time offer includes ten agents, but you can also onboard up to 5,000 agents for an additional fee.
The Premium plan starts at $47 per agent and goes down the larger your team is. It adds features like unlimited file storage and 24/7 support. Finally, the Enterprise plan is billed annually, and you'll need more than 200 agents to qualify.
Service Desk for Trello
Service Desk for Trello or Hipporello Service Desk has a simpler and more affordable paid plan. For $10 per agent, you get their Premium plan, which includes all the free plan features plus unlimited Trello cards. Trello cards are like tasks, and this is a huge benefit if you're already using Trello for project management.
This plan also includes advanced automation and customization options pertaining to your domain and settings. The Enterprise plan will vary in cost depending on the size of your team and the additional services you need. You'll benefit from a free onboarding demo and superior customer support. Lastly, you don’t need to have a premium Trello account, you can add the Power-up to a free Trello account as well.
Reports & Analytics: Jira Service Desk vs Service Desk for Trello
The reporting capabilities of the service desk are crucial to ensure that your customer service team is running smoothly. Basic analytics usually include detailed reports on the amount and types of requests you receive. The time and resolution methods are also useful for evaluating your team's performance.
For instance, the Service Desk for Trello has a fairly basic reporting system. It allows you to track progress and gain insights into customer requests, like:
Form submissions
Incoming emails
Form views
Portal views
Portal view by date
Form submission by date
Stats by form
Handled request distribution by agent
Unfortunately, these metrics aren't customizable. That's where Jira Service Desk surpasses it. The Jira Service Desk report system includes all the basic analytics of Service Desk for Trello, but you can also create custom reports and dashboards to track the performance of your customer service team. You can use colors and labels for specific series and values in your reports.
Customer Portals: Jira Service Desk vs Service Desk for Trello
Customer portals are where your customers can submit requests, search for solutions and check the status of their queries. Understandably, you'll want to ensure it looks professional and provides a pleasant user experience. That being said, there are several factors to consider regarding customer portals.
Branded portal
Adding your brand flair to your customer portal is a great way to make it look and feel more professional. With both service desks, you can add a custom logo and customize the design of the portal with a welcome message and color scheme. Hiporello has slightly more flexibility for its Service Desk for Trello Power-up, as they enable you to change the banner and button colors to fit your brand.
Access policy
Access policy is vital to decide what kind of access and permissions your customers have. Jira Service Desk enables you to grant or deny different types of access. For example, you can let anyone sign up for a Jira Service Desk customer portal or select invite customers. The latter prevents anonymous users from submitting requests.
Service Desk for Trello has similar options, where you can permit specific email domains or portal users. Otherwise, everyone with the URL for your customer portal can submit requests. Setting up an access policy is easy in both cases, and you can change it as often as needed.
Search
In order to give your portal users the best experience, it's important to have an intuitive search feature. They can use it to search through your knowledge base for solutions or find answers to their queries quickly.
As mentioned above, Jira integrates with the Confluence knowledge base. The search bar on the customer portal will show any relevant articles and solutions from the knowledge base. This is helpful for customers to find answers to their questions without waiting for customer service agents to respond.
Custom domain
The Jira service desk does not allow you to configure a custom domain, but Service Desk for Trello does. Customers can access your customer portal through the URL of your brand name instead of a generic link. By using DNS mapping, you can redirect the domain name to your customer portal. The setup process is not complicated and comes with detailed instructions on how to set it up.
Additionally, you can customize the email server used to send out notifications. This is especially useful if you want to send out emails from the same email server that customers are used to. Simply find the SMTP servers of the email server you want to use and enter the details in your customer portal settings.
Request type
Finally, Jira Service Desk offers the ability to set up different types of requests and customize how they appear in your customer portal. For instance, you can create common IT requests such as service requests, bug reports, and change requests. This process lets you quickly categorize and assign customer queries to the appropriate customer service agents.
With Service Desk for Trello, it’s possible to collect requests under different lists and it's as easy to assign agents. You can set automation for each form.
Final words: Jira Service Desk vs Service Desk for Trello
Overall, both Jira Service Desk and Service Desk for Trello are great tools that enable a wide range of capabilities. The best way to make an informed decision is to test the product before making a commitment. Both offer product demos, so you can get an idea of how they work and decide which one fits your needs best.
You can schedule a 30-minute demo for Hipporello to kickstart your onboarding and ask your questions. Alternatively, the Jira Service Desk demo is an hour-long pre-recorded demo, where a product expert will walk you through the product's features.
Both Jira Service Desk and Service Desk for Trello offer you a central hub for customer support queries and responses. While Jira Service Desk is better suited for large, complex projects, Service Desk for Trello is more flexible for various teams such as HR, support, and marketing. Both solutions offer free trial plans, but Jira Service Desk has a more expensive premium plan, while Service Desk for Trello offers a simpler and more affordable option. With the right service desk, your ticket management team can streamline support processes, increase productivity and handle customer service tasks effectively.
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