This article is part of an ongoing series where I discuss how a particular customer in a specific industry uses OneDesk.
Although non-profit organizations aren’t generally seen as businesses or companies, that does not negate the fact that the teams making up the organization must communicate with customers. As with any work, these communications need to be tracked so details and concerns don’t get lost. It’s easy to separate non-profit organizations from the more profit-oriented needs of businesses, but everyone needs a certain level of structure for their work. One of our clients is a non-profit organization that found that OneDesk gives them everything they need to keep their team coordinated with their customers.
Our client was well-acquainted with the importance of a ticketing system for capturing work. However, their old system was outdated and prone to crashing. Although their previous solution allowed them to do project management as well as track support tickets entering the system via email, the unreliability was such a hindrance that it didn’t make sense to continue putting up with such frustrations. Their requirements were that the tool must track where tickets are going, surface what’s happening in the project, and give visibility into who work was assigned to. Uptime and resiliency were also a must, and a modern and slick user interface was a bonus.
Having a history of accepting support requests via email, our client was keen on OneDesk’s ability to maintain that workflow. Email communications are crucial for our client’s relationships with their customers, and OneDesk tracks every message in this discourse. From the point of a customer’s first communication with our client, a ticket is automatically created in OneDesk and the contents of the email are captured in the ticket description. With every reply back and forth between the support agent and the customer, the messages are added to the ticket, allowing anyone to follow along without access to the agent’s email inbox. This gives our client the option of using their email accounts or OneDesk to continue the chain of communications. Our client also likes that by facilitating these communications on their behalf, OneDesk can keep their email addresses private.
For our client, it’s important to have insight into the happenings of their projects. Alongside our helpdesk ticketing system, OneDesk also has a tasking tool for project management. Similar to tickets, tasks are meant to capture project work, and can be organized into portfolios and projects. This hierarchy allows our client to share particular projects with only certain teams. This permissions system keeps the teams focused on their particular projects, and within projects, roles can be defined to limit users’ actions. What piqued our client’s interest was the ability to set these restrictions as it opened up the possibility of working with external contractors while ensuring that the internal team still maintained ultimate authority.
By organizing their work in projects in OneDesk, our client also can create custom views of their work. These views can be expanded into dashboards, which can be reported on. Our client especially likes that these dashboards are configurable and can be reported on at a regular frequency. This helps our client keep an eye on their projects’ progress according to different metrics and dimensions.
Our client did have some reservations about switching to OneDesk. One feature they wanted was the ability to set the exact contents of the emails OneDesk sends to customers on behalf of their support agents. Although this was not a feature supported by OneDesk initially, it was since added in a future release. Our client was pleased to learn about this development, and it was clear to them that OneDesk listens to their needs and actions on them.
We understand that for a lot of companies and organizations, communication is key. Whether it’s the communications within teams or with customers, OneDesk covers all of your bases while still offering the necessary tools for project and support management. Even though our client is a non-profit organization, they recognized how critical a management system is for tracking work. With OneDesk, they found a solution for their concerns that works seamlessly with their workflows.