Why Use Help Desk Software In The Cloud?

Arguably, sometimes the most undervalued but perhaps most overused aspect of any business is the IT department. However, the IT department is under constant pressure to keep abreast of new technology, at an ever more demanding pace, to support the business in its endeavours. Increasing demands from customers, both internal and external means that an important tool to maintain good and satisfactory customer service is IT help desk software.

The problem that many IT departments often face when justifying the cost of such an important tool as help desk software is that there are many offerings on the market, which have a relatively high initial cost. Any CFO that considers IT as an overhead will baulk at a bill for many thousands of dollars, or pounds, which is difficult to measure in terms of Return on Investment (ROI).

Making use of a cloud based IT help desk service can provide a cost effective solution. You may be asking, "What is a cloud based help desk?" In essence, It is a help desk service that resides on a third-party server (located somewhere in the world…similar to either your Google or Hotmail email account), which can be accessed through the internet, as opposed to on premise software which is stored on a local server within your owned infrastructure.

Advantages of using a cloud help desk service include:

• Fast arrangement and low upfront costs. In the case of NeuQs' help desk software; it's free, forever, for companies who have between 1-3 help desk operatives.
• For more users the costs are relatively low (typically Opex and not Capex) and reflect directly the number of help desk operatives using the software.
• The costs should be explicit and per user - there shouldn't be any additional annual software maintenance costs or hardware investments that have to be made.

Some IT departments are still quite fearful of using software on the cloud, especially one as business critical as help desk software because this sort of service is hugely important to the running of the organisation, and because it isn't hosted in-house, they may have some security concerns (usually because they feel like they are losing control, which to be fair isn't favoured by many companies).

However, the simple truth is that cloud providers offer robust security and have many contingency plans in place, if ever an emergency was to occur. These elements will mostly exceed by some considerable distance the provision offered by an in-house service. When compared to an on-premise software install, cloud software runs leaps and bounds ahead in terms of security.