Project

Profile

Help

Set up Your Help Desk App » History » Sprint/Milestone 44

Jan Schulz-Hofen, 01/02/2018 12:18 AM

1 34 Thomas Carney
# Set up your Help Desk App in 8 minutes
2 1 Thomas Carney
3 44 Jan Schulz-Hofen
[Planio Help Desk](https://plan.io/customer-service-and-help-desk/) will help you provide better customer service. It brings all your customer interactions into one place, so you'll keep an overview on all support questions.
4 21 Thomas Carney
5 1 Thomas Carney
{{>toc}}
6
7 34 Thomas Carney
## What can the Planio Help Desk do for you?
8 1 Thomas Carney
9 17 Thomas Carney
1.  You can work on customer questions at **one central location**, so your entire team can work together to give answers to customers’ questions.
10 20 Thomas Carney
2.  You’ll be able to **answer customers faster**, thanks to templated responses to commonly asked questions, auto-replies and automatic personalization.
11 17 Thomas Carney
3.  You can ensure that customers always get **consistent answers to the same questions**.
12
4.  You can **reduce the amount of support emails** using FAQs
13 20 Thomas Carney
5.  Customers will be **happier** because they’ll be able to track the progress of their issues.
14
6.  It's tightly integrated with email, so your customers can use email to talk with you, but every email appears as a ticket in Planio.
15 1 Thomas Carney
7.  Best of all, your support team can work with customers **anywhere in the world**.
16
17 34 Thomas Carney
## Create a project for the Help Desk
18 1 Thomas Carney
19 18 Thomas Carney
Sign into your Planio account and **create a project for customer support**.
20 1 Thomas Carney
21
We recommend that you create a project just for customer support. If you provide support in several languages, it's best to create a separate project for each language.
22
23 34 Thomas Carney
## Activate the Help Desk App
24 1 Thomas Carney
25 34 Thomas Carney
Go to Apps tab and install the **Help Desk app** if it isn’t already installed.
26 8 Thomas Carney
27 35 Thomas Carney
{{figure(Install the Help Desk app)
28
!Helpdesk_install_button@2x.png!
29
}}
30 1 Thomas Carney
31 34 Thomas Carney
Once the Help Desk App is installed, we need to set up the support email address.
32 1 Thomas Carney
33
Go to the **Settings** tab, and click on **Help Desk**.
34
35 35 Thomas Carney
{{figure(Help Desk Settings)
36
!Help_desk_support_email@2x.png!
37
}}
38 9 Thomas Carney
39 31 Jan Schulz-Hofen
You can enter your support email address for the project in the **"From email address" field**. It can be any email. For example, at Planio we use [support (at) plan.io](http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=012KxmNydDJXm6SXL9K3eAxg==&c=3CWL7Pqj5eTDP-rZP-Pu2g==).
40 1 Thomas Carney
41 42 Jan Schulz-Hofen
Now, you have to set up **email forwarding** for this address. Any emails sent to the address in this box need to forward to the unique Planio Inbox email address, which you'll see just below the "From email address" field.
42 1 Thomas Carney
43 20 Thomas Carney
Here are links to tutorials on how to do this for Google Apps and some of the big domain registrars such as Godaddy or ENOM:
44 1 Thomas Carney
45 43 Jan Schulz-Hofen
1.  [GSuite (formerly Google Apps)](https://support.google.com/a/answer/175745)
46 1 Thomas Carney
2.  [Godaddy](https://support.godaddy.com/help/article/7598/setting-up-forwarding-accounts-in-the-workspace-control-center)
47 18 Thomas Carney
3.  [ENOM](http://www.enom.com/pop-email/faq-emailforwarding.aspx)
48
4.  [Hover](https://help.hover.com/entries/21247566-How-to-Set-up-email-forwarding)
49
5.  [1&1](https://help.1and1.com/e-mail-and-office-c37589/1and1-mail-basic-c37590/using-the-product-c85088/create-a-forwarding-e-mail-address-a594930.html)
50 1 Thomas Carney
51 28 Jan Schulz-Hofen
It can take a few minutes once you’ve set up the email forwarding before it's active.
52 1 Thomas Carney
53
## Send an email to the support email address
54
55
Now, you can send an email to the support email address, and it will show up as an **issue in the support project**.
56
57 35 Thomas Carney
{{figure(The email appears as an issue in the Issues view)
58
!Issue_in_table_view@2x.png!
59
}}
60 25 Thomas Carney
61 1 Thomas Carney
You can see the issue by clicking on the Issues tab. **The subject line is set as the subject, and the body of the email is set as the description.**
62
63 35 Thomas Carney
{{figure(The email in the issue view)
64
!Issue_view@2x.png!
65
}}
66 1 Thomas Carney
67 38 Thomas Carney
If customers use an email address that isn’t saved in Planio, that email address will be added as a new customer in the **Contacts** tab, so you’ll be able to track all correspondence with that person. This means you can **manage all customer relations from within Planio automatically**.
68 1 Thomas Carney
69 6 Thomas Carney
Planio also sends an automatic email confirming receipt of the email to the customer.
70 1 Thomas Carney
71 39 Thomas Carney
## Start replying to customers' emails
72 1 Thomas Carney
73 36 Thomas Carney
Click **Edit** and scroll down to the **Notes** section. Select the **External notes** option, and write your email.
74 13 Thomas Carney
75 35 Thomas Carney
{{figure(Reply to customers emails directly in Planio)
76
!replying_to_customers@2x.png!
77
}}
78 1 Thomas Carney
79
You don’t have to write "Hi Jack" or conclude the email. Those parts are automatically included via **header and footer templates**. We’ll see how we can update them below.
80
81
Click submit to send the response to the customer.
82
83 37 Thomas Carney
They’ll receive an email with your message along with a greeting and an email signature. An added bonus is that your customer will have a tracking link, so they can track the progress of the request. This is particularly useful if the issue can’t be resolved right away. For instance, you could keep them updated, and they can see the various updates all on one page.
84 28 Jan Schulz-Hofen
85 5 Thomas Carney
## Give your emails your own touch and save time with templates
86 1 Thomas Carney
87
Now, let’s dive into the more **advanced features** of the Planio Help Desk.
88
89 34 Thomas Carney
Click on the **Settings** tab and then on the **Help Desk** tab.
90 14 Thomas Carney
91 35 Thomas Carney
{{figure(The Help Desk templates are on the right)
92
!help-desk-templates@2x.png!
93
}}
94 34 Thomas Carney
95 1 Thomas Carney
You’ll see the Help Desk templates section on the right. Here, you can update the existing templates for the header and footer. For example, let’s update the footer. Click on **Edit** beside it.
96
97 40 Jan Schulz-Hofen
You’ll see “Best regards”, and the `current_user.name` inside of curly brackets.
98 1 Thomas Carney
99 35 Thomas Carney
{{figure(Customize your headers and footers)
100
!Help_desk_templates_view@2x.png!
101
}}
102 26 Thomas Carney
103 19 Thomas Carney
This means that the name here will depend on the person answering. You can make any changes you want to the text, and there is a list of **variables** you can choose from. For example, you could put the project name after the name. You can also use the variables `{{faqs.top1_question}}`, `{{faqs.top2_question}}`, and so on to include links to the most commonly asked questions.
104 34 Thomas Carney
105 19 Thomas Carney
You can also create answer **templates** to **frequently asked questions**. You'll be able to access these templates in a dropdown menu when you're replying to customers in the issues section. These will appear in a dropdown menu when you’re replying to customer emails.
106 1 Thomas Carney
107
## Start an FAQ section, so customers can find answers, faster
108 30 Jan Schulz-Hofen
109 22 Thomas Carney
If you fill out the **FAQ Question field**, the template will be added under that question to your **customer support FAQ section**, so customers can quickly find answers to commonly asked questions themselves. You can also include a link to your top most commonly asked questions in the email sent automatically when customers submit a support request.
110 30 Jan Schulz-Hofen
111 41 Thomas Carney
{{figure(Create your own FAQ section based on Help Desk Templates)
112 35 Thomas Carney
!FAQ_section@2x.png!
113
}}