Setting Up Your Help Desk

Video: An Overview of HubSpot’s Help Desk

HubSpot’s help desk has tools that allow you to intake, triage, troubleshoot, solve, and
improve upon customer issues. With these tools at your disposal, you’ll be able to scale
support and deliver personalized help, with unified CRM insights. Additionally, Service Hub
is omnichannel by design, meaning all your channels are connected in one place. This lets
you deliver fast, exceptional support to your customers on the channels of their choosing.

This video will provide a high-level overview of what HubSpot’s help desk looks like, and
its basic functionality. Hopefully, it'll also spark ideas about how your team can leverage
the help desk. Before we begin, please note that you must either have a Service Hub paid
seat, or be a super admin to access help desk.

So, let’s take a look at it in action. To access your help desk, in the navigation, click
Workspaces and select Help desk. On the left-hand side, you’ll be able to see your
various views. HubSpot has some by default, but you can also create custom views based
on various ticket properties.

Along the top of the screen, you can quickly filter and sort your list of inquiries by Ticket
owner, Priority, Pipeline, Ticket status, HubSpot team, and more.

Now, let’s get into the tickets themselves. You can either create tickets manually, by
clicking the Create ticket button on the bottom left, or you can create them automatically
by setting up various intake methods.

You can collect intake through the following channels:

● Team email
● Chat
● Facebook Messenger
● Forms
● A WhatsApp Business account and
● Calling

When a ticket is created, they’ll live in this list in the center of the tickets overview page. At
a high level, you can see basic information about the ticket such as the channel it came in
through, the contact and company it’s associated with in your CRM, when the ticket was
created, service level agreements (SLAs), and more.

Let’s click into a ticket. Once you’ve connected your channels, every unique inquiry that
comes in through said channels will create a new ticket. A ticket is an object that’ll detail
the customer’s information, as well as the situation they’re experiencing. The ticket lives

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here in your help desk. At the top, you’ll see the ticket title, the associated contact, and the
associated company. To the right, you’ll see the status, which can be updated manually or
automatically, based on emails sent or received. At the top right, click the three dots to
merge the ticket with another, to move the conversation to another inbox, to mark as
spam, or to delete the ticket.

On the right, you’ll be able to access and edit information about the ticket, including the
category, conversation, ticket information, and objects associated with the ticket. You can
drag and drop sections to rearrange the order of the sidebar cards.

To add efficiency to your day, add automation to your tickets via the workflows tool.
Some common workflows folks use when setting up tickets include: creating tasks based
on ticket source, sending an email to the ticket owner when an SLA is approaching, or
setting ticket priority based on the company. For more ideas on ticket automation, check
out our workflow templates linked in the resources section.

Next, let’s talk about triaging your tickets. To make sure that every ticket goes to the
correct rep at the right time, set up capacity or skills-based routing. Capacity-based
routing guarantees that tickets are evenly routed to your team, while skills-based routing
guarantees that certain reps get assigned tickets that cover certain topics. Furthermore,
you can set up SLAs, so that reps know how to prioritize their work and make sure they’re
meeting customer expectations. If you’re not sure where to start in creating SLAs, consult
your senior support reps for advice. While your metrics will be dependent on staffing, as
general guidelines, HubSpot suggests that a phone call should be answered within five
minutes; a chat should be answered within two minutes; and an email should be answered
within 12 business hours.

Now, let’s troubleshoot the ticket. The combination of a connected CRM and AI makes
troubleshooting easy. If there’s a bunch of back-and-forth on the ticket and you want a
quick summary of the communications, you can ask AI to summarize the ticket. AI can
even help inform your responses by changing the tone, expanding the text, or making it
shorter.

Further, because the help desk is deeply integrated with HubSpot’s CRM, any additional
context or previous customer interactions are only a click away. If that's not enough to
inform a solution, consider scanning through past tickets, to check for similar prior issues,
and how other reps have handled those. You can also access knowledge base articles and
other resources to help the customer.

Now, the moment our customer has been waiting for — solving the inquiry. Use the
options within the text box to communicate with your customer efficiently, by adding in
templates, snippets, knowledge base articles, and more. After you’ve solved your
customer’s problem, in the top right, mark the ticket status as closed.

Finally, it’s time to improve your processes. HubSpot’s help desk has robust reporting to
help you understand metrics like conversation totals, ticket average response time,

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most-viewed knowledge base articles, SLA breakdowns by rep, and more. You can even
create dashboards for each of your reps to use as coaching resources.

A help desk that's deeply integrated with your CRM and powered by AI ensures alignment
between marketing, sales, and service, enabling faster resolution of customer issues.

Video: Collecting Intake Through Help Desk

One of the primary functions of HubSpot’s help desk is to gather intake from your
customers.

The first step in setting up your help desk is to determine how you want customers to
reach you. Once you connect your various channels, your support reps can view and
respond to all inquiries in one place, giving them a true omnichannel experience. Please
note that a ticket will automatically be created for any inquiry delivered to these channels.

You can connect the following channels:

● Team email
● Chat
● Facebook Messenger
● Forms
● WhatsApp Business accounts
● Calling

To set up a team email in your HubSpot account, in the navigation, click Workspaces and
select Help Desk. On the bottom left, click Help Desk Settings. In the middle of the
page, click Connect a channel. Choose the channels you’d like to connect to your help
desk, and follow the prompts on screen. Let’s start with Team email.

Based on where your email address is hosted, select Gmail, Office 365, or Other mail
account. If your inbox isn’t hosted with Office 365 or Google, or if you’re using a Google
Groups account or email alias, select Other mail account. This allows you to forward
emails from your mail client to the conversations inbox.

Review the terms for sharing this email account with HubSpot, then click Continue.

Select or enter the email address you want to connect to, enter your email sign-in
credentials, and complete the connection process to allow HubSpot to access your inbox.
You'll be redirected to the Email Details screen, where you can customize the information
that contacts will see when they receive an email from you, including the from name and
email signature.

To include a team email signature, click Add team signature. When you’re done, click
Next.

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To edit the default ticket properties, including the ticket pipeline and stage, click Set
ticket properties for this channel.

Now it’s time to triage. Set up routing rules to automatically route incoming emails to
specific users and teams in your account. You can learn more about skill-based routing in
HubSpot’s “Route tickets in help desk based on agent skills” knowledge base article. Click
the Assign incoming tickets to dropdown menu and select a routing option.

By default, incoming conversations will only be assigned to agents that are available. If
no agents are available, the email conversation will be unassigned. You can clear the
Assign to available users only checkbox to turn off assignments based on agent
availability. Click Save when you are ready, and then Connect and finish.

Next, let’s set up chat. By default, the chat widget colors will be based on your account's
branding settings. You can customize the colors if you’d like. When you are happy with the
design, click Next.

To set the name and avatar that appear at the top of the chat widget, click the Chat
heading dropdown menu and select an option.

In the text box, enter a welcome message that'll appear when visitors first start a chat.

Like emails, chats can be triaged based on rules you provide. To do this, click into the
Assign incoming tickets to dropdown menu and make your selections.

To display the welcome message automatically when your pages load, select the Pop
open the welcome message as a prompt checkbox. Then, click Next.

There’ll be the option to set when your team will appear available to chat and to let
visitors know when they can expect a reply. Set up your availability behaviors to
customize the messages sent when you are available, away, or when it's outside of your
regular business hours. When you’re ready, click Next.

Preview how your chat widget will appear on different devices using the device type
buttons above the preview. When you’re ready, click Publish to activate your chat widget
for your HubSpot hosted content. Alternatively, if you're using the chat widget on an
external website, you'll add the HubSpot tracking code to your website pages.

Now, it’s time to connect a form. Select an existing form or set up a new form. To learn
more about form creation, check out our resources section. Once you’ve selected one,
click Next.

Click Set ticket properties for this channel to customize the properties that'll appear
when a ticket is created from this form. Then, set assignment rules so that incoming form
submissions are automatically routed to specific users and teams in your account. Click
Save when you’re done.

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Next, you can connect your WhatsApp Business account and Facebook Messenger
accounts as ‌channels. To learn more about connecting options specific options, check out
our resources section below.

Finally, set up calling. Note that inbound calls support simultaneous ringing for up to 10
users.

First, to make and receive calls, you need a HubSpot provided phone number. You can
either generate a new number or use an existing HubSpot number. Make a selection and
follow the instructions on screen. Click Continue to setup. Here, you can choose to set
ticket properties for this channel, and then click Next.

On the Routing & Configuration page, fill in the channel name and choose the recording
language and voice. If you choose to record your calls, your call recipient will hear this
audio message at the beginning of their call. Under Channel working hours, click + Add
hours to configure the hours for your calling channel.

Under Routing during working hours, click the Specific users and teams dropdown
menu, and click the checkboxes next to each user or team you want to route calls to
during working hours.

Next, click Setup Voicemail. In the right panel, enter a message to create an audio
version of your message. Click Save.

Under Routing after hours, click Setup Voicemail to enter a message for calls left
unanswered after working hours. Click Save. Then, click Finish.

Navigate back to your settings page. On the left, click General. At the top of the page,
click Calling. To receive calls in HubSpot, under Inbound calling preferences, set your ring
preference to Ring in HubSpot browser.

After you set up your HubSpot provided number and device ringing method, click the
Inbound Calling icon in the navigation bar. A pop-up banner will appear. Click Open call
tab. This call window must remain open to receive inbound calls. When someone calls you,
a pop-up will appear with the contact’s information.

And there you have it, a guide to setting up your intake channels in HubSpot.

Video: Setting Up Tickets

A ticket typically represents a customer’s problem or inquiry. Tickets can be created
manually in the help desk, or automatically, if a customer reaches out via one of your
connected channels. All tickets live in your help desk, which allows you to record, organize,
and track all customer issues in a single place that’s accessible to your entire team.

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When setting up your tickets, the first thing to think about is ticket properties. HubSpot
has added some commonly used properties you can categorize by, but you may need
more. To create a new property, in the top navigation, click Workspaces and select Help
Desk. On the bottom right, click Help Desk Settings.

On the top of the settings page, select the Ticket Defaults tab. Then, under the Ticket
status dropdown menu, click the Set more ticket properties for help desk link. Here,
you’ll be able to add ticket properties. Once your ticket properties have been added,
they’ll show up in the sidebar on the ticket itself. Select any additional properties you want
to appear in your ticket and click Done to close the pop-up window. Once you are
satisfied with the list of ticket properties, click Done.

Now that you have all the ticket properties you need, it’s time to create and edit ticket
pipelines. Creating multiple pipelines is only necessary if different tickets require different
statuses. For example, some companies will have one pipeline for online support tickets,
and another for on-site support. On-site support tickets may have statuses like
“Accepted,” “Processing,” “Processed,” and “Ready for Pickup.” If these statuses don’t
also make sense for the online ticketing system, that’s a sign that an additional pipeline
would be needed. If the statuses work for both situations, you can still distinguish
between the two ticket types using filters to organize tickets within the same pipeline
based on properties.

If you do decide that you would like to create a new pipeline, click Manage ticket
settings. Another window will appear. Along the top, select the Pipelines tab. In the
Select a pipeline box, click into the dropdown and select Create pipeline. Give your
pipeline a name and click Create pipeline.

On your new pipeline, you can customize the ticket cards and ticket tags. A ticket card is
what’s shown in the board view, in your tickets overview. Ticket tags give you the ability to
set up conditional colored tags, to visually prioritize or categorize tickets. For instance, if a
ticket is marked as high priority, you can make the ticket appear red. Click into the links
and follow the instructions on screen to configure this.

Below the Board customization settings, you can configure the statuses for ‌tickets in a
particular pipeline. HubSpot provides a few default statuses, but you can add your own by
clicking Add status. Please note that the fewer statuses you have, the easier it'll be for
your reps to organize and work their tickets. To the right of the status name, you’ll be able
to dictate when the tickets in the corresponding statuses are open or closed. For context,
an open ticket is one that you will be, or are currently working‌on. Closed tickets are the
ones that you have already solved. Finally, on the right, decide if you’d like to add
conditional status properties. For example, when a ticket moves to closed, you can add a
Resolution property and require your reps to confirm that the Resolution property field
has a value.

Next, above the configuration table, click Automate. HubSpot has set up default
automation, so that when an email is sent to a customer, the ticket status will
automatically change to Waiting on Customer. When a customer replies, the ticket status

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will automatically change to Waiting on us. Hover over the trigger to edit the action or
view the workflow. If you don’t want this automation to be active in your account,
uncheck the box next to the trigger.

If there’s additional automation you’d like to add, click into Additional status
automation. Here, you can add custom automation for when a ticket changes status.

The last step is to customize the Create ticket form that’s used when you create a ticket
manually. At the top of the page, click the Setup tab, and select Customize the ‘Create
ticket’ form. Customize the form your reps will fill out when they’re creating a ticket
manually. You can add properties, conditional logic, and associations by using the options
in the left sidebar. When you’re done, click Save.

You’ve now set up tickets and pipelines.

Video: Setting Up Views in Your Help Desk

Creating views allows you to organize your help desk according to your needs.

To create custom views in your help desk, in the navigation, click Workspaces and select
Help Desk. In the left panel, click Create view.

In the right panel, enter a name for the view, and select who you’d like to share this view
with. If you’re creating a view of your own tickets, it’s best to keep it private so that your
help desk doesn’t get cluttered. Once you’ve selected the desired viewing permissions,
click Next.

Here, you can search for and select a property you want to filter by. For this example, we’ll
select Ticket owner is “me”, and Priority is high to have a view of my high-priority
tickets. Click Apply filter when you are satisfied with your selections. Then, click Create
view.

To see your new view, you may need to expand the left sidebar panel, using the double
arrow on the top left.

You'll see your new view on the bottom left of that panel in your help desk. If you don’t see
it in the left sidebar, try scrolling down in that menu. Hover over your saved view and click
the three dots on the right to edit, delete, or favorite your view.

And there you have it. You have set up a new view in your help desk tools.

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Video: Setting Up SLAs
Service level agreements (SLAs) are used to set standards for how quickly your team is
responding to and closing tickets.

You can set SLA goals for time to first reply, time to next reply, and time to close. You can
apply these SLAs to all tickets within help desk, or you can set different SLAs based on
ticket properties, such as priority, team, source, or pipeline. Finally, you can customize
when your SLA goals apply.

To set up SLA goals, navigate to Workspaces and select Help Desk. On the bottom left of
the screen, click Help Desk settings. At the top of the settings page, select SLAs.

Here, you can decide when you want your SLAs to apply: at all times or only during your
organization’s working hours. Please note, you can also set up your organization’s working
hours, so that your reports aren't skewed by inactivity during those times. To do so, click
Edit your team’s working hours.

Next, toggle the On switch to Set reply and close time SLA goals. You can apply these
SLAs to all tickets, or to certain tickets based on a specified property.

To apply SLAs based on ticket property, select the Based on ticket property option, then
use the dropdown menu to choose a property. A pop-up will appear prompting you to set
SLAs for time to first reply, time to next reply, time to close, and when the ticket will be
marked as Due soon. When an SLA is approaching, team members with paid seats will
see a warning in-app. Make sure to toggle the On/off button to set the SLA live. When
you’re ready, click Done.

Click Save.

Lastly, set up SLA reporting. Click the link Set up the SLA Performance Overview
dashboard to be taken to the reporting tool. Click into the Service Team Ticket SLA
Performance Overview box. By default, there are six reports that'll appear on the
dashboard. If you don’t want to include a report, simply uncheck the box next to the
report. Once you have the desired reports selected, click Next. Give your dashboard a
name, and decide who can access the dashboard.

When you’re ready, click Create dashboard. Now, in the top left, click Exit to be taken to
the dashboard overview page. From there, select your SLA dashboard.

You now have ticket SLAs and associated reporting in your HubSpot account.

Video: Setting Up Help Desk Reporting

To understand how your support team is performing, you'll want to set up help desk
reporting. In the navigation, click Reporting and Data and select Dashboards. On the
top right, click Create dashboard. On the left, type in Service in the search bar to view all

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the service-related dashboard templates. Once you find one that suits your needs, click
into that dashboard template.

A pop-up will appear that tells you about the dashboard template, as well as the reports
included in the dashboard. Uncheck any report you don’t need, then click Next. Give your
dashboard a name, and select who can access this dashboard. Once you are satisfied
with your selections, click Create dashboard.

To view your new dashboard, click the Go to your dashboard link that appears at the top
of the page. Alternatively, in the navigation, you can click Reporting and Data and select
Dashboards to navigate back to the overview. Then, select your new dashboard from the
dropdown menu that appears when you click the name of the default dashboard.

Many service leaders like to create a dashboard for each rep on their team. To do this, at
the top of the screen, click Create dashboard. Then, click + New dashboard. Give the
dashboard a name and select the access. Click Create dashboard. Once created, click
Go to dashboard, and in the middle of the page, click Add reports to this dashboard.

For now, click From saved reports. Here, select the reports you want added to that
specific dashboard. At the top of the list, you’ll see a toolbar where you can click Add to
dashboard.

Make sure the correct dashboard is selected, and click Add to dashboard. On the top left
of the dashboard, click Quick filters. If this dashboard is for a specific rep, add a filter for
Owner and Date range. Next, use those filters to then filter for the specific rep and the
date range you want the dashboard to reflect.

You can email this dashboard out on a recurring basis to share with any existing HubSpot
users that have viewing access to this data. In the top right, click Share and select Email
this dashboard. Fill out the necessary information and click Send now or Schedule
email.

For more advanced reporting content, check out our resources section below.

You now have help desk reporting.

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