16 Best Email Ticketing Systems in 2023

In this competitive era, revolutionary customer service leads to customer satisfaction, pivotal in ensuring business success. Having the right tools to streamline your customer support processes is key.

Since emails are the most popular method for clients to reach businesses, a customer support team might be overwhelmed with many customer requests and inquiries in their inboxes.

In fact, reports by Statista show that the number of daily email users worldwide is expected to grow from 4 billion in 2020 to 4.6 billion by 2025.

The solution to curbing the chaotic influx of support emails lies in businesses opting for email ticketing systems. This will help support agents keep track, organize, and manage customer requests effectively and respond promptly.

In this blog, I’ll discuss the following topics on email ticketing systems, with an all-inclusive list of the best ones with a proven reputation for offering outstanding customer experiences.

• What is an email ticketing system?
• What features should you look for in an email support system?
• Benefits of using an email ticketing tool
• What best practices can you implement in your email-based ticketing system?
• The 16 best email ticket systems
• Choose the best email ticketing system!
• Related articles

What is an email ticketing system?

An email ticketing system refers to a customer service tool that tracks, organizes, and manages support email requests.

An email ticketing tool automatically converts incoming emails into support tickets, then routes them to the right customer service representatives for resolution or response. It provides a centralized space for support agents to handle large volumes of customer requests and inquiries quickly.

What features should you look for in an email support system?

Businesses choose different email ticket systems based on the functionalities that best suit their customer support needs.

What should you look for when choosing an email ticketing tool? How do you know which email-based ticketing system is the most suitable for enhancing your support team’s workflow and collaboration?

Here are the main features that any ideal email ticketing system must have:

Ticket management

Ticket management involves all ticketing processes done in a centralized workspace. Ticket management includes ticket activities such as automated email-to-ticket conversion, ticket routing and assignment to suitable agents, ticket prioritization, ticket categorization, and more.

It enables agents to track and manage customer requests more effectively and promptly.

Automation

Automation rules allow businesses to customize their support workflows to perform repetitive tasks throughout a ticket’s life cycle. This increases agents’ productivity and efficiency.

Knowledge base

Knowledge base software acts as a central repository for relevant and important information to empower end users to resolve issues independently.

Includes self-service tools such as articles, how-to guides and videos, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and more.

Task management

With task management features, ticket resolution activities are subdivided into smaller, more manageable sub-tasks. These sub-tasks are then assigned to different support agents.

Collaboration tools

Support agents can use collaborative tools such as internal notes, shared ticket features, mentions, etc. This helps them access tickets, update tickets, get ticket notifications, and more.

Multichannel support

Multiple communication channels such as emails, social media, web portals, widgets, and embedded forms ensure all incoming support requests are received promptly.

Custom email templates

Support agents can customize their email response templates to reduce the time they spend drafting responses to tickets with frequently asked questions.

Integration

Businesses can integrate their email ticket system with their favorite tools and apps to streamline their workflow and improve their support teams’ productivity.

For instance, businesses can integrate their email ticketing system with email platforms popularly used by their clients, such as Outlook and Gmail. This will help support agents interact directly with clients from their inboxes.

Reports and analytics tool

An ideal email-based ticketing system should have built-in reports and analytics dashboards.

This helps get insightful real-time data on different aspects of customer service, leading to informed decisions.

Security features

Protect inbound and outbound emails with security features such as spam control, DKIM keys, email blocklist features, and more.

Benefits of using an email ticketing tool

Implementing email ticketing software to manage customer support inquiries and requests has various benefits. The main advantages include:

Improved customer experience

An email support system empowers customer service representatives to provide responses and resolve support issues in a timely manner.

As a result, clients feel valued and have a good experience that boosts their relationship with the given brand.

Offers centralized communication

Having all customer communications in one platform ensures all customer support queries get the necessary attention.

All emails are converted to tickets automatically, thus boosting customer interactions.

Streamlines collaboration and workflows

Email ticket systems enable seamless internal communication where agents can collectively work to resolve complex customer issues and share insights and ideas.

Helps handle support emails efficiently

Managing support emails in an organized way is important in ensuring every query is answered. Converting email to tickets and automatically categorizing, routing, and assigning these tickets solves the issue of losing emails and flooding incoming mails.

Improves agents’ productivity

Using automations in email ticketing software saves on time spent by support agents working on repetitive tasks. This reduces their workload and leaves room for urgent and challenging tasks to be worked on efficiently.

Offers 24/7 support

Self-service options like knowledge base software ensure clients have round-the-clock support. They can easily refer to knowledge base articles for solutions, leading to increased customer satisfaction.

Related blog: Popular Benefits of a Ticketing System

What best practices can you implement in your email-based ticketing system?

Consider the following tips to give your email ticketing tool a competitive edge and ensure your support team, and customers get the best ticketing system.

a. Automate all mundane tasks

You can utilize all ticket automations in your email support tool, such as ticket auto-assignment and routing, adding tags to incoming emails.

Automating your workflow helps support agents focus on more important and urgent tasks, it reduces response and resolution times, and it reduces errors associated with manual tasks.

b. Ticket categorization and prioritization

Your support team will have an easier time resolving issues if tickets are categorized, and the ticket priority or urgency  is defined.

c. Canned responses and email templates

Support agents can create and use pre-defined messages and email templates to respond to repetitive questions and requests. This helps them save on time and effort spent when typing the same recurring responses, thus making them more productive in the long run.

d. Train support agents

Empower your customer service representatives by teaching them the skills needed to provide the best customer support experience.

Use knowledge base articles and guides to enlighten them on procedures and strategies to seamlessly operate an email ticketing system.

e. Implement an effective knowledge base

You can empower your support team and customers by having knowledge base software as a central repository for information.

Agents can get solutions to common customer issues in their internal knowledge base and upload their answers to the self-service portal for other agents to access in the future.

On the other hand, clients can use the external knowledge base as their first reference point for solutions before contacting the support team.

f. Track and measure performance metrics

Monitor different metrics such as agent performance, customer satisfaction reports, ticket traffic, ticket monitoring, and more.

The reports and analytics tools provide valuable insights into different trends, areas to improve, and clients’ perceptions of your business.

g. Define and implement your service level agreement (SLA)

Create effective service level agreements that define the quality of service you will provide to your customers. Define important customer service aspects such as first response time, next response time, resolution time, and escalation conditions.

SLAs reassure customers and boost their customer experience and satisfaction.

The 16 best email ticket systems

Choosing the right system for your business to handle your support emails determines how good your customer service will be. Here are the best email ticketing systems for 2023.

1. BoldDesk

BoldDesk

is one of the top cloud-based email ticketing systems, best known for providing excellent customer service experiences using powerful help desk features.

With BoldDesk, incoming support emails are automatically converted to tickets to enable support teams to quickly respond to customer inquiries and track the progress of tickets.

Support agents get a modern and intuitive user interface to manage their assigned tickets, streamline their support workflows and easily access customers’ information in one place.

BoldDesk ensures that your inbox has spam-free emails. It has a spam-detector that prevents automated and spam emails, and it controls who sends you mail.

BoldDesk’s email ticketing system allows businesses to have all their customers’ information in a centralized place for easy access by customer support representatives. With BoldDesk’s auto-assignment rules, all emails are handled by suitable support agents and ticket progresses can be tracked easily.

Having BoldDesk automation functionalities ensures tasks are resolved quickly and responses are provided on time. Support team members can seamlessly collaborate on tasks with BoldDesk’s powerful and intuitive collaborative tools, such as private notes, tags, mentions, etc.

BoldDesk’s customizable multilingual templates ensure a support team easily reaches more customers. Additionally, BoldDesk offers self-service solutions such as a knowledge base articles and frequently asked questions.

What’s more, support managers can get insightful data from the built-in BoldDesk reports and analytics dashboards.

It is suitable for businesses of all sizes, from startups to enterprises.

Key features

BoldDesk has unique features such as

• Ticket management (includes ticket routing, ticket categorization, and ticket tagging)
• Custom multilingual email templates
• Universal shared inboxes
• Knowledge base software
• Automations and AI
• Collaboration tools
• Multichannel support
• Customization
• Multilingual support
• Ticket tags and private notes
• Embeddable help widgets
• Built-in reports and analytics
• Seamless integration
• Task management
• Security of inbound and outbound emails

BoldDesk pricing plans

BoldDesk has two major categories of pricing plans: agent-based and unlimited agents.

All BoldDesk plans are billed yearly. They include:

Free Trial period: 15 days

2. ZenDesk

ZenDesk, an email-based ticketing tool, offers a centralized workspace for support agents to seamlessly perform support tasks.

Key features

• Email templates and tracking
• Ticket routing, categorization, and tagging
• Knowledge base management
• SLA management
• Omnichannel support
• AI-powered chatbots
• Intelligence in context panels
• Integration tools and APIs
• Collaboration tools
• Advanced reporting and analytics tools

ZenDesk pricing plans

The plans are billed on an annual basis.

• Support Team: $19 per agent/month
• Support Professional: $55 per agent/month
• Support Enterprise: $115 per agent/month

Free trial period: 14 Days

3. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is email ticketing software provided by Freshworks. It converts customer inquiries and requests into support tickets, enabling agents to seamlessly resolve or respond to tickets effectively.

Key features

Freshdesk’s main features include:

• Automations
• Ticket assignment and routing
• Knowledge base software
• Omnichannel support
• Universal shared inbox
• SLA management
• Ticket ownership
• Ticket prioritization
• Team collaboration tools
• Customization capabilities
• Performance analytics tools

Pricing plans

All plans in Freshdesk are billed annually. They include:

• Free plan: $0 per agent/month (for up to 10 support agents)
• Growth plan: $15 per agent/month
• Pro: $49 per agent/month
• Enterprise plan: $79 per agent/month

Free trial period: 21 days

4. Help Scout

Help Scout

has advanced over time to customer communication software that supports email management. Like other email ticketing systems, it converts incoming emails to support tickets in a centralized workspace.

With features such as shared inboxes, automation, and private notes, a customer service team is set to be more productive.

Key featuresHere are the main features of Help Scout.

• Shared inbox
• Proactive collision detection
• Email templates
• Automations
• Reports and analytics
• Built-in knowledge base
• API and integrations
• Collaboration tools

Pricing plans

All plans are billed yearly.

• Standard: $20 per agent/month
• Plus: $40 per agent/month
• Pro: $65 per agent/month

Free trial period: 15 days

5. HelpCrunch

HelpCrunch is best known for its customer communication capabilities, especially in the support, sales, and marketing sectors. It has excellent email ticketing system features such as shared inboxes and live chat support that enhance customer experience.

Key features

• Knowledge base
• Internal notes tool
• Detailed customer profiles
• Shared inbox
• Ticket management
• Multichannel support
• Analytics and reports

Pricing plans

All plans are billed on an annual basis.

• Basic: $12 per user/month
• Pro: $20 per user/month
• Unlimited users: $495 per month

Free trial: 14 days

6. JitBit

The JitBit email ticketing system offers two options to access its platform: a self-hosted or a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product.

It has powerful features such as collision detection, a knowledge base builder, and email ticket management tools that help streamline a support representative’s workflows.

Key features

• Ticket management
• Collision detection
• Canned responses
• Automations
• Email management
• Knowledge base management
• Reporting tools

Pricing plans

• Freelancer: $29 / month
• Startup: $69 / month
• Company: $129 / month
• Enterprise: $199 / month

Free trial period: 21 days

7. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is known as one of the top contextual email management systems. With its multichannel support, support teams can get customer requests from other channels besides emails.

They can add tags and private notes to the support tickets too.

Additionally, it has multilingual support capabilities, collaboration tools, and analysis features to help agents throughout the ticketing process.

Key features

• Access to in-depth customer context
• Email templates
• Mobile apps
• Customer feedback survey widgets
• Access to comprehensive customer service metrics
• Multichannel support
• Multilingual support

Zoho Desk pricing plans

The prices of the different plans are as follows:

• Free: Forever. Has limited features. Supports up to three agents
• Standard: $12 per user/month
• Professional: $20 per user/month
• Enterprise: $35 per user/month

Free trial period: 15 days

8. ProProfsDesk

With ProProfs, customer support operations are more manageable. This system has an easy-to-use interface with simple features such as  live chat, collaboration tools, a knowledge base, and more.

Key features

These are the main features of the ProProfs ticketing system:

• Shared inboxes
• Collision detection
• Ticket management
• Knowledge base software
• Reports and analytics
• Security: Agent roles and permissions
• Omnichannel support; it has a chatbot

Pricing plans

Payment plans are billed annually.

• Essential: $10 per agent/month
• Premium: $15 per agent/month

Free trial period: 15 days

9. LiveAgent

LiveAgent is a known email-based ticketing system that uses a hybrid ticket stream to track support resolution journeys and a universal inbox for managing support tickets.

It has features that help improve the customer experience and boost agent productivity.

Key features

• Hybrid ticket stream
• Universal inbox
• Canned responses
• Automations
• SLAs
• Automatic spam filtering
• Internal notes and ticket tags
• Omnichannel support
• Self-help portals

Pricing plans

Plans are paid once a year.

• Ticket: $15/agent/month
• Ticket + Chat: $29/agent/month
• All-Inclusive: $49/agent/month

Free trial period: 14 days

10. Hiver

Hiver is the first email ticketing system specifically designed with Gmail support for Google Workspace. It has an easy-to-use and understandable interface that makes support communication more streamlined.

Customer service managers directly assign emails to support agents as tasks without converting them to tickets.

Support representatives can then work on assigned tasks from within their Gmail inbox, track the conversations, and mark the email status as open, pending, or closed. Ticket creation is not needed.

Key features

• Email management: assignment, tags, and notes
• Ticket management
• Omnichannel communication: live chat, voice call support, WhatsApp messaging
• Knowledge base
• Collision alerts
• Email templates
• Automations
• Reporting and analytics: CSAT surveys
• SLA management
• Integration tools

Hiver pricing plans

• Lite: $19 per user/month
• Pro: $49 per user/month
• Elite: $69 per user/month

Free trial period: 7 days

11. Intercom

Intercom is an ideal tool for email ticketing management and social media communication. It allows communication via mobile apps and websites.

It offers features such as team inboxes, and it allows targeted email marketing.

Intercom provides options to create separate inboxes for different support team departments.

Key features

• Ticketing capabilities
• Omnichannel communication support
• Mobile apps
• Targeted email marketing support
• Macros for canned responses
• Automations
• AI-powered bots
• Reporting

Intercom pricing plans

• Start: $39/month (includes 1 seat)
• Grow: $99/month (includes 5 seats)
• Accelerate: $499/month (includes 10 seats)
• Scale: $999/month (includes 10 seats)

Free trial period: 14 days

12. HubSpot Service Hub

The HubSpot Service Hub is a comprehensive email ticketing tool well suited for support, sales, and marketing purposes. It includes features such as ticket management, a shared inbox, automation, multichannel support, and more.

This system collaborates with other HubSpot tools to ensure the customer support experience is top-notch. It can be ideal for customers already using other HubSpot products.

Key Features

• Ticket management
• Automation
• Shared inboxes
• Email templates
• Multichannel support
• Feedback surveys and reporting dashboards

HubSpot pricing plans

Here are the prices of different plans, all billed annually:

• Free plans: Limited features. You can upgrade.
• Starter: $45 per user/month
• Professional: $450 per user/month
• Enterprise: $1,200 per user/month

Free trial period: N/A

13. HappyFox

HappyFox is one of the best ticket management systems that guarantee clients the best customer service experience.

It has a variety of features, such as a built-in knowledge base, ticket management tools, a customer portal, omnichannel support, and a community forum that boosts overall customer support.

Key features

• Ticket management
• Knowledge base software
• Automation tools
• Customer service portal
• Community forum
• Omnichannel support: phone calls, SMS, live chat, and emails
• Agent collision detection
• SLA management
• Customization of ticket tags and fields
• Reports

HappyFox pricing plans

• Mighty: $29 per user/month
• Fantastic: $49 per user/month
• Enterprise: $69 per user/month
• Enterprise Plus: $89 per user/month

Free trial period: 14 days

14. Front

Front, is best known for having a powerful shared inbox that supports omnichannel communication such as email, live chat, SMS, social media, and more.

It combines email ticketing tools with help desk features for the best customer service experience and encourages support team collaboration.

With Front, support agents can integrate their calendars and combine their personal account inboxes with their shared inboxes within the user interface.

Key features

• Shared inbox
• Multichannel communication
• Automations: email routing, assignment, tagging, escalations, etc.
• Email templates
• Rule-based SLAs
• Integration with 50+ apps
• Reporting and analytics

Front pricing plans

All plans are billed on a yearly basis.

• Starter: $19 per seat/month
• Growth: $59 per seat/month
• Scale: $99 per seat/month
• Premier: $229 per seat/month

 Free trial period: 7 days

15. SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds Service Desk is a cloud-based email ticketing platform with multichannel capabilities that allows customer requests to be managed by support agents in a centralized workspace.

It allows customization of reporting dashboards for SLAs and customer satisfaction.

Additionally, support agents can easily track ticket statuses.

Key features

• Ticket management capabilities
• Reporting tools
• Agent and customer portal
• Multichannel support: emails, phone calls, self-service portals
• Customization tools

SolarWinds pricing plans

• Team: $19 per agent/month
• Business: $39 per agent/month
• Professional: $69 per agent/month
• Enterprise $89 per agent/month

Free Trial period: 30 days

16. SysAid

SysAid is an email ticketing system specifically designed for support teams in IT departments. It has powerful functionalities such as IT asset management, automated password reset capabilities, unified report dashboards, and more.

With SysAid, businesses can create internal and external self-service portals for their support teams and end-users to easily access information.

Key features

• Ticket management tools
• Multichannel support
• Domain password reset
• Knowledge base
• IT asset management
• Incident management
• Reporting dashboards
• Remote control
• Canned responses

SysAid pricing plans

Pricing is not disclosed. You can visit the SysAid pricing page to register for a quote.

 Free trial period: Yes.

Choose the best email ticketing system!

Choosing the best email ticketing tool that aligns with your business needs will determine how good your customer service will be.

We have provided a comprehensive list on the best email ticketing systems in the market.

We hope it helps you make an informed decision on the most suitable one for your businesses seamless and streamlined support operations.

Related articles

Why an Automated Ticketing System is Good for Customer Service

Popular Benefits of a Ticketing System

Strategies to Optimize a Help Desk Ticketing System’s Workflow