Managing customer support.
WHEN YOU NEED ONE
When a shared mailbox stops working: several people handling requests, nothing tracked, customers receiving two replies or none.
THE OPTIONS
osTicket: established, free, self-hosted Hosted helpdesk services, which remove the maintenance A plugin for your existing content system
WHAT A HELPDESK GIVES YOU
Tickets with status and ownership A record of every conversation Assignment between staff Canned responses Reporting
EMAIL INTEGRATION
The critical part. Incoming mail becomes tickets, and replies go back by email so customers never see the system.
This requires mail fetching configured correctly, and a cron job to poll for new messages.
Test it thoroughly. A helpdesk that silently stops fetching mail loses customer enquiries.
THE HONEST ASSESSMENT
Below a certain volume, a shared mailbox with a clear convention works fine and requires no maintenance.
Install a helpdesk when the mailbox is genuinely failing, not before.
