keeping customers happy that's the name of the game these days especially in the
digital world absolutely and a big part of that having a help a desk solution
that can really you know handle the load a solid help desk one that won't let you
down right now you've probably heard of the usual suspects then desk help scout
all those big names feature-packed but Tracy they can really put a dent in your
budget so what if what if there was a way to get that same robust
functionality all those bells and whistles without having to shell out a
fortune well that's where open source software comes in I mean it's really
changing the landscape you know it's not just for like tech geeks anymore it's
going mainstream absolutely and in the world of open source help desks there's
one name that keeps popping up free Scout free Scout it's a totally free
platform no monthly fees no hidden costs Wow just pure unadulterated help desk
goodness Wow so for this deep dive we're going to explore free Scout in depth
we'll look at what it can do what it's good at where it might fall short and
most importantly we'll figure out if it's the right tool to take your
customer support to the next level I'm excited to dig into this I mean from
what I've seen free Scout seems to be packed with features oh yes it really is
and one of the things that immediately jumps out especially for you know
businesses that are growing is the unlimited agents tickets and mailboxes
the limited right from the get-go that's a big deal it's a direct challenge to
the traditional pricing models we see with with these other help desk
providers where they charge you per agent or based on how many tickets you
have yeah it can get really expensive really fast it can and with free Scout
you don't have to worry about hitting those limits or you know having to
upgrade your plan as your team expands right and it's not just about saving
money it's about yeah having the control the flexibility to manage your support
your way it's now another thing that free Scout does really well is
integration you can seamlessly connect it with your existing email that's
important even if you're using a modern Microsoft exchange setup now for those
who might not be familiar with the technical jargon Microsoft exchange
authentication is a more secure way of handling email right yes it's essential
for businesses that prioritize data security and the fact that free Scout
supports this out of the box shows that they're really catering to a wide range
of organizations with you know diverse needs absolutely they're not just
focusing on one segment they're trying to make it accessible to everyone right
and then to keep you connected on all fronts free Scout also integrates with
popular messaging platforms like slack whatsapp Facebook even telegram so all
your customer communication channels can flow into this one central hub
streamlined streamlined efficient organized love it and speaking of
efficiency free Scout has some really smart features that can seriously boost
your productivity okay tell me more about that I'm all ears all right so
imagine you're in the middle of a chaotic day tons of customer requests
coming in emails flying the phones ringing off the hook yeah the usual chaos
right it's easy for things to slip through the crack oh yeah it's a
nightmare but with free Scout you can star those crucial conversations so they
stay front and center like a little reminder like a virtual sticky note I
like it so you don't forget about those urgent issues make sense and to keep you
in the loop in real time they have these push notifications that alert you to new
messages or updates so you don't have to keep hitting refresh on your inbox just
waiting for that next email to come through exactly and then there are these
things called saved replies it's a lifesaver for those you know frequently
asked question oh yeah the ones you find yourself typing out over and over and
over again exactly you can create these pre-written responses and just insert
them with a couple of clicks so much time saved hours potentially and I also
really appreciate the ability to leave internal notes on tickets so if you need
to like loop in a colleague or just jot down some context for yourself later
it's all right there in the ticket everything's one place organized
organized and speaking of collaboration they've got collision detection which
means two agents won't accidentally end up working on the same issue that's
clever talk about avoiding duplicate efforts it's like they've thought of
everything and for those who are keyboard shortcut wizards free Scout
has a whole set of shortcuts so you can zip through tasks even faster nice so
we've seen how free Scout helps you manage those day-to-day support tasks
but what about tailoring the entire experience to your brand ah good
question well that's where things get even better okay free Scout lets you
white-label the entire platform meaning you can replace their branding with
yours their logos their colors so it feels like an extension of your own
website your own application so customers feel like they're dealing
directly with your company it creates a seamless brand experience exactly and
you can go even further with customization by creating custom fields
to capture information that's specific to your business so for example if you're
an e-commerce company you might want to track order numbers or product details
right within the support tickets so you don't have to jump between different
systems to get the information you need it's all right there streamlined and to
keep everything organized you can set up your own folder structure you can define
workflows and SLAs those service level agreements yeah so free Scout gives you
all the tools to manage everything in a way that really fits your business like
a glove it's like building your own bespoke help desk tailored to your needs
exactly but what about when those needs start to get a little more complex as
your business grows right and free Scout handle the big leagues good question
that's what I'm wondering too scaling up can be a challenge for any system no
matter how good it is on the surface let's find out yeah let's dig into that
next so we've seen that free Scout can handle you know the basics but what
about when you need something a little more advanced a little more right can
it scale yeah can it keep up with a business that's you know growing evolving
needing more and more from its help desk software well it seems like free Scout
has a few tricks up its sleeve for those who need those uh those more
sophisticated features like what give me the good stuff okay well for one they
have Kanban boards oh I love Kanban yes they're great for visualizing your
workflow absolutely so it's like a virtual whiteboard you can organize your
tickets you can track their progress you can move them between different stages
you know like new in progress resolved all just by dragging and dropping it's so
visual so easy to see where everything is at a glance and it really helps you
identify bottlenecks you know like where things are getting stuck oh for sure and
then for the data lovers out there you know the folks who really like to dig
into the numbers free Scout offers real-time reports ooh tell me more so
think charts graphs all those beautiful visualizations showing you key metrics
like response times ticket volume trends agent performance so you can actually see
how your team's doing where you need to improve all that good stuff exactly it's
all about using data to make better decisions to optimize your support
processes day is king it is king so we've talked about visualizing workflows
we've talked about data what about connecting free Scout with other tools
you know the other systems that businesses rely on right can it play
nicely with others it can it definitely can free Scout offers CRM integration CRM
that's customer relationship management right yep so you can hook it up to your
CRM system and get this like this holistic view of your customers 360
degrees you see their entire history their interactions their purchases
their support requests everything and that's so valuable for providing
personalized support right well absolutely you know knowing your
customer understanding their needs that's how you build loyalty and I'm
guessing they have something for time tracking too right because you know a
lot of businesses need to track their time for billing purposes they do they
have a built-in time tracking feature so you can log the time you spend on each
ticket which is essential for businesses that bill clients hourly or you know
just need to track project costs accurately very practical very very
practical but it's not just about internal efficiency right we also need
to think about things like data privacy oh absolutely big topic these days huge
and free scout has you covered there too they've got GDPR compliance built right
into the platform GDPR that's the general data protection regulation a
whole set of rules designed to protect the personal data of individuals in the
European Union so it's a big deal for businesses that operate in Europe or
work with European customer essential absolutely essential and for the more
tech savvy folks out there free scout also offers API access ah yes the API
now for those of us who aren't you know developers break that down for me what
is API access and why should I care okay so an API it stands for application
programming interface okay and it basically allows different software
systems to talk to each other like a universal translator for software kind
of yeah so with free scouts API you could connect it to other tools you use
your project management system your counting software even your marketing
automation platform so it's not just a standalone help desk it can actually
become part of this interconnected ecosystem of tools exactly the
possibilities are pretty much endless it really depends on your needs and your
technical capabilities very cool so it really does seem like free scout can
grow with a business you know it can adapt to those increasingly complex
needs that companies face as they scale yeah it's flexible it's powerful and
it's got a lot of potential but let's not forget about one of the key
advantages of open-source software the community the community the people who
are passionate about the software who are constantly contributing improving and
you know just making it better right and with free scout it's not just the core
developers who are working on it it's this whole community of users who are
out there building and sharing these amazing things called community modules
community modules what are they well think of them like add-ons or plugins
that extend free scouts functionality even further so it's like a giant
toolbox of extra features all created by people who are actually using free
scout in the real world exactly that's brilliant and we found a ton of these
listed on the free scout github wiki yeah some of them are really innovative
give me some examples like what are some of the cool things people are creating
okay so one that caught my eye was the chat GPT integration module chat GPT
that's the AI chat bot everyone's talking about these days I've heard of it so
with this module you can actually bring the power of chat GPT right into free
scout no that's interesting I mean imagine using chat GPT to automatically
generate responses to simple customer queries or to summarize you know those
really long complicated support tickets so your agents don't have to wade
through pages and pages of text exactly it just streamlines everything very very
cool okay what else what other gems are in this community module treasure
chest well if you're a fan of visual scheduling there's a calendar module
that integrates directly with free scout so I could schedule follow-up calls with
customers I could block out time for specific support tasks all within free
scout yep everything's in one place centralized love it and then for those
who use click up for project management there's a click up integration module so
if I'm already using click up to manage my projects I can connect it to free
scout and have my support tickets show up alongside my other tasks seamlessly
it's all about creating that smooth integrated workflow these community
modules they really showcase what open source collaboration is all about it's
amazing right like having this constant stream of new features and enhancements
all driven by the people who are actually using the software it's like
this collective brainpower all focused on making free scout the best it can be
and it's all for free which brings up a very important question yeah how does
free scout a free and open source platform support itself I mean
developing software takes time it takes resources it takes money it does so how
do they do it well that's what we're gonna explore next free Scouts business
model it's actually quite fascinating alright so we've talked about all the
amazing features that free scout offers the fact that it can scale with the
growing business and that incredible community that's constantly making it
even better right it's a pretty impressive package it is but now I'm
curious about the business side of things how does free scout actually make
money I mean they have to keep the lights on somehow right they do but it's
not through the traditional subscription model that you see with a lot of other
software companies how do they do it well the core free scout software the
one with all those great features we've been discussing that's completely free
free free you can download it you can use it you can even modify it if you
have the technical skills no strings attached that's incredible it's a real
testament to their commitment to the open source philosophy but they still
have to generate revenue right so where does that come from that comes from a
selection of premium modules ah okay so it's like a freemium model you get the
basic product for free and then you can choose to pay for extra features if you
need them exactly so what kind of premium modules are we talking about well
one popular one is the end user portal okay and what does that do it basically
allows your customers to submit support tickets directly through a portal on
your website so instead of just sending emails they have this dedicated space
where they can manage their support requests right and they can also track
the status of their tickets access a knowledge base even participate in
community forums so it's like giving them a self-service option exactly which
can really help reduce the workload on your support team and they have a
dedicated knowledge base module too right they do it lets you build a
comprehensive library of articles FAQs tutorials all that good stuff so
customers can find answers to their questions without even having to contact
support that's the goal it's all about empowering customers to help themselves
love it yeah what else what other tempting modules are there well for
businesses that need to offer real-time support there's a live chat module oh
yeah those little chat widgets that pop up on websites exactly it allows you to
interact with customers instantly answer quick questions provide guidance
especially important for e-commerce sites or any business where that
immediate connection can make a difference absolutely and then for those
who are data-driven there's a reports module okay tell me about that one I
love data so this module gives you in-depth analytics on all aspects of
your support operation you can see things like conversation volume response
times agent performance customer satisfaction so you can identify areas
where you're doing well and areas where you need to improve precisely it's all
about using data to optimize your support processes this is all sounding
really good but what about support for the actual software if I'm using the
free version of free Scout am I on my own if I run into problems not at all
free Scout has a lot of support resources available even for free users
like what well their website is packed with documentation FAQs tutorials all
sorts of helpful stuff and they also have a very active community forum where
you can get help from other users and developers so even though it's free I'm
not just left out in the cold definitely not and if you need more personalized
assistance or you have submission critical issues that need immediate
attention they do offer paid support options so they've got all the bases
covered they do they've managed to create this really compelling balance
between offering a powerful free product and generating revenue through those
premium modules and support services and they've done it in a way that seems fair
and transparent I think so so as we wrap up this deep dive into free scout here's
the big question for you our listener could free scout be the help desk
solution you've been searching for think about what's important to you is it cost
savings flexibility the power of community free scout offers all of that
and more it's a real game changer in the world of customer support it challenges
the status quo and shows that you don't have to break the bank to get a top-notch
help desk solution so we encourage you to explore free scout further check out
their website browse their community modules see if it's the right fit for
your needs we think you'll be impressed with what you find we certainly are and
And with that we'll wrap up this episode of The Deep Tive. Thanks for joining us.