Comments on: How To: Using Google Gmail as Your Help Desk Solution

By: Web Applications are the Future » Blog Archive » Gmail as Help Desk System

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:31:46 +0000

[...] According to Jason Fried in this video, 37Signals also uses Gmail for tech support. I also found another article on the subject. Are you also using Gmail for as a help desk solution? What has been [...]

By: » Using Google Gmail as Your Help Desk Solution HelpDesk Articles

» Using Google Gmail as Your Help Desk Solution HelpDesk Articles — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:26:57 +0000

[...] David Risley shows us how to turn Google Gmail as Your Help Desk Solution [...]

By: James

James — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:45:09 +0000

It is really an option to arrange the customer service through Gmail. But what if you have several support engineers working with the same e-mail box at the same time? Even in case each of them has its personal account?? It only complicates the issue. You always have to log out and enter another address…
Obviously, when you are a small business, a simple solution is enough – as Gmail or Outlook (what I personally used). But the volume of information steadily grows and one support engineer can’t handle it anymore. The struggle with a whole lot of tasks exceeds given benefits of e-mail handling. The decision to switch to a specialized application was inevitable. Looking for the system, which supported e-mail tracking option, we choose CRMdesk (www.crmdesk.com). From more than a year of experience with CRMdesk we have got the same e-mail interface with an opportunity of multiple representatives’ support.
My point is there is no reason to waste your time with Gmail or Outlook from the very start. There are a whole lot of programs, which support needed functionality and offer better solutions to process the data.

By: Red Matthews

Red Matthews — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:58:13 +0000

Still looks like you can get a free hiveminder.com account
From the FAQ
How do you guys plan to make money off this? (You are a business, right?)
You can upgrade your account to a pro account, which gives you all sorts of nifty extra features! Hiveminder will remain a free service forever, though. You will never be forced to pay for Hiveminder.

By: Red Matthews

Red Matthews — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:45:29 +0000

Nor do Yahoo, Hotmail, Zoho, etc.
RT’s makers have put up hiveminder, but it’s gone subscription, I think. Maybe just for “Pro” features.

Weird since it’s pretty much the next logical step after hosted / server based email.

By: Red Matthews

Red Matthews — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:42:32 +0000

Why do you think Google don’t host a proper ticketing system? It’s the single most useful thing any workgroup needs.

By: London Computer Repair

London Computer Repair — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:23:47 +0000

The article clearly and rightly underline some of the very good features of gmail, it is a very powerful tool when used at its full potential. If you have time to learn how to make the most of your gmail webservices which are completely free of charge, you surely will not be disapointed.

By: Jason Faulkner

Jason Faulkner — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:33:43 +0000

“Once that is done, nobody will be able to tell you’re using Gmail unless they dig into the headers of the email.”

Actually, if you open an email (send from Gmail using an alternate address) in Outlook it says something like the following in the From box in the opened window:
mygmailaddress@gmail.com [sent on behalf of email@mydomain.com]

This is the default behavior, so it can look somewhat unprofessional.

Edit: I just tested it and confirmed this is still the behavior. This is a great idea though if people don’t notice this, which in reality it shouldn’t matter.