Tasks Plus module for activeCollab lets you set up a support help desk system that both you and your customers will love…

Customers Will Love It Because The Helpdesk Is Invisible

Tasks Plus helpdesk system is invisible to customers. All messages look and function like normal email. No more bloated emails, no more robotic auto responders, no more needing to remember another username and password, no more frustrations.

Support Team Will Love It Because It’s Right Within activeCollab

Get all advantages of activeCollab Tasks – workflow labels, time tracking, sub tasks, file attachments, filtering, categories… – and more importantly the same familiar interface. All support tickets from customers become tasks within activeCollab and only your comments (along with any attachents on comments) are sent to the customer. Overall, the support team becomes a lot more productive.

Business Owner Will Love It Because Everything Stays Centralized

You can use activeCollab for project management and customer support both. No need for two separate systems all hassels of integration. On top of it, customers feel they are getting responses from real people and support team is more productive. It’s a win for everyone.

Here’s how a support incident may get addressed:

• Customer sends an email to support@yourdomain.com
• This email is imported as a task in activeCollab
• Support team works on the task, and posts a comment
• The comment (along with attachments if any) is sent to customer as a normal email
• Customer reads the email and replies with additional detail
• The reply email is imported as a comment on the original task in activeCollab
• Support team continues working on it – they may create sub tasks, add time entries, assign it to different members etc
• Support team resolves the issue and posts a comment on the task
• The comment is sent to customer as an email
• Customer is happy with the solution and replies with a thank you note
• This reply too is imported as a comment on the original task
• Support team is happy too, and closes the task

How does this differ from default activeCollab functionality?? How is it better?

You may think that activeCollab already does most of this. So what’s the big deal…

In fact, cleaner emails itself is a big step forward in improving customer experience.

• Tasks Plus solution does not show task IDs or project names in email subjects.
• Emails carry a much simpler, leaner format. They look like regular emails, and not some system generated notifications.
• Client can actually see complete thread of the conversation. It’s much easier to comprehend progress and context.
• This solution reduces the risk of emails being marked as junk / spam – a big advantage.
• Clients don’t get the annoying “new ticket created” or “new task created” email when they write to support mailbox. They also do not get emails when assignees change or any other activity happens with the task. They get an email only when a comment is posted to the task.

Think about the agony and time this can save your clients! Plus they feel a real human is communicating with them. Customer support helpdesk being invisible is indeed a big deal.

And frankly, this is just getting started. We will be adding a number of enhancements to Tasks Plus in future that will make managing support requests even easier!

Setting up an awesome (& invisible) customer support system – walkthrough

Imagine your customer has a question. He writes an email and sends it to your support email address. This email becomes a task in activeCollab – ready for your team to work on. Including any files customer may have attached. Your team can respond by leaving a comment. They can also use all activeCollab task management features – including assignments, labels, sub tasks and time tracking. Posting a comment sends an email to the customer – but in a style that feels human. Just like conversational email. No extra details or formatting. No trace of a software.

Customer’s reply is imported as a comment to the original task too. No need to login to another system or even leave the email client.

On the activeCollab side, team can mark this task as complete, since the question is answered.

That’s it! A helpdesk that’s invisible to the customer, yet gives all the flexibility and power to your support team. Possible only with activeCollab and our Tasks Plus module.

While we are at it, let me also show you how this is setup. Assuming activeCollab and our Tasks Plus module are installed, we need an incoming mailbox set up. The “account name” is used in outgoing replies. And email address is where clients send their support requests. Other details are standard POP3/IMAP settings.

Save and go back to Email settings, then, “Manage Filters”.

This is where we tell activeCollab that all messages arriving on support mailbox should be treated as support tickets. You may set rules for subject, body etc, but the most important is the action. We want to add a new support ticket in a specific project, put it in General category, and keep the workflow label as New. We allow non activeCollab users to send email to this box, so everyone can easily reach out for support.

By the way, if you have multiple filters, make sure other filters do not intercept support emails.

Another thing to ensure is that outgoing emails are sent out instantly. Background sending does not allow simple formating that Tasks Plus uses. You also need to confirm Scheduled Tasks are working, otherwise emails won’t be imported.

The mailing log lets you trouble shoot problems if any.

And that’s all. That’s all it takes to configure this simple yet awesome customer support system.

With that, I invite you to free everyone from the burden of complicated helpdesks. Wow your customers today!