This is a video that I have been wanting to make for a while I'm going to show you how to set up a free, ticketing. System, so, that you could stop using, email. For all of your support. Requests. That you might get from clients or customers I, gotta tell you this one change made a huge difference in, how, I run. Everything, that I do switching. From having, everything come into my email inbox, and instead, going into, a ticket. Desk hi my name is Adam from WP, crafter comm, where I make wordpress, tutorial, videos for non-techies, if you're, new here consider clicking on the subscribe button and. We're. Talking about fresh desks this is the ticketing. System. That I decided, to start using for, WP, crafter and, they. Have a free plan and I'll just, tell you I'm on the free plan it's a free forever, and I, think if you look at what it does it totally meet me, would meet your needs and it's totally, gonna meet my needs now before I go into showing, you how to set this up for you there's a couple little intricacies, that, I'm gonna show you how to take. Care of so that you don't run into any trouble, or problems, and this is just from my own experience, of using this for a few months but before I do that I just want to take a moment to kind of describe. Why, you. Should consider, using a ticket desk and it doesn't have to be freshdesk I'm just now a huge, believer in ticket, desks so prior, to this I was doing everything. Through, my email, inbox I, use Apple Mail I also have an iPhone that has an email application on, that and people, would send me requests. Via email, as a matter, of fact when I switched, to freshdesk. I was already receiving, about 300. Emails a day and it, was okay when maybe I was receiving 50 emails a day but then when it got up to about 300, emails a day I found. More. And more of my time not. Being productive, on growing. What I do but, instead stuck, in that email inbox, and what, would happen would be and it's, no one's fault so, I would say here's. My email address, and people would send me maybe one, to three or four emails just, Bam Bam Bam Bam BAM next. Thing you know each day I would have this huge, daunting. List of emails to go through and it would be so rough I wouldn't even want to touch it sometimes, because. It was just I knew that. It wouldn't be a quick fix there's no quick wins in processing, it I would go, in there and it would be a three or four hour process just, to kind of get, caught up and so what ended up happening this. Was this kind of bottleneck, of. Productivity. And what. Would, be the next layer of problems, is, it would be hard to track full conversations. If I'm. Having them in three or four different emails. So, you have your email chains, and, so I would, there. Would be a lot of loose ends if someone, saying something on this email and then something, on it different on this email, but they think that it's just all one email, like they're the only person that I'm communicating with, and so, it would become. Very. Unmanageable. It was just very unmanageable. And so I was, talking to a friend of mine and he's been using freshdesk. For a long time I thought okay I'm gonna give this a shot I'm gonna try this out, and I was actually quite, surprised at how much. More, peace of mind, that, I have, now. That I'm using a fresh desk and things are so much more seamless. And seem lined it is streamlined. Not seem lined it's, streamlined. And, I'm. So, grateful that I made this jump, now I had some initial apprehensions. I didn't want people that needed, or wanted to communicate, with me I didn't want them to have to log, into some website, and, check.
A Ticket, and all that I wanted, there to be more a more personal, approach and, that's, what is the beauty, of freshdesk, and I'm sure other ticketing, systems do the same thing for. Me I'm in the app right, and I have my list of people that are sending me stuff and it. All gets managed, on freshdesk, but for the person communicating. With me it's all via email, they don't have to log into anything, or any of that stuff it's, all done through, their inbox, so it's a seamless thing, for them and that's, what really made, it so this was something that I thought would be have. As little friction as possible, to start implementing, now, freshdesk, does have some plans if you want to go to fresh, desks, website, go to WP, crafter comm slash a fresh, desk today, I have the free plan I got their plan page right, here today. I have their free plan and I don't see, a need at all for me to switch, from the free plan to one of these paid plans, and. It's working out perfectly, fine for me however there might be something. Here that you might want or there that you might want that might only be in a paid plan for me so far the. The free plan is working, out perfect, you can have unlimited agents. And so. Right here it says you get the email Channel that's basically. People, are communicating, to you through, email even. Though you're communicating back, through freshdesk, and it's a totally, seamless process, it's, it's, actually fantastic. Okay. So you get some, basic features here so what I'm gonna do now in this video is I'm going to show you how. To set it up I'll show you how I set it up and how I'm using it so. We'll create you know example. Act. Account, and all that kind of stuff we'll set it all up here, right now in this video so. Let. Me just say before I do that though, I'm not saying that freshdesk. Is the best helpdesk support solution, out there there at time a dozen, there, are so many I think they offer this free plan because freshdesk, is actually, a suite. Of applications, so. If you went actually, where would it be here on the home page if I scrolled up here, it says products, you can see they have a suite, of products, that they offer I'm. Only using the fresh desk and I don't really have a need for the other tools so, it does kind of make sense for them to have. A freemium. Model where. They let you in, and I'm. Not worried about fresh, just going, out of business you're gonna see how I have it set up that you always have a plan B if you wanted to switch and. They're back to buy big, venture, capital, dollars so. And I'm pretty sure they're already a profitable. Company they've, been around quite a few quite, a long time so. But I just wanted to get point out that I, not saying that this is better than all these other tools out there I'm just saying this is the one that I chose to go with, on. Recommendations. Of other people, I didn't, do all the research to find the very best helpdesk. Ticket support system this has been fantastic for, me so I am said there's no need for, paralysis. By analysis, for me when, it comes to this ok, so what you're gonna do you're gonna come to this page WP, crafter come slash freshdesk. You're, gonna click on start trial, it says, start trial and I, was apprehensive, because I'm thinking am i signing up for a trial, or my, ID says free, and so, there was a little bit of confusion initially. For me so, you are signing, up for the free account just so you know I don't, remember if they gave. You access to the higher version and, then it resets down but. I think I just went back down to the free plan immediately. So we'll go through that in this video so obviously what, you're gonna do right here is you're gonna pop in your information, but then there's this one spot right here that says help desk a name so, what you're gonna have is like a sub domain on the freshdesk, dot-com. Platform. So, it, can be whatever you want in that front, part of that sub domain so that's where you're gonna put whatever. You want now here's, a tip if you're using if you have multiple, businesses. And you want to use the one helpdesk that's where it gets a little dicey right here, I would suggest putting something a little more on the generic side so, maybe.
It's Just an acronym or something along those lines versus, some specific, business name if you, wanted to funnel multiple, businesses through. Here so okay I'm gonna go ahead and fill this out right now okay so I've gone ahead and filled it out I just chose this subdomains show the demo after. I set this all up I'll probably go in and delete the entire account this is just cuz I wanted to show you guys how to set this up and, all the little nuances of it so, I'm gonna click on the sign up for free it's, gonna go ahead and probably it's checking the sub, domain is available and what, I am, probably gonna get actually will just go through it right here okay. So this. Is where it takes you immediately. And we're gonna start setting this all up so, okay. Set, up your helpdesk okay, I'll click on this let. Me skip the tour how about that one okay, so there's. One, thing to notice about freshdesk. Is there's actually two interfaces. For it this, is their fresher modern, interface, they call mint but, there's a way to revert. To the old interface, I kind of prefer the older, interface, so it's up to you if you like new or old and I'll show you how to do that in this video now I'm also getting this activation, email, sent to here it wants me to confirm. And that. That's my actual email, address so I'm going to go ahead and do that right now okay, so when you receive that email to activate it's gonna take you to this screen right here where, you can set up or continue, setting up your account with, fresh. Desk or fresh works so, just, go ahead and fill out this information here. And you're also gonna set up a password here, so, I'll go ahead and do that now okay I've gone ahead and filled this out I'm gonna click on activate, and login, it said activated. And now, when I'm in I shouldn't, have that message. Right here let's, see let me do a refresh that should go away after, a. Second. Here okay good so now it's activated. And I'm, not gonna get any funny messages, like that okay so now the. Way this works so, the way I have it set up is I set up a specific email, address and. So. Whenever, any and then I can figure that email so whenever someone, sends an email to that specific.
Email Address a, copy. Of that email gets, forwarded. To freshdesk, which automatically. Opens, up the ticket and then, I have freshdesk, configure, to automatically, send, them a confirmation. Email saying hey I got the email, and this is what you can expect for how long it's gonna take me to respond, to that email, and then, I'm. Gonna actually show you how to do all of that in this portion. Of the video right now so, what, we need to do is we need to get to the settings and so right here where it says admin, we can go ahead and click on that and here's, the various settings, where. You're gonna set up these things I've talked about that specific. Email, address for for receiving. Emails, into, this there, also some email verification, stuff we need to set up but here's for everything you can set up canned responses. All, kinds, of things like that here and there's features in here that I haven't even explored, just, yet so to set, up this email. Processing. That I just mentioned, we first need to set it up here in freshdesk, and then I'm going to show you how to do that in your typical cPanel. Based hosting. So, we need to click right here it says email, and this, is the email, channel, for support, and what, we want to do first is is, right here we want to set the. Email, address. That is going to be used, so I'm going to go ahead and click on edit and then, we're going to be able to put that in right here so it says your support, email we're, gonna go ahead and change this to what we want that, support email to be so for me I'm, going to be using this with my domain, name show the demo com, so. It'll, be support, at show the demo com you can have a beat whatever you want it to be at that point and then, right here is going to be the, name that you want to appear, when, you reply, to tickets, so it could be Adam. Preiser or, Adam at show the demo or support, at show the demo I would recommend not just using the word support, because. It. Would be confusing if someone has multiple. Companies they deal with and it just says support support support so, say support at whatever, the name of the company is so I'm gonna go ahead and do that now okay so I just did that there and this would be maybe a little better like that so someone would immediately know this is this response, from support, it show the demo now, if you want to make it more personal I know for me what I do with WP, crafter I try to make this a lot more personal, so I just put Adam at WP crafter so people know right away, ok and then you're gonna go ahead and click on save, so what we need to do now is actually create, that email, account, receive.
The Email, and then, click on, the, button in the email to activate it, and then, we, will do this right here it says configure. DD. CEM dkim. That's. A something. We need to add in. Order, for, the email, delivery. Her ability, to be what, it needs to be okay, so what, I'm gonna do is I already have pulled up, typical. Cpanel, hosting this, is a hosting account with emotion, hosting but, if you're using any, host, that uses, cpanel, it's gonna kind of look the same probably. Not have all this read since that's these guys colors. So. Right here you can start typing in, email. And it, will pull up where, we need to go or you can click right here where it says email, accounts, so, we're gonna go there and then you're gonna see a list of the email accounts that you have for. Your various, domains, that you have connected to cPanel, but, what I'm going to do is go right here and create a new account for, that support email, okay, so this is what I did I put supports. I got, my password, in there and, for. Mailbox, quota this, is an important, caveat the, way I'm telling you to do this the emails going to come in and it's. Gonna be it's, gonna have a permanent home here in, this email account and for your on your hosting, account but, it's also gonna be sent to freshdesk, and the reason I wanted here as well is so I always have a plan B if if freshdesk, was to blow up one day and get, rid of their free tier or I wanted, to switch I would still have a copy of every single email that was sent and, received, that. I can reference later, on for searching, archival, purposes so. Right here for the mailbox quota I put unlimited, now this is you, got to keep an eye on this so if you're gonna, receive a high-volume. Amount of support, requests. That come in and replies, the, size of this inbox could, get large pretty, quick now for, me it's not really getting large, really, quick it's maybe going up about 20 megabytes per month because emails are relatively, small so. I. Put. Unlimited, if you put it at a limit, of 250 after. The amount. Of emails, takes up over 250. Megabytes it's gonna start bouncing, those emails, that get sent to it back you don't want that go, ahead and put on a limited, and you see, right here after, we create the account you can see the, usage in the quota so, keep. An eye on that usage, so you can always see. How much is being used I turned off this welcome email so I'll just go ahead and click on create account and now, I have that support, at show the demo email account now, if you want to use an existing email account like this one that I have set up here that, has the quota limit, I can go ahead and click right here where it says quota, I can, change that to unlimited. And so, now it's switched, just, like that and as a matter of fact I actually prefer, using. This, more personable, email, address, for here so I'm gonna go ahead again and click Edit and just, change out that email from support, to Adam, okay I'll click on save and, now let me show you how to actually check this email, so. Your. Web hosting account typically, has an email, client built into it so you don't need to configure this email account on your your. Program. Outlook, or whatever, tool you use to check, your email so if you go right here it says more you, go down here to access webmail it's, gonna pop up here and, it's, going to give you an option of one. Of these three @, webmail, applications. I always use roundcube. And, it's. One, with the most modern interface. And there's actually, the email, right there so I'm gonna double click on it and it. Gives me this link I'll, click on that and that's gonna confirm.
This Email, address, okay so now I can. Close that and, I, can go back here, if I do a refresh, it should change from unverified. To. Verified. So, what's going to happen now is when an email goes, out from the system, well. It's, going to use this email address and, this name that we put here so. I think if you had it, so, well. There's some options here like I said I haven't gone through every little thing I've been using this like, crazy I want every email that goes out to be from the same sender's. Name the, same sender's, email address. So. I do have someone helping me with some of my email addresses right now it's my wife and so. I don't want her name going out even though she has a separate, freshdesk, account, because, you can have multiple agents, I want, everything to go out from, that okay so, we did that so now, have a couple steps oh right happened what now what happens now is when someone sends that email to Adam it show the demo it doesn't go. To freshdesk. So we need to set up what's called a forwarding, rule so, that any, email sent to this email will actually, be forwarded, to this, email, right here, so, we need to do that on our web hosting account so I'm going to go back here and I'll. Go back to the home of my cPanel. So, it's. Gonna be right here where it says forwarders. So right here you could just start entering forwarders, is up to you but, I'll click on forwarders, right here and so, what we want to do is click on add forwarder. And so, the address, to forward is all emails, sent to that. Adam, and show, the demo and then we're gonna forward, it to here. So, what's going to happen is now when someone sends an email to Adam it show the demo I'm gonna get a backup copy in that email, box that. I can keep and a copy goes off to freshdesk, which creates, the ticket, so. I'll go ahead and click on add for adore and that, is done, so, now we need to do one more step, in our, setup it's actually, pretty easy but, it's a little on the techie side we, have to click right here it says configure. DKIM. So. Essentially, this is going to give us some bits, of information we need to copy and paste over into our web hosting account so. When we click on this it shows, it right here let's go ahead and expand, it or I guess just maybe click on configure, and it will give us those values, so, what we need to do is a lot of copying, and pasting right, now so, let me show you where, you're gonna copy, each, of these values, and paste them in your web hosting account ok. So I'm gonna back up once again and what. We want to do is look for this spot, here that says zone, editor, ok, so like I said it's a little technical so, I'm gonna go ahead and click on zone editor and then, what we need to do is we're gonna be creating what's called cname. Records, this is for email, deliverability. Okay. So, all the emails that go out of your help, desk from, freshdesk. Are going to go out on their servers. So, we need to add these little bits of information. So that, it, will show that though, that freshdesk, is authorized. To send emails, from, your domain name okay. So essentially, what we're gonna do is we're gonna create four, cname, records, where, we copy, and paste, so. Let me let, me go here I'm gonna click on the. Cname, record for the plus in where, it says name we're. Gonna copy in the, host value, and where it says data, here. We're gonna copy, that into cname, so we've got one and, we. Can go like this, and. Go like this and click add cname, and we. Just did the first record, so you're gonna want to go through and add each of those four, records, now, what, happens, is, you. Can delete, the there's no if you stopped using freshdesk, there's no harm in leaving those there but, you can go ahead and click on manage and, we, can scroll down and these are all what's called your DNS, records, so, you. Would scroll down and, you, can easily, delete, the DNS, record that we had just created which is right here so in that scenario you just come here click on delete and it's. Gone for. Good so you'll want to go ahead and do that for all four of these they're gonna be easy to, spot because for the data value, it's. All gonna show freshdesk, so you'll be able to easily come, back here and spot these later on and once I said this is a once, again this is just for, email. Deliverability, and, that's it so I'm gonna go ahead and add the other three, right now and, then we'll test the verification.
Of It okay, I've gone through and. Added, all four records, so, hopefully, there. Isn't, a propagation, period where, it might take a little. Bit of time for it to be verified, meaning, clicking on this and actually seeing those there so, I'm not going to guarantee what happens when I click on that but. It's checking, right now and, it. Looks like it was verified, so I am all good and you, should be all good at this point as well so, now what we've done is quite, a lot here we've configured. The. Email, address, so any email sent to this email address. Gets sent, here, the, tickets, automatically. Created. And we've. Set up that, email repository. So we're keeping copies, of all of these emails in case we ever wanted, to stop using freshdesk, or just have a backup system and we also set. Up right, here the. The. Dkim. Settings, DCAM, settings, for email, deliverability, so. Let's go ahead and jump back on into, these settings, and let me show you around just, a little bit more so, where I find my time mostly, spent, with the setup from, this point is right, here for. Email, notifications. And this, is where we can change, the wording of notifications. And turn certain notifications. On or off and so, let's go ahead and take a look at some of those notification. Options, so, there's these four tabs, here, so these are agent, notifications, so these are notifications, to you or the, person on your team that's responding, and, processing, these tickets we have the requester, notifications. And this is where you're going to want to pay attention because, this this, you want, to probably, for me I want to have as little notifications. Going to the person as possible because I want this to seem as natural. Email. Versus, having them know, that I'm using a ticket desk Carbon. Copy notifications. And templates, so, each of these actually have a template, that you can modify that's assigned to it so, I actually. Personally. I have all of these deactivated. Because I'm gonna check, if, when I have tickets by going, into the app or I'm gonna check on my mobile device there's a mobile app for it so, I go. Ahead and I turn off all of these but you can figure out if some. Of these are something that you might want activated. But I personally, do not want it activated, let's, click on this tab right here that says request, start notifications. So, I have all of these activated. Except, right here where it says new ticket, created, I do. Want. The. Person that sends me the email to get an email back with, specific, wording to set the proper expectation. Of when they're going to hear a response so. I turn, that on now, what you can do is click on edit, and you can do this for any these templates you can click on edit and you, can go right here and you can change the wording of this to make it a lot more friendly. And natural. So, for me I, don't. Actually remember if, I use some of these tokens so, here's a token where it takes the the. Name of the person that is. Asking. For support or sent the email and I don't, remember if I do that or not because it doesn't always get it right because people don't always put the right name as the in. Their email address, when they configure, it and then they send emails out so sometimes it could say something embarrassing but I bet I do do, that and so here's what you may. Or may not want in right, here's a token that says ticket, URL, if you don't have that in there they're not gonna have any idea that they, just sent an email and it's now in a helpdesk and so, you may want that so it just feels like a natural. Back-and-forth. Email. Conversation. So for, me I have, changed my subject, line and I've, changed this text, entirely, to, make it seem more personable, here, are those placeholders, where, I called it a token so these are the various placeholders. The name first name last name the, URL. For, the ticket, that was just created, okay. So let me go ahead I'll just click on save right here and. Let's. Get out of here let's go back into our settings, so I spent a lot of time there, we're gonna do a test ticket here in a second, okay. So that was going to be when you scroll down to your email, notifications. Right here and here's. Where I spend, time, as well getting certain, things, set up right and that's in canned responses, so, essentially, it's a templated, response, so, you.
Can If there's, a typical. Response that gets sent and then you might tweak it a little bit you, would go here and you would set up a variety of canned responses, I do that, I've got probably, about a dozen canned, responses, and then I usually personalize. Them a little bit and this is how you would go, ahead and add a canned response, so. I got to tell you we're pretty much, set, up right now and, this. Is pretty. Pretty much set up so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna open up my email client, and I'm going send an email in right now okay, so I went ahead and sent, an email, in. And. Voila. This is the response, I immediately received back and this was that, that. Automatic. Email notification, that I set up if someone sent in a, mail. They would receive this back and we, went through that template, so this is what the person would receive back and this is what it would look like it shows that name and that email that, we configure just a moment ago so. Now if I click on tickets, right here it's, going to go ahead and show that ticket. That is here, it has, a tagged as new you, just go here and you can click on it you can click on reply, now, when you click on reply you, also have this option, right here for. Canned responses, if you were using canned. Responses. And you can even change, what a default popped, up right here okay. So let, me okay, so that's pretty much it and then what I end up doing is now, when I send a response, I might, just send it or I usually, will mark it as pending, resolved, or closed you, can change some of these statuses, but I usually, will mark it as one of those and then it's out of sight out of mind it's still there you can search and find it in freshdesk, but it's out of that list of email. Tickets that you need to go through and so when you're looking at the dashboard then. It will update some of these stats, right here on the dashboard now there's one more thing that I wanted to show you and, please, keep in mind I didn't show you every single thing there's automations.
Where Where, emails, can come in and you can tag them and auto assign, them you can do all kinds of tricked-out stuff like that I don't use any of that stuff this, just makes more sense for me if to. Manage. Support. And help an email. I think it's way more input, a way. More way, better way to process. And receive emails than, using an email client if you're a business, and have any volume, of email okay. So what I wanted to show you was. I said earlier on there's an older, version the traditional, freshdesk, interface, and this is the new one called mint a lot of people that have used in used, freshdesk, for a while they prefer the old one, I tried the old one after, using the new one and I actually liked the old one so, let me show you how to switch back I don't know how long they're gonna let people switch back I'm assuming, for a long time so, if you click on where, your avatar, would be on the top right it's going to show your options, right here and as you can see the last option says switch to fresh to, the old fresh desk and when you click on that it's going to ask you why you could, just go ahead and click on switch and now it's gonna go ahead and switch you back to the old version, it's obviously, not nearly, as pretty, but it's, there's. Less flashiness, but I find that it just works a little better for me so you can click on tickets up here and see the list of tickets and here's your filters, for the tickets, it's, and here's, where you get back into your admin, settings now you can create additional user accounts. And there's, a whole lot more that you could dig into but. I gotta say that, this. Doing. Things this, way it. Just makes so, much more sense and, if, you start using it and testing, it out I think you would agree that it starts making more sense as well now, the good thing is is when you respond. To. Someone, that, emailed, you it's, gonna send them the response, and it's also gonna send a copy of your response to. That email, address, that we set up Adam, at show the demo com it's gonna send a copy there so, you always have a copy of every email you got you, received in every response, that you made there, in case you wanted to switch. Back to the email method, you're always gonna have that repository. In that record that you control, so not, all your data is stuck, in there so, anyways, this, was freshdesk. I not. Saying that this is the best helpdesk in the world I think it's fantastic. I've been really enjoying it and I, would just, encourage you to consider maybe the, switch to a help desk because it might make things a lot more efficient, in your workflow, there'll be a lot less drop balls drop, the balls and loose ends. We've gotta be careful how I say things so, if. You use fresh desk or a competing, product go, ahead and put that information down in the comment section down below if there's some kind of setting. Or. Way of using fresh test that I didn't talk about in this video I'd, love to hear how you use, a ticket, desk in the, comment, section, down below, hey, thanks, for watching this video I hope you found some value out of it if you did give it a thumbs up and I'll see you in the next video.
2018-05-23