ServiceNow Alternatives

Businesses all around the world utilise the well-known ITSM tool ServiceNow to keep track of IT incidents, requests, issues, and assets. With this solution at your disposal, you can anticipate strong features like incident management, virtual assistants, organisational learning, agent workstation, and much more. ServiceNow's features and capabilities do, however, have a few shortcomings when it comes to IT support. For instance, the product has a difficult learning curve, and its website does not provide accurate pricing details.

ServiceNow is a top IT service management technology that aids in increasing agent efficiency and accelerating the resolving issues for your company. Using virtual agents, the application enables you to automate the IT support for regular requests. These bots are made to communicate with users, distribute knowledge base articles, and understand plain human language. Additionally, quick service restoration and decreased economic effects can be achieved using intelligent ticket routing and integrated corporate collaboration tools.

Importance of ServiceNow Alternatives

You must already be aware of ServiceNow's shortcomings if you use it. We have listed several well-known drawbacks of this instrument, nevertheless, in case you are new to the game. Let's examine them in more depth:

• Does Not Provide Clear or Transparent Price: Every SaaS provider must make its pricing information available on its website in a clear and transparent manner to gain the trust of its clients. Users can use this to compare the tool's price to that of other instruments on the market that are comparable. Sadly, ServiceNow does not provide any pricing information on its website. The company will share a custom quote when you complete an online form and wait.
• Slow loading speed: Due to the size of the ServiceNow ITSM system, it might occasionally be exceedingly slow. The application frequently lags, especially when several tabs are open, according to several users' complaints. Frequent lags might reduce your productivity and lengthen the time it takes to resolve an issue.
• Sharp Learning Curve: When configuring ServiceNow, be prepared to spend a few days or weeks just learning how to use the product. You'll need quite a bit of time to get used to the Interface. It will also take time to understand the various features and possibilities.
• Product Updates and Releases: ServiceNow publishes two to three product updates or releases each year. Despite the addition of additional features and functionality, these upgrades typically only lead to more issues. Users may become confused by regular updates because they will need more time to understand the finer points.

Important Features of ServiceNow Alternatives

Different IT support teams may have varying standards for the products they offer. While some might require a simple user interface, others could be more interested in thorough reports. Now, not every IT help desk tool can provide every capability. Therefore, we have selected a few essential features that each alternative to ServiceNow should provide to make this comparison easier.

• Incident & Request Management: All alternatives to ServiceNow must let you keep track of all active incidents and requests under one roof. This will make sure that not a single ticket is overlooked.
• Knowledge management: You should be able to build a library of FAQ pages, step-by-step instructions, help centre articles, and other resources using alternative methods to promote self-service and reduce ticket volume.
• Customization: ServiceNow alternatives should have a variety of customization choices allowing you to set rules and design workflows that meet your requirements.
• Reports and Analytics: Every tool ought to provide comprehensive reports and analytics. Support managers may track service desk data, evaluate agent performance, and identify areas for development with the use of efficient reports.

Best ServiceNow Alternatives:

1. ProProfs Help Desk

The ideal ServiceNow substitute is ProProfs Help Desk, which provides your team with all the tools required to improve user experience. Through a variety of methods, including email, live chat, web forms, and the support centre, you can record IT events and requests. One may exchange proactive chat invitations with clients and provide round-the-clock support with a personalised live chat widget. Employees can access HR, IT, admin, and other work-related documentation by creating an internal knowledge base.

Top characteristics of the ProProfs Help Desk:

• Give requests and occurrences that require immediate action higher priority.
• Share automated e-mails with your staff and customers.
• Utilize email surveys to track the end-user experience.
• Roles and permissions can be used to limit tool access.
• Monitor data such as agent performance, ticket response times, and resolution times.

Pros:

• Use chatbots to automate IT support
• The tool provides a straightforward and tidy user interface.

Cons:

• Fewer integration options
• There is no option to track IT assets.

2. SysAid

Companies may automate the incident management procedure with SysAid, a leading rival of ServiceNow. For instance, fresh email messages (together with their attachments) are automatically turned into tickets and assigned to the appropriate agents. With a dedicated self-service portal, you can let end users create new tickets, keep track of their existing problems or requests, and use the knowledge base to carry out self-service tasks.

Top characteristics of SysAid:

• Customize the notifications, user interface, and knowledge base content
• If SLAs are not reached, escalate tickets to senior representatives.
• Make a knowledge base with advice and guidance.
• Permit end users to safely change their account passwords.
• Create detailed information on IT performance and service quality .

Pros:

• Use live chat to interact with customers.
• several choices for customisation to suit your particular needs

Cons:

• The merchant's website does not offer clear pricing information.
• Modern appeal is missing from the UI.

3. Salesforce Service Cloud

An multichannel help desk solution like Salesforce Service Cloud may assist your staff in managing customer engagements over the phone, through messages, on chat, and through other channels. Whether they are working remotely or on-site at the office, the application gives your service representatives a comprehensive understanding of every client. Overall, IT support staff can use all the available context to scale up meaningful and tailored customer interactions.

The Salesforce Service Cloud's best attributes are:

• Create a self-service help centre as soon as possible to lower ticket volume.
• Give clients the option to schedule phone and video sessions
• Utilize client information to customise interactions
• Proactively invite consumers and prospects to speak
• Utilize a single dashboard to keep an eye on SMS, social media, and email.

Pros:

• AI-powered chatbots can assist you in avoiding common questions
• Make self-service portals that are responsive to mobile devices.

Cons:

• It can take some time to set up.
• An excessive amount of data is available in reports and analytics.

4. LiveAgent

With LiveAgent, a free alternative to ServiceNow, businesses can automate repetitive processes, manage all customer messages in one app, and improve business choices using actual data. Users may provide real-time support with the robust and customised live chat widget that comes with LiveAgent. Depending on how long a user has been on a page or where they are located, you can invite website users to chat.

Top characteristics of LiveAgent:

• Avoid having many agents work on the same customer issue.
• Attach files to tickets using a drag-and-drop functionality.
• Create contact forms using pre-designed templates.
• Customize your chat windows and change where they are shown on your website.
• Merge similar tickets for quicker resolution

Pros:

• Make use of the message sneak-peek capability to view what users are typing.
• Connecting to the top social media sites

Cons:

• Improvements should be made to the time tracking function.
• Generic, superficial reports

5. HaloITSM

Offering top-notch IT assistance to end customers is possible with the help of the potent ServiceNow substitute HaloITSM. You are able to meet SLAs on schedule, automate manual processes, and keep track of all occurrences in one location with the aid of this user-friendly solution. The self-service portal's self-service tool enables end users to browse all services that are offered and select the ones they require. Additionally, HaloITSM offers a variety of change management tools so that your team can simply monitor and implement organisational changes.

HaloITSM's top features include:

• Processes for incident and problem management should be automated.
• Knowledge-base articles from the solutions provided by agents.
• Analyze how the organisation as a whole is using all of its IT resources.
• Maintain centralization of duties and IT initiatives.
• Make a service catalogue for IT end users

Pros:

• Give your team members responsibilities for tasks and projects.
• Create thorough SLAs for various business processes.

Cons:

• There are few integration possibilities available.
• Functionality of asset management needs to be improved.

6. SolarWinds Service

Regardless of how little or significant they may seem, events may be identified, prioritised, and tracked by your team using Solarwinds Service Desk. You can automatically route and rank concerns using a strong ticketing system. The asset management work that SolarWinds Service Desk performs is admirable. You may manage the onboarding, assignment, and retirement of assets throughout their lifecycle in addition to asset tracking.

Top characteristics of the SolarWinds Service Desk:

• Access knowledge base articles immediately for technicians
• Service desk reports with important stakeholders
• Use a service catalogue to uniformly categorise service requests.
• Make a ticket submission and viewing service gateway for users.
• Use a dedicated mobile app to provide help from anywhere.

Pros:

• Simple step-by-step article uploading for your knowledge base
• To communicate with staff members right away, use the live chat tool.

Cons:

• The basic plans lack email and phone assistance.
• Initial setup can be somewhat challenging.

7. Freshdesk

Another well-known programme similar to ServiceNow is Freshdesk, which merits a spot on your list. With its multichannel features, you may use this tool to communicate with customers via email, live chat, social media, the web, etc. Freshdesk enables teams from throughout the organisation to collaborate in order to improve the customer service experience. For instance, you can speed up the resolution of difficult issues by dividing up the ownership of a ticket among several people or departments.

Top Features of Freshdesk:

• Embed forms on your website so that users can ask questions
• Utilize parent-child ticketing to divide tickets into more manageable jobs.
• Connect similar tickets for faster resolution
• Utilize a live chat window that is customisable to converse with visitors and potential customers.
• Set agent working hours and keep an eye on progress

Pros:

• Give customers a wonderful omnichannel experience
• Helping consumers on WhatsApp

Cons:

• The Freshdesk mobile app needs work.
• There are no automation features in the Grow plan.

Choose it for: SLA administration, social media ticketing, and mobile field service

8. Help Scout

An intuitive application called Help Scout is well renowned for its team collaboration and shared mailbox capabilities. You can track and manage every client conversation in one location using an interface that looks like email. You may easily share help centre articles with consumers using the live chat widget from Help Scout. Additionally, clients have the option to ask to speak with a human agent when they can't seem to discover the appropriate answer and move the situation along from there.

Top characteristics of Help Scout:

• Utilizing ticket tags, classify and rank customer dialogues
• Make a searchable database of canned or stored responses.
• Use custom fields to capture more details about discussions.
• Utilize private notes to communicate with teammates
• Track the effectiveness of your team's various communication methods.

Pros:

• Send out mass responses to prevalent problems
• iOS and Android native applications

Cons:

• Help Scout is rather pricey when you consider its basic functions.
• The tool occasionally becomes sluggish.

9. Zendesk

Popular ticketing software called Zendesk enables you to communicate with clients via voice, chat, social media, email, and message. You can set up a sizable community forum where users can post queries, exchange responses, and interact. With the aid of self-service alternatives, help desk software like ServiceNow like Zendesk assists you in lowering your ticket volume. To enable clients to handle basic problems at their own pace, you can design an integrated support centre.

Zendesk's best attributes include:

• AI-powered answer bots can interact with and help customers.
• Determine the most important client issues that require immediate attention.
• Utilize intelligent ticket routing to ensure that no issue is left unresolved.
• Keep an eye on and raise your CSAT ratings.
• Reward the forum's best contributors with appropriate awards.

Pros:

• Permit agents to add to knowledge-based articles
• Join thousands of business tools

Cons:

• Plans for Zendesk are fairly pricey.
• Slow response times from customer service

10. Jira Service Management

Using Jira Service Management, various corporate divisions like HR, IT, Admin, or Legal may swiftly build up a service desk. All incidents, requests, modifications, and assets can be readily tracked under one roof. You can use the programme to automatically identify important incidents and escalate them to the appropriate teams. Additionally, reports can assist you in evaluating your incident response efforts, areas of success, and potential for development.

Jira Service Management's top features include:

• Search for knowledge-based content are made simpler for users.
• To manage inventory and do audits, track IT assets.
• Updates about tickets can be sent by SMS or email.
• Identify the fundamental cause of issues by connecting incidences to those issues.
• Bulk ticket actions allow for time savings.

Pros:

• Adapt to the most effective external tools
• Owning support tickets can be changed with ease.

Cons:

• It takes a while to become used to the tool.
• The customization choices for reporting should be expanded.