Hiver – Turn Gmail Into A Help Desk (Product Review)

Good customer service has been known as one of the main criteria to make a successful business. To be able to do so, companies usually create a team to specifically handle issues, complaints, or simply messages from both potential and existing customers. Typically, email addresses are the medium used by companies to make themselves accessible to customers’ ‘voices’. For that reason alone, it is no wonder that the companies’ customer service teams tend to find themselves overwhelmed.

It is unlucky for customers, though, that there are still a lot of companies with their help desk team that fail to respond to customers’ inquiries, questions, reports and complaints. Although some better companies will normally give answers in a matter of weeks or months, this common problem in customer service area needs to be addressed immediately.

Thankfully, with technology getting more sophisticated and as people keep getting more creative and smart, there is always a new, more efficient way to do things. Customer service is no exception. Hiver, although currently only compatible with Gmail and G Suite, is the one that has created breakthrough in the help desk area. Hiver, in this case, makes service excellence easier and more efficient to achieve due to the following features that it offers:

1. It allows teamwork

Quite similar to Google Drive that encourages collaborative work, Hiver folders are shared among team members and managers. Not only that, Gmail contacts can be shared among the team in the so-called Shared Contact Group.

2. It allows effective delegation

When it comes to delegation, it gives a more efficient way to address the issue. It works in a way that when emails from customers are received, the managers can directly change the emails into tasks that are assigned to members who are specifically up for the job.

3. It provides better communication access

Other than the above things that can be shared, Hiver bridges better communication among team members by making note addition to email conversations possible. With the simple presence of shared notes, each team member can propose suggestion, ideas or other significant information details.

4. It can be set to perform automatic actions

Automatic categorization and delegation are even better. This can be set in a way that if customers’ emails contain certain words, then those emails should be directly assigned to one specific member. This avoids doing repetitive tasks.

5. It analyzes performance

Hiver can be used to track which member is responding to which email at what time and how much time needed to send a response to customers. More specifically, the whole team performance is assessed in terms of how much time needed to respond to a customer’s email and resolve the issues.

One additional note on customer service response time is that based on a recent research conducted in the United States, customers there prefer having their emails responded immediately (within 24 hours) with content that may not be 100% relevant to their enquiries than getting 100% relevant responses after waiting for weeks or even months. Surely, the best way to make customers happy with the company help desk is, if possible, by giving them relevant answers in a short time.

6. The operation is simple

Equipped with tidy dashboard look, the manuals to operate Hiver are quite easy to understand. It is especially true for those who are familiar with Google Drive. One example of the similarity between the two is the way to create labels in Hiver is the same as creating folders in Google Drive.

Due to its functions and straightforward nature, quite a lot of companies in different parts in the world have used Hiver and found it helpful. Some of the examples are BAM Freight, i2i Benefits and Find Lapa.

Regarding payment for the service, Hiver offers several packages:

• the free one with basic collaborative features can be used for maximum three users.
• starter package charged per user at $8 per month or $96 per year is for maximum ten users with features like shared labels, templates and notes as well as email snooze.
• plus package with a monthly price of $14 or a yearly price of $144 per user (maximum 50) includes detection of collision, reporting and access controls in addition to all features offered in the starter package.
• custom package that can accommodate more than 50 users is also available at corporate pricing.

However, should there be any hesitation, it may be better to register for its free trial. The trial is valid for 14 days and it does not require any credit cards.