Manage and respond to customer tickets with help desk

You can connect chat, email, form, calling, and Facebook Messenger channels to the help desk tool, which consolidates your support process into a single workspace. Support agents in your account can respond to tickets, prioritize and organize tickets, and more efficiently triage issues for your customers.

Please note: only Super admins and users with a Service Hub paid seat can access all features in help desk. Users with Service or Sales Access can still view and collaborate within the help desk workspace. However, they will not have access to default views, help desk settings, and customizations.

Organize teams and views in help desk

Before you start managing your tickets in help desk, review the sections below to learn more about the default views provided by HubSpot, as well as how to structure your teams to allow them to efficiently collaborate with one another.

Group members into teams

To get the most out of help desk, it's recommended you organize team members into HubSpot teams based on expertise and how you plan to share tickets. For example, if your support organization has a general support team whose members share responsibilities, need visibility into each others' tickets, and often collaborate, it's recommended grouping those members into a single HubSpot team.

Views in help desk

Views allow you and your team to organize the help desk workspace to each member's specific needs. You can start managing tickets immediately using the default views, or create custom views to control what's visible for each team.

Help desk includes the following view types:

• Default views: built-in views that filter tickets based on their assignee and status:
  
  • Unassigned: all tickets without a current assignee.
  • Assigned to me: all tickets assigned to you.
  • My Team's Unassigned: tickets will appear in this view if you set up automatic routing rules to assign tickets to your team but all users on the team were unavailable when the ticket was created. Learn more about routing tickets based on agent skills. 
  • My Team's Open: all open tickets assigned to you or another member of your team.
  • All open: all tickets with a status of Open.
  • My Mentions: all tickets that you have been mentioned in. Learn more about mentioning users on records. 
  • All closed: all tickets with a status of Closed.

• • Sent: all tickets with an associated conversation that includes an email sent from a connected email or from a record in the CRM.
  • Spam: all tickets that a user in your account marked as spam.
• Public custom views: views created by users in your account that are visible to all other teams.
• Team-shared custom views: views created by users that are only visible to their main team.
• Private custom views: views only visible to the user who created them.

Create custom views

You can filter tickets into public or private views to help your team prioritize and manage customer communications in help desk. For example, you could create a view of all high priority tickets so your team knows where to focus their efforts, or you could create a private view of all open tickets in your pipeline to better monitor ticket resolution without distracting your team.

Please note: only users with the Custom views permission can create, edit, or delete custom views in your inbox.

To create a custom view in help desk:

• In the left sidebar, click + Create view.
• In the right panel, enter a name for your view.
• To add an emoji to your custom view name, click the emoji icon emoji next to the Name field. Browse or search for your emoji, then click on the emoji to add it to the custom view name. 
• Select a sharing option:
  • Private: the view will only be accessible to you.
  • Team(s): users can create views that are visible to any HubSpot team with access to help desk.
  • Everyone: all users in your HubSpot account will be able to access the view.
• Click Next.
• Select and configure any ticket properties you'd like to filter on.
• When you're done customizing your view, click Create view.

The newly created view will appear in the left sidebar under Shared views if you made the view accessible to everyone or a specific team. If you made the view private, it will appear under Private views.

The number of custom views you can create depends on your HubSpot subscription. You can review this limit in the Custom views in shared inbox section in HubSpot's Product & Services catalog.

Create and manage tickets in help desk

Help desk allows you to navigate between existing tickets and create new ones without having to leave the workspace.

By default, tickets will automatically be created via all channels you've connected to help desk. For example, if you connected a team email address support@mycompany.com to help desk, any emails to that address will create a ticket automatically. Tickets can also be created from other sources such as imports, integrations, workflows, or via the tickets API. 

Please note: if a ticket is created via workflows from a channel not connected to help desk, ticket information such as the subject and thread will not be available in help desk. Therefore, it is recommended that you connect all support channels to help desk.

Existing tickets that are not associated with a conversation in another inbox will automatically appear in the workspace.

Migrate an existing inbox channel or chatflow to help desk

Super admins in your account can move chatflows and an existing email or form channel from the conversations inbox to help desk by following the steps in this article. If you've already been using the conversations inbox to manage tickets in your account, you can also choose to move historical conversations and any associated tickets to help desk when moving the channel. 

Connect a new channel to help desk

To connect a new channel in help desk:

• In your HubSpot account, navigate to Workspaces > Help Desk.
• In the lower left, click Help Desk Settings.
• Under Channels, click Connect a channel.
• Follow the prompts to connect a Team email, Chat, Form, Calling, or Facebook Messenger account. The connection process is the same as connecting a channel to the conversations inbox. Learn more about connecting a channel in this article.

Review your tickets and conversation details

To review and manage tickets in help desk:

• In your HubSpot account, navigate to Workspaces > Help Desk.
• In the help desk workspace, you can connect additional channels, create, respond, and manage your tickets, and customize ticket properties.
• Click a ticket to view the corresponding conversation, along with details about the associated records (e.g., contacts, companies, and deals). 

• To edit a ticket's properties, click the Ticket owner, Priority, Category, or Status fields at the top of the ticket.
• In the right sidebar, you can edit the ticket's information, such as the description or the priority, or update the ticket's associated contacts, companies, or deals.
• To receive notifications when there is new activity on a ticket, follow the record:
  • To follow a ticket, click the ellipses menu icon in the top right corner, then select Follow. If you already follow the record, to turn off notifications, select Unfollow.
    
    
  
  

Create tickets in help desk

To create a ticket manually:

• In the help desk workspace, click Create ticket in the bottom left.
• In the right panel, enter your ticket details. If you want to customize which properties appear here, click Edit this form at the top of the panel. The following fields are required by default:
  
  • Ticket name: provide a description for this ticket.
  • Pipeline: assign this ticket to a specific ticket pipeline you've created.
  • Ticket status: choose a specific ticket stage from the pipeline you've selected.
• To associate a company or contacts with the ticket, click the Company and Contact dropdown menus, then search for the company or contacts. Learn how to associate the relevant company or contact activities to the ticket.

When you create a ticket manually, there will not be a conversation immediately associated with the ticket. To create one, click Add contact. Once you associate a new or existing contact, the reply editor will appear, and you can begin composing a message to the contact.

Move tickets between the conversations inbox and help desk

You can move conversations associated with tickets between the conversations inbox and help desk.

Please note: only super admins and users with the Account access permission can move tickets between the conversations inbox and help desk (and vice versa).

To move a conversation from your inbox to help desk:

• Click a conversation.
• In the top right, click the ellipses menu icon, then select Move to another inbox.
• In the dialog box, click the Select inbox dropdown menu, then select Help desk. You can reassign the conversation if needed, and add an optional comment to provide context on why you're moving it.

To move a conversation from help desk to one of your conversation inboxes:

• In the help desk workspace, click the conversation you want to move.
• In the top right, click the ellipses menu icon, then select Move to another inbox.
• In the dialog box, select an inbox. You can reassign the conversation if needed, and optionally include a comment to provide context on why you're moving the conversation, then click Save.

When you move a conversation from help desk to an inbox, the conversation will move but the ticket will remain in help desk.

Respond to tickets in help desk

Use the reply editor to respond to an incoming email or chat message, or use the Comment tab to notify another team member of the conversation.

To expand the reply editor while typing your response, click and drag the reply editor. 

Enter a reply, using the toolbar in the bottom left to add rich text formatting (e.g., bold, italics, etc.). You can also click Insert and select an option to attach content from another tool in HubSpot, including:

• Knowledge base articles
• Snippets
• Video
• Meetings
• Documents
• Quotes
• Templates

If the visitor you're responding to in your conversation was originally unknown, and they later provide you with their name or email address, you can then associate them with a contact:

• Locate one of the messages the visitor sent and click the search magnifying glass icon.

• In the right panel, click the Create new tab to create a new contact or click the Add existing tab to associate the visitor with an existing contact. This will also associate their ticket and your conversation with them.
• At the bottom of the panel, click Save.

Turn on automatic chat transcripts

Super admins and users with Account access permission can turn on automatic transcripts of your live chat conversations, which will be emailed to the contact who started the chat. The transcript will be sent after the chat is closed.

To turn on automatic transcripts:

• In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
• In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Inbox & Help Desk > Help Desk.
• On the Channels tab, hover over the Chat channel and click Edit.
• Toggle the Chat transcript switch on.
• You can also click the Send from dropdown menu to change the email address the chat transcript is sent from.

• In the bottom left, click Save.

Search and sort for tickets in the ticket list view

To review and filter all tickets in a single high-level view:

• You can locate a specific ticket by entering a term in the search box in the top left, which will search across all tickets in help desk.
  • Any of the following fields are currently supported as search terms:
    • Ticket information: name, ID, or description keywords
    • Associated contact properties: first name, last name, phone number, mobile phone number, email address, or company
  • After you've entered a search, hit the enter key to execute your search.

• You can sort tickets by a specific property by clicking the column header for that property.
• Click the dropdown menus at the top of the list view to filter by Ticket owner, Priority, Pipeline, Ticket status, or HubSpot team.
• Create a customized filter by clicking Advanced filters:
  • In the right panel, enter and select a property to filter by.
  • Set the criteria for the selected property.
  • To select another property, click AND or OR. When you set a filter with AND, records must meet all of the criteria in the filter group in order to be included in the view. When you select OR, the records must meet the criteria in at least one filter group to be included in the view.
  • To remove a property, hover over the filter and click the delete delete icon.
  • To remove a group of filters, click the delete icon delete icon in the top right corner of the group.
  • To remove all filters, click Discard.
  • Once you’re done, click the X in the top right corner. Filters will be saved and applied globally to default views only. Applied filters will not be saved to custom views.

• You can click the name of a ticket to return to the detailed view of the ticket and its associated conversation.

Manage and edit tickets

You can review, manage, edit, or merge tickets in help desk to help you or your team stay organized and quickly prioritize tickets in any view.

To review and edit your tickets:

• In your HubSpot account, navigate to Service > Help desk.
• In any of the ticket list views (e.g., Unassigned), you can click and drag a column to rearrange where it appears, or resize the column if you need to review longer column names. You can also change the columns that appear in the table:
  • In the top right, click Edit columns.
  • In the dialog box, search or browse through properties on the left.
    • Select the checkbox next to a property to add it to your selected columns.
    • To reorder a column, click and drag a property.
    • To remove a column, click the X to the right of the property.
    • To remove all currently selected columns, click Remove all columns.
    • When you're done configuring columns, click Save.

You can also edit tickets in bulk in any of your list views:

• Select the checkboxes next to the tickets you want to edit. You can also select all tickets in the current list view by selecting the checkbox in the top left of the table.
• At the top of the table, click Edit.

• In the dialog box, click the Property to update dropdown menu and select the property you want to edit.
• In the field that appears, enter or select a new value for the selected property. For multi-select properties:
  • To add new values while maintaining the existing values, select Append to current value(s).
  • To overwrite the existing values, select Replace current value(s).
• Click Update. For text or single-select properties, this will overwrite the old values in the property for these records.

If you want to consolidate related threads about the same customer or issue, you can merge two tickets directly within help desk:

• In any of the ticket list views, click the name of a ticket.
• In the top right, click the ellipses menu icon, then select Merge ticket.

• In the dialog box, click the Search dropdown menu to search for and select another ticket to merge with.
• Select the Primary radio button under one of the tickets to use its property values for the new record created as a result of the merge.
• Click What happens when you merge two tickets to review additional information about what will happen after you merge the tickets. Learn more about merging records in this article.
• Click Merge. Once merged, tickets cannot be unmerged.

Customize the help desk interface

Super admins can configure how ticket information appears in the right sidebar of the help desk tool.

• In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
• In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Inbox & Help Desk > Help Desk.
• Click the Sidebar customization tab, then follow the steps in this article to customize your views.
• You can customize your working hours to automatically set your availability status in Help Desk. You can also manually change your availability status.

These changes will only apply to sidebar cards in Help Desk. To further customize your records, learn how to:

• Customize the properties shown on the left sidebar of records.
• Select the properties displayed on record association cards for a specific object.
• Select the properties displayed on records in board view.

Some sections of help desk cannot currently be customized, including the following:

• Information that appears in the preview of each ticket (i.e., the ticket's submitter, subject, and most recent response).
• Ticket header fields that appear when you click a ticket to review the conversation (i.e., the ticket's assignee, priority, etc.).

Set SLA goals in help desk

Super admins in your account can set service level agreements (SLAs) for tickets in help desk.

You can set SLA goals for time to first reply, time to next reply, and time to close. These goals can apply to all tickets in help desk, or they can be based on specific ticket properties, such as priority, team, source, or pipeline. You can also customize whether your SLA goals apply at all times or only during working hours.

To set up SLA goals:

• In the help desk workspace, click Help desk settings in the lower left.
• Click the SLAs tab.
• Click the Manage when SLAs apply dropdown menu and select an option:
  • Working hours: your SLAs will only apply during your team's regular schedule (e.g., 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM). You can customize your team's working hours by clicking Edit your team's working hours:
    
    • In the dialog box, use the dropdown menus to edit your availability. Note that working hours do not include holidays.
    • You can also click Add hours to configure additional periods during which your team will be expected to be available.

• • 24/7: your SLAs will apply all the time, even outside of working hours.
  • Click Save.

• In the bottom left, click Save.
• To customize how your SLA goals will be enforced, click to toggle the Set reply and close time SLA goals switch on, then expand the section:
  • To apply SLA goals to all tickets in help desk, select the To all tickets in help desk radio button:
    • Use the dropdown menus to set the SLA goals for time to first reply, time to next reply, and time to close.
    • To set when a ticket's SLA status will change to Due soon, use the dropdown menus under Mark as due soon to remind your team and stay within your SLAs.

• • To apply different SLA goals based on a ticket property, select the Based on ticket property radio button.
    • Click the Choose ticket property dropdown menu, then select a ticket property.
    • Click Edit SLA goals.
    • In the right panel, use the dropdown menus to set the SLA goals for each property, including time to first reply, time to next reply, and time to close.
    • If you don't want to set SLA goals for a specific property, clear the On/Off checkbox next to the associated property value.
    • To set when a ticket's SLA status will change to Due soon, use the dropdown menus under Mark as due soon.
    • Click Done.

• • In the bottom left, click Save to confirm your SLA goal settings.