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The category help and support software include a variety of different software’s that all aim to help your customers and/or website visitors. Basically we are talking about three different kinds of software that can be used together or as stand alone, help desk software, knowledgebase software, and live support software.

Typical Help Desk Software (also known as support ticket systems) has several functions. It provides the users a central point to receive help on various issues. The help desk software typically manages its requests via an incident tracking system that allows them to track user requests with a unique ticket number.

A Knowledge Base (or Knowledgebase; abbreviated KB or kb) is a special kind of database for knowledge management. It provides the means for the computerized collection, organization, and retrieval of knowledge.

Live Support Software (also known as Live Help, Live Chat) is a popular term for instant messaging applications designed specifically to provide online assistance to users of a web site. The software enables the administrator or webmaster of a web site to receive and respond to text communication from multiple users of the web site. It is commonly used as a way for webmasters/site owners to instantly engage their website visitors; done both in a reactive and proactive fashion. By using this type of software, webmasters often are anticipating: a) increased interactivity and trust with the website visitor; b) (if an eCommerce site) increased sales/conversions.

Crafty Syntax Live Help

Crafty Syntax Live Help (CSLH) is an open source live support solution that helps customer support with live help functionality that can be proactively pushed to visitors to your site or requested by the consumer. Crafty Syntax includes a large range of features to allow multiple operators, multiple departments and multiple languages to be used.

Crafty Syntax Live Help is free and is progammed in PHP with Mysql for the datatabase. Other highlighted features include the ability to create your own questions, auto inviting visitors, referer tracking, page tracking, ability to view what the customer is typing as they type, multiple chat sessions, sound alert, leave a message if offline, push urls, quick responses, Customizable graphics, and multiple operators. runs on your server and is open source GPL.

Development Status: Production/Stable.
License: GNU General Public License (GPL).
Operating System: Cross Platform.
Available Languages: English.
http://craftysyntax.com

Help Center Live

Help Center Live are the leading open source Live Chat application, dedicated to provided top quality support products to help you meet your chat and support demands.

Help Center Live is an open-source, community driven live chat & support system. You may easily provide live support on your website just like large companies do with very little work. With Help Center Live, you can provide a real-time, live support or sales person experience.

Development Status: Production/Stable.
License: GNU General Public License (GPL).
Operating System: Cross Platform.
Available Languages: English.
http://www.helpcenterlive.com

osTicket

osTicket is a widely-used open source support ticket system. It seamlessly integrates inquiries created via email and web-based forms into a simple easy to use multi-user web interface. Easily manage, organize and archive all your support requests and responses in one place while providing your clients with accountability and responsiveness they deserve.

osTicket is an attractive alternative to higher-cost and complex customer support systems; simple, lightweight, reliable, open source, and easy to setup and use. The best part is, it's completely free.

Development Status: Production/Stable.
License: Unknown.
Operating System: Cross Platform.
Available Languages: English.
http://www.osticket.com

RT: Request Tracker

RT is an enterprise-grade ticketing system which enables a group of people to intelligently and efficiently manage tasks, issues, and requests submitted by a community of users.

The RT platform has been under development since 1996, and is used by systems administrators, customer support staffs, IT managers, developers and marketing departments at thousands of sites around the world.

Written in object-oriented Perl, RT is a high-level, portable, platform independent system that eases collaboration within organizations and makes it easy for them to take care of their customers.

RT manages key tasks such as the identification, prioritization, assignment, resolution and notification required by enterprise-critical applications including project management, help desk, NOC ticketing, CRM and software development.

RT is used by Fortune 100 companies, government agencies, educational institutions, and development organizations worldwide.

Development Status: Production/Stable.
License: GNU General Public License (GPL).
Operating System: Cross Platform.
Available Languages: English.
http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/

The base of this text is researched from different sources. The facts that are presented are checked and double-checked to be as correct and accurate as possible. However, Success Webmasters makes no representations or warranties as to the completeness or accuracy of the information.