HelpDesk vs Text: What You Gain Around Your Tickets

Text helps your team do more with every conversation. Tickets move faster with each customer's history next to the case, and Skills handles the routine work. Want to chat with your customers live too? It all lands in one Inbox, so nothing gets lost between channels.

What is Text, and how is it different from HelpDesk?

Text is a customer service platform that brings tickets, chats, and customer profiles into one Inbox. Your team sees each customer's history next to the case, responds with the help of Reply suggestions, and no longer has to take care of manual tagging or assigning. Chat and messaging channels are there when you want them.

A faster way to work through tickets

• See more at a glance. The new column view lays tickets out so agents can scan many cases at once, right where they spend most of their day.

• Act without opening each ticket. Quick actions let agents update tickets without opening them.

• Reply faster. Reply suggestions draft an answer inside the ticket for agents to review and send.

• Find anything. Search covers tickets, chats, and contacts at once.

• Run a Skill from the ticket. Skills built in Playbook can be started by hand from the ticket view.

Ticket fields and customer details that fit your process

• Add your own dropdowns to tickets. Ticket fields let you track what matters for each case, like priority tier, order ID or region. Make one a dropdown with answers you define, and agents pick from the list, so everyone records it the same way.

• Let fields trigger automations. What an agent picks in a field can be used in a Skill, for example, to send the ticket to the right team.

• Save details in one click. Add a phone number or email from a conversation to the customer's profile.

• Spot VIPs. Mark a customer as VIP so their chats come first.

Playbook: Skills that sort tickets for you

In Playbook, you build Skills - reusable automations your team can run. For tickets, a Skill can:

• Assign. Send incoming tickets to the right person.

• Tag. Label them by topic as they arrive.

• Set status and priority. Nothing waits on a manual step.

• Reach your other tools. Skills can call other systems, for example to update your CRM.

• Start from a description. Say what should happen, and Text drafts a Skill you can review and edit.

• and much more.

Chats and tickets that work together

• Context from the chat. A ticket created from a chat opens with a card that displays the conversation summary and a one-click link back to the chat.

• Status in the chat. The conversation shows a card with the ticket's status.

• Order details in tickets. If you run a store, tickets show the customer's order info.

• One workload number. Total case counts, chats, and tickets together, with targets and automatic flags for unusual spikes and drops.

Chat on your website, more channels, and an AI Agent

Chat on your website is a quick way to hear from visitors early. They ask in a small chat window, and your team responds from the same Inbox where your tickets are.

• Add the widget to your website. It works on Shopify, WordPress, Webflow, or a custom build.

• Meet customers where they are. WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Twilio SMS conversations arrive in the Inbox too.

• Let the AI Agent answer in chat. It replies from your knowledge sources, qualifies leads, and passes the details to your team. It works in chats, not in tickets.

• Sell if you run a store. It shows product cards, and shoppers add to the cart without leaving the chat.

And there's more where this came from. Text keeps shipping new features. Recent additions include order details in tickets, a Text plugin for ChatGPT, reports you can save with their filters, and Instagram DMs and story replies. Find the full list on the Product updates page.

What's next?

Now that you know the main HelpDesk vs Text differences, put the new parts to work:

• Create and manage Ticket views — Set up the views your agents work from every day.

• Using Reply suggestions — Draft answers in tickets for agents to review before sending.

• Tickets reports — See how your team handles tickets.