Planio Support (english)

# Set up your Help Desk App in 8 minutes

The [Planio Help Desk](https://plan.io/customer-service-and-help-desk/) will help you provide better customer service. It brings all your customer interactions into one place, so you'll keep an overview on all support questions.

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## What can the Planio Help Desk do for you?

1.  You can work on customer questions at **one central location**, so your entire team can work together to give answers to customers’ questions.

2.  You’ll be able to **answer customers faster**, thanks to templated responses to commonly asked questions, auto-replies and automatic personalization.

3.  You can ensure that customers always get **consistent answers to the same questions**.

4.  You can **reduce the amount of support emails** using FAQs

5.  Customers will be **happier** because they’ll be able to track the progress of their issues.

6.  It's tightly integrated with email, so your customers can use email to talk with you, but every email appears as a ticket in Planio.

7.  Best of all, your support team can work with customers **anywhere in the world**.

## Create a project for the Help Desk

Sign into your Planio account and **create a project for customer support**.

We recommend that you create a project just for customer support. If you provide support in several languages, it's best to create a separate project for each language.

## Activate the Help Desk App

Go to Apps tab and install the **Help Desk app** if it isn’t already installed.

{{figure(Install the Help Desk app)

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Once the Help Desk App is installed, we need to set up the support email address.

Go to the **Settings** tab, and click on **Help Desk**.

{{figure(Help Desk Settings)

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You can enter your support email address for the project in the **"From email address" field**. It can be any email. For example, at Planio we use [support (at) plan.io](http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/d?k=012KxmNydDJXm6SXL9K3eAxg==&c=3CWL7Pqj5eTDP-rZP-Pu2g==).

Now, you have to set up **email forwarding** for this address. Any emails sent to the address in this box need to forward to the unique Planio dropbox email address, which you'll see just below the "From email address" field.

Here are links to tutorials on how to do this for Google Apps and some of the big domain registrars such as Godaddy or ENOM:

1.  [Google Apps](https://support.google.com/a/answer/2685650)

2.  [Godaddy](https://support.godaddy.com/help/article/7598/setting-up-forwarding-accounts-in-the-workspace-control-center)

3.  [ENOM](http://www.enom.com/pop-email/faq-emailforwarding.aspx)

4.  [Hover](https://help.hover.com/entries/21247566-How-to-Set-up-email-forwarding)

5.  [1&1](https://help.1and1.com/e-mail-and-office-c37589/1and1-mail-basic-c37590/using-the-product-c85088/create-a-forwarding-e-mail-address-a594930.html)

It can take a few minutes once you’ve set up the email forwarding before it's active.

## Send an email to the support email address

Now, you can send an email to the support email address, and it will show up as an **issue in the support project**.

{{figure(The email appears as an issue in the Issues view)

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You can see the issue by clicking on the Issues tab. **The subject line is set as the subject, and the body of the email is set as the description.**

{{figure(The email in the issue view)

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If customers use an email address that isn’t saved in Planio, that email address will be added as a new customer in the **Contacts** tab, so you’ll be able to track all correspondence with that person. This means you can **manage all customer relations from within Planio automatically**.

Planio also sends an automatic email confirming receipt of the email to the customer.

## Start replying to customer’s emails

Click **Edit** and scroll down to the **Notes** section. Select the **External notes** option, and write your email.

{{figure(Reply to customers emails directly in Planio)

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You don’t have to write "Hi Jack" or conclude the email. Those parts are automatically included via **header and footer templates**. We’ll see how we can update them below.

Click submit to send the response to the customer.

They’ll receive an email with your message along with a greeting and an email signature. An added bonus is that your customer will have a tracking link, so they can track the progress of the request. This is particularly useful if the issue can’t be resolved right away. For instance, you could keep them updated, and they can see the various updates all on one page.

## Give your emails your own touch and save time with templates

Now, let’s dive into the more **advanced features** of the Planio Help Desk.

Click on the **Settings** tab and then on the **Help Desk** tab.

{{figure(The Help Desk templates are on the right)

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You’ll see the Help Desk templates section on the right. Here, you can update the existing templates for the header and footer. For example, let’s update the footer. Click on **Edit** beside it.

You’ll see “Best regards”, and the current_user.name inside of curly brackets.

{{figure(Customize your headers and footers)

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This means that the name here will depend on the person answering. You can make any changes you want to the text, and there is a list of **variables** you can choose from. For example, you could put the project name after the name. You can also use the variables `{{faqs.top1_question}}`, `{{faqs.top2_question}}`, and so on to include links to the most commonly asked questions.

You can also create answer **templates** to **frequently asked questions**. You'll be able to access these templates in a dropdown menu when you're replying to customers in the issues section. These will appear in a dropdown menu when you’re replying to customer emails.

## Start an FAQ section, so customers can find answers, faster

If you fill out the **FAQ Question field**, the template will be added under that question to your **customer support FAQ section**, so customers can quickly find answers to commonly asked questions themselves. You can also include a link to your top most commonly asked questions in the email sent automatically when customers submit a support request.

{{figure(Create your own FAQ section based on CRM Templates)

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