Traffic Light Feedback, an instant feedback service, is giving away 3 annual accounts ( £180 GBP/account) to WebResourcesDepot readers.

Details on "how to winning the licenses" can be found at the bottom of the post, but before that:

What is Traffic Light Feedback?

Learning what your users are thinking on a subject (a new feature you're planning to add, how the support was, etc.) is so important to better shape products, services or plans.

However, nobody is interested in filling forms that requires time & focus.

And, this is where Traffic Light Feedback comes in. It offers a very simple way of getting feedback from users: asking a question & having 3 clickable responses (green, yellow and red) where users don't have to fill anything.

You can create an unlimited number of templates (that carry your logo) to be sent anytime you want.

Every feedback gathered can be viewed from your dashboard & it is possible to set different e-mails to be notified for every traffic light clicked (which is great for taking proactive measures "for ex: customer support contacting the user if the feedback is red).

Adding customer lists to Traffic Light Feedback is very simple with the "import from spreadsheet" feature. And every e-mail sent has an "unsubscribe" link attached for allowing your customers to unsubscribe themselves.

The service also has a SOAP API for seamless integrations with 3rd party softwares.

How to win the licenses?

Commenting to this post is enough to join the giveaway & winners will be selected randomly via the query below on 8 March 2010 (1 week later).

SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=1486 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 3

Good luck to all : ).

OTRS is an open source trouble ticket system for easily managing support requests in a multi-agent interface.

The application can auto-convert e-mails into tickets (e-mail piping) which "eliminates the need of using the web interface" for customers.

OTRS is used by large organizations like Opera, MySQL AB, BitDefender, Suse & has very nice features like:

• transfer of tickets between agents
• auto-calculation of hours worked on a ticket
• powerful reporting
• canned responses
• multilanguage support
• themable web interface
• role-based user management
• & much more..

OTRS is built with Perl & can work with different databases (e. g. MySQL, PostgeSQL, Oracle, DB2 and MSSQL).

It has one-click installers for multiple operating systems (including Windows).

HESK is a free help desk (also known as support ticket) system that is built with PHP/MySQL.

Using the application, anyone can submit tickets from a web-based interface & follow their status easily. Also, the admins will be able to sort any requests by priority & answer them without leaving any non-replied requests.

The admin-side has support for canned responses for faster replies, tickets can be auto-closed after x days & more.

There is also a full-featured knowledgebase, that supports unlimited categories, where users can find answers to their questions themselves.

P.S. HESK has a free & paid version where the only limitiation of the free version is a backlink.

LiveZilla is a very impressive, mature & free live support software which enables you to provide live chat support on any website.

It is managed via a desktop-based (Windows OS) application & a web-based management is in the roadmap.

A chat can be initiated by a visitor clicking the "chat" button or pro-actively by the admin starting a chat without the visitor asks for it.

With the help of canned messages, it is possible to give quick answers to predefined questions. Users can be pushed to an URL wanted which is great for guiding them.

If there are no admins when there is a chat request, visitors can leave an offline message.

The software offers real-time visitor monitoring like seeing which pages they are currently browsing & their browser, OS, geolocation details.

LiveZilla also comes with webcam support for personalized chats and increased customer retention.

It requires only PHP to run as data is kept file-based.

Jutda Helpdesk is an easy-to-use & open source trouble ticket system that is built with Django.

Whether the tickets are sent via the web interface or e-mail, the application can create the ticket & users can reply to e-mails to continue the conversation (e-mail piping).

It can be enabled to accept tickets from non-registered users which also makes it possible to be used as an advanced contact form.

Tickets can be separated into departments, product-groups, or any other classifications. Also, they can be escalated automatically between users by priority.

The application supports multiple RSS feeds & has an API for integration with 3rd party products.

P.S. Jutda Helpdesk is currently in alpha status yet very promising.

HelpDesk Pilot is a professional support ticket & helpdesk software for managing support requests sent via e-mail or the web interface easier and better.

The application runs on your server (PHP & MySQL / MSSQL) for a better customization & integration.

HelpDesk Pilot strives to offer a good customer service experience. Here are some nice features provided:

E-mail Parser

Users can submit new tickets via e-mail. The application auto-parses the e-mail & creates a new ticket with it.

If the user responds to a ticket with e-mail, that works too. With the unique IDs in the e-mail subjects, the application adds those e-mails as an update to the ticket.

Online Support Portal

Users can create a new membership to the support system, send new tickets & view the status/details of the old ones.

With the help of the knowledgebase plugin, a category-based FAQ system can be created for minimizing support requests.

Flexible Ticket Management

With a clean & slick admin interface, admins can see the priorities with an instant look.

There are several features for answering requests faster, like:

• Canned replies (one-click replies to popular questions)
• Mass reply (reply multiple tickets with one answer)
• Similar tickets (see similar tickets answered in the past)

Besides these, tickets can be assigned between departments & admins, private notes can be added, custom fields can be created & more.

Also, admins can see the other admins that are online for a better collaboration. The RSS support offers a wider usability, literally on any internet enabled device.

And, HelpDesk Pilot is multilingual which makes it possible to be used in any language.

The application comes with several editions offering different limits in department/admin staff & number of domains it can be installed. You can check the pricing for the detailed info.

Limited-Time Special: $100 Discount

HelpDesk Pilot is offering a $100 discount for any purchase completed between 10 March 2009 – 17 March 2009 with the coupon code: WRD100.

To see more, check this powerful help desk software.

P.S. This post is a sponsored-review.

RT (Request Tracker) is an open source support ticket software that helps managing user-submitted tasks, issues easily.

Users can submit tickets via e-mail (e-mail piping) or from a web-based interface.

Tickets can have priorities & admins can assign them to each other if needed. And, it tracks critical information like time spent per action, due dates, and estimated time to completion.

From one installation, RT can track multiple projects for multiple teams. The application is written with Perl & works with MySQL, PostgreSQL or Oracle.

For a full list of features, click here.

Support ticket systems are very handy applications for managing the whole support process better.

osTicket is an open source support ticket system, built with PHP & uses MySQL for storing data.

It provides a web-based interface where users can create new support requests, view the status of them & reply back.

osTicket, with the e-mail piping support, can also create new requests sent via e-mails.

The multi-user admin pages make managing support requests easier. Some administrator features are:

• Canned messages for faster answers
• Writing internal messages about tickets
• Ability to transfer a ticket to another department
• Assigning a ticket to a specific user & more..

Compared to professional alternatives, this open source ticket system is less-featured & not a complex one. But sometimes, that’s what is needed.

Open Web Messenger is an open source live support / chat application.

It enables customers / visitors to chat with an operator & get support (where all the chats are logged).

The application supports unlimited operators, visitors & chats. With a web-based admin interface, operators or admins can:

• Send canned messages
• Track where visitors clicked from
• Search porevious chat conversations
• Reassign/transfer chat to another operator
• Mark/highlight nuisance visitors
• View active chats (admins) & more

When there is no available operator, visitors can leave a message & they can be contacted later.

The look & feel of the chat window can be totally customized with the theme support.

This free live support application requires PHP 5 & MySQL 5 to run.

Trellis Desk is a powerful, feature-rich & free help desk software which helps increasing the quality of support given to the customers.

Customers can easily create an account, submit tickets via the web interface or e-mail and the support team can manage the support tickets in a very organized interface.

This free help desk software can cover all your support system with the features like:

• Ticket departments
• Canned ticket responses
• Ticket escalation and assignment
• Built-in knowledgebase
• E-mail piping
• Email notifications
• Multi-moderation features
• Ticket attachment system
• Skin management system