There is a collective idea that whatever Atlassian dishes out, it is bound to have a decently sized audience. There’s a certain degree of trust the company has established in the eyes of its consumers, and frankly, the power to them. Atlassian is known to produce some of the most refined pieces of software on Earth.
One such tool is the Jira Service Management Software suite. This small little package packs some of the most requested features on the market. And they aren’t just there for the sake of pleasing the crowd but serve a vital purpose. They are tested, presented in an easy to digest manner, and in most cases, successfully achieve the desired result.
But covering features wouldn’t do our Jira Service Management review justice. We would like to focus also on pricing, user reviews, user satisfaction, and many more aspects. The tool is brimmed with amazing little details that can’t exactly be classified as features but they do add up to the overall experience. Now that you know this, we can officially start our Jira Service Management review.
What is Jira Service Management
Jira Service Management is a system that is specifically tailored to meet the needs of ITSM (IT Service Management) companies, as well as to provide high-quality customer service. Generally speaking, Jira is mostly used by IT teams that aim to provide back-to-back services as it helps them produce a better approach. This approach is also aligned with their business goals, meaning that the company will be able to foster a healthy connection with the customer base without sacrificing the core internal values.
While Jira is customer-centric, it is possible to use it as a helping hand of sorts for your employees. There is a wide range of tools that you can use to eliminate mundane work, or even, increase the performance of certain departments. Speaking of mundane work, the tool has a number of automation options and an AI-powered bot. This bot uses the latest and greatest tech in machine learning, which in turn allows you to adapt it to your needs.
Right out of the box, without the need to tamper with anything, Jira Service Management can streamline ticket prioritization, ticket routing, and even the assignment process. This software was built with collaboration in mind and fits perfectly in an agile environment. Finally, the system allows you to simplify the process of contacting you through different sources. And it is great for advertising purposes thanks to the included omnichannel.
A Look At Jira Service Management Benefits
Knowledge Bases. Right from the get-go, you get access to Atlassian’s Confluence platform. It is perhaps the best tool for managing your project details, filling updates, and naturally, establishing a knowledge base for your customers. It features an intuitive user interface, as well as it is snappy in terms of performance. This platform can also be used for multiple products under one account, meaning that you don’t need to purchase another service desk to get a new knowledge base.
Enterprise-level data center. With Jira Service Management on board, you do not need to worry about things such as hardware failure, data corruption, or even a security breach. All your information is stored in an enterprise-level data center. Moreover, each file, every byte of data is encrypted using the latest security mechanisms. The server can easily fit small businesses and in case of necessity, easily scales.
Automation. As mentioned previously, the Jira Service Management has a plethora of automation options available from the start. These tools aren’t convoluted and require little to no knowledge to properly set up and use. This is extremely beneficial for your agents as you can grant them access and they will remove the unnecessary workload themselves.
Atlassian Marketplace. One of the key benefits of all Atlassian products is their Marketplace, or more commonly Jira Store. Jira Service Management is no different in terms of backing. It has more than 300 different apps that will let you expand the performance of the tool and accelerate a huge list of features at the same time.
How To Set Up and Run the System
The tool is known to be extremely easy to handle but requires some time to actually set it up correctly. But once you managed to do it, all you need is invite some people on board and start working. Alternatively, you can head over to the Atlassian Confluence and watch a live demo of how things work.
While you are there be sure that you watch the “Administering” section of the site. This will give you a better understanding of each menu and what does each function do. Lastly, in case this your first time using a service desk and you have absolutely zero knowledge on how to get started, then all you need to do is head over to the Atlassian website, make an account, pick the desired plan, pay for it, and you are good to go.
Tech details
Here is the following list of technical details regarding Jira Service Management software. Keep in mind that these aren’t the only specs the tools have but rather a those that are deemed as key.
Language Support
- Only English
Pricing System
- Monthly payment
- Single payment
- Annual Subscriptions
- Quote-based
OS Supported
- Windows
- Android
- iOS
- Mac OS
- Web-based
Deployment
- Cloud Hosted
- Self Hosted
- Open API
Business Sizes
- Small Business
- Medium Business
- Enterprises
Certificates
Over the years, the tool has managed to gather quite the following. Among the most prominent parts of the tool is that it is widely recognized and viewed as good platform no matter what kind of business you run. Here are some of the awards and certificates Jira Service Management managed to win:
1. Top 10 Capterra Ratings — Jira Service Management
2. Gartner Peer Review — Best ITSM Tool of 2018
3. Finances Online Top 20 — Best Service Desk
Aside from winning these platform-specific awards, the company received a number of awards that aren’t exactly about Jira Service Management. But they do take it into account as it's about the whole Atlassian ecosystem.
Marketplace or Integrations options
Continuing our Jira Service Management review, we have marketplace and integrations. This section is especially interesting as Jira Service Management has a colossal list of integration options and one of the best marketplaces in the entire help desk industry. For starters, users get entrance to the Atlassian Marketplace which has more than 300 different apps that you can use to increase the usefulness of the tool.
Moreover, in case you didn’t found a solution to your problem on the marketplace, you can easily attach the system to using the open API. Yes, Atlassian provides it’s customers a well-documented API that you can use to hook it up to whatever you like as long as it's not ancient.
Lastly, in case you don’t know how an open API is used or maybe the marketplace just isn’t your cup of coffee, you can use the pre-configured list of connections. This will allow you to effortlessly hook Jira Service Management to popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
Support
One of the key advantages Jira has over its competition is the superb customer service support system. No matter when you ask, and more importantly what, you will get an succinct but understandable answer. From technical to more conventional question, the customer department managed to answer everything we threw at them.
Aside from being super professional, there is a number of ways you can actually reach them. You can use the good old email, as well as you can head over to the social media of your choice and contact them there. In any case, no matter where you end up asking questions, you will get your answers in a timely manner.
Pricing Options
When it comes to pricing, Jira Service Management is pretty robust. Unlike most companies, Jira provides a scaling price system. Essentially, if you have up to 3 agents, you will have to pay $10 agent/month. But the price will go down as soon as you have more agents. See below the tariff plans to have a better understanding.
1. Up to 15 Agents - $20 agent/month
2. From 15 to 85 Agents - $15 agent/month
3. From 85 to 150 - $8 agent/month
4. 250 and more - $1 agent/month (starts at 251 agents).
As you can see, the plan will scale down as more people will join your company. This might seem like a steep price at a glance but in case your business expands, this policy will surely come in handy in the future. We praise the Jira Service Management pricing system as it is fair and the feature set fully justifies the cost. Highly recommended.
User satisfaction rate
As part of our Jira Service Management review, we have a section called user satisfaction. The reason why we decided to cover user experience is that it covers more ground and you get a more diverse look at the system as a whole. So, for starters, among the huge list of reviews left by the users, most seem to agree that Jira is perfect for establishing QA (Quality Assurance) departments, as well as great for documenting software design documents.
Although, there are a few issues that Jira needs to address. Among the most notable ones are indeed, the fact that getting Jira to work the way you want can take some time. Also, some state that Confluence (Jira Service Management's answer to knowledge bases) can be tough to master as the tool itself is very complex. But other than that, Jira is a well-crafted tool that has a range of high-quality features.
User reviews
Most Jira Service Management reviews revolve around the strength of the platform. And we don’t blame them as there are little to no issues with it. Each function works as intended, each menu is clear, and overall, you get nice experience. But you don’t have to take our word for it, here are a few thoughts other people think:
Jack P. — The service desk is a Swiss army knife as it packs everything you might need. The whole interface is clean and the metrics system is simply outstanding. However, there are a few bugs (email bounce) and certain help documents aren’t exactly helpful as they are outdated.
Gerson C. — This is a very comprehensive application and will work in both tiny and large teams. But more so are actually the bigger teams who are in benefit. Essentially, most functions are tailored for large organizations. Although, in spite of the main focus being on a large team, there’s plenty of different features for smaller groups. It’s just that they aren’t exactly good.
Lauren G. — Sometimes you need a hundred of different software solutions and then there are products such as Jira. This tool managed to help us solve a bunch of different issues we had. However, in spite of it being super useful, I’d like to stress that this system has way too many set up toggles.
Jira Service Management Alternatives
Kayako — While similar in terms of functionality, Kayako is a tad different when it comes to the UI. Some menus aren’t exactly intuitively placed. But thanks to the included UI customizing options, you can adapt the tool to your liking. Once you solve this issue the only difference would be the Jira Service Management pricing system which is something unique to the platform.
Samanage — Samanage shares a lot with Jira Service Management in terms of integrations and updates. You see, both companies have practically the same amount of integrations, as well as both put a lot of thought into new features and updates. This is a case where most companies will dish out half-baked features under the “beta” label whereas Jira and Samanage will wait till they are done. Again, the key difference would be Jira’s pricing system.
Zendesk — While more of a competitor than an alternative, Zendesk has practically everything Jira Service Management has. They are so similar that it would be hard to decide which one is different. This is a matter of preference in our opinion. If you like Zendesk design and policy, then go for it.
Final Thoughts
Jira Service Management is a stalwart engine that is quite powerful. It has a plethora of innovations which can be both good and bad depending on the situation. But the key takeaway is that it is stable, was designed for online collaboration, and it will help you move more products/services faster. The amount of addons is massive and the number of integrations will surely impress you. It's true, it can be hard to configure the system but once you manage to do it, your journey will be so much easier.
Frequently Asked Questions
Jira Service Management is a help desk solution that you can use to connect with your customers to contact you, report bugs, and access the knowledge base. Plus, you can request new changes in this reliable help desk solution.
Agents work on the customer requests that can be tracked as issues. You need to set up issue progress in a workflow. You need to choose Basic Service Desk as the project type.
Jira Service Management is designed as a help desk system, while Jira offers everything that agile teams need to provide value to customers.
