I spent pretty close to 20 - 25 years supporting these types of software, as an IT specialist, and as a project manager. The issue is how large a scope does the OP wish to accomplish. What I mean by that is that some people are happy with just a daily spread sheet with cells for notes, other people want a fully functional software that goes all the way from marketing, to sales, thru installation, and all the way to billing, and support. Others want a software that keeps track of help tickets, allows them to be assigned to different people and departments, and print reports. The biggest issue is the human factor. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink is the old saying. One person may look forward to inputting the results of an event into the software but another may simply ignore it and not take the steps to forward or close the ticket. Some people will refuse to sit down at the computer to input data, and another will demand that they be able to do it from their smart phone. If laptops are used, some will end up stolen from trucks. All I am painting is that the thought of having a robust software is good, but the implementation is harder. One thing for sure, if robust for 10 - 20 staff or more, it WILL require an IT department to implement it, and resolve the glitches. If the budget will allow hiring such a person at $75,000 - $100,000 a year then it may work, but if "Sally" will be expected to do this work while doing her other work, it will not work. Companies like SalesForce, TrackIt, FreshService all have packages that can be converted to do some of these things, but they have to be customized to each company. Next, someone has to keep upgrading them as the service changes, employees come and go, custom reports are needed. On the other hand if there are only two or three people involved, a simple Excel spread sheet on a server can be used to keep track of things much the same as a white board approach. One thing that anyone doing this must understand is that no two people can be making changes at the same time in the same ticket. Hence the software must be constructed to keep track of sequential changes. If Excel for example is used, and Employee A opens the page to make an entry then leaves it open and goes home - everyone else is locked out until that spreadsheet is unlocked. That means if Employee A did not save their work and some one forces it unlocked, A's work is lost. Hence as I said, one can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink. You'll get a call from customer Z asking when you are coming to see them, open the software and see that it is still showing a document is needed by Employee F who is out to lunch. Those things will still happen even with software.
