computer science

Help Scout

Help Scout is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Help Scout rather than just read about it. In short: Help Scout, (known as Help Scout PBC) is a global remote company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It develops subscription-based help desk and knowledge base software for managing customer support.

Key takeaways

Help Scout belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Help Scout to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Help Scout from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Help Scout, (known as Help Scout PBC) is a global remote company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It develops subscription-based help desk and knowledge base software for managing customer support. Founded in 2011, the company serves over 10,000 customers across more than 140 countries, including notable clients like Buffer, Basecamp, Trello, Reddit, and AngelList. Help Scout transitioned to a fully remote company in 2020, with over 100 employees living in more than 80 cities worldwide.

History Help Scout was created in 2011 as a pivot from Brightwurks, a web design and consultancy firm previously founded by Nick Francis, Jared McDaniel, and Denny Swindle. The company was publicly launched during their participation in Techstars Boston, a startup accelerator program.

Features and technology

Help Desk Help Scout's support software operates like a shared email inbox. The platform enables large teams to provide customer support via email using their tool. It integrates with live chat, phone systems, CRMs, and email marketing tools.

Docs In addition to the help desk platform, Help Scout offers Docs, a self-service knowledge base as a feature in 2013. Exporting documents requires API access and programming knowledge; there is no export to ZIP file containing HTML source code/CSS/assets, or PDF offerings at this time.

Beacon Help Scout's embeddable widget, Beacon, provides users on a website with quick access to Docs and/or serves as a contact form.

Mobile Help Scout launched its iOS app in January 2016 and its Android app in February 2017.

Open source contribution

One of the developers at Help Scout created an open-source CSS framework used to style their marketing website. Named Seed, this framework is written using Sass and follows the BEM and ITCSS naming architecture. It employs modern JavaScript-like methodologies for scoping, modularization, and dependency management. More information and Getting Started documentation can be found at seedcss.com.

Awards, recognition, and philanthropy In December 2011, Help Scout participated in a fundraising initiative for Acumen, a charity fighting poverty, donating over $100,000 from the sale of a poster featuring Steve Jobs' quote “Here’s to the crazy ones.” In November 2015, Help Scout was named by AppStorm as one of six customer service software offerings to delight customers on Mac. That year, it was also recognized as a “marketing tool to know” by Business2Community and a “game-changing software solution” for startups by Business.com. In 2016, BostInno’s listed Help Scout among the “16 Boston Startups To Watch in 2016”. Help Scout's work culture and job descriptions have also been acknowledged, winning the “Best Job Description” award from The Workies Awards by Workable in 2015.

See also Comparison of help desk issue tracking software Comparison of issue-tracking systems

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Help Scout

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Help Scout claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Help Scout before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Help Scout ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Help Scout

In research: Help Scout appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Help Scout in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Help Scout is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2011 establishments in Massachusetts, Automation software, Customer service, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Help Scout outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Help Scout in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Help Scout means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Help Scout out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Help Scout in simple terms?

Why does Help Scout matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Help Scout?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Help Scout.