Happy customers keep coming back for more and spending more money. Unsatisfied customers can do serious damage to your reputation. Your customer service software will put your support team in the best possible position to provide a 5-star experience.
Agents will find it easier to stay organized, find the right information, and follow up on promises. Customers receive faster responses, automated answers to common queries, and a lot fewer dropped calls.
Table of Content
What is customer service software?
Software that assists customers in providing assistance or advice is called customer service software.
Customer service software’s most fundamental role is to provide a central system (known as a ticketing platform) where agents can track, prioritize and respond to customer inquiries or employee requests. Any tool that assists in customer service delivery is considered customer service software. These tools include knowledge bases, messaging apps, and automation software.
Customer service software is often integrated into CRM software to give agents access from outside sources to contextual data such as customer purchase history and other information. This gives support teams context about the customer, their origins, and why they are reaching out, regardless of channel.
Different types of customer service software
Customer Service Can be internal to support employees within a company or external to support customers who use the products or services.
Every customer service channel can be considered a different type. These main customer service types are important to know:
Live Chat
Live Chat Software allows agents to resolve customer problems in real-time from wherever they are currently located, such as on your website homepage or within your mobile app.
This allows businesses to plan and prevent problems from ever happening. An example of this is an e-commerce site that offers live chat to answer customers’ frequently asked questions on their checkout page before abandoning their cart.
A business can also offer 24/7 support via live chat. While agents are busy being human, chatbots will take care of customer requests.
Telephone support
Even for high-stakes problems, a phone conversation can still be a powerful way to resolve customer issues. Because of the human touch that comes with a phone conversation can sometimes be even more effective than email conversations or real-time chatting.
Call center software allows customer service representatives to be more strategic with features such as call recording, smart routing, customer history access, and automatic ticket creation.
Email customer service is the mainstay of customer service. Email is similar to the phone and is still preferred by older generations.
Email can be used to provide support both internally and externally. The email could be used by IT, Human Resources, Payroll, and Payroll teams to answer questions for both full-time and part-time employees.
Knowledge base
Support teams can empower customers to self-serve by providing knowledge bases, customer portals, and community forums. In fact, 81% of customers prefer to solve their problems on their own.
This is possible only if support teams have the tools to facilitate knowledge creation and maintenance. AI can alert you when content is outdated or when a new topic is required. AI can also make use of agents’ collective knowledge in order to automate resolutions of low-touch tickets.
Messaging apps
The rise of messaging channels, such as WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, and Facebook Messenger, has changed people’s communication.
This convenience factor is now available in customer service. Software apps for customer service allow customers to reach out to each other via the same channels that they use to contact their family and friends.
Why do Amazon sellers need customer service apps?
Customer service apps are essential for small businesses to organize, prioritize and consolidate customer inquiries. Customer service apps can provide faster, more reliable, and personalized answers to customer queries when used correctly. This allows small businesses to stand out with exceptional customer service.
These are the 10 best customer service software platforms
This list contains the top 13 customer service software platforms. It will help you to get started in finding the right support tool for your team.
We included a range of tools because there are so many channels for customer support and approaches that a team could take. These tools range from all-in-one solutions to niche offerings like in-app support.
1. Help Scout
The best all-in-one customer service software.
Growing teams often don’t have the resources or time to learn a new tool. They need something that is both sophisticated enough to cover all bases and simple enough to be up and running quickly. Help Scout ticks all these boxes.
Help Scout is all about providing excellent customer service and support for your customers.
- One centralized tool allows you to manage email as well as live chat. Customers can reach you wherever they are most comfortable. Your team can also work together in one support queue to address all customer inquiries.
- To empower customers to find the answers they need, create a customized help center using Docs. This will allow them to access the information they need without the assistance of your staff.
- Support reps can save replies so they can quickly respond to customers’ frequently asked questions. This will save your team time and help them get answers quicker.
- Agent-focused features such as collision detection make it easier for your team to manage tickets. This feature also prevents customers from receiving duplicate replies, which can lead to a better customer experience.
- You can create a personalized customer experience by using customer profiles. This allows you to view past interactions and customer data from connected applications.
- Help Scout comes with pre-built reports to help you see how your team performs from the beginning. You can see metrics that show when your team is most busy, the reasons why support requests are common, average response time, and which channels are most popular among customers.
There are a variety of plans to choose from, and you can even build your own plan. Help Scout is an excellent option for any team.
Prices: Starting at $20/user per Month
2. HelpDocs
The best customer support software for standalone knowledge bases.
In the past few years, there has been a greater focus on self-service options. Self-service tools can be very cost-effective and are preferred by many to 67% of users.
Knowledge bases allow customers to search for answers on their own. This means that they can resolve issues faster, and your team has to deal with fewer tickets.
HelpDocs can be a solid choice for anyone looking to start a knowledge base. It’s simple pricing, robust feature list, and user-friendly interface make setting up your first knowledge base easy.
Prices: Starting at $49 per Month
3. Olark
The best customer support software for a standalone chat.
Live chat is an excellent option if your team wants to communicate in real-time with customers. Live chat is an excellent option for small businesses because it offers the same instantaneous support as phone calls but at a much lower price.
Olark has many features that can be used to meet the needs of any team, including team management, robust analytics, and smart automation.
Olark offers simple pricing and no commitments for most plans. You can also add specific features as you wish. This allows you to get only the features you need and skip those you don’t, making Olark ideal for small teams.
Prices: Starting at $19/month per agent
4. Aircall
The best customer support software for call center support
Although phone support can be associated with larger teams, it is still an essential part of small businesses’ support efforts, especially for more complicated solutions. Statistics indicate that customers prefer to solve complex problems in person or by phone with a live representative.
Aircall has a variety of plans that are suitable for all types of teams. All plans include essential phone support such as IVR and the ability to set custom business times. These essentials will allow your team to get phone support up quickly.
Prices: Starting at $30/agent/month
5. Zendesk
The best customer support software for large teams.
Zendesk allows you to manage customer communications using a ticketing system. Zendesk plans allow you to manage your email, Facebook, and Twitter conversations. You can also manage chat and phone conversations on the higher-end plans.
Zendesk is often associated with larger teams due to the product’s relative complexity, the resources required for initial setup, and overall cost. However, they also offer a few plans that are lower-cost.
The lower-cost plans may not include features such as chat, phone support, and custom reporting, but they should provide the basic functionality for users who primarily need email support.
Prices: Starting at $19/month per agent
6. Freshdesk
The best customer support software for enterprise team members.
While Freshdesk is very similar to Zendesk, there are a few things that distinguish them. They offer two support options: one that provides help desk support and one that offers omnichannel support.
Both have plan tiers, but the help desk solution has a lower average cost than the omnichannel product. This is probably why most small businesses would consider it.
The Zendesk lower-cost plan does not cover email, tweeting, or Facebook messages. If you are looking for other channels, the omnichannel options will be more suitable.
Freshdesk offers a number of features, such as an AI response and field service management. This adds flexibility to their offering. The AI functionality is not available on the more expensive omnichannel support plans.
Prices: Starting at $0 per Month
7. Text-Em All
The best customer support software to automate phone calls.
Mass communication via the telephone can be costly and time-consuming, but sometimes it is necessary. These issues can be solved by a dedicated tool. Text Em-All is the best tool for automated phone communication.
Text-Em All offers transparent pricing and the ability to use their cost calculator to determine costs. They offer straightforward pricing and excellent support.
8. Helpshift
The best customer support software to provide support through a mobile app
Any support tool that a user can access from within their current environment is called in-app support. In-app support is most commonly provided via a chat app, but there are other options.
Helpshift leads in in-app assistance, focusing specifically on mobile devices.
Helpshift offers flexible pricing that is based on what you use. This ensures that your team pays only for the services they need. Helpshift’s simple setup and strong support team make it an excellent choice for anyone who needs in-app assistance for their mobile properties.
Price There is no public pricing.
9. HubSpot Customer Service software
The best customer service software for large companies that use HubSpot
HubSpot is a marketing tool and resource that you may be familiar with. Their Service Hub links all customer service channels and data together to help your support team with automation and self-service.
There is a distinction between confusing pricing and flexible pricing. HubSpot offers many pricing options and plans that can be confusing for customers who want to scale.
Prices: Starting at $45/month
10. Salesforce Service Cloud
The best customer service software for teams that provide support via Slack.
Although Salesforce is most well-known for its sales CRM tools, they also offer a service cloud, which provides customer support. This can be a great option for teams looking to offer support via Slack. Service Cloud is natively integrated with Slack.
Salesforce Service Cloud can also be used to automatically respond to frequently-asked questions via SMS, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.
Price: Starting at $25/user per month.
Conclusion
It can be challenging to choose the right customer service tool for you and your team. It is essential to select a tool that will meet your immediate needs while also being flexible enough to accommodate future needs. All this while remaining within your budget.
Although it may seem daunting to make a decision, the consequences of choosing the wrong tool, unhappy customers, and frustrated employees are far worse. Take your time, think carefully, weigh your options and make the best decision.
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