Managing Customer Service is difficult, from managing dozens of support cases each day to keeping track of each case and its status. With many customer service team members, manual work causes headaches and frustration with establishing an effective customer experience. That’s where customer service software comes in to simplify your workflow and allows you to keep pace with customer demand for an exceptional customer service experience.
Customer service software isn’t just a luxury anymore. In fact, it’s a necessity if you want to compete in today’s economy. As Chad Horedfeldt teaches, “The key to developing long-term customer relationships is building trust with your customers and delivering value.” Customer service software makes your employees more efficient, helps you provide a better customer experience by allowing multiple staff members to view and respond to tickets at the same time. It lets you cut costs by streamlining repetitive tasks via automation tools (such as automated responses). It allows you to collect valuable data about your customers’ behavior that can help improve marketing efforts in the future. It allows you to save time by managing customer requests from anywhere using mobile apps or web-based interfaces (versus logging into different applications on different devices).
In this post, we’ll lay out some of the best customer service software available for this year. We’ll also explain why you need it and how to find the best option for your business.
Best Customer Service Software
1. HubSpot Service Hub
HubSpot Service Hub is an all-around customer service software that connects a variety of tools into one single interface. It offers users a seamless and effective customer support service that will improve their productivity. The plugin integration allows users to create an online store from the same platform they can handle their customer inquiries. The Service Hub comes with a dedicated support team that works 24/7 to provide assistance via email or phone to customers who face problems in using the software. It also has a free live chat tool that you can install chatbots on and expand the bandwidth of your chatbot, which is a huge plus, because it’s always nice to have your chatbot available whenever you want.
2. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is another platform-based software that includes tools to support your call centers as well as a CRM. If all you want is basic live chat functionality for your website or call center, LiveAgent could work for you. LiveAgent’s standard call center includes common features such as call transfers and routing as well as callbacks and recording. However, if you need additional features like email marketing or sales automation tools then there are other options available that offer those as well along with live chat capabilities — though they may cost more money.
3. Gong
Gong has a customer service software that supports your agents in providing more engaging customer interactions. For example, it has tools that can analyze phone conversations between customers and service representatives. It can also use that data to detect when an agent is being rude or impatient to a customer. Agents can see how much they speak versus listen and they can look at sentiment analysis reports that assess how well a conversation is going to keep track of the success of each case.
4. Intercom
Intercom takes live chat to the next level by installing chat widgets on your website, mobile app, and other digital properties. This allows your customers to chat with agents from anywhere on any device. Intercom’s customer service is stellar; they are the top rated customer service software according to G2 Crowd by far! They also have an impressive list of clients including Twitter, Shopify, Slack, Facebook, Salesforce and Spotify among many others. Read my full Intercom review here.
5. Podium
Podium is a live chat messaging tool that allows customer service members to interact in engaging and helpful conversations. The live chat feature includes internal communication channels so agents can communicate with each other privately or on time-sensitive cases. This leads to faster response rates and customer satisfaction rates. Podium’s simple features allow both employees and customers to use the tool with ease.
6. TeamSupport
TeamSupport is a service platform that specializes in self-service tools. It has a “Customer Hub” and an “Agent Hub” where customers and agents can register to get support. Information is accessible to all users and easy to find using search engines. With this knowledge base, customers and employees can refer and gain insight on any support issues.
7. Sprout Social
Sprout Social provides businesses with tools that manage social media engagement. Part of this includes a Sprout Community tool that allows users to ask questions. The community feature gives you the ability to create a hub for your online presence where people can ask questions and interact with you without being on social media. It also brings some SEO benefits since it creates more content for the site in addition to the content being created on your social media platforms. It’s a great way to engage with customers and build relationships with them outside of just responding to their inquiries via email or direct message. Sprout Social is also easy to use, making it ideal if you aren’t tech savvy or don’t have someone on staff who can manage it for you.
8. SysAid
SysAid uses a modular approach for its platform, which is different from other help desk providers . It also allows you to make changes in your help desk software without having to worry about the whole system going down.The service also has a built-in knowledge base which is useful for when you need to share information with the customer. You can also use it as a self-service portal for customers who would like to find answers on their own. SysAid is also very scalable, and you can add or remove modules as needed making it easy for small businesses to start off with a smaller plan and then upgrade later on if they need more features.
9. Kustomer
Kustomer uses a cool timeline feature to display your customers’ data into one, easy-to-understand view. You can see data by day, week, month or year and data can be displayed in a line chart, bar chart, or stacked bar chart. Data such as previous purchases and customer activity is available and organized for you to view customer data in an easy to understand report. Kustomer also features a single thread chat that combines communication from elsewhere into one convenient place regardless of where the conversation was started.
10. HappyFox
HappyFox can stand toe to toe with pretty much every other software provider on this list. What makes them unique is the fact that they offer a free version of their software, which is good for up to 3 agents. HappyFox also has some great features, such as the ability to sync with Google Calendar and Outlook, as well as taking advantage of integrations with other popular tools like Zendesk and Salesforce.
Free Customer Service Softwares
1. HelpSpot
HelpSpot is great for small customer support teams that want to get familiar with fundamental customer support concepts like knowledge base and ticketing, but don’t have the luxury of hiring a more experienced customer support person. HelpSpot has the basic features of a help desk such as a ticketing system and reporting features, but also allows you to send out customer satisfaction surveys. This allows your team to get a full understanding of the customer experience and what can be improved upon.
2. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is help desk software that unifies customer messages into one continuous thread. No more multiple inboxes or lost conversations. With Freshdesk, you can see all your customers’ questions in one place and respond to them quickly. Freshdesk provides a powerful way for companies to manage customer support requests at scale, regardless of channel. Customers can reach Freshdesk through multiple channels and this gets filtered into one channel for easy tracking. The help desk software can be accessed through both mobile and desktop platforms allowing customers and employees to respond on whatever platform they’re on.
3. Hesk
Hesk is a reliable, cloud-based ticketing system that’s easy to use and set up. It lets your team create, track, and resolve tickets from anywhere. Ticketing systems are an essential part of the management of any business. They keep track of all your customer requests and inquiries so you can quickly and easily address them. There are hundreds to choose from, but only a few that meet the needs of small businesses. Hesk is one of those ticketing systems that provides small businesses with a reliable solution for managing tickets from their customers or clients. It’s cloud-based, which means you can access it wherever you are on any device (including mobile), and it allows your team to work together seamlessly across time zones and locations.
4. ConnectWise Control
ConnectWise Control has a service level agreement (SLA) feature that can help management set clear expectations for customer support. ConnectWise Control is an all-inclusive billing system that can be customized to include multiple products and services, which will make it easier to manage your business finances. It also includes a contract management feature that allows the creation of contracts with customers or vendors and helps you keep track of your contractual obligations at any given time. ConnectWise Control includes a ticketing system that provides users with a simple way to assign issues to team members as well as track their progress in resolving them through the software’s interface. The ticketing system also makes it easy for team members from different departments within the organization to collaborate on resolving issues together without having to email back and forth or use other communication methods outside of the platform itself.
5. Deskero
If your customer service team primarily operates through email, Deskero makes it easy to switch to a shared inbox tool. This email integration feature allows you to import emails and transform them into customer support tickets. With Deskero, you can easily simplify the ticketing process and avoid tedious tasks of organizing cases with their effective software and platform.
6. Pipefy
Pipefy not only has customer service tools, but it also has resources that help your customer service team better manage your business.It’s an online help desk that allows you to easily answer questions from customers, track issues, and have a central hub for all the communication with your customers. Pipefy’s organized communication software helps you establish a consistent and straightforward onboarding process.
How do support teams use Zight (formerly CloudApp) to better their customer service? Customer success platform, Basecamps uses Zight (formerly CloudApp) to save 80 minutes per week in Customer Support training. while providing a better customer experience. Read more about how Basecamp utilizes Zight (formerly CloudApp) here.