Best customer complaint management software

In customer service, every complaint is an opportunity for excellence. As a CX professional, your role goes beyond mere responses—it's about crafting solutions that resonate with each customer. Dive into the world of complaint management software and discover how it can transform your customer interactions into experiences that set you apart in 2024.

What is customer complaint management?

Customer complaint management is more than a reactive process—it's a strategic approach to customer engagement. It involves handling complaints as they arise and proactively analyzing customer feedback to identify and address systemic issues. This approach ensures that every customer's voice is heard and their concerns are addressed, ultimately enhancing the product or service quality. 

Efficient complaint management turns potential customer dissatisfaction into a springboard for building stronger customer relationships, fostering trust, and nurturing a base of loyal customers who feel valued and understood.

Top 16 customer complaint management software in 2024

As we head into 2024, customer complaint management software continues to evolve, empowering businesses to deliver exceptional customer service. Here's a look at some of the top software solutions that are making waves in the industry.

1. Freshdesk Omni

Freshworks is an easy-to-use, omnichannel customer service software for conversational support and ticketing. Supercharged with generative AI, Freshworks brings superior, scalable experiences to customer support.

Key features

• AI-powered self-service: Automate self-service across channels to minimize wait times and maximize resolutions.

• Unified agent workspace: Boost agent productivity with a comprehensive view of customer interactions across channels.

• Advanced ticketing: Facilitate seamless collaboration across teams for swift resolution of customer issues.

• Proactive insights: Utilize generative AI solutions for performance data analysis and optimization.

• Streamlined admin: Enhance operational efficiency with AI-powered workflow automations.

• Accelerated ROI: Achieve quick business results with a comprehensive solution and 1,200 integrations.

Advantages:

• User-Friendly: Its intuitive interface reduces training time and boosts agent productivity.

• Scalability: It grows with your business, adapting to changing needs seamlessly.

• Efficient Ticket Management: It streamlines support processes, ensuring responsiveness and quality.

Why do customers rave about Freshdesk Omni?

“Freshworks is one of the best tools to manage customer interactions. Every user gets its own tickets, so tracking customer interactions with the brand is very easy. It is an everyday usage tool. From the brand point of view, it is very easy to implement, and do have a knowledge base to learn more about the product. It can easily be implemented with other social tools to track online conversations. They also have a C-SAT survey for customers. Customer support is very active in resolving customer issues.” — G2 Review

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2: Freshdesk

Freshdesk is an AI-powered customer complaint management software from Freshworks designed for ticketing, ease of use, and rapid resolution of customer complaints. With seamless ticketing experiences and self-service options across various channels, it improves customer support operations. Freshdesk's AI-driven automation routes tickets intelligently, ensuring smooth collaboration among team members for swift and precise resolutions. With Freshworks' built-in AI engine, Freddy AI, Freshdesk enables agents to deliver outstanding service consistently, delighting customers every time.

Key Features:

Freshdesk empowers you to deliver multichannel experiences through one portal.

• Self-Service Powerhouse: Deflect repetitive complaints with a searchable knowledge base optimized for SEO where customers can raise complaints for repetitive issues and resolve it themselves. Empower customers to find solutions independently, reducing your support workload.

• Advanced Ticketing System: Organize complaints, streamline workflows, and prioritize resolutions with a powerful ticketing system. Track, manage, and resolve customer complaints efficiently, through one portal.

• Seamless multi-channel support: Seamlessly manage customer complaints through email, a self-service customer portal, Facebook, website forms, and a robust knowledge base. Empower customers to find solutions independently while ensuring all inquiries are efficiently addressed.

• AI-powered platform for faster resolutions: Leverage Freddy AI to elevate customer service. Freddy AI enables agents by summarizing tickets, refining communication tone, drafting efficient responses, and even generating solution articles, thereby personalizing customer experiences, and increasing customer delight by reducing resolution time.

• Agent Productivity Features: Equip agents with canned responses to help manage complaints more effectively, experience custom ticket views, scenario automation, and in-app notifications to perform at their best.

• Collaboration made simple: Foster seamless communication and collaboration with built-in collaborative tools, including shared ownership, threaded conversations, and easy knowledge base management to keep everyone on the same page.

• Intelligent ticket routing: Ticket workflow automation helps automatically assign complaint tickets to agents and groups based on past history (auto-triage), keywords, ticket requester, skill-based, time-triggered, intelligent ticket assignment, ticket properties-based, or round robin.

• SLA Management: Set up Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with reminders and escalations to ensure timely complaint resolutions and manage customer expectations effectively.

• Track Satisfaction (CSAT): Gather customer feedback through surveys and analyze satisfaction levels to identify areas for improvement.

Advantages:

• Reduced Ticket Volume: Empower customers with a self-service knowledge base, deflecting repetitive complaints and freeing agents for complex issues.

• Improved Agent Productivity: Automated workflows, collaboration tools, and AI-powered assistance empower agents to resolve issues faster and focus on delivering exceptional service.

• Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: Offer a convenient and consistent customer experience across all channels, leading to happier and more loyal customers.

Pricing

Pricing starts from: $0

Free trial period: 14 days

Why customers rave about Freshdesk

Freshdesk offers a modern and intuitive user-friendly customer service interface that makes it easier for agents to navigate and manage tickets. 

• Intuitive Interface: Freshdesk offers a user-friendly interface, making it easy for teams to learn and adopt the platform quickly.

• Scalability: Freshdesk scales with your business, adapting the customer portal to your growing needs and evolving customer demands.

• Customization: Tailor Freshdesk to your specific workflows and branding for a seamless customer experience.

• Cost-Effectiveness: Freshdesk offers a range of plans to fit your budget, making it an accessible solution for businesses of all sizes.

• Marketplace integrations everywhere: Extend Freshdesk's functionality with a wide variety of apps from the Freshdesk Marketplace. This allows you to tailor the platform to your specific needs.

• Mobile App: Freshdesk provides on-the-go support with the Freshdesk mobile app for Android and Apple devices. This ensures you can address customer concerns even when you're not at your desk.

3: Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is an online customer complaint management system that provides multi-channel support, reporting, and analytics.

Key features

• Multi-channel support

• Routing & automation

• Collaboration tools

• Agent collision alerts

• Integrations

• Reporting & analytics

Pros and cons of Zoho Desk

• Pros

  : Highly praised for customer satisfaction, intuitive UI, and ease of use.

• Cons

  : Some users report challenges with the login process and ticket sorting.

4. Zendesk

Zendesk Suite is a comprehensive customer support solution offering a native omnichannel experience.

Key features

• Routing, AI, & automations

• Reporting & analytics

• Complaint tracking

• Integrated customer surveys

• Escalation & prioritization workflows

• Integrations, SLAs, & OLAs

Pros and cons of ZenDesk

Pros:

• Recognized as a top-notch customer success software, praised for its superiority over tools like LiveChat or Freshchat.

• Enhances job efficiency in providing customer service, offering easy access to customer data for better assistance.

• Users appreciate the great user interface and support system, contributing to a positive overall experience.

• Preferred for its comprehensive features and ease of use.

Cons:

• Some users experience confusion with updates or questions from the IT team, leading to lost time.

• Criticized for poor customer service and issues with subscription and billing practices.

• Occasional problems with data uploading and exporting, with reports of data being deleted or missing unexpectedly.

5. Issuetrak

Is your IT help desk flooded with requests? Manage it all with Issuetrak's automated help desk software designed for centralized ticket triage, timely transparency, and full issue oversight.

Key features

• Knowledge base management

• Remote access/control

• Service level agreement (SLA) management

• Real-time notifications and access controls

• Support Ticket and Alerts/Escalation Management

• Call center and email management

• Prioritization, customer database, interaction tracking

• Reporting/analytics, activity dashboard, automated routing

• Customizable branding, multi-channel communication

• Real-time chat, self service portal, workflow configuration

• Third party integrations

Pros and cons of Issuetrak

• Pros

  : Exceptional tech support, flexibility, client access transparency, and positive user experience.

• Cons

  : Installation can be tricky, some limitations in field customization, and occasional navigation issues.

6. Front

Front transforms customer complaints into relationship-building opportunities, featuring an automated system that flags complaints and streamlines ticket routing.

Key features

• Routing and Automations

• Reporting and Analytics

• Complaint Tracking

• Escalation and Prioritization Workflows

• Integrations

Pros and cons of Front

• Pros

  : Best-in-class shared inbox tool, features for collaborative team support, intuitive communication, and efficient customer interaction management.

• Cons

  : Some limitations with plugin functionality, lack of traditional email folder system, and occasional delays in email processing.

7. HappyFox Help Desk

HappyFox offers a comprehensive platform for tracking and responding to customer complaints, featuring a ticket dashboard for categorization and resolution.

Key features

• Automations

• Reporting & analytics

• Complaint tracking

• Integrated customer surveys

• Prioritization workflows

• Integrations

Pros and cons of HappyFox Help Desk

Pros:

• Users appreciate its ease of use, affordability, scalability, and solid integrations.

• Recognized for excellent customer support and considered for future purchases due to positive experiences.

• Effective as an internal tool for tracking service and maintenance requests, offering transparency and tracking capabilities.

• Praised for its comprehensive solution, including a knowledge base, ticketing, categorization, and automation, even for users new to such systems.

Cons:

• Some users find it challenging to understand ticket distribution within teams, leading to confusion and software navigation difficulties.

• Limitations in exporting tickets, with only the initial message being exportable, have been a significant disappointment for some users.

• Reports of occasional downtime, impacting the ability to access the platform and manage tickets effectively.

• Issues with customer service responsiveness and the process for lodging complaints have been noted.

8. Customer Frontlines

Leverage AI-driven analytics and automation with Customer Frontlines to manage customer complaints across various channels and provide personalized recommendations.

Key features

• Interaction & email management

• Reporting & analytics

• Feedback & survey/poll management

• Alerts/escalation, case management

• Collaboration tools, issue tracking

• Live chat, quality assurance

• Self-service portal, social media monitoring

• Support ticket management

Pros and cons of Customer Frontlines

• Pros

  : Versatile survey creation, efficient and effective process management, complex survey logic capabilities, excellent customer support.

• Cons

  : Steep learning curve, refund and termination issues, logic complexity can lead to errors, dashboard download errors.

9. A1 Tracker

A1 Tracker is well-suited for large enterprises needing robust project and task workflow management.

Key features

• Collaboration tools

• Reporting/analytics and case management

• Alerts/escalation, corrective and preventive actions (CAPA)

• Email and forms management

• Prioritization and self-service portal

• Support ticket management

Pros and cons of A1 Tracker

• Pros

  : Impressive data import capabilities, user-friendly, customizable, and excellent customer service.

• Cons

  : Some users find certain features less intuitive and occasionally encounter navigation issues.

10. Live Agent

LiveAgent offers a comprehensive complaint management system with omnichannel support and effective complaint tracking.

Key features

• Routing & automations

• Reporting & analytics

• Complaint tracking

• Escalation & prioritization workflows

• Integrations

Pros and cons of Live Agent

• Pros

  : User-friendly interface, easy integration with existing systems, efficient ticket management, and excellent customer support.

• Cons

  : Some embedding options can be challenging, and there are occasional issues with spam filtering and limitations with support team location.

11. ProProfs Help Desk

ProProfs Help Desk consolidates and tracks customer complaints across multiple channels with automated workflows and efficient ticket management.

Key features

• Alerts/escalation & customizable branding

• Interaction tracking, macros/templated responses

• Multi-channel communication & real-time chat

• Reporting/analytics & self-service portal

• Support ticket & email management

• Knowledge base management and sla management

• Social media integration & automated routing

Pros and cons of ProProfs Help Desk

• Pros

  : Competitive functionalities, shared inbox, customer satisfaction survey, and Child Ticket feature enhance team performance and customer support.

• Cons

  : Limited social media management capabilities, which can be challenging for handling customer requests on those platforms.

12. Jira Service Management

Atlassian's Jira Service Management provides ITSM tools for tracking and managing complaints, incidents, and requests with customizable workflows and advanced reporting.

Key features

• Routing & automation

• Reporting & analytics

• Complaint tracking

• Escalation & prioritization workflows

• Integrations

Pros and cons of Jira Service Management

• Pros

  : Simple workflow, customizable dashboard, integration capabilities, and effective task notification system.

• Cons

  : Challenges with custom field configurations, installation difficulties, missing core functionalities compared to competitors, and lack of basic features like custom domains.

13. Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud equips agents with comprehensive tools for managing customer complaints, featuring a unified agent view for fast and effective support.

Key features

• Routing, AI, & automations

• Reporting & analytics

• Complaint tracking

• Escalation & prioritization workflows

• Integrations

Pros and cons of Salesforce Service Cloud

• Pros

  : Ideal for automation of stable workflows, user-friendly with continuous improvements, excellent for project management, and strong reporting capabilities.

• Cons

  : Some users find the interface confusing, issues with cache leading to loading problems, limited formatting options, and occasional stability issues.

14. Apptivo Help Desk

Apptivo Help Desk offers a multichannel help desk solution, converting customer complaints into manageable tickets and assigning them to the right agents.

Key features

• Reporting & analytics

• Complaint tracking

• Escalation & prioritization workflows

• Integrations

Pros and cons of Apptivo Help Desk

• Pros

  : Effective screen sharing for issue resolution, ease of use, improved efficiency at an affordable price, and excellent customer support.

• Cons

  : Missing features like the Round Robin algorithm, email template creation can be confusing, and inconsistencies in template customization.

15. SAP Customer Experience

SAP Customer Experience helps businesses maximize customer relationships by leveraging customer insights and streamlining business processes across customer touchpoints.

Key features

• Support ticket & feedback management

• Reporting/analytics & email management

• Knowledge base management

Pros and cons of SAP Customer Experience

• Pros

  : Robust and customizable, great support, seamless integration with other SAP systems, and a wide variety of reporting options.

• Cons

  : Complex user interface, performance issues, slow search speeds, and significant implementation challenges.

16. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a versatile CRM and complaint management solution, offering a range of tools for social collaboration and managing customer interactions.

Key features

• Live chat & self-service portal

• Prioritization & collaboration tools

• Knowledge base and reporting/analytics

• Interaction & support ticket management

• Email & feedback management

• Alerts/escalation & canned responses

Pros and cons of ProProfs Help Desk

• Pros

  : Comprehensive lead management, automated sales processes, easy implementation, and many user guides and tutorials.

• Cons

  : Service quality concerns, issues with advertised integrations, problematic CRM system functionality, and subpar webmail service.

Why is customer complaint management important for businesses?

Reduces customer churn: In today's market, customers have ample choices and little patience for subpar customer experiences. By proactively addressing complaints, businesses can significantly reduce the risk of customers turning to competitors. Effective complaint management is not just about resolving issues—it's about demonstrating to customers that their concerns are taken seriously, enhancing their overall experience and satisfaction.

Improves Agent Productivity: A disjointed approach to handling complaints can significantly drain resources. Integrating customer complaint management into a cohesive system streamlines workflows, enabling agents to address customer issues more efficiently and effectively. This boosts productivity and enhances customer interaction quality, as agents are better equipped to provide timely and accurate responses.

Prevents negative word-of-mouth: In the digital age, unresolved customer support complaints can escalate rapidly, potentially causing significant reputational damage. Timely and effective complaint management mitigates this risk, ensuring that customer grievances are resolved before they can escalate into broader public criticism.

Enhances customer insights & feedback: Complaint management offers a goldmine of insights into customer needs and preferences. By analyzing complaints, businesses can identify trends and patterns, leading to better decision-making and improvements in products or services.

Builds a customer-centric culture: Effective complaint management fosters a culture that prioritizes customer satisfaction. It demonstrates to customers that their feedback is valued and acts upon, thereby building a stronger, customer-focused brand image.

Legal & compliance benefits: Handling complaints properly in certain industries is not just a good practice but a legal requirement. Efficient complaint management ensures compliance with regulatory standards and can protect businesses from legal challenges.

Facilitates continuous improvement: Businesses can improve their offerings by systematically addressing and learning from customer complaints. This ongoing refinement process leads to higher-quality products and services, keeping companies competitive and relevant in their markets.

Strengthens brand loyalty & advocacy: Customers who resolve their complaints quickly and effectively are likely to become brand advocates. Positive resolutions can transform dissatisfied customers into loyal ones who may share their positive experiences with others, contributing to stronger brand advocacy and a positive reputation.

Complaint management across industries & business sizes

Enterprise-level complaint management

At the enterprise level, complaint management is about maintaining brand consistency across global markets. Large enterprises need to ensure that their complaint management processes are scalable, adaptable, and capable of handling high volumes of customer interactions across various channels. Effective complaint management at this level can help preserve brand integrity and ensure customer satisfaction on a large scale.

SMB complaint management

For small and medium-sized businesses, complaint management is often about personalization and quick response. These businesses can use complaint management as a tool to build closer relationships with their customers, demonstrate exceptional service, and set themselves apart from larger competitors. Effective complaint management in SMBs can lead to increased customer loyalty and valuable word-of-mouth promotion.

Industry-specific complaint management

Different industries face unique customer complaint challenges. For instance:

• In retail, complaint management might focus on product issues or customer service in brick-and-mortar stores.

• In healthcare, complaints might revolve around patient care or administrative issues.

• In finance, customer complaints may relate to account management or service accessibility.

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What does a customer complaint management software do?

Customer complaint management software is a sophisticated tool that centralizes and streamlines the process of handling customer complaints. It's like a command center where complaints from various channels—be it social media, email, phone, or live chat—are gathered, categorized, and managed efficiently. Here’s what such software typically does:

• Centralizes complaints: Instead of juggling multiple platforms, this software brings all complaints into one accessible place. This centralization helps quickly identify and assign issues to the right teams.

• Analyzes & prioritizes complaints: Not all complaints are created equal. The software helps categorize complaints based on urgency, impact, and other criteria, allowing for prioritized and appropriate responses.

• Facilitates collaborative solutions: It enables cross-functional team collaboration, ensuring that the right expertise is brought to bear on each complaint. This collaboration can be shared tickets, internal communication threads, and collective access to customer history.

• Automates workflow: From auto-assigning tickets to the right agent to setting up automated responses for common complaints, this software streamlines the complaint resolution process, saving time and reducing manual errors.

• Empowers self-service: By providing a knowledge base for customers, these tools help deflect minor issues, enabling customers to find solutions independently. A self-service solution not only reduces the ticket volume but also enhances customer satisfaction.

• Provides insightful analytics: With in-depth analytics, you can track your team's performance, identify trends in customer complaints, and make data-driven decisions to improve your services and product offerings.

Top 5 benefits of customer complaint management software

1. Enhanced customer satisfaction: These tools boost customer satisfaction and loyalty by providing timely and effective solutions.

2. Increased operational efficiency: Streamlined processes and automated workflows lead to more efficient resolution of complaints.

3. Reduced resolution time: Quick identification and assignment of issues help in faster resolution of customer complaints.

4. Better team collaboration & productivity: Enhanced communication and collaboration features improve overall team productivity.

5. Data-driven insights: Access to analytics helps understand customer needs better, thus guiding strategic decisions.

Addressing common customer complaints with the right tools

• Long wait times and incomplete solutions: Software that prioritizes and categorizes complaints can significantly reduce response times. Additionally, agents can provide more accurate and complete solutions by having a complete history of customer interactions.

• Lack of omnichannel support experience: Unified customer complaint management software ensures that no matter the channel, your team has the full context of each customer’s history, eliminating the need for customers to repeat their issues.

• Poor end-user experience: Proactive monitoring and quick response features allow businesses to anticipate and address potential user-experience issues before they escalate into major complaints.

• Inadequate self-service resources: By integrating comprehensive self-service resources like FAQs, solution articles, and video guides, businesses can empower customers to find answers to their queries without direct intervention.

• Unaddressed customer feedback: Advanced complaint management tools provide features to track customer feedback, analyze it for actionable insights, and communicate back to customers about the steps taken in response to their feedback.

Why is Freshdesk Omni chosen by 60,000+ businesses?

Affordable Simple, uncomplicated pricing with no hidden fees or charges-  Freshdesk Omni offers effortless omnichannel experiences within your budget.

Secure Use a secure help desk that takes data privacy and security seriously-  Freshdesk Omni comes with an SSL certificate by default and is GDPR compliant.

Quick time to value Freshdesk Omni’s intuitive setup offers faster time-to-value, better cost performance, and increased efficiency to deliver greater ROI.

Scalable Freshdesk Omni scales with your business. Support multiple products, manage custom SLAs, reduce ticket volumes, and collaborate with multiple teams effortlessly.

Integrations With over 1000 apps for  Freshdesk Omni, connect your CRM, OMS, billing, or invoicing solutions and handle all service transactions from one place.

24x7 Support Freshdesk Omni offers 24x7 support. You can reach out to us with any issue, and someone from our support team will be with you right away.

Freshworks Freshdesk Omni is a comprehensive, reliable, and scalable solution. Its blend of affordability, security, ease of use, and robust support structures make it an ideal choice for businesses looking to enhance their customer service experience.