Best customer service software

Deliver faster and easier support with the best customer service software for businesses of all sizes.

START your FREE TRIAL

 

   

Everything you need to know to choose the best customer support software

With every business competing for market share, delivering the best customer service plays a significant role in gaining customer loyalty. Failing to meet customer expectations could cost a business more today than it ever has historically. The 2020 Freshworks Customer Engagement research found that:

'56% of consumers globally have stopped doing business with a brand or switched to a competitor due to a single bad customer service experience.'

Customers expect their brand experience to be more personalized, interactive, and faster. Finding the right customer service software that can meet your customer expectations and your team's requirements can be a complex task. Here's an easy guide to choose the best customer service software for your business:

1. How can customer service software help your business?
2. What are the most essential customer service software features?
3. How to choose a customer service software that's right for your business?
4. The 10 best customer service software in 2021
5. Feature comparison table

How can customer service software help your business?

Unify customer service across all channels

Gone are the days when customers reached out to support only via phone and email. Today, customers use phone, email, chat, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms to connect with customer service. Businesses need to ensure that they meet their customers on all modern support channels.

However, having an online presence on different support channels, and managing customer conversations using different tools for each channel might not work too well. Your team will end up asking the customer to repeat the same details over and over again on multiple channels or juggle between tools to find the information by themselves. 

Here’s where a customer service software comes in and unifies customer conversations across channels into a single screen and gives you a 360-degree view of all your customer data. This way, your team can offer contextual customer support without juggling between tools or asking the customer to repeat information.

Offer 24/7 customer support without increasing team strength

Nothing boosts customer satisfaction more than instant responses and resolutions regardless of the time and day. Unfortunately, not all businesses have the capacity to answer customer queries 24/7.

However, businesses can offer immediate, around-the-clock customer service without agent intervention by using a customer service software that offers AI-powered chatbots and lets you build an extensive knowledge base for your customers.

Improve your teams’ productivity with automations

According to a 2021 Forrester Study, 66% of US consumers agree that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good online customer service and 47% say they will abandon their online purchase if they can't find a quick answer to their question.

It's pretty evident that speed matters in support, and hence, businesses need to use a customer service software that has advanced automation capabilities and is optimized for speed. This way, support agents can solve complex queries faster and engage in meaningful customer conversations instead of spending time on routine tasks.

What are the most essential customer service software features?

Ticketing

Streamline all your incoming customer queries on a single platform, assign agents based on expertise, categorize tickets as per priority, escalate tickets with ease, and offer faster customer resolutions.

Omnichannel support

Connect with customers via phone, email, chat, and social media platforms, and manage all customer interactions from a single view with an omnichannel customer service software.

Customization

Customize your helpdesk's workflows to suit your business needs. You can also modify the look and feel of your helpdesk to resemble your brand’s identity.

Automation

Use your customer service software to automate mundane and repetitive support tasks. This helps boost your agent morale by allowing them to spend their time solving complex customer queries and engaging in meaningful customer conversations.

Self-service

Deflect commonly asked questions by building an extensive knowledge base for your customers within your customer service software. Empower your customers to help themselves before reaching out to support.

Collaboration

Make online collaboration easier for your teams with a customer service software that offers features like Agent Collision Detection (prevents multiple agents from working on the same ticket), Shared Ownership (allows agents to share tickets with other teams and keep track of the progress), In-app collaboration (enables agents to chat right from the ticket interface) and solve customer queries faster as a team.

Analytics and reports

Identify problems before they escalate, keep track of team metrics, and ensure you're on top of your CSAT goals using custom analytics and reports.

Integration

Connect your customer service software with your existing business applications such as your CRM, order management, and issue tracking software for better customer context.

How to choose the best customer service software for your business?

Easy to set up and easy to use

Cloud customer service software is easy to set up and requires minimal to no onboarding. Make sure to evaluate the UI and the agent experience and find a customer service software that doesn't require extensive training.

Offers the right solutions

Understand the problems you're trying to solve for your support team and look out for features that offer the solutions to those problems — this helps you shortlist the customer service software that accommodates your business needs.

Pricing plan that suits you

Customer service software come in all sizes and prices. If you're just starting out, there are several free customer service software, such as Freshdesk's Free Plan, which offer the necessary support functionalities for your team. SMBs can opt for a feature-rich customer service software at a mid-range pricing and larger companies can invest in an enterprise-grade software with a high ROI.

Scales with your business

The best customer service software is one that can seamlessly scale with your business. As your business grows, you will need advanced automation, AI-powered support, easy integrations, and collaboration capabilities to ensure your customer support operates smoothly.

10 best customer service software in 2021

  

1. Freshdesk Omnichannel - Best omnichannel customer service software

 

best customer service software best customer service software

 

Freshdesk Omnichannel is a comprehensive customer service software that combines the power of a helpdesk, a live chat software, and a call center software, enabling businesses to deliver consistent customer service across channels while cutting down on costs.

With Freshdesk Omnichannel, you can

Source: Forrester Report 2020

START your FREE TRIAL View pricing Learn more

2. Freshdesk - Best feature-rich customer service software

 

Best Customer Service Software Best Customer Service Software

 

Freshdesk makes it fast and easy for businesses to deliver seamless customer service on email and social media.

With Freshdesk, you can

Freshdesk also offers a 100% free plan with Free for up to 2 agents.

 

START your FREE TRIAL View pricing Learn more

3. Freshchat - Best live chat customer service software

 

Best Customer Service Software Best Customer Service Software

 

Freshchat is a customer service software that allows you to see customer messages from across all channels in one place. Businesses can view customer communication from email, in-app chat, website chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and more on a single screen and create a unified customer experience.

With Freshchat, you can