Optimize customer service with the best chatbots for customer care in 2025

1. Freshchat

When it comes to an all-in-one customer engagement solution, there’s no doubt about it: it simply doesn’t get any better than Freshchat.

Freshchat serves as a single, unified platform from which customer service teams can interact through our powerful Freddy AI-driven chatbots and real-time live chat across a plethora of different digital channels. Freshworks’ bots employ NLP, machine learning, and intent detection capabilities to respond to users in a personalized and accurate manner, while improving their performance over time.

Capable of interacting in 33+ distinct dialects and across avenues like your website, mobile app, and messenger, Freshchat’s bots help engage global audiences on whichever channels they’re using the most. All the while, the platform’s robust reporting and analytics tools gather valuable insights, displaying them via visual dashboards that empower teams to easily identify what’s working and what’s not. 

Key features

• Ready-to-use bot templates available for different use cases, allowing you to set up your bot in no time

• Agent handover seamlessly transfers conversations to live agents with just one click

• Leverages small talk capabilities to engage customers by responding to casual conversation in a human-like manner, instead of with scripted robotic answers

• Conversation APIs enable you to connect your homegrown bot to our messenger and team inbox

• Journeys empowers you to send targeted messages at strategic moments and proactively reach out to customers

Pros

• No code required to fine-tune bots; simply click, update, and save to update its flows

• Highly customizable; easily adjust your chat widget to match your brand identity and train your bot with unique business documentation

• Customizable reports can be displayed in various visual manners, while metrics can be tailored to reflect your specific requirements

• Highly integrable with other Freshworks platforms and hundreds of third-party apps available through our extensive Marketplace

• Conversations that require escalation can be auto-assigned to reps based on their skill levels and load

Why customers rave about Freshchat

AI-powered, highly customizable, and supremely integrable, Freshchat’s chatbots offer the flexibility to be used by businesses of any size operating in any industry. For large businesses, bots can manage an unlimited number of interactions simultaneously in a consistent and personalized manner, while small companies will enjoy the ease of use and desirable scalability that allows the software to grow alongside them.

One of our many satisfied clients, Nimalan B., sums up Freshchat’s capabilities nicely, saying, “We have never seen a chatbot that gives the best UI and UX in a couple of lines of code integration. On top of simple and clean design, it helps solve the business problem that we had. We love everything from the co-browsing, FAQ, attachment options, video inserting option, being able to show user's Facebook profile image (automatically), and etc. I can literally list all of the functions that are available in Freshchat.”

2. Ultimate

Ultimate is an AI-powered chatbot platform that provides tools for developing chatbots, automation, and analytics. Its chatbot, UltimateGPT, uses generative AI to connect to knowledge sources and provide conversational answers to customer questions.

Key features

• Contextual understanding allows bots to gauge context, so it can answer follow-up questions without individuals needing to repeat themselves

• Easy-to-use Dialogue Builder is designed to handle any customer question; no coding required

• Bot personas enable companies to choose between long- or short-form answers and four different tones of voice

Pros

• Review interactions in real-time to gain insights into customer requests with conversation logs

• Choose from multiple knowledge sources like your help center, FAQs, or CSV files to deliver more accurate and relevant content

• Bots can be built to speak and understand up to 109 unique dialects

Cons

• Tunnel vision on live chat, while neglecting other communication channels, such as social media

• Some users report difficulties in using Ultimate’s translation feature, which can result in communication barriers when serving customers who use a different language

• No option to escalate a conversation from a bot to a live agent 

Price

You’ll need to reach out to Ultimate directly for a custom quote on its various packages

3. Zendesk bots

Zendesk chatbots are automated conversation bots that use AI and NLP to help businesses engage with customers and automate customer support. They can be added to a web widget, mobile app, or social media channels.

Key features

• Simple out-of-the-box bot can be published, with no further work on your part, as soon as you turn on bot-enhanced messaging

• Bot builder, a click-to-configure visual design tool, lets you create answers that include actions like ‘ask for details,’ ‘ask if question resolved,’ and ‘transfer to agent’

• Employs generative AI and Zendesk proprietary intent models, creating an accurate, high-functioning, and human-like experience

Pros

• Highly customizable—teams can match the look and feel to their brand identity, offer personalized greetings, manage multiple languages, and more

• Businesses can incorporate rich multimedia, unread message identifies, and customizable forms to create a more interactive experience

• Capable of carrying out full tasks like refunds, changing passwords, and cancellations when connected to your tech stack

Cons

• Expensive when compared to other similar software

• Price and robustness of platform may not be well-suited for small businesses with straightforward requirements

• End-users can experience ‘dead time’ when a bot escalates the interaction but no human rep is immediately available, potentially resulting in frustration

Price

Zendesk’s Suite Team plan begins at $55 per user per month, while its Suite Professional package runs $115 per user per month

4. Netomi

Netomi is an intelligent chatbot solution that helps companies provide customer service through email, chat, messaging, voice, and more. Its bot leverages natural language understanding (NLU) and is said to be able to handle over 70% of requests without human intervention.

Key features

• SMS bots accurately understand customer intent, even if they use texting slang, short-form, or emojis

• Log all issues and resolutions, facilitate handoffs to live agents, and assist reps in real-time with co-pilot capabilities

• Sanctioned Generative AI combines Netomi’s generative tech and large language models (LLMs), allowing businesses to respond to customer queries while preserving brand security

Pros

• Train your bot using existing knowledge sources to create a robust, brand-aware AI system built specifically for your business

• Automatically resolves 80%+ of customer service inquiries, while extracting intent and sentiment within seconds

• Offers full integration with Zendesk, Genesys, Sprinklr, Salesforce, LivePerson, and more

Cons

• Lack of transparency in pricing structure

• Initial setup can be both time- and resource-intensive

• User reviews mention frequent changes to the software with insufficient communication to end-users

Price

You’ll need to get in touch with Netomi directly for a custom quote on its various plans and packages

5. Zowie

Zowie is a chatbot that uses AI to provide customer service for ecommerce brands. It can work across multiple channels, including chat, email, text, and social media.

Key features

• Intent recognition helps provide ultra-personalized support by interpreting slang and colloquial language

• Proactive engagement capacity helps avoid site bounces, abandoned carts, and lost revenue

• Specialized LLM is specifically designed to meet the unique needs of ecommerce companies

Pros

• Provide support around the globe with the power to instantly translate Zowie into 175 languages

• Create a bot using your FAQs, macros, and past interactions

• Customers can easily send voice messages to both AI and human agents anytime, in any language

Cons

• Limited mass data transferring, resulting in increased manual workloads

• User interface (UI) is non-intuitive and complex

• Reporting and analytics are somewhat limited; it can be difficult to find the particular data you’re looking for

Price

You’ll need to contact Zowie directly for a custom quote on its various packages

6. Ada

Ada is a chatbot platform that utilizes AI and NLP to automate customer service. It can help businesses provide personalized experiences to customers at scale.

Key features

• Combination of safety checks, guidance, advanced knowledge retrieval, a suite of cutting-edge LLMs, and action capabilities provides enhanced control

• Reasoning engine ensures your AI Agent grows, learns, and works 24/7 to continuously improve your operations

• Ada Voice requires no code and can immediately begin resolving up to 26% of phone interactions without escalation to a live representative

Pros

• Considers past actions and the context of conversations to determine how to best resolve an inquiry in a personalized manner

• Runs every response through proprietary safety checks to verify interactions are safe, accurate, and relevant

• Drag-and-drop interface allows even non-technical users to create and deploy bots

Cons

• No mobile app available

• Generating complex intents can be challenging, requiring a high level of technical proficiency and a deep understanding of the platform

• Limited customization in reporting and dashboards can make it difficult to tailor to unique business requirements

Price

You’ll need get in touch with Ada directly for a custom quote on its different packages

7. Einstein

Salesforce Einstein Bots are intelligent chatbots that can help with customer service and support within Salesforce. They can be used to automate various tasks, provide personalized resolutions, and escalate issues to live agents.

Key features

• Einstein Bots API expands the ways in which bots are delivered to customers by connecting them to many different end points

• Chats with users through natural language and sophisticated reasoning across self-service portals, messaging channels, and more

• Einstein Trust Layer masks personally identifiable information and defines clear parameters for bots to follow

Pros

• Choose from a variety of bot templates that deliver customized solutions tailored to your cloud or use case

• Measure and optimize your bots' value against your business objectives using your chat data, bot performance metrics, and cost information

• Supports photos, videos, and audio if an issue is too hard to explain in text

Cons

• Cost can be prohibitive for small- to mid-sized businesses

• Steep learning curve, particularly for those unfamiliar with generative AI technology

• Often struggles with handling complex issues and understanding ambiguous language

Price

Salesforce’s Starter Suite begins at $25 per user per month, while its Enterprise package will set you back $165 per user per month

8. IBM watson

IBM Watson Assistant is a conversational AI system that allows users to build customized chatbots. It's powered by NLP and LLMs, and can be used for a variety of purposes such as marketing, sales, and support.

Key features

• IBM foundation models trained on massive datasets, designed to answer questions with accurate, traceable answers grounded in company-specific information

• Self-learning generative AI bots employ algorithms that automatically learn from past interactions

• Tone analyzer assesses the sentiment and emotion behind messages to help formulate relevant responses

Pros

• Powerful AI engine knows when to answer confidently, when to offer transactional support, or when to connect to a human agent

• Get started easily using watsonx Assistant’s step-by-step starter kits and low-code custom extensions framework

• Can achieve an exceptional level of classification accuracy with an average of just five training examples per topic

Cons

• Limited training and educational material may present difficulties in initial implementation

• Challenging to integrate with third-party apps

• Templates are rather basic, making it challenging to tailor to your specific brand and organizational needs

Price

You’ll need to reach out to IBM directly for a custom quote on its various plans and packages

9. Boost.ai

Boost.ai is an intelligent conversational platform that offers chatbot technology to help businesses improve customer service. Its virtual agents can help with a wide range of topics and are available 24/7.

Key features

• Easily connect bots with your company’s data like websites, PDFs, documents, slides and other content sources

• No-code conversation builder creates advanced conversation flows within minutes and easily connects to existing self-service solutions

• Intent hierarchy offers a roadmap for every conversation, allowing you to create intricate flows that adapt to customer needs

Pros

• Advanced NLU and NLP allow bots to answer questions and automate actions on thousands of topics

• Boasts a 90%+ resolution rate across all topics

• Easy-to-use training editor provides users the flexibility to update virtual agent without data scientists or developers

Cons

• Filters can be difficult and confusing to utilize

• Ability to connect with mobile applications is relatively limited

• Restricted multilingual capacity when compared to similar software

Price

You’ll need to contact Boost.ai directly for a custom quote for your unique business requirements

10. Zoom virtual agent

Zoom Virtual Agent (ZVA) is an AI-powered chatbot that provides customer support and personalized help to customers 24/7. It’s available either as a standalone offering or as an add-on to Zoom Contact Center.

Key features

• Intelligent hand-offs guide users to a relevant support agent when needed with the key details to keep everyone on the same page

• Campaigns help manage access to your chatbot on your website, allowing businesses to specify when and on which URLs it will be available

• Build bots that cater to different audiences, like Uber drivers and riders, which is valuable for multi-sided marketplaces

Pros

• Connects seamlessly with Zoom Contact Center and popular CRM providers like Zendesk and ServiceNow

• Create customized flows and messages for unique segments based on their profile or data attributes

• Automatically crawls and learns from your knowledge bases and FAQs to immediately deliver accurate answers

Cons

• Very rigid—there are many queries that the bot can’t understand and can’t be customized to answer

• Difficult to update FAQs and knowledge bases with new policies and changes

• Limited multilingual capabilities

Price

The most affordable package that contains the Virtual Agent is Zoom’s Pro plan, which is $13.12 per user per month, while its Business package will set you back $18.32 per user per month

11. Intercom

Intercom's chatbot is a customer service tool that can automate responses to various inquiries. It can be either rule-based or AI-powered, and helps with reducing support volume, collecting customer context, and more.

Key features

• Lead qualification capabilities enable bots to engage high-intent leads and move them directly to a live conversation faster

• Content targeting allows bots to pull answers from knowledge articles, public URLs, and PDFs, and then send them to the right customers

• Question routing triages complex problems and seamlessly passes them to human support teams

Pros

• Collects upfront info from customers, making support much quicker and more efficient than email

• Supports 45+ languages right out of the box

• When questions are escalated, live reps can instantly generate replies and recap conversations for other agents with AI-powered inbox

Cons

• Upper-tier plans can be prohibitively expensive, particularly for organizations with a lot of employees

• Resolution rate is only around 50%, which is significantly lower than other comparable software

• User reviews mention unresponsive customer support when assistance is required

Price

Intercom’s Essential plan begins at $29 per user per month, while its Expert package starts at $132 per user per month

12. Forethought AI

Forethought AI is a customer support platform that uses AI to automate tasks and improve customer service. It utilizes historical data to provide personalized responses and pulls from your knowledge base to consistently resolve repetitive questions.

Key features

• AI-generated ticket summaries concisely wrap up ticket details, allowing agents to resolve issues more efficiently

• Leverages LLMs and fine-tunes them using your company's own data

• Utilizes both historical data and GenAI to provide comprehensive solutions and accurate responses

Pros

• Build custom workflows or utilize AI-generated workflows

• Offers branded interface and intent detection to maintain consistency

• Includes detailed analytics on traffic, self-serve rate, dropoff rate, CSAT, and more

Cons

• Extensive resources and manual efforts required to tailor the technology to fit specific business needs

• Dashboard analytics are lacking—many user reviews state they prefer to manually export the data and use an external software for reporting

• Limited third-party integration and no voice channel capabilities

Price

You’ll need to reach out to Forethought directly for a custom quote on its various packages

13. Certainly

Certainly is an intelligent chatbot platform that helps companies enhance both their sales and support initiatives. It leverages NLU and LLMs to provide accurate and personalized responses in a human-like fashion.

Key features

• Conversational Web SDK allows users to interact with bots through a web chat interface embedded in a website's HTML

• Gamification elements like quizzes, loyalty programs, and games make the UX more engaging and interactive

• Combination of machine learning and generative AI works together to respond to complex questions in a natural way and improve performance over time

Pros

• Collects information from customers, which can be useful for human staff to pick up on later

• Templated flows and pre-built intents make building and implementing bots a stress-free process

• Plethora of customization possibilities for your widget and chatbot’s tone of voice

Cons

• Requires extensive manual oversight and constant updates to continue functioning at a high level

• Bugs and glitches can hamper the UX and result in unplanned downtime

• Weak multilingual and translation capacity compared to similar solutions

Price

Growth plan starts at €2,000 per month, while you’ll need to contact Certainly directly for a custom quote on its Enterprise package

14. Gladly Sidekick

Gladly Sidekick is a customer service platform that uses AI and automation to help customers help themselves. It's designed to provide personalized self-service experiences across all digital channels.

Key features

• App Platform, Gladly’s integration solution, enables bots to perform complex actions like issuing refunds, creating shipments, or canceling orders

• Continues to help after a handoff, standing by to take action or complete a resolution so agents can prioritize high-value work

• Lifelong conversations and detailed profiles leverage customer information to deliver contextual and personalized self-service experiences

Pros

• Out-of-the-box reports available and insights covering 100+ metrics

• Pre-trained by proprietary algorithms based on millions of real-world customer service data and industry-specific LLMs

• Set up strict guardrails for your bot to follow and then coach it to improve its accuracy

Cons

• Can be prohibitively expensive, particularly for its lowest-tier package

• Challenging to access and understand previous conversation histories

• Bland and clunky interface can make navigation complex and boring

Price

Gladly’s Hero plan begins at $180 per user per month, while its Superhero package runs $210 per user per month

15. Landbot

Landbot is a chatbot solution that empowers users to create conversational AI bots without the need for coding knowledge. These chatbots can be used for a variety of purposes, including customer service, lead generation, and appointment booking.

Key features

• AI Appointment Assistant can be launched within minutes, no technical skills required, to instantly book meetings

• Chatbot analytics enable teams to set goals, view reports, and analyze drop-offs in conversation

• Team inbox allows bots to move conversations to human support and manage any number of chats from a single, unified location

Pros

• Easily access ready-made templates, courses, or articles for additional support

• Deliver personalized, omnichannel experiences at scale on WhatsApp, web, Facebook Messenger, or connect through API

• Design sophisticated flows with conditional logic, formulas, and rich media, with a visual drag-and-drop interface

Cons

• Advanced features and costly add-ons can significantly raise prices

• Limited integrations with popular third-party apps

• While relatively simple to create basic chatbots, a high level of technical expertise is required to build more advanced bots

Price

Starter plan begins at $45 per month for up to 2 users, while its Business package starts at $450 per month for up to 5 users

Key features of the best customer service chatbots

There are a plethora of customer care chatbots available on the market today, all with a different array of features, functions, and capabilities. That being said, the best support bots have a few things in common. At a minimum, they should be able to:

Work seamlessly across channels

Although customer service takes place across several different channels, it should act as a single cohesive brand experience for customers. Individuals expect to be able to connect with your brand via phone or email, web browser or mobile app, and third-party messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. They also anticipate that you’ll recognize them and be able to refer back to past interactions, no matter the channel through which they reach out. 

A competent support bot can be integrated into various digital channels, while seamlessly accessing customer information from them all. This enables businesses to deliver a consistent, omnichannel journey that’s cohesive across all avenues.

With Freshchat, teams can easily employ an omnichannel messaging approach, as bots can be deployed across your website, mobile app, messenger, and more, while context is retained across them all.

Hand-over to live support agents

Chatbots can answer routine questions, automate repetitive tasks, and even complete transactions, but some complex issues will still require the assistance of a human agent. When your bot isn’t capable of routing interactions to a live representative, individuals will need to switch channels to access higher-tier support, adding unnecessary friction to the customer journey.

The best chatbot software should support a seamless handoff to live agents. This serves to not only automatically transfer the conversation, but also provide agents with all relevant information so that users don’t have to repeat themselves.

Freshchat’s IntelliAssign tool auto-routes conversations to members in a group based on their skill levels and load. This verifies that escalations always end up in the hands of the most appropriate team member and no single employee is overburdened with an excess of tasks.

Integrate with your helpdesk and convert conversations to tickets

Customer service bots are often most valuable when integrated into your helpdesk ecosystem. This way, if a chatbot can’t solve the problem or a request takes too long to resolve, it can convert the conversation into a support ticket. This empowers your customer care team to record context, collaborate internally, and close the ticket when the issue is resolved.

Freshchat is highly integrable with the entire suite of Freshworks products, along with most popular external business systems as well. Users can easily fast-track custom integrations with ready-to-use connectors, templates, built-in security, flexible APIs, and an intuitive low-code UI. Additionally, you can browse 1,000+ ready-to-install, easily configured integrations in our Freshworks Marketplace.

Integrate with your self-service portal

You shouldn’t have to create two different knowledge bases—one for your website and one for your customer service bots. Be sure to choose a chatbot software that easily integrates with your existing knowledge base and self-service portal to eliminate unnecessary workflows.

Not only does this prevent duplication of effort, but it also allows bots to assist your team in filling the gaps in your base.

For example, depending on your business model, you might want your chatbot to be able to: 

• Collect and update contact information in your CRM

• Schedule appointments or reservations in your calendar or booking system

• Authenticate and process transactions in your payment system

• Update information or apply discounts from your loyalty rewards program

• Start or update services in your SaaS solution

• Trigger personalized campaigns in your marketing automation platform

• Schedule tech support in your IT ticketing system

• Perform other repetitive tasks that human customer service reps would typically do for customers

Provide chatbot analytics

The best chatbots don’t just offer insights to customers; they offer insights to your business as well. Chatbot analytics act as a feedback loop, enabling users to gauge their effectiveness, improve their performance, and better understand customer journeys.

• A well-rounded chatbot should track:

• Total interactions

• Average chat duration

• Goal completion rate

• Missed utterances

• Human takeover rate

• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

• Retention rate

Freshchat provides an impressive collection of reporting and analytics tools that help teams collect data, analyze it, and take meaningful action. For instance, custom reports can be molded to reflect your most relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) and displayed on real-time dashboards so team members can easily visualize raw data. Performance reports also assist in tracking productivity metrics, conversation trends, and more.

Best practices for choosing the right chatbots for customer care

Selecting the best customer care chatbot for your organization is a crucial decision that can significantly impact your customer service operations and overall efficiency. With a variety of different solutions available, it’s essential to carefully evaluate your company’s specific needs and objectives before making a commitment.

Some key factors to keep in mind include:

1. Establish goals and how they will be utilized

Begin by identifying the primary functions your bot will serve, such as answering FAQs, guiding users through processes, or handling specific customer service tasks. Setting goals might include improving response times, reducing the volume of routine inquiries handled by human agents, or enhancing customer satisfaction scores.

Determining how the chatbot will be used requires a thorough understanding of the customer journey and the types of interactions your bot will handle. You’ll need to map out the common customer queries, issues, and tasks that the chatbot will address, and decide on its role in supporting these interactions. This might involve configuring the bot’s capabilities to align with its intended use, such as integrating with existing systems or designing its conversational flow to ensure it provides relevant responses.

2. Determine which type of customer care chatbot best fits with your needs

Here, start by evaluating the specific challenges and objectives of your customer service team. For instance, if your organization frequently deals with straightforward queries, a rule-based chatbot may suffice. However, if you require a more sophisticated tool that can handle complex interactions and learn from user inputs, an AI-powered bot might be more appropriate.

Next, analyze how different types of chatbots integrate with your existing systems and workflows. A hybrid bot, which combines both rule-based and AI elements, offers the flexibility to handle both simple and complex tasks, providing a balanced approach. If your organization relies heavily on voice interactions or has a significant number of mobile users, a voice-enabled chatbot could enhance user accessibility.

3. Ensure they integrate seamlessly with your current structure

Assessing whether a customer care chatbot will integrate well with your existing infrastructure involves a detailed examination of both technical compatibility and operational alignment. First, ensure that the bot supports necessary integration protocols, such as APIs or webhooks, and check if it can connect seamlessly with your current software. Don’t forget to evaluate whether it can access relevant customer data from your systems to provide contextually appropriate responses as well.

Additionally, consider the impact that the chatbot will have on your current customer service processes and team. Gauge how it will fit into your operational structure, including how it will interact with human agents and other support tools. This involves having a clear strategy for how it will handle escalations, handoffs, and collaboration with your support team.

4. Determine your scaling needs

First, you must evaluate your current volume of inquiries and this may increase as your business expands. If you anticipate a significant rise in customer requests, it’s essential to select a chatbot that can handle high volumes efficiently without compromising performance. AI-powered or hybrid bots are often better suited for these fast-growing companies, as they can manage both simple and complex queries while adapting to increased traffic.

Moreover, as your customer base swells, your chatbot solution should be able to adjust seamlessly by gathering data from interactions and optimizing its responses. Look for a solution that offers machine learning capabilities and real-time analytics so it can evolve alongside your organization.

5. Determine cost and potential ROI

You can estimate the cost of a potential customer care chatbot by first considering the initial investment, which typically includes software licensing, setup fees, and integration costs. If you’re opting for an advanced AI-driven or hybrid chatbot, expenses may also include customization to fit your specific business needs. Don’t forget to factor in any costs related to training your team or support contracts that cover maintenance and updates.

To determine the return on investment (ROI), you’ll need to assess the potential benefits the chatbot can bring to your business, such as cost savings from automating repetitive tasks or reducing the need for additional customer service agents. ROI can then be calculated by comparing the initial and ongoing costs against these measurable benefits, such as reduced operational costs and improved customer loyalty.