Customer Service Software

How We Evaluated the Best Customer Service Software

We analyzed each software on this list using a set of stringent criteria before narrowing down our top recommendations. Continue reading to learn more about our evaluation process.

Ease of Use

This type of software should be easy to use and navigate so that even if technology isn't your strong suit, you won't have any troubles learning how to use it. We tested each customer service management system on our list to ensure it is easy to set up and use without making users of customer care systems feel like they are learning a new language.

Omnichannel Support

Customers post their issues, inquiries, and complaints through a variety of channels, including phone calls, text messages, websites, email, and social media. Even small businesses need a system to track all of these inquiries and prevent them from falling through the cracks. An all-in-one inbox solution brings your interactions from many channels and departments together in one place, and that’s why it’s essential.

Features

Each company has unique requirements, which is why the best customer support software must provide a wide range of features to meet the needs of as many businesses as possible. We were looking for all-in-one solutions that included ticketing administration, live chat, email support, issue tracking, and a self-service portal, among other features. If you, however, only need a few service channels, our list also covers several low-cost platforms that let you pick and select your own solutions.

Automation

Although automated customer service has its drawbacks, such as lack of human connection and inability to solve complex problems, it’s still the process many companies leverage to improve their support agents’ productivity. Features like automated workflows, ticketing routing, and chatbots are an absolute must in any customer service solution.

Pricing

Investing in customer service system software will certainly pay off, but not many firms can afford to invest in the most well-known brands. That’s why we made sure to include software from various price points. While features have a big impact on the cost of support software, this does not mean that the most expensive ones have the best features or that the free ones are too limited to meet your needs.

User Reviews and Testimonials

Customer feedback plays a vital role in today's research and purchasing process. That's why we combed through hundreds of reviews to understand the product's primary pain points, common difficulties, and customer service quality. Even the best customer service platform will have certain flaws, so as long as the vendor is devoted to resolving any issues customers are facing, we'll keep them in our good books.

Customer Support Software Reviews

LiveAgent

Used by famous brands such as Forbes and Airbus, LiveAgent is an omnichannel customer service platform that combines a ticketing system, live chat, and a call center system to help companies provide outstanding customer support. It’s super easy to use and comes with a long list of useful features.

Pros

• 180+ features
• Affordable
• Built-in call center software
• 200+ integrations

Cons

• Complicated setup process
• Extra fee for LiveAgent branding removal
• Pricey social channels integrations

Features

There are a number of benefits that come with using LiveAgent, which ranks as one of the best call center software solutions. It is customizable, scalable, and easily adapts to the needs of every company—from startups to enterprises.

LiveAgent’s customer service support software helps businesses save time and money by offering them various ways to communicate with their current and potential customers. You can track everything from phone calls to chats while also having the ability to search through past conversations for reference later. In addition, LiveAgent allows you to monitor the success of your customer service, which is essential when it comes to understanding the areas that need improvement.

Pricing

This customer service system comes in three plans: Ticket, Ticket+Chat, and All-inclusive. Priced at $15/agent/month, the Ticket plan is the cheapest option of this customer service software and includes unlimited ticket history and email addresses, advanced reporting, customer portal, and much more.

The price for the Ticket+Chat plan jumps to $29/agent/month. This tier comes with advanced features such as time-tracking, feedback management, chat satisfaction surveys, and social network support. The All-inclusive plan runs at $49/agent/month and includes over 180 different features, including call center support, IVR, and unlimited call recordings.

There’s also a free plan for those who want to test this online customer support tool before purchasing. It includes one chat button, email, phone number, and basic reports.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk offers customer support management software which is ideal for startups and companies with fewer than 100 customers because it’s super easy to use and doesn’t require any installation. This web-based solution allows you to work from anywhere at any time, which means you can quickly take care of customers on the go.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Free plan available
• Support gamification

Cons

• Poor integrations options
• Key features only available in higher tiers

Features

This web-based customer service software allows you to access your support information from any device. It features a customizable dashboard and produces analytics reports tailored to your business needs.

It also integrates with multiple tools to meet the most versatile customer service needs. The software has many great features that no one else currently offers, most notably gamification functionalities to keep your team productive and motivated.

Moreover, Freshdesk has an integrated knowledge base that allows you to create FAQs and manuals for your clients or employees to access at any time. These manuals can even be organized by department or topic.

Pricing

This customer support software has three paid pricing plans: Growth, Pro, and Enterprise. The Growth plan costs $15/agent/month and includes features like automation, time tracking, and customer fields. The Pro plan runs at $49/agent/month and adds round-robin routing, customer roles, a multilingual knowledge base, and many more advanced features.

Designed for enterprise-grade support, the Enterprise plan is priced at $79/agent/month and ups the ante with advanced features such as sandbox, email bot, and skill-based routing.

The vendor also offers a free plan which supports unlimited agents and comes with a basic set of capabilities, including managing tickets submitted via phone, email, or social media.

HubSpot

HubSpot Service Hub is one part of the larger bundle of products from HubSpot. This online customer service software helps companies provide support to their customers in a more cohesive way that includes chatbots, automatic responses, and tickets that are all easily managed from one location with the help of HubSpot's CRM platform.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Built-in CRM
• Robust analytics

Cons

• Expensive
• Limits on the number of users
• Poor integrations options

Features

For those who work in customer service, HubSpot Service Hub is like a dream come true. This customer service CRM software offers one of the best CRM software, enabling agents to collaborate more efficiently and providing context for their interactions.

HubSpot Service Hub is the first platform of its kind that combines chat, email, social listening, phone calls, self-service Q&A, and other communication channels into one collaborative space.

It allows support teams to handle customers across all communication channels in one place. With HubSpot, agents can see what stage of the process each customer is currently at and access all interactions. This allows them to provide personalized responses instead of generic copy-and-paste replies that don't address customer concerns.

Moreover, agents can collaborate within an individual's record. The customer support software lets them share notes, assign tickets, and comment on other colleagues' suggestions.

Pricing

HubSpot Service Hub’s subscription plans cater to companies with growing teams and expanding sales cycles by providing enterprise-level support plans. The vendor offers three pricing plans: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise.

Designed for small, early-stage teams, the Starter plan is priced at $45/month and provides phone, live chat, and email support. The Professional plan runs at $360/month and includes five users, help desk automation, video messaging, and multiple customer relationship features.

Recommended for large teams with high demands, the Enterprise plan costs $1,200/month and includes 10 users as well as advanced features such as sandbox, recurring revenue tracking, playbooks, and more.

Zoho Desk

Claiming to be the “right online customer support software to manage your front-end customer queries,” and considering its capabilities, Zoho Desk seems quite promising. The software has been created with the needs of businesses in mind. It has direct integration with many business platforms and supports a seamless workflow to make providing excellent customer support as painless as possible.

Pros

• Affordable solution
• Tight integration with the rest of Zoho products
• A long list of features

Cons

• Complicated initial setup
• The vendor charges for customer support

Features

As one of the best customer support systems, Zoho Desk provides many functionalities, including service/ticket management, callbacks, social media support, chat functionality, and workflows that allow for easy collaboration. The software integrates directly with multiple platforms, ensuring that you don’t have to search through different applications to find the right information.

Zoho Desk’s most appreciated feature is callback management. It allows employees to quickly respond to customers who have called in by placing the call directly into the Zoho Desk system. From there, an available team member can answer the phone and take care of business like they would with a regular ticket. The software’s integration with Twitter and Facebook meanwhile enables customers to easily tweet or message their problems, which are then automatically assigned to an agent in the form of a ticket.

Pricing

This customer service management software is available as a paid service, with three different plans to choose from, including Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. The Standard plan costs $14/agent/month. It features email-based support and chat and is mostly recommended for small businesses.

The Professional plan, which is the most popular tier among users, is priced at $23/agent/month. It ups the Standard plan with some advanced features like multi-department ticketing designed to help medium-sized organizations operate more efficiently.

The Enterprise plan runs at $40/agent/month and has all the features of the previous two plans, and adds several extra features to the mix that are aimed at larger companies, most notably live chat and AI.

If you’re looking for free customer service solutions, you’ll be happy to hear that the vendor offers a free plan, which provides you with basic chat, email, and phone support for three agents. Zoho Desk doesn't offer any free trials for their services, but it does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with their product.

Gorgias

Used daily by 8,370+ DTC brands, Gorgias B2B customer support software is an all-inclusive customer support platform that gives customer service agents everything they need to help their customers quickly and efficiently. The software is tightly focused on ecommerce customers, but if your needs fit into Gorgias’ mission, it’s got a lot to offer.

Pros

• Unique features for e-commerce platforms
• Plenty of integrations
• Multi-brand support

Cons

• Focused on ecommerce customers only
• The pricing model could impact high call volume customers

Features

Gorgias has many unique features in store that make this customer service tracking software stand out from the competition. Customer support agents can create portfolios based on subject matter expertise to provide additional insight on prospects, turning them into loyal customers more easily than ever before. Then, customer service agents can integrate calendars into their support sessions to book appointments, send surveys after customer support interactions, set up email templates for customer outreach, and make full use of Gorgias' customer analytics tools.

Pricing

This customer service software comes in four pricing plans: Basic, Pro, Advanced, and Enterprise. All plans include basic features such as an unlimited number of users, Facebook and Instagram integrations, live chat, and satisfaction surveys. The Basic plan costs $50/month and includes 350 monthly tickets and only two integrations — Shopify and BigCommerce. The Pro plan adds Magento integration and revenue statistics at $250/month. The Advanced plan runs at $625/month and includes 5,000 monthly tickets and a dedicated account manager.
The Enterprise plan is custom-based, so you’ll have to contact the vendor to get a quote.

Olark

As one of the best customer service platforms, Olark allows business owners to provide outstanding customer service, build relationships, and increase sales on their site. It offers live chat on websites for businesses of any size—from local stores to large companies like Google and PBS—to establish trust and credibility, generate leads, convert higher numbers of website visitors into customers, and increase overall ROI.

Pros

• Cost-effective
• User-friendly interface
• Customizable branding

Cons

• Limited features
• No chatbot

Features

Olark is great for customer acquisition by turning anonymous website visitors into engaged customers through chat sessions while they browse your site. It also features some great customer analytics tools so you can see where chats happen and which times of day visitors come to your site most frequently. This customer service chat software also integrates with over 45 different help desk systems like Salesforce and Zendesk. While the vendor doesn’t offer customer satisfaction surveys or customer analytics, it makes up for this with live chat reporting featuring chat volume, satisfaction ratings, and agent activity.

Pricing

Olark’s live chat software comes in two paid plans: Standard and Pro. The Standard plan starts at $29/seat/month and includes unlimited chat history, advanced reporting, real-time reporting, customizable chatbox, and more. The Pro plan is designed for higher ed, government, or any industry that needs powerful automation and outstanding customer service. It includes copilot automation, a personal account manager, numerous integrations, and priority support. The pricing for the Pro plan is available upon request.

If you need more than what the vendor offers on its two tiers for customer support chat software, you can purchase PowerUps, which are optional add-on features that range from $29 to $99 per month. You can add them to any plan, and the price does not alter based on the size of your team or the type of plan you choose.

ClickDesk

Trusted by over 185,429+ businesses, ClickDesk’s omnichannel customer support software is a pretty flexible customer support platform, making it ideal for companies looking for a customizable experience. It’s super easy to use, integrates with over 150 apps, and offers advanced analytics tools that show you where chats happen on your site, how many customer support agents are online, and what the most common questions asked by your customers are.

Pros

• Video chat
• Chat in over 60 languages
• Super easy to use

Cons

• Limited free version
• Slow support

Features

With a custom web form, a live chat widget, and a help desk ticketing system in one interface, ClickDesk is one of the most complete customer service tools available. Its bright, colorful, and responsive interface excellently showcases the features you need to prioritize your customers.

It has customizable web forms, live chat, help desk ticketing system, user tracking widgets, phone support service, and custom workflow rules.

One of ClickDesk's most appreciated features, however, is automation. You can automate surveys, emails, calendar schedules, and tasks. You can also set up automated emails for agents and visitors alike.

Pricing

The vendor has three pricing plans on its customer service software menu: Lite, Pro, and Enterprise. The Lite plan costs $14.99/agent/month and includes unlimited chats, widget customization, chat transfer & groups, and 99.5% uptime and SSL security. The Pro plan runs at $24.99/agent/month and ups the ante with chat conferencing, video chat, post-chat survey, reports and history, and 99.95% uptime. And finally, the Enterprise plan, which costs $39.99/agent/month, adds queuing, analytics, and a dedicated account manager to the mix. There is also a free plan with 30 chats, 25 tickets, audio calling, and localization of the chat widget.

How to Choose Customer Service Software

Choosing the right customer support system for your company might be a daunting task. Thankfully, we're here to help you narrow your choices down and decide which is best for your business. Our shortlisting procedure comprises three tried-and-true stages that will take you to the ultimate option.

Step 1: Filter Based on Industry and Business Size

There are many customer support choices available on the market, which makes it even more difficult to choose the right one among so many. We recommend that you narrow down your options by filtering them based on industry and business size to ensure that you get the best customer service software for your organization. For example, if you are looking for software specifically built for large enterprise organizations, cross out simple software aimed at small businesses with only basic features.

Step 2: Define Your Needs

For this stage, you should look through the software that you have shortlisted in the previous step and filter them according to features that are a must-have for your business. Make sure that the software of your choice includes the four main functionalities necessary to provide outstanding customer support. These include customer support automation, live chat assistance, social media, and email.

Step 3: Define Your Budget

Once you’ve determined the customer service software that is best suited for you according to your business size, industry, and functionalities, it’s time to decide how much you are willing to invest in this tool. Any of the qualifying solutions from step 2 that fit your budget will make a good customer service platform choice for your company.