More and more businesses are realizing the importance of quality over quantity when it comes to customers. That’s because loyal customers are less likely to leave you for a competitor and more likely to recommend you. This translates into more business for you, at a lower cost.
Now, all this sounds nice, but the reality is loyal customers are not easy to earn. Research shows that one way you can make your customers come back to you is by providing excellent customer support.
However, if your idea of support is just responding to emails and keeping a record of your communication with customers, that’s going to be hard to achieve.
That’s why we’ve put together this list of 10 of the best customer support software solutions. We talked to Customer Support reps from companies all around the world, we’ve analyzed features and prices, and only selected the tools with the most reviews and highest scores.
For each solution, we’ll highlight the features that put them on our radar and helped them make the list. These can range from one-of-a-kind, innovative features, to those that have proven most useful for Customer Support reps overall.
Here are our recommendations, in no particular order:
14 best customer support software solutions
1. Deskero
Highlight feature: multichannel support – you can gather help requests / tickets from everywhere (emails, phone calls, chats, web, social networks, APIs)
Starting Price: $9 / agent / month
Deskero is perfect for businesses that want to create meaningful personal relationships with their customers.
The platform aims to integrate social engagement into customer care, with features like multi-channel support, knowledge base, social network integration, integrated live chat, canned answers, and preferred client management.
Pros
- Intuitive, very easy to use interface
- You can easily connect with social networks
- Helps reduce wasted time
- Both the interface and the database can be easily customized
- Has good knowledge base features
- Has great user experience and customer service
- Great price
Cons
- Notes get lost in notifications
- Sometimes, the admin area gets a bit crowded
- The chat feature isn’t great compared to other parts of the product
- Some users might find it hard to navigate
Verdict: you get great value for money, and most reps who have used Deskero would recommend it to their peers. However, if you’re looking for a product that has a great knowledge base feature specifically, you might want to try Zendesk.
2. Intercom
Highlight feature: live chat widgets
Starting price: $87 / month
Intercom enables you to install chat widgets on your website, mobile app, and product. This way, your customers no longer have to navigate to your site to receive chat support – they can get help right where they need it.
And the best part? Intercom integrates with Custify! This means that you’ll be able to:
– import all the customer data that you’ve stored in Intercom and keep it in sync
– import and synchronize all the attributes you’ve stored, in real-time
– import statistics related to your conversations, such as the last contact date and the number of open, snoozed, and closed conversations
– export your customer success KPIs into Intercom.
Pros
- Quick and easy setup
- User-friendly chat interface
- Great knowledge base functionalities
- Reporting and saved responses and answers help you streamline communication with customers
Cons
- Custom bots are poorly implemented
- Minimal support
- Can’t customize inboxes as needed
Verdict: Intercom is one of the best Customer Support software solutions out there – it doesn’t really have much competition. It offers most functionalities you could think off for a reasonable starting price.
3. ConnectWise Control
Highlight feature: a unified platform that connects sales, marketing, finance, HR, account managers, and engineering
Starting price: custom
This enterprise software helps managers set clear expectations for customer support quality. They can program benchmarks for response times and resolution rates, and let the platform monitor every ticket against these standards. If a ticket doesn’t meet the benchmark, the management automatically receives a notification to address the issue. It even has remote control capabilities.
Pros
- You can host the product yourself OR use a hosted solution
- Has great customer support
- The product is constantly improved
Cons
- The mobile app isn’t great
- Slightly misleading integrations
- The learning curve is steep
- Price is a bit high
Verdict: this platform has a great reputation and is the best remote management software on the market, so if you can afford it, we recommend you try it out.
4. Hesk
Highlight feature: integrated knowledge base
Starting price: $39.95
Hesk is a cloud-based ticketing system. What makes it different from other help desk software is that it has a ticket submission tool where customers can create web-based tickets and assign them directly to an available agent.
Pros
- Easy to set up
- Multilingual
Cons
- Prominent features are paid
Verdict: Hesk is free and open-source, so if you’re on a shoestring budget, this is one of your best choices. However, as you grow and need more features, you might want to also consider other options.
5. Zingtree
Highlight feature: interactive troubleshooters
Starting price: $15 / agent / month
Zingtree is best suited for businesses looking to streamline redundant processes with the help of interactive decision trees.
The software makes it easy to create, customize, and deploy interactive agent scripts for call centers and can be easily integrated with Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshdesk, or other CRM / Help Desk systems.
Pros
- Flexible implementation techniques
- Help you improve productivity
- Easy to scale
- Can be integrated with Zendesk
- Nice, clean design
- Great for new hire training as well as existing employees scripting
Cons
- The software takes a while to learn
- Enabling agents to quickly personalize their scripts is a bit challenging
- The back-end is difficult to navigate when trying to integrate it with other platforms
- The pricing for customer-facing decision is very high
Verdict: Zingtree is a powerful decision tree tool with a slight learning curve and many advanced functionalities.
6. FocalScope
Highlight features: omnichannel customer support, live chat
Starting price: $9 / agent / month
This is a powerful but user-friendly email ticket management and live-chat solution based on Microsoft SQL. It’s best suited for large companies and enterprises that need to manage considerable amounts of emails.
It offers companies the option to deploy as an in-house server and features multi-channel support with SLA, dashboards, reporting, and 24/7 global support.
Pros
- The ability to create virtual folders
- Easy to implement and use
- The software can be deployed on your in-house server
- Great call center and ticket system
- A weekly traffic and performance report is sent to your inbox automatically
Cons
- Small glitches in the system, but the team usually solves bugs quickly
Verdict: FocalScope is the best-reviewed customer support platform out there. Whether it’s functionalities or support, no one seems to have something bad to say about this tool.
7. HappyFox
Highlight features: customer reporting, chatbot
Starting price: custom
HappyFox is one of the most complex customer support software out there and can take care of a large variety of tasks.
What makes it unique is its custom reporting feature that enables managers to review advanced reporting metrics like NPS and CSAT, and determine which agents are performing best.
Pros
- Very good at tracking customer support tickets
- Automatically filters tickets and places them into the appropriate category / assigns them to the appropriate support rep
- Intuitive interface
Cons
- Sometimes, the chat website shows you Javascript errors
- The app logs you out randomly and prevents you from logging back in
Verdict: HappyFox is not the most complex platform out there, it doesn’t come with a ton of features, but manages to accomplish what it promises.
8. FreshDesk
Highlight feature: cloud-based service desk solution
Starting price: $15 / agent / month
FreshDesk is suitable for businesses of all types and sizes. Its simple UI and straightforward features make it a popular choice with startups. The platform enables you to provide customer service across all social platforms with built-in AI and self-service capabilities.
Pros
- AI, Omnichannel, self service, cloud-based remote customer service
- Easy to gather tickets, generate reports, and manage assets
- Easy to set up and use
Cons
- Difficult to use for some, poor support staff
- The free plan is not actually free as you’re very restricted in the number of features you can use and your interaction with customer support
Verdict: it’s a great Zendesk alternative. With FreshService, whenever you need a new feature, you can just install an add-on instead of paying extra.
9. ProProfs Help Desk
Highlight feature: free cloud-based customer support software
Starting price: free
If you’re looking for the best free customer support software, you have to try ProProfs Help Desk. The platform streamlines customer support with robust tools and encourages team collaboration with its shared inbox feature.
All tickets are automatically generated, thus keeping your team productive and focused. Last but not least, the chat feature enables your reps to attend to customer queries directly from their mobile devices, which helps reduce response time.
Pros
- Intuitive interface that boosts productivity
- A Child Ticket feature that allows you to identify bottlenecks
- A notes feature that allows agents to leave updates for one another
- Great pricing
Cons
- No social media integrations
- Tickets aren’t assigned to a specialized agent, they’re assigned to any available
Verdict: ProProfs is a simple and fast help desk software with great functionalities and a Gmail like interface.
10. Zoho Desk
Highlight feature: automation features
Starting price: free / standard @ $12 / professional @ 20 / enterprise @ $35 (all per agent per month)
Zoho Desk is a phenomenal tool for anyone just starting out their support team. For small to medium businesses that need inexpensive SaaS tools, Zoho provides a wide spectrum. And Zoho Desk seamlessly integrates with all the other tools provided by Zoho – albeit somewhat frustratingly so as some of their services are too separate & disparate.
Pros
- Solid automation features that allow you to standardize & optimize your support process
- Comprehensive & highly customizable reporting solutions
- Correct & precise time tracking features to gauge agent performance accurately and in real-time
Cons
- Telephony options are separate and somewhat difficult to integrate
- Integrations with other products, especially Zoho products, can be confusing and frustrating
Verdict: Zoho Desk is the perfect tool for those who want an affordable support solution or those that already use other Zoho services. Its integrations can be frustrating, but it gets the job done for a fraction of the cost of others.
11. Help Scout
Highlight features: mobile app for on-the-go customer support
Starting price: $20 / agent / month
Help Scout enables you to organize and respond to all communication with your current and future customers. The platform comes with a reporting feature, integrated knowledge base, robust API with many integrations, and an iPhone app to support customers on the go.
Not to mention that you can also integrate Help Scout with Custify!
Pros
- Multiple agents have access to the same group and can work on the load of emails – great for tackling large inboxes
- Great support – extremely responsive and accurate
Cons
- Android app is buggy
- When adding a new email to an existing chain, attachments need to be reattached
- The the automated change of tickets is confusing and you can end up responding to closed ones
Verdict: Help Scout is very well designed and easy and natural to use. Integrations are integration easy to set up and increase the value you get from the software.
12. Atera
Highlight feature: complete remote IT monitoring and management (RMM)
Starting price: $79 / agent / month
Atera is a fully integrated solution designed for MSPs and IT Pros. Among its most useful features are remote access, patch management, PSA, help desk, ticketing, AV, billing, and network discovery.
Pros
- Great customer support
- Easy to use interface
Cons
- Minimal advanced features and integrations
- No mobile app
Verdict: for IT companies, Atera is a great choice because technicians can easily connect remotely to computers and solve issues. The reports feature is also handy because your customers know exactly what they’re paying you for.
13. LiveAgent
Highlight features: real-time chat and social media integrations
Starting price: free
LiveAgent is a great Hubspot Service Hub alternative for small and medium-sized e-commerce, telecom, and SaaS businesses that want to offer great customer service on a budget. This fully-featured help desk software helps you bring personalization to your customer interactions.
The best part about this tool is that it lets you combine all your communication channels like email, live chat, calls, and social media into a shared company inbox.
Pros
- Perfect for managing both support issues and sales prospecting
- Great support – responds very fast
Cons
- The Spam filter doesn’t work very well
- Setup can take a while
14. EngageBay
Highlight feature: all-in-one suite
Starting price: $47.99 / user / month
EngageBay has an innovative customer support solution within its all-in-one suite that acts as a customer service center, CRM, and sales & marketing suite. Most customers appreciate these features & how they’re interconnected and consider it a big upgrade over other similar solutions like Hubspot, especially since EngageBay also offers a support center called the “Service Bay”.
Pros
- Great customer support
- All in one suite with CRM, marketing, sales
- Very affordable for what it offers
Cons
- Customer support center only available in the most expensive plan
- Difficult learning curve
Verdict: EngageBay is a great all-in-one customer engagement suite with excellent support features – perfect for businesses that are just starting out because of its many features wrapped into a decently-priced package.
Are there any other customer support software solutions you use that should make it to this list? Let us know!
