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Customer service is the cornerstone to building a successful business empire today. Your satisfied customers are your free marketing tools and revenue generators.
Satisfied customers are like ATM machines that you can use to drive instant sales. But taking your customers to a satisfaction point is a challenging task, especially in the online ecosystem.
A simple call or email support is insignificant today. That is because 54% of customers say they have higher customer service expectations today than before.
So, to meet the elevated customer expectations, you have to use advanced customer support software. That can help you transform customer experience with the latest technologies like AI, VR, and many more.
Now, in this tech-charged world, it is not easy to find the best customer service tools. Not because there are limited options. It is the exact opposite because there are so many different types and variations of customer service programs available that you might get confused.
Therefore, this post aims to help businesses find the best tools to elevate the customer experience in 2022. So, let’s dig in.
How Can Customer Support Software Benefit Your Business?
Do you know 83% of customers say they feel more loyal toward brands that respond and resolve their issues faster? That means satisfying your current customers can help you build a loyal customer base to churn constant revenue.
And for that, you need powerful tools for responding to customer queries and assigning tasks to relevant people for fast solutions. Besides this, customer support software can help to:
Your customer service agents will become more productive and engaged with the right tools. They can easily access the relevant information related to a customer for instant support. For example, if a customer has a query regarding their pending bills, the sales agent can quickly access your centralized accounting software and check payment details.
In addition, customer service tools help to build coordination among your team. Your staff can easily connect and resolve customer queries in real-time.
Accurate customer data drives all the modern marketing strategies. For instance, you can not leverage account-based marketing unless you have real-time and authentic customer data in your hands.
And that’s where customer support tools come into action. The software can collect customer data from different resources to compress it into a platform like calls, social media, etc.
This information helps sales and marketing teams to create powerful strategies to provide a personalized experience to customers, leading to higher satisfaction.
Offer a self-service option
Today, customers don’t like to wait for agents to pick up their calls and walk them through a series of calls before resolving queries. They want the fast and self-service option.
Customer support software allows companies to build a self-service platform for their customers. They can upload knowledge bases on their website, and customers can access it to find relevant information. Therefore, 70% of white-collared people interact with chatbots today.
You can easily expand your customer base when you have the right tools in your hand. You can seamlessly manage customer data, handle their queries and provide instant solutions.
Manually, it is not possible to handle thousands of customer calls or emails at once. But, advanced tools can help you expand your customer base and win their trust.
Easy to track performance
If you want to track the performance of your customer service team, old-fashioned spreadsheets will only provide you with certain information. It will not tell you which employee has resolved more queries in the last few days and how much time they took to resolve each complaint.
Only advanced customer support software will help you find inside information on your customer support team. Using the software, you can generate real-time performance reports to understand how your customer support department is working and what improvements they require.
Works in remote and hybrid environments
Do you have a remote or hybrid customer support team? Then, it is a must for you to get customer support software to manage team operations, resolve customer problems and coordinate remotely.
Types of Customer Support Software
Automation is important for high-quality customer support. But, the next question is what type of customer support software is actually useful for your business.
Let’s explore popular customer service solution types to understand which one is suitable for you.
Knowledge base software helps you provide the self-service option to your customers. It could be a simple website or web page that contains documents to answer customers’ common questions and is organized systematically.
You can create self-help guides, how-to tutorials, user manuals, FAQs, and other information for your customers.
Live chat solutions provide customers direct access to sales agents via chat. You can add a live chat feature on your website or app so that agents can resolve your customer queries in real-time. For resolving minor issues, live chat solutions are extremely helpful.
Help desk customer support solutions help to manage customer emails rather than using inboxes like Gmail. The programs make it a lot easier to manage, tag, and organize large volumes of emails. You will never miss a customer email with help desk solutions.
CRM, aka customer relationship management tools, lets you manage customer interactions and databases across different stages. You can record all information about your customers in sales CRM tools and anytime access to solve queries. CRMs are robust tools that customer service, sales, and marketing teams can use.
Companies can embed instant messaging features on their websites or apps to facilitate customers to drop messages via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc. It is a convenient way for customers to reach businesses.
Nowadays, businesses also need social media monitoring tools to analyze customer interaction on social media platforms. Some customers prefer social media inboxes to share their queries. Therefore, having a proper tool to monitor your customer interaction on social media is extremely important today.
Businesses should also get customer feedback survey software to regularly stay in touch with customers and know what they are thinking. Before launching a new product or service, customer feedback data will provide you insight to improve the functions of your solutions.
Call center software helps agents to manage customer phone calls. VoIP solutions can record customer calls, maintain call logs, and automatically create customer tickets. Some tools even let you make a customer contact database.
Top 10 Customer Support Software in 2022
Ready to automate your customer support system? Then, always get the best tools suitable to your business niche and customer requirements. In addition, also look for product features, price range, and popularity.
Here are the top 10 customer support software as per our research:
1. HubSpot Service Hub
HubSpot Service Hub is a free tool for growing businesses. If you often lose your customer emails, this tool can organize them for you. It is an easy-to-use tool with integrated CRM support.
Since 2006, HubSpot has helped over 100,000 customers in over 120 countries to receive fast customer service. With HubSpot’s ticketing system, you can easily record, track, and organize your customer issues in a dashboard. It enables you to track key support metrics like ticket volume, agent response time, etc.
When a customer fills out a form or connects via live chat, it can automatically create tickets and assign them to the right person. It also allows you to prioritize tickets to resolve urgent issues instantly. All in all, it is a comprehensive customer service software to use in 2022.
Top Features
- Email templates
- Calling
- Email and chat to ticket
- Scheduling meetings
- Reporting
- Conversion routing
- Customer feedback surveys
- Team management
Pricing Structure:
- Forever free with basic features
- Premium edition for $45 per month
- Professional plan for $360 per month
- Enterprise plan for $1,200 per month
2. Hiver
Hiver.com is one of the leading help desk solutions built for Google Workspace. Using this software, you can deliver exceptional customer service right from your favorite Google tools like Gmail. That means without any learning curve; you can track and monitor email and live chat queries from the familiar Gmail interface.
Hiver is a popular help desk software used by 1500 companies worldwide, including Canva, Harvard University, Vacasa, Flexport, and many more.
The software also provides email insights, including which emails are opened, pending or closed. Your team can also collaborate using Notes and categorize emails through Tags – all inside Gmail. If you want simple help desk software, Hiver is the best option.
Top Features
- Real-time chat
- Queue management
- Email management and monitoring
- Canned response
- Team collaboration
- Remote support
- Collaboration tools
- Automatic routing
- Ticket management
- Customer feedback and surveys
- Shared inbox
Pricing Structure:
- Lite version for $15 per user/month
- Pro version for $39 per user/month
- Elite version for $59 per user/month
- 50+ teams can customize the plan
3. CloudTalk
CloudTalk is a VoIP solution built for modern and customer-centric companies. It is a superior quality call management software integrated with advanced CRM, an e-commerce system, and help desk support. This tool can fully streamline your customer support system and sales operation.
It is a popular customer support software used by 2500 companies like DHL, Rocher, Glovo, Booksy, etc. With over 140 national phone numbers, CloudTalk is a perfect solution for small and medium businesses looking forward to growing in 2022.
Top Features
- Agent interface
- Call recording
- Employee training
- Feedback
- KPI measurement
- Multiple communication channels
- Workflow management
- Contact database
- Quality management
- Reporting
- Third-party integration
Pricing Structure:
- Starter plan for $25 per user/month
- Essential plan for $30 per user/month
- Expert plan for $50 per user/month
- Large teams can customize the plan
4. Zonka Feedback
Zonka Feedback is one of the leading Customer Feedback Survey Software and Experience Management platforms that businesses use to create surveys and share them with their clients to collect feedback via multiple channels. The software not only helps you to collect feedback but also enables you to act on it in real-time and improve customer experience.
From surveys of different types and for various industries to capture Hotel Guest feedback, Patient Feedback, Employee Feedback, Student Feedback, etc. to metric surveys like NPS, CSAT, and CES surveys; you can create any type of survey and form with Zonka Feedback and collect actionable data.
With Zonka Feedback’s advanced features like skip logic and hide logic, you can make your surveys dynamic to make them conversational for your audience. Moreover, you get real-time notifications for survey responses, assign tasks to your team members as per the feedback received, take action on it, close the feedback loop, and thus prevent churn. It is one of the best tools if you want to measure and enhance customer satisfaction and improve their overall experience.
Top Features:
- 40+ ready-to-use survey templates
- Customization of surveys
- White labeling of surveys to add your own branding
- Multilingual Surveys
- Multiple channels to share surveys – email, SMS, website, QR codes, Android tablets, and smartphones
- Skip logic, Hide logic, and Survey Redirection
- Measure metrics like NPS, CSAT, and CES
- Real-time feedback notifications and custom alerts
- Advanced reporting and dashboard
- Multilocational feedback management
- Closing the feedback loop
- Integrations with popular tools
Pricing Structure:
- Free Trial for 15 days
- Paid plan starts at $29/month
- Professional plan for $79/month
- Growth plan for $169//month
- Enterprise plan for $429/month
- Custom plan with personalized solutions and pricing
5. Document360
Document360 is a knowledge base system for companies to create rich self-service material for their customers. Using multiple integrations, you can easily set up a vast knowledge base for your customers and reduce your 50% the workload.
Your team can easily collaborate and create learning material for your customers within the software. It has an advanced markdown editor and analytical features, which helps you revise multiple documents before publishing them online. If you want to provide only self-service customer support to your users, you can definitely use this software.
Top Features
- Knowledge resources categorization
- Knowledge base management
- Self-service portal
- Collaboration tools
- Content management
- Discussions
- Full-text speech
Pricing Structure:
- Startup plan for $99 per project/month
- Business plan for $249 per project/month
- Enterprise plan for $499 per project/month
- Enterprise Plus plan is fully customizable
6. CallHippo
CallHippo is a virtual call center software for modern businesses to provide instant customer support. It is a simple to use solution with ultra-advanced features like a power dialer and automatic call distribution. The software also offers extensive reporting and integration for the sales team to effectively communicate with their customers.
Over 5000 global brands trust CallHippo due to their 24*7 customer support and cross-platform access over both desktop and mobile phones.
Top Features
- Agent interface
- Contact management
- Caller ID
- Automatic call management
- Call recording
- Call monitoring
- Callback scheduling
- CRM
- Telemarketing
- Voice customization
- Text to speech
Pricing Structure:
- A 10-day free trial
- Bronze plan for $16 per user/month
- Silver plan for $24 per user/month
- Platinum plan for $40 per user/month
- Enterprise plan for $48 per user/month
7. ProProfs Chat
ProProfs Chat is an AI-powered live chat platform that allows businesses to provide instant support to their customers. Using this software, you can assure your customers that you are always available for them. The instant chat feature helps you answer customer queries in really-time from anywhere.
ProProfs Chat enables you to reduce customer tickets and resolve their queries faster. This tool can build a happy and satisfied customer base, leading to high ROI.
Top Features
- Customizable branding
- Canned response
- Offline form
- Screen sharing
- Proactive chat
- Website visitor tracking
- Routing
- Third-party integration
Pricing Structure:
- Forever free up to 100 tickets
- Essential plan for $15 per user/month
- A premium plan for $25 per user/month
8. CustomerSuccessBox
CustomerSuccessBox is an AI-charged customer success software to onboard, upsell, retain and drive maximum growth. The AI support enables you to monitor and analyze all customer data and engagement behavior in real-time. Using the historic customer details, it can recommend actions to CSM that drive retention and upsell.
The software is built with a clear mindset to manage and grow the B2B SaaS customer base. It can manage hundreds of customer accounts to reduce churn and grow recurring revenue.
Top Features
- Activity tracking
- Customer engagement
- Account management
- Task management
- Revenue management
- Usage tracking
Pricing Structure:
- Starting from $499 per month
9. Saleshandy
Saleshandy is a platform to send cold emails and manage email marketing campaigns. It can help to increase the company’s outreach operations without compromising quality. Using this tool, you can send thousands of emails with multi-stage automated follow-up emails at once.
Saleshandy cones with tags to customize and organize your email campaigns. You can impress leads with fast response and delivery so they can quickly become your customers.
Top Features
- AB testing
- Campaign management and analytics
- Contact management
- CRM support
- Content delivery
- Email distribution
- Drip campaigns
- Event-triggered actions
Pricing Structure:
- A 14-day free trial
- Cold emails are available for $25 and $60
- Email tracking is forever free, and paid plans start from $9 per month
10. OptiMonk
OptiMonk is a leading conversion optimization and lead generation tool that can quickly turn your traffic into sales. It helps you to design, personalize and launch popups, notifications bars, sidebars and other elements on your site.
The best thing is you don’t need coding knowledge with OptiMonk. Besides this, you can use OptiMonk to build email lists, reduce cart abandonment, promote special offers, collect feedback, social share, and more.
Top Features
- Campaign management
- Account-based marketing
- Behaviour targeting
- AB testing
- Campaign segmentation
- Conversion tracking
- Customizable branding
- Data import/export
Pricing Structure:
- Forever free
- Essential plan for $29 per month
- Growth plan for $79 per month
- A premium plan for $199 per month
11. SocialPilot
SocialPilot is an all-purpose social media management tool. This software can manage all your social media accounts and automate post scheduling on social media platforms.
It is a social media scheduling slash marketing tool for small businesses and digital media teams. It allows social media managers to handle multiple networks from a dashboard, including Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc.
Top Features
- Engagement tracking
- Content management
- Automated publishing
- Conversion tracking
- Lead management
- Post scheduling
- Reporting
- ROI tracking
- Social media integration
Pricing Structure:
- A 14-day free trial
- Agency plan for $127.5 per month
- Studio plan for $85 per month
- Small Team plan for $42.5 per month
- Customizable enterprise plan
Just Get Customer Support Software
Be it improving customer experience or the efficiency of your customer service team, having the right tool in your hands is a must. You can empower your service team to resolve customer problems faster with adequate tools.
So, we have already shared the best 10 customer support software to build a robust CX in your organization. Now, go and try the free version of all the suggested tools before upgrading your membership.
Links: All contributed by the Author.
Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Thank you!
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