31 Best Customer Service Chat Software For Small Business [2024]

NinjaOne is a unified endpoint management (UEM) and IT management platform designed to provide control and automation for IT departments and managed service providers (MSPs). It is recognized for its ability to efficiently manage and monitor IT assets, which supports its claim as the best tool for endpoint control and automation.

What makes NinjaOne different is its focus on endpoint control, automation, and monitoring, which are critical for maintaining efficient operations and ensuring quick response times in customer service scenarios. I believe NinjaOne stands out as the best tool for endpoint control and automation due to its quick deployment, user-friendly interface, and highly regarded technical support. These features are particularly beneficial for small businesses that require robust IT management without the complexity often associated with such systems.

Features include remote monitoring and management (RMM), endpoint management, patch management, backup and disaster recovery, remote access, network management, documentation management, ticketing and IT service management (ITSM), reporting and analytics, endpoint security, automation, asset management, policy management, alerting and notifications, mobile app support, integration with third-party tools, cloud-based architecture, user-friendly interface, customizable dashboards, multi-tenant architecture, role-based access control, and scalable infrastructure.

Integrations include TeamViewer, Splashtop, Connectwise, Sentinal One, Bitdefender, Webroot, Alwarebytes, OKTA, OneLogin, Accelo, CloudBlue PSA, SherpaDesk, HaloPSA, IT Glue, BightGauge, ScalePad, PagerDuty, and Slack. 

NinjaOne offers pricing upon request.

Hiver is an innovative email collaboration tool designed to optimize team efficiency and streamline customer service operations. Primarily integrated with Gmail, Hiver transforms the familiar email platform into a powerful shared inbox, enabling teams to manage, assign, and track emails without leaving their Gmail environment. This integration is particularly beneficial for organizations that rely heavily on Gmail for communication, as it allows for seamless workflow management.

Hiver's Live Chat feature is designed to enhance real-time customer support by integrating a live chat widget directly into Gmail. This tool allows businesses to instantly connect with customers on their website, offering a hassle-free way for customers to reach out and get their queries answered quickly. Key features include the ability to assign incoming customer chats to specific agents within Gmail, use custom chat templates for recurring issues, and share chat transcripts for faster cross-team collaboration. Hiver's Live Chat also prioritizes issues to avoid duplicate responses, with features like automated warning emails for missed chats, easier escalation processes, and collision alerts to prevent conflicting responses.

Hiver includes an 'Email Capture' feature to increase sales conversions and a customer satisfaction survey option at the end of each chat to drive customer engagement. The chat widget is customizable to fit brand guidelines and can be managed from anywhere using the Hiver Chat mobile app. This integration of chat support within Gmail streamlines customer service processes, making it easier for teams to provide efficient and effective support.

Integrations include Aircall, Asana, Jira, Okta, QuickBooks, Salesforce, Slack, and WhatsApp. You can also connect Hiver to a paid Zapier account to unlock additional integrations.

Hiver's starting price for its Google Workspace products is from $7/user/month, which is for the Lite plan. This plan comes with a 7-day free trial. The Pro and Elite plans are priced higher, starting at $39 and $59 per user per month, respectively.

Zoho Desk is a customer service and support software designed to help businesses manage and track their customer interactions and inquiries. It offers a range of features, including a ticketing system, customer portal, automated rule engine, and integrations with other Zoho and third-party applications. 

As a customer service chat software, Zoho Desk allows users to embed live chats at various customer touchpoints, whether it's on a website or mobile. Additionally, its multi-channel ticket management system allows businesses to manage customer interactions from various platforms such as email, live chat, telephone, social media, and web forms, all within a single dashboard. By having all customer interactions in one place, small businesses can provide timely and consistent support.

Another significant benefit of Zoho Desk is its automation capabilities, particularly in ticket assignment. The software can automatically route customer queries to the appropriate department or agent, reducing the time and effort required to manually assign tasks. This automation ensures that customer issues are addressed promptly and by the right personnel, enhancing the overall efficiency of the support team.

Integrations include Google Workspace, Microsoft Office 365, Slack, Jira, Trello, Asana, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, GitHub, Bitbucket, Zendesk, Salesforce, HubSpot, Intercom, Freshdesk, and other Zoho apps.

Zoho SalesIQ is customer engagement and live chat software that helps businesses engage with their customers in real-time, track visitor behavior, and analyze data to improve their sales and support processes.

It's a comprehensive solution that offers various features that small businesses need to enhance their customer engagement and support. It's easy to use, and the pricing is affordable, making it a great option for small businesses with limited budgets.

Zoho SalesIQ's real-time visitor tracking allows you to track your website visitors' behavior in real-time, providing insights into what they're looking for and how you can engage with them. Its customizable chat widgets allow you to match your branding, making it a seamless part of your website. And its intelligent chat routing directs chats to the most appropriate agent based on the visitor's behavior and the agent's availability.

Integrations include Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, and Zoho Campaigns, as well as Google Analytics and Salesforce.

Plans start at $7/operator/month, and they offer a 15-day free trial.

Freshdesk is a customer service software designed to help businesses manage support interactions with customers through advanced ticketing and self-service options. It stands out as a scalable solution for customer support, offering AI-powered automation, collaboration tools, and proactive AI-driven insights, making it a trusted choice for over 60,000 businesses worldwide.

Freshdesk's advanced ticketing system consolidates customer inquiries from various channels into a single workspace, enabling agents to manage and prioritize responses efficiently with features like customizable ticket fields and scenario automations. The self-service component includes a knowledge base and forums for customer-driven problem solving, reducing ticket volume. AI-powered automation assists in ticket sorting and resolution suggestions, while Freddy AI can handle basic customer interactions. Collaboration tools within the ticketing interface allow agents to work together and consult experts easily.

Freshdesk integrates with Freshchat for messaging, Freshservice for IT service management, and Freshmarketer for marketing automation. It also connects with Google Calendar, MailChimp, Segment, Zapier, Office 365, Google Apps, Slack, Facebook, LinkedIn, Jotform, Typeform, Calendly, Email Parser by Zapier, and ClickFunnels Classic to facilitate various business processes.

Freshdesk's official pricing starts from $15/user/month for their Growth plan. They have a 14-day free trial + free plan available.

3CX is a business communications solution designed to replace the traditional private branch exchange (PBX) system. It is a software-based PBX system with a cloud-hosted option. It offers users various capabilities including a live chat function, instant messaging, web conferencing, and CRM integration.

3CX’s live chat feature is a great way to initiate non-intrusive connections between agents and customers at scale. Since often live chats end up being forwarded to a call center agent, 3CX's live chat tool is designed so that it’s easier to elevate the conversation from live chat to an actual call. The customer or the agent can initiate the call to expedite the resolution of whatever issues there might be.

The live chat tool is also available with 3CX’s free plan, which means that small businesses and startups can take full advantage of this feature for no charge for up to 10 users without having to worry about added monthly fees. They can also customize the live chat tool to add voice and video call functions too. 3CX also offers free Android and iOS apps, allowing contact center agents to respond to live chat, WhatsApp, and SMS messages through their smartphone or tablet. This can help boost the productivity and efficiency of any company’s customer service program.

3CX is free for up to 10 users. Paid plans start at $175/year.

CoSupport AI is a customer support tool that uses advanced automation and AI-driven features to address specific customer issues and inquiries. It offers personalized suggestions, automates responses, and provides valuable business insights.

As a customer service chat software, CoSupport AI integrates with your existing systems to help improve support effectiveness. The CoSupport Agent, for example, provides in-chat response suggestions so your human agents can resolve inquiries more efficiently.

The CoSupport Customer copilot, on the other hand, automates chat responses to common inquiries to allow your agents more time to deal with complex issues. Furthermore, the CoSupport BI copilot gathers insights about your business and can provide information and various suggestions for helping you improve your support strategy.

Integrations include ClickUp, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Zoho Desk, Intercom, and more.

Pricing is available upon request with a free demo available.

Hiver has a borderline devotional love for email—seriously, they say it on their homepage. Their intuitive Gmail integration lets your team control and organize customer chats and inquiries all from their email with tools that help to collaborate with context by adding colorful notes alongside each customer inquiry.

Their easy-to-navigate, vibrant, and integrated help desk is incredibly easy to set up with almost no learning curve. For small live chat customer service teams and startups, Hiver offers one of the most affordable beginner plans to get your team members up and running.

Starting at $7/month/user, you get a shared inbox, templates, analytics, and up to ten users.

Podium started in a tire shop when CEO Eric Rae built a product for his father that made getting better reviews as easy as sending a simple SMS.Their platform unifies customer support interactions and reviews into a single, easy to access dashboard to help your customer service team manage online reviews through live chat solutions.

Within this dashboard, users are able to send messages, review invitations, and respond to reviews in real-time.

Pricing is only available upon request — Podium understands every business and situation is different, so they help you to identify what you’ll need for your business to thrive.

Intercom’s case studies demonstrate an exceptional boost in sales, marketing, and support through their conversational support and customer support software. Used by Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft, Intercom uses a 3-part unification system to combine human, self-serve, and proactive solutions to stay ahead of the game and provide clients with the customer support they need.

They have an add-on that enables some advanced workflow automation features that lets your team easily use automated live chat solution and resolution bots, measure and improve importance, and integrate apps like Shopify and Stripe.

Intercom’s “starting” plan for their live chat tool and messaging comes at a price of $39/month. Although it comes in a little higher than the others, Intercom prides itself as being the #1 business messenger so your customer support team can build the best relations with the highest quality.