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17 Best Customer Service Email Management Software For 2023

Best Customer Service Email Management Software List

Here are the top 10 customer service email management software I’d like to highlight out of the 14 I cover in this article:

  1. 1. Hiver — Best email management software for teams working within Gmail
  2. 2. Salesforce Service Cloud — Best for integrating with legacy software
  3. 3. SendinBlue — Best all-in-one tool for small businesses
  4. 4. HappyFox — Best for customer-facing help desks
  5. 5. Help Scout — Best for customer support and experience
  6. 6. Freshdesk — Best for small business service desks
  7. 7. Zendesk — Best email management tool for startups
  8. 8. Pega Platform — Best quick response to large email quantities
  9. 9. Drag — Best for collaboration from a single place
  10. 10. Clover — Best note taking app for combining notes with project management

You start the day reading emails, planning to reply only to the most important ones. But two hours later, you look up to realize the time has passed yet you’re practically where you started. I get it—email management can be a sinkhole. But the best customer service email management software can help reduce the overwhelm and save you time.

In this article, I’ll quickly take you through a reliable list of some of the best paid and free customer service email management software available today, and finish the article by showing you how to incorporate these tools to improve your customer experience management.

What is Customer Service Email Management Software? 

Customer service email management software are cloud-based tools that help teams tackle customer email communication in a more efficient and effective manner. The tools on this list help customer service teams to automate repetitive tasks, streamline workflows, and collaborate with each other to improve response times and enhance the overall level of customer satisfaction.

Overviews Of The 10 Best Customer Service Email Management Software

Here’s a brief description of each of the best email management systems on my list showing what it does best, plus screenshots to showcase some of the features.

1

Hiver

Best email management software for teams working within Gmail

Hiver is an effective email management software aimed at improving collaboration and productivity for teams using Gmail. It converts your Gmail inbox into a shared workspace, enabling teams to collectively manage emails, delegate tasks, collaborate on responses, and automate workflow processes.

Some of Hiver’s other features include auto-assignment of incoming customer emails, email tags for better organization of queries, and email templates that allow for standardization of customer responses. Hiver also helps support teams monitor and improve performance by offering real-time analytics, custom SLAs, and customer satisfaction surveys.

Hiver helps over 1500 companies deliver a better experience to their customers, including Flexport, Pluralsight, Harvard University, Appsflyer, Oxford Business Group, and Upwork, among others.

On top of everything, Hiver has great price points – starting out at $15/month/user to get your customer service team up and running.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 711

7-day free trial

From $15/user/month (billed annually)

2

Salesforce Service Cloud

Best for integrating with legacy software

Salesforce Service Cloud is a customer service software that is designed to digitize a company’s contact center to help connect customers to the right people, manage customer queries through email, and resolve cases.

Salesforce Service Cloud helps improve customer service productivity thanks to the platform’s built-in tools, which include Customer 360, real-time data tools, automation, and email integration. It's designed to seamlessly integrate with a company’s systems, including legacy systems that companies can’t afford to replace.

Salesforce Service Cloud equips businesses with the necessary tools to manage emails effectively and improve customer service. Users can create email templates and use them in resolving customer cases and in auto-responses to streamline the management process. All of the Service Cloud plans come with email management features that include email integration with Outlook, email templates, auto-response emails, and email case capture.

Salesforce Service Cloud from $25/user/month (billed annually) and offers a 14-day free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2 2513

14-day free trial

From $25/user/month (billed annually)

3

SendinBlue

Best all-in-one tool for small businesses

If you’re looking for a tool that does marketing automation, email campaigning, transactional emails, and personalizes CRM, Sendinblue takes the cake.

Small businesses will love the accessibility of creating landing pages, signup forms, Facebook ads, and retargeting features. The free plan alone allows for up to 300 emails per day with unlimited contact options.

The lite version starts at $25/month, and the tool also offers larger plans for enterprise businesses.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.5 1436

Free plan available

From $25/month

4

HappyFox

Best for customer-facing help desks

HappyFox is a collaborative, cloud-based ticketing system providing a speedy support interface for your customers. Trusted by Fortune 500 brands such as Lowe’s and LeapFrog, they aim to create a “one-stop shop” help desk to help your team keep incoming emails together, and stay organized and in control.

Users will enjoy the simplicity of using canned responses to address repeated queries as well as the useful reporting widgets and customization.

HappyFox has a pricing system based on the number of support agents that starts out at $24/month/user.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.5 135

Free demo available

From $39/agent/month (min 5 agents)

5

Help Scout

Best for customer support and experience

Help Scout is a more personalized email manager used by the likes of Grubhub, Reddit, and Postmark. Whether you have a team of 5 people or 500, the interactive layout keeps everything organized so nothing slips through the cracks.

Help Scout teams will also love the “customer sidebar tool” functionality which allows an easy view of contact information, conversations data, as well as activity and data from other apps.

Help Scout’s standard pricing plan starts out at $20/month/user, which includes 3 mailboxes, and 1 docs site.

There is no full free version yet, but Help Scout offers a small free trial period.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4 300

15-day free trial

From $20/user/month

6

Freshdesk

Best for small business service desks

Aside from being one of LinkedIn’s top companies in “where India wants to work now”, Freshdesk gears its collaborative ticketing system and AI to create solutions for your team in any industry.

Their AI integrated ticketing system, “Freddy”, saves you from all the mundane and repetitive tasks to save you and your customers time.

Their product also connects with different tools such as Slack. After the 21-day free trial, Freshdesk offers their “blossom” plan at $15/month/agent.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4 2655

21-day free trial + free plan available

From $18/user/month

7

Zendesk

Best email management tool for startups

The Zendesk email support software streamlines support with predefined responses called macros, to quickly solve problems without your team sounding like robots.

Their software prides itself on saving time with built-in SLAs for support tickets so your support team always knows the status. Teams also have access to native mobile apps in order to get back to customers. This clean, appealing software has plans for teams and companies of all sizes.

Zendesk offers a 6-month free program specifically for startup businesses.

Their essential plan starts off from $5/month/agent.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.3 5815

14-day free trial

From $19/user/month (billed annually)

8

Pega Platform

Best quick response to large email quantities

This advanced email bot takes action on your email by using award winning case management to create channel-less experiences and streamline your customer service operations.Their machine learning technology constantly learns to provide the most accurate responses for your customers’ issues.

Pega uses a simple-to-configure interface, and intelligent routing to triage emails to the right person. Pega provides four “editions” dependent by case and business type starting from $97.

Those include a customer engagement edition, an enterprise edition, a case management edition (starting at $0.47/case), and finally, a unified messaging edition.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.3 226

From $0.47/case

9

Drag

Best for collaboration from a single place

Drag is an all-in-one help desk software within your Gmail allowing you to manage, share, and collaborate without switching to another help desk. The integration helps your team build customer relations and workflows for better success, as well as includes the ability to keep track of team member performance.

With their real-time insight tool, you can always know how your team is doing in terms of replies, activity, and tasks.

Drag offers a great free option for individuals, and the pro version costs $10/month/user and includes unlimited shared inboxes, boards, and collaboration.

From $10/month/user

10

Clover

Best note taking app for combining notes with project management

Clover acts as your daily workspace, offering a range of functions that include notes, tasks, whiteboards, and a daily planner. All these are combined in a streamlined workflow. 

Why I picked Clover:  This software tool introduces a new way of recording your thoughts, tracking tasks, managing your daily agenda, and planning work. It’s easy to capture ideas and plan tasks, with incomplete tasks automatically rolling over to the next day. 

Clover also acts as a fully-fledged task manager, collaboration tool, and planner. You can add due dates, color code tasks, and network your ideas. Clover automatically adds backlinks to connect your pages where appropriate. 

Clover Standout Features and Integrations

Features include rich media, whiteboarding, markdown formatting, code blocks with syntax highlighting, inline task features, dynamic references, and templates.

Integrations are available natively with tools such as Figma, Google Calendar, Soundcloud and YouTube.

Clover Plans and Pricing

Plans begin at $10/user/month. A free plan with limited features is also available. 

Free plan with limited features

From $10/user/month

Pros

  • A great productivity app
  • Makes project management frictionless
  • Everything works together effectively

Cons

  • Lacks advanced features
  • Occasionally buggy

Need Expert Help Selecting The Right Email Software?

We’ve joined up with Crozdesk.com to give all our readers (yes, you!) access to Crozdesk’s software advisors. Just use the form below to share your needs, and they will contact you at no cost or commitment. You will then be matched and connected to a shortlist of vendors that best fit your company, and you can access exclusive software discounts!

Best Customer Service Email Management Software Summary Table

Tool Free Option Price
1
Hiver

Best email management software for teams working within Gmail

7-day free trial

From $15/user/month (billed annually) Visit Website
2
Salesforce Service Cloud

Best for integrating with legacy software

14-day free trial

From $25/user/month (billed annually) Visit Website
3
SendinBlue

Best all-in-one tool for small businesses

Free plan available

From $25/month Visit Website
4
HappyFox

Best for customer-facing help desks

Free demo available

From $39/agent/month (min 5 agents) Visit Website
5
Help Scout

Best for customer support and experience

15-day free trial

From $20/user/month Visit Website
6
Freshdesk

Best for small business service desks

21-day free trial + free plan available

From $18/user/month Visit Website
7
Zendesk

Best email management tool for startups

14-day free trial

From $19/user/month (billed annually) Visit Website
8
Pega Platform

Best quick response to large email quantities

Not available

From $0.47/case Visit Website
9
Drag

Best for collaboration from a single place

Not available

From $10/month/user Visit Website
10
Clover

Best note taking app for combining notes with project management

Free plan with limited features

From $10/user/month Visit Website

Other Customer Service Email Management Software Options

If you want a few more email management tools, I’ve got you covered.

  1. Front

    Best for team collaboration and workflow management

  2. Tidio

    Best customer service software to manage multichannel communications

  3. LiveAgent

    Best help desk gamification system

  4. Appian

    Best for teams who need custom BPM creation and features.

  5. Gmelius

    Another good Gmail-integrated email management tool for small businesses.

  6. SpamTitan

    A great anti-spam filter for businesses.

  7. Outpost

    A shared inbox to boost team productivity.

Selection Criteria for the Best Customer Service Email Management Software

Perhaps you're wondering how I selected the best customer service email management software for this list? To build this list, I began by evaluating and comparing a wide range of customer service email management software with positive user ratings. I dove into the platforms to understand what each had to offer, and how much value they add to the process of email management.

After finalizing my longlist, I used the selection criteria below to see how each platform stacked up against the next one. I also drew on my years of customer service experience to identify the best of the bunch. This is how I arrived at my current list of the best email management software for customer support. Here’s the evaluation criteria I used to craft my list:

Core Functionality

As a baseline, here are the functionalities I expected to see in an email management tool for it to make my list:

  1. The ability to receive incoming emails from customers, and provide email support through the platform.
  2. A ticketing system to manage customer requests, such as by assigning them to support agents or ranking them by priority.

Key Features

Beyond the basic capabilities outlined above, here are some additional features I looked for in email management software for customer support teams:

  1. Automated workflows: The ability to automate processes, whether that’s customer segmentation, creating email campaigns, or automatically assigning customer conversations to specific team members.
  2. Collaboration tools: Shared inboxes, team email accounts, and other team collaboration features help improve team productivity.
  3. Collision detection: Some email management solutions send you a real-time notification if multiple agents are responding to the same ticket.
  4. Customizable templates: You might be able to create templates for follow-up emails, like to answer FAQs or link customers out to self-service knowledge base content.
  5. Customer data management: Many platforms allow you to store customer information like SLAs and customer communication histories with private notes for internal reference.
  6. Reporting and analytics: Tools to help you measure customer satisfaction metrics like NPS, CSAT, email response time, average resolution time for support requests, and more.

Usability

Having an intuitive, user-friendly interface is very important when it comes to customer support software. Your customer relationships are on the line, and this should optimize your team’s workflows rather than add to them. I looked for email management software with a clean interface and an organized inbox. Advanced features are appreciated, so long as they don’t over-complicate the system.

Integrations

The ability to connect the software to email platforms like Gmail and Outlook is a must. I also looked for integrations with other communication channels and apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, SMS, and social media accounts. Some of these tools will also connect to your help desk software or CRM software for better omnichannel management.

Pricing

The cost of customer service email management software varies, but the ones on this list range from around $9 per user per month up to $39 per user per month. Some providers also offer a free plan that may be suitable for small businesses and startups. You can find information about the cost of each tool alongside each overview, and in my comparison chart.

People Also Ask: All About Customer Service Email Management

If you’re interested in working with a customer service email management software platform, you probably have a few questions before you get started. Below you’ll find the answers to some FAQs.

Manage Your Customer Service Emails Like a Pro

A great email software manager that has quick, customizable responses gives your business a personality while allowing your team to efficiently solve any customer issue. This will lead to higher overall satisfaction and increase your customer satisfaction metrics. Mastering email isn’t easy, yet understanding how to incorporate one or more of these tools into your daily routine will let you better optimize your time.

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By Hannah Clark

Hannah Clark is the Editor of The CX Lead. After serving over 12 years working in front-line customer experience for major brands, Hannah pivoted to a career in digital publishing and media production. Having gained a holistic view of the challenges and intricacies of delivering exceptional experiences, Hannah aims to help CX practitioners 'level up' their skills by amplifying the voices of today's thought leaders in the space.

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