10 The Best Customer Support Software List
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 35 tools reviewed.
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
With so many different customer support software available, figuring out which is the right fit for you is tough. You know you want software to help your business handle your customer service tasks more efficiently, but you need to figure out which system is best. In this post, I share my insights on the best customer support software for managing, organizing, and responding to customer service requests efficiently, based on my personal experience as a CX specialist.
What is Customer Support Software?
Customer support software is a type of cloud-based SaaS platform that help customer support teams automate and optimize their processes. They include an integrated ticketing system for multi-channel customer support via email, chat and social media. More advanced features include chat widgets, a customer-facing knowledge base, Slack integration for your support agents, automated responses, email templates, custom reports, and service level agreement (SLA) features.
Customer support software helps businesses improve the efficiency of their customer service operations by routing customer requests to the best possible agent or department for a particular concern. Basic issues can be routed to a chatbot or self-serve knowledge base, while more complex issues are routed to a live agent for more effective resolution. In doing so, this software also improves your customer satisfaction rates by providing faster and better service, while also helping teams scale up their customer service abilities to manage higher volumes of inquiries.
Overviews of the 10 Best Customer Service Software
Below you will find brief descriptions of my top 10 selections for the best customer support software. I’ve explained what each does best to help you find the right fit for your business needs. Plus, I’ve included 25 bonus options below if you’d like additional customer service platforms to consider.
RingCentral is a comprehensive customer support software designed to cater to businesses of all sizes, offering omnichannel contact centers and communications that align with various budgets and operational scales. It's an AI-driven platform that emphasizes easy deployment and use, which can be particularly beneficial for organizations looking to implement or upgrade their customer support capabilities without extensive technical overhead.
The platform uses AI to support all stages of the customer journey, from initial query to resolution, reporting, and insights. These automation features are particularly useful for businesses wanting to understand the effectiveness of their customer support strategies. Real-time reports include metrics like call volumes, agent performance, customer sentiment, and trending topics. The software also offers real-time coaching and advice to improve interactions on the spot.
Other notable features include intelligent routing, which directs customers to the best resource based on their method of communication, message intent, and agent skill level required to resolve the query. You can also access post-call highlights to understand the next steps or how to improve customer support in the future.
Integrations include Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Google Workspace, Beetexting, HubSpot, Asana, Zendesk, Appointment Reminder, Aha!, Trello, Zapier, Automator, and over 300 more.
Front is a collaboration software that serves as an email management tool, designed to facilitate communication within teams. It allows team members to collaborate through shared drafts, comments, and the ability to assign threads and use tags for organization.
Front additionally assists customer support teams by providing a platform that centralizes communication from multiple channels, such as email, social media, chat, and SMS, into a single collaborative space. This enables teams to manage customer interactions more effectively by assigning, tracking, and responding to inquiries in a unified manner.
Front's omnichannel approach ensures that all customer communications are accessible in one place, which can help support teams provide personalized and timely responses.
Front integrates with Asana, ClickUp, Dialpad, Dropbox, Google Drive, HubSpot, Jira, Monday, Slack, and Zoho CRM.
Front costs from $19/user/month (billed annually) and includes a 7-day free trial.
Zoho Assist is a customer support software that allows your CX team members to provide support via remote device access. In other words, support reps can help diagnose issues and implement solutions by accessing customer devices from their own device.
The software allows for either on-demand and unattended remote access, so you can make updates and solve issues regardless of whether the customer is with their device. Unattended remote access feature can be used to push bulk updates, reboot devices, troubleshooting, and more. In addition to its remote access capabilities, live chat, video, and voice calls are also supported to facilitate communication between agents and customers.
A high level of security is built into the software, ensuring protection for support reps and customers alike. It's GDPR, HIPAA, PCI, and CJIR compliant and has SSL 256-bit AES encryption. Access permissions management is also included so the right people have the right access to various data and parts of the platform.
The software integrates with other tools, most notably the Zoho product suite. Other integrations include Zendesk, ServiceNow, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Freshdesk, Spiceworks, and the Google Suite, among others.
Pricing starts from $12 per month, and a 15-day free trial is available.
UserGuiding is a user onboarding software that enables businesses to create interactive guides and onboarding experiences within their software applications. The platform is used by SMBs, enterprises, and startups to improve user retention, reduce churn, and enhance feature adoption.
UserGuiding allows businesses to create in-product experiences for their users without the need for coding. The tool offers a variety of features such as product walkthroughs, onboarding checklists, resource centers, segmentation, analytics, customization, in-app surveys, tooltips, hotspots, announcement modals, NPS surveys, and product updates.
The platform also provides educational resources, such as webinars, podcasts, ebooks, and a blog, as well as analytics to track the performance of user onboarding and customization options to align with brand identity.
UserGuiding integrates with Segment, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Slack, Intecom, Mixpanel, HubSpot and Woopra.
Zoho SalesIQ is customer engagement and support software that enables businesses to communicate with their customers in real-time. It's a great tool for businesses that want to increase their customer engagement and provide quick and efficient support to their website visitors.
The user interface is straightforward, making it easy to navigate and use all its features without hassle. The live chat feature allows you to communicate with website visitors in real-time, which is helpful when dealing with urgent customer queries or complaints. You can also track visitors' behavior on your website, which provides valuable insights into their interests and preferences, and customize chat widgets, allowing you to match your website's branding and design.
Integrations include the Zoho suite of software, Google Analytics, and Salesforce. .
Plans start at $7/operator/month, and they offer a 15-day free trial.
Custify is a customer success software designed specifically for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies that need to focus on product adoption and upsell opportunities. When leaving your ecosystem is as easy as hitting “unsubscribe,” Custify positions itself to identify churn risk long before your customers find themselves in that position.
Custify provides customer 360 reports, customer health analysis, renewal and upsells suggestions, workflow automation, and a task management system with customizable alerts.
Custify costs from $99.50/user/month.
Groove is an easy-to-use help desk for growing businesses who need to connect with their customers across a variety of communication channels like social, email, and live chat. Groove offers a GraphQL API to automate, manage, and extend all the functionality of the platform with a bit of IT know-how and elbow grease.
Groove integrates natively with Hubspot, Salesforce, JIRA, GitHub, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Trello, Constant Contact, Slack, Zoho, Capsule, Delighted, JustCall, Nimble, PieSync, Nicereply, ChargeBee, Influx, MailChimp, Stripe, Campaign Monitor, Ask Nicely, and thousands more with a paid plan through Zapier.
Groove costs from $15/user/month and comes with a 15-day free trial.
CometChat allows you to add video + voice call center services and text chat to your websites and apps. This lets you talk with your clients directly or facilitate conversations between customers. This makes it a great choice if part of your service is connecting consumers and producers to one another, like with an online marketplace or community hub.
Push, email, and SMS notifications ensure the recipient doesn’t miss a message. Your own company service agents can take advantage of the streamlined phone and video services, too.
CometChat’s easy drag-and-drop chat plugin connects with whatever web service you use, like WordPress, Bubble, or Composr CMS.
CometChat Go Lite costs from $49/month with a 7-day free trial.
Pro plans cost from $149/month + per-minute video and call charges.
Help Scout is help desk software for small businesses to high-growth start-ups. It is designed for easy workflows, team assignments, and assessing productiveness. Standouts include an easy-to-use shared inbox to organize all support requests into a single queue.
Small businesses may not yet have a lot of customer service manpower so Help Scout lets you create a searchable library of pre-written help desk replies to reduce the administrative burden on your team.
You can pull data from a variety of sources for a more personalized customer profile—contact information, previous customer conversations, and data/activity from other apps.
Help Scout costs from $25/month and includes a free 15-day trial.
JivoChat is a business communications tool that features an integrated messaging solution that allows your clients to talk to you using Apple Business Chat, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Instagram. Your customer service agents receive all chats, emails, and calls in the Jivo app, no matter where or how the customer is reaching out.
This saves the time and confusion of jumping between different windows or platforms. JivoChat integrates with the software you already use in your day-to-day workflow, like CRM tools, WordPress, Shopify, Weebly, Slack, BigCommerce, Wix.com, and hundreds of others with a paid Zapier plan.
JivoChat Basic is free for your first five agents. Paid plans cost from $189/user/month and come with a 14-day free trial.
Best Customer Support Software: Pricing Comparison Chart
This comparison chart summarizes basic details about each of my top customer support software selections. View pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best software for your budget and business needs.
Tools | Price | |
---|---|---|
RingCentral Contact Center | From $24.99/user/month | Website |
Front | From $19/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
Zoho Assist | From $12/month | Website |
UserGuiding | From $89/month (billed annually) | Website |
Zoho SalesIQ | From $7/operator/month | Website |
Custify | From $199/month | Website |
Groove | From $15/user/month | Website |
CometChat | From $49/month | Website |
Helpscout | From $25/month | Website |
JivoChat | From $189/user/month | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareOther Customer Support Tools Worth Considering
Here are a few more worthwhile options for customer service management software that didn’t make it into my shortlist, but are still worth taking a closer look at:
- Forethought
Best AI automated chatbot
- Document360
Best for simple knowledge base management
- Tidio
Best for its automated customer conversion strategies
- LiveAgent
Best to manage your help desk and knowledge base
- Guru
Best for AI-powered knowledge base suggestions
- Zoho Desk
Best customer support software for enterprises
- Freshdesk
Best for collaborating with external stakeholders
- Hive
Best customer support software with project management
- Zendesk
Best inter-company help desk
- Issuetrak
Best for omnichannel ticketing
- MyHub
Best for building a knowledge base
- OneDesk
Best email capturing and record automation
- Jitbit Helpdesk
Best for small business
- UseResponse
Best customer feedback software
- HappyFox
Best multi-brand help desk system
- Kustomer
Best for subscription-based services
- Salesforce Service Cloud
Best for ease of use & community support
- ProProfs Help Desk
Best for customer satisfaction surveys & NPS
- HaloITSM
Best all-inclusive ITSM software solution
- SysAid
Best IT service desk automations
- Radiance Labs
Best for ecommerce companies
- Vivantio
Best for global service teams
- LiveAgent
Best free customer support software
- HubSpot Service Hub
Best for inbound calling + VoIP calling
- Jira Service Management
Best for dev, IT ops, and business teams
Selection Criteria for the Best Customer Support Software
Are you wondering how I choose the best customer support software for this list? Allow me to explain my methodology.
I started out by reviewing recent customer support software market data to create an initial long list of the most popular software providers in this space.
Next, I assessed each platform's website to make sure that their software covered all the basic features that a customer support team would need to manage their processes from beginning to end.
Lastly, I used my selection criteria below to help me finalize my selections. Using these criteria as a framework, I compared each customer support software to see how it stacked up to the rest of the tools, allowing me to find the best of the bunch.
To satisfy your curiosity even further, below are the main features and other key criteria I assessed to make my final selections for this list.
Essential Features for Customer Support Software
Here are the main features I assessed as I sifted through all the possible software systems for this list. To determine their depth, I asked myself the following questions:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM software): Does it include features like contact, lead, document, or quotes/proposal management? Are customer issues logged in the service hub and analyzed for actionable insights? Or, does it integrate easily with tools that do these things?
- Ticketing Support: Is launching, assigning, and following up on a customer ticket easy to do? Can support tickets be customized with the data fields you need most?
- Response Automation & Wiki: Does the tool let you automate answers for commonly asked questions? Does it provide space for you to host an FAQ or wiki where your customers can access answers to their questions independently, without waiting on a live agent? What about email templates and chat support scripts?
- Customer Metrics: Does the software allow you to track customer attrition, customer conversion, average wait times, ticket resolution times, and other important customer data? Can you easily pull this data into custom reports?
- Multichannel Communication: Does the software provide your customer service team with access to phone calls, SMS/texting, live chat support, video calls, social media channels, and anything else the modern customer requires?
- Performance Monitoring: Does the platform allow you to monitor the team’s performance and provide customized feedback to live agents? Working with your customer service team to improve skills is a great way to enhance your service experience.
Other Assessment Criteria
In addition to the key features above, I also always assess the following criteria no matter what type of software I'm reviewing:
- User Interface (UI): Customer service software needs to have a clean, intuitive UI for both the agent and the end user. Customers who can’t figure out your system navigation aren't going to wait around to learn it.
- Usability: The last thing you need is customer service software that doesn't work. That kind of defeats the purpose. I selected systems with high uptime, easy troubleshooting, straightforward onboarding for your team, a responsive help desk function, and maybe even a self-serve knowledge base.
- Software Integrations: Customer service software should connect with any other management tools you're using to reach and serve your customers. This might be messaging tools like Slack, relationship management databases, ecommerce apps, or social media platforms. Flexible connectivity is a must.
- Pricing: Obviously, it won’t do you well to skimp on your customer support software budget. However, I do take into consideration how competitive a price is compared to other tools on the list and what advanced features they offer at what price point.
Frequently Asked Questions About Customer Support Software
If you’ve got lingering questions about customer support software, don’t fret. Here are some answers to frequently asked questions that should help clear things up for you.
What's the difference between customer support and customer service?
Even though customer support and customer service both service your customer base, they do so in different capacities. Customer service is the traditional interface between your organization and the public that handles basic service requests. In contrast, customer support is often segmented into specific products, departments, or lines of services in order to handle more specialized support requests.
Common issues handled by customer service teams:
- Trouble logging into an account
- Editing account details
- Modifying an order
- Requesting a refund
- Registering a complaint or submitting feedback
- Requesting basic company information
None of these requests require detailed knowledge to resolve.
Common issues handled by customer support teams:
- Notifying the company of a defective product
- Requesting technical support for a specific product
- Requesting specific product details
All of these request require detailed knowledge of the product at hand, so they would be best answered by a product specialist.
To help you grasp other nuances between these essential support teams, read: Customer Service vs. Customer Support: Why Your Business Needs Both.
Is customer support software the same as help desk software?
Many people view customer support software and help desk software as interchangeable terms. However, they actually cater to different aspects of the customer experience.
Customer support software is a frontline tool that handles direct interactions with customers, addressing their immediate needs and queries, across multiple channels.
Help desk software, in general, is more internally-focused. You can use it to manage and track the resolution of internal issues or service requests, such as IT requests.
However, there are some systems that offer features for both use cases if you need to track internal and external issues simultaneously.
To help you figure out the best system for your needs, consider reading: What is a Help Desk and Does Your Business Need One?
How can I choose the best customer support software for my organization?
Here is a four-step process you can use to narrow down your options for the best customer support software that satisfies your needs:
- Make a list of all the customer support channels you have now and expect to offer in the future.
- Use this article, and others on the CX Lead, to verify which software systems work serve those communication channels.
- Make a shortlist and compare the features of your top five favorites side-by-side to highlight any gaps or standout inclusions.
- Review the pricing details of each option against your budget.
By following these steps, you should be able to uncover a clear winner in the pack. If you’d like more details to guide you through this process we also have a more thorough breakdown of how to choose the right customer support software for you too.
Are there any free customer support software?
Yes, some customer support software providers do offer free plans, also known as freemium plans. However, these plans are generally considered stepping stones to give you a taste of what their software has to offer, with the hope that you’ll sign up for a paid plan to access more robust features.
If free software is really what you’re after, hop over to our article on free customer support software for a list of the best free options on the market today. I’ve also noted which of the options in this list offer a free plan in the pricing information section.
Other Types of Support Software
This article features general, all-purpose customer support software options, each with its different strengths and weaknesses. However, we also have articles across the site that deep-dive into a particular type of customer service software. If you’re looking for something more specific, these might help.
- Customer experience management software
- Customer service automation
- Customer service chat software for small businesses
- Customer service email management software
- Customer service ticketing software
- Customer database software
What Do You Think About These Customer Service Tools?
Microsoft reports that 90% of customers decide whether or not to do business with a company based on that company’s customer service reputation. When it comes to custom churn, 93% of customers confirm that excellent customer service will compel them to give a company repeat business. It's easy to see how customer service can have a huge impact on sales.
I hope that my review has made you more aware of the exciting and wide array of customer support platforms out there. There’s no single best tool as it really depends on your customer support team members and your business model. But I hope I’ve shed light on the different software support software you can choose from to make the most informed decision for your business.
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Related Read: Customer Support Automation: Benefits, Challenges And How-to