Best Customer Service Software in 2021

⏱ Reading Time: 9 minutes

Customers are the driving force behind your brand. Satisfied ones are committed advocates and feed your profit and success. But unhappy ones? Well, they can trash your reputation quicker than you can say ‘delete comment‘.

🚀Read Customer Service: A Guide for Successful Business Growth🚀

Let’s take a look at the numbers:

• 73% of customers will remain loyal to a brand that has friendly customer service agents (RightNow)
• 77% of customers would recommend a brand to their friends and family after enjoying just one positive experience (Temkin Group)
• 93% of customers are more likely to make a repeat purchase if a company offers great customer service (HubSpot Research)
• The number one reason customers switch to a different brand is ‘feeling underappreciated’ (New Voice Media)
• 78% of customers have changed their mind and backed out of a purchase due to poor customer service (Glance)
• It takes up to 12 positive experiences to make up for 1 negative one (Glance)

So it’s a big deal! But you knew that already. That’s why you’re here. 

What you need is a helping hand. A way to give each customer the time and attention they need without requiring you to live on 3 hours of sleep. 

That’s where customer service software comes in. Whether you’re running an online store, a cheap web hosting service, an online learning company, or a local shop, you can save time and effort with tech. 

Best customer service software solutions are like a personal, digital VA – except it’s always on and always dedicated to its cause. In this article, we’ll help your perfect fit by highlighting 5 of the best solutions 2021 has to offer.  

Read What is Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)?

1. Paldesk

Paldesk is a live chat and omni-channel helpdesk solution made for customer service and sales teams. 

With it, you can track and manage customers interactions from multiple touchpoints from a single, integrated and user-friendly dashboard. Plus, you can use the Paldesk widget to add live chat to your website and provide instant support to your site visitors.

The chat box is completely customisable so you don’t have to compromise your brand experience to offer excellent customer service. 

Paldesk’s omni-channel helpdesk feature combines requests sent from email, live chat, Facebook, Twitter, mobile apps, and more so your team can quickly and easily meet your customer’s needs. 

Interactions are displayed and allocated in the dashboard in real-time and you can automatically assign or transfer a ticket to team members based on agents’ skills, contact channel type, type of issue and contact history. 

What’s not to like?

Picture 1. Paldesk

Features

One of Paldesk’s best-loved features is its customisable website widget But it also stands 

• Synchronise communications across web chat, mobile applications (SDK), email, Facebook, Twitter and more
• Queue management and ticketing
• Surveys and feedback 
• Integrates with a wide range of complimentary software including Prestashop, Drupal, JIRA, Magento, Wix and more
• Extensive knowledge base and dedicated product onboarding

Pricing

Picture 2. Paldesk pricing

Paldesk’s starter plan is more affordable than its competitors at just $9 per agent per month. With it, you get the widget, customisation and feedback options, team reports and much more besides. 

Larger businesses with a high volume of enquiries or those with multiple sites are best suited to the Rising Star option (from $22 per month), which covers a wide range of touchpoints, offers unlimited widgets, plus a ticketing system and more.

2. Zoho Desk

Zoho is a well-known CRM solution that covers finance, email, sales, and marketing. One of its landmark offerings is Zoho Desk, an IT and help desk software that increases productivity for your agents and managers and boosts customer satisfaction.

Read How to Achieve and Measure Customer Satisfaction

Picture 3. Zoho Desk

Features

Zoho Desk boasts a wide range of features and integrates well related apps, making it easy to build a stack of customer service software for your business. Features include: 

• Task automation
• Identify trends in team performance
• Unified customer service by bringing together all employees into one service team
• A variety of customer support channels including email, phone, live chat, and more
• Customisation and easy integration
• iOS and Android apps
• Free plan and free trial options

Pricing

Picture 4. Zoho Desk pricing

ZohoDesk’s free plan is a good shoe-in for small businesses, but isn’t suitable for most as it lacks some basic features. However, the Professional set-up does offer everything all but the largest and most complex businesses need.

The standard plan starts from $12 per month.

3. LiveAgent

LiveAgent is an all-in-one customer service software solution. It pulls together multiple customer service channels like a ticketing, live chat, voice and video calling and social media. Businesses love LiveAgent for its intuitive integrations covering tools like Google Analytics, MailChimp, and Facebook/Twitter.

Picture 5. LiveAgent

Features

While you may need to upgrade your plan to get the most out of LiveAgent, the platform is suitable for start-ups, small businesses, and large enterprises. It’s fully scalable and packs a whole host of features, including: 

• Integration with Slack, Viber, and Instagram
• Universal inbox to manage all of your emails
• Ticketing system with automatic sorting
• Rule automation to manage time and SLAs
• Department set up and distribution
• Email templates
• Agent ranking
• Real-time chat, proactive chat, and chat button gallery
• Cloud-based call centre creation

Pricing

Picture 6. LiveAgent pricing

LiveAgent offers a free plan, but you must log in to your account at least once every 21 days to keep it. However, you can upgrade your plan at any point and the all-inclusive plan comes in at a respectable $19 per month.

Unfortunately though, the ‘all-inclusive’ plan doesn’t include everything your business might need. But is still a good deal when stacked against its competitors.

Read eCommerce Live Chat: Chat more To Earn More

4. Zendesk

If you’ve been looking for best customer service software solutions before, you’ll probably have come across Zendesk. It’s one of the longest-standing solutions available today and its fun brand and accessible interface make it a popular starter CRM for all manner of businesses. 

More than 150,000 businesses use Zendesk, including the likes of Uber and Shopify, which is why they can charge a considerable premium.

Picture 7. Zendesk

Features

Zendesk comes with everything you need to provide excellent customer service across multiple touchpoints. You can provide support to your customers via social media, Whatsapp, email, live chat, voice, and more. Its key features include:

• Customization solutions to fit any support environment
• The ability to unify conversations across all channels for quicker replies
• View customer details for a more personalized experience
• Store previous events and conversations in one place
• Social messaging
• Voice and SMS
• Live chat and embedded support
• Self-service and knowledge base options
• Analytics and reporting
• Business rules and routing

Pricing

Picture 8. Zendesk pricing

Zendesk offers two paid plans. In comparison to other options, Zendesk is pricey. At $75 per month per agent, you’ll be spending big if you run all but the smallest of businesses. 

However, Zendesk does offer more features than its competitors so, if you need them, you’re probably happy to pay more.

5. Kayako

Kayako is a web-based helpdesk platform that focuses on ‘making the customer the priority’. This market maverik’s key selling point is that it can offer a more personalized and customer-tailored experience – making the customer more like the human they are than a ticket number. This approach will suit brands with a personality that matches the Kayako ethos.

Uniquely, Kayako supports customer service agents and collaborators, meaning you can call on their experts to answer questions if an agent is busy. Say goodbye to cookie-cutter automated responses.

Picture 9. Kayako

Features

Kayako’s software allows agents to collaborate to provide a unique experience for a brand’s customers. The platform allows for customer support on-the-go, even when agents are far away from their desks, so it’s handy for remote-work teams. Some key features include: 

• Real-time live chat software across email, social, website, mobile apps and more
• Detailed customer journeys
• A shared inbox for customer service agents
• A self-help solution and knowledge base for 24/7 support
• Activity tracking dashboard
• Internal help-desk
• eCommerce support software

Pricing

 Picture 10. Kayako pricing

Kayako, as one of the best customer service software solutions, offers a free trial. Once that ends, you can upgrade to a paid plan starting from $15 per agent per month.

However, one of the Kayako’s unique selling points is its collaboration options, which are only available on the Growth and Scale plans which are double the price. So, we’d recommend starting with the Growth plan if you have a larger customer service team.

6. Groove

With 10,000 clients on its books, Groove may not be as big as some of its competitors but it’s ideal for startups and small businesses. With plans starting from just $9 per month, Groove is a more affordable option and provides a good balance of features for small businesses.

 Picture 11. Groove

Features

Above all else, Groove offers solid automation features that help streamline customer support. With Groove, you can customize your knowledge base to offer a viable self-help option. This may be a better solution if you don’t have the cash to employ a whole team of agents. Some key features of Groove include:

• A impressive 120-day free trial
• Team collaboration options 
• Instant answers and replies
• Live chat 
• Integration with Hubspot, Facebook, Shopify, Mailchimp, and lots more
• Analytics, insights and reporting on productivity, happiness, and more
• Customer journey analysis and tips

Pricing

 Picture 12. Groove pricing

Groove is one of the cheapest customer service software solutions on the market with a starter plan costing just $9 per month, plus a free 120-day trial. This makes Groove an ideal starter CRM for small businesses and teams.

For more established businesses and larger teams, we’d recommend the Pro plan. There are plenty of extra features to justify the price hike, plus WhatsApp and SMS tools coming soon.

To Sum Things Up

Choosing the best customer service software for your business can be a challenge. With so many great-sounding features on offer, how is a business to find the solution that’s right for them? 

In this post,  we’ve covered some of the best customer service software solutions for small, medium, and enterprise-sized businesses. We recommend you base your choice on what you can afford, what option matches best with the personality of your brand and what features best solve the problems you’re facing in your team.

And remember, Paldesk offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card commitment. Check out our features and pricing here.

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Jodie is a Conversion Copywriter and Content Strategist working with bold B2B SaaS and tech brands. Before founding This Copy Sticks, she spent a decade selling the toughest value proposition around and raised £2 million for charities before her 25th birthday. After 10 years in fundraising, Jodie now helps tech-mad trailblazers grow their businesses