A startup is only as good as its clients and without them, a startup cannot survive. With that in mind, it’s so important for startups to have systems in place to manage customer service and keep their clients happy. Customer service management (CSM) is a system that helps you do just that. In this blog post, we will discuss what CSM is, and how it can benefit your startup by boosting client retention rates!
What Is Customer Service Management?
Customer service management is the process of managing customer service interactions to ensure a positive experience for the customer. This includes everything from handling customer complaints to providing customer support. Customer service management can be a challenge, but it is essential for keeping customers happy and ensuring repeat business.
There are a few key things to keep in mind when managing customer service interactions. First, it is important to be patient and understanding. Customers may be angry or upset, and it is important to listen to their concerns and resolve the issue in a calm and efficient manner. Second, it is important to be knowledgeable about the product or service. Customers will have questions, and it is important to be able to provide accurate and helpful information.
Finally, it is important to follow up with customers after the interaction. This helps to ensure that they are satisfied with the resolution and that they will continue to do business with the company in the future. Customer service management is a critical part of any business, and it is important to get it right.
Benefits Of Great Customer Service Management
Better Understanding Of Your Customers
Customer service management enables you to gather, store, and work with important data based on customer interactions. You can retain and access any information you need, including their preferred methods of communication and other specifics to help you better understand your customers and exceed their expectations.
Better Customer Retention
When you meet customer needs and further support them, in addition to providing excellent products and services, they are more likely to return to do business with you – resulting in long-term customer loyalty.
Increased Productivity
When your customer service agents have access to all customer information, it’s simpler for them to offer prompt and efficient help – saving time and coming closer to customer success. Customer service management streamlines the process overall and cuts down on the time spent looking for information.
Increased Security
Customer service management can gather information about what customers have consented to (related to customer service activities) in addition to retaining their basic contact information. With this approach, you can ensure that you’re abiding by all applicable laws and security policies while also protecting customer data.
10 Best Customer Service Software For Startups
Intercom
Overview
Customer service management and communication are made simple with Intercom.
Intercom empowers over 4,000 web and mobile businesses to see and communicate with their customers. They send time- or behavior-triggered in-app messages and tailored emails.
Through customized, behavior-driven email and in-app messaging, Intercom makes it simple to personally communicate with the individuals using your product or service while meeting customer expectations.
Top Features
- Intercom Messenger (chat widget)
- Custom Bots
- Team inbox
- Advanced support automation
- Lead routing
- Lead generation add-on
- Conversation performance and analytics
- Knowledge base
- User and visitor data repository
Pricing
Intercom has four plans:
- Start: $59 per month
- Grow: $119 per month
- Accelerate: $499 per month
- Scale: Vary from $499 to $999 per month
The Scale plan includes Salesforce integration, complex workflows, custom bots, and 10 seats.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Well-designed and user friendly
- Supports bots, live chat, and product tours
- Options to create custom chatbots
- Robust API and many integrations
Cons
- Significantly flawed pricing model: expensive, unpredictable, and non-flexible
- Add-on services are overpriced
- Poor customer service
- Limited to your website only
- Integration with your CRM and user database is a long and complicated process
Product Rating Summary
Easy to use platform with a variety of features, however, the CRM is limited to your website only- which is inconvenient. Paired with its overpriced pricing model and poor customer service, there are better options to choose from. If the pricing doesn’t bother you, (or lack of customer service) and you don’t mind being limited to your own website – then give Intercom a go.
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Zendesk
Overview
Zendesk is a customer support platform developed to improve communication between businesses and their customers.
Organizations in 140 countries utilize Zendesk, which has more than 50,000 client accounts and offers customer service in more than 40 languages.
Zendesk is a straightforward platform for achieving customer success. It enables businesses to scale with self-service alternatives, delivers excellent customer service, and stands out with proactive engagement. Customer relationships become more significant, more personal, and more fruitful as a result, all at a lower cost.
Top Features
- Community forums
- Automation
- Ticket routing
- Live chat software
- API
- Tracking and reporting
- Self-service portal
- Native integrations
- Knowledge base
- Real-time chat monitoring and conversion tracking
- Accessible by mobile device
Pricing
Zendesk offers a 30-day trial FREE of charge. The free trial includes a community of customer experience leaders, a growing network, and access to tailored resources.
Zendesk has five plans, including their Free trial:
- Free trial: 30 days
- Suite Team: $49 per user per month
- Suite Growth: $79 per user per month
- Suite Professional: $99 per user per month
- Suite Enterprise: $150 per user per month
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Seamless integration with Zendesk products
- SDK to customize chat window
- Analytics
- Free plan and reasonable pricing
- Apps available on desktop and mobile
- Customer service teams available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week
- Flexible and scalable payment plans
- Free 30-day trial
Cons
- Outdated look and feel
- Very few integrations are available
- Need to integrate AI-powered bots into Chat via API
- Not a useful product unless you’re on Professional or Enterprise plans
Product Rating Summary
Overall, Zendesk is an excellent CRM software platform, with affordable plans, and a free 30-day trial. However, some of the features are restricted to certain pricing plans. Their customer service support is of a high standard and is available 5 days a week and 24 hours a day.
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Help Scout
Overview
Many aspects of Help Scout are similar to those of other help desk services, and it also offers a personalized customer experience, much like a regular email.
Customers don’t have to waste time navigating a large ticket portal or worrying about login information to have their issues resolved. When a request comes in, Help Scout’s inbox (which each user shares with the team) enables collaboration for support.
It simultaneously removes the complexity that other help desk solutions typically bring and simplifies team cooperation and email response. It seamlessly connects with other business systems and apps.
Top Features
- Uses one centralized tool to manage email and live chat
- Enables you to build a customizable help center with Docs
- Database of canned responses by saved replies
- Agent-focused features, for instance, collision detection
- Enables you to create a curated customer experience with customer profiles
- Comes loaded with pre-built reports
Pricing
Help Scout has three payment plans:
- Standard Plan: $20 or $25 per month per user (depending on if you pay annually or monthly)
- Plus Plan: $40 or $50 per month per user (depending on if you pay annually or monthly)
- Pro Plan: $65 per month per user, or if paying yearly they will quote you accordingly. Either way, you need to contact Help Scout when choosing this plan
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Affordable pricing
- Invisible to customers
- Many free integrations
- Reporting
- Organizes email in a conducive way to improve customer service
- Great service
Cons
- Limited features
- Price per user for the Standard plan
- Docs are an additional cost of $20 per month
Product Rating Summary
Help Scout is an affordable CRM system and it comes with many free integrations. However, there’s an additional cost for Docs, and features are quite limited. If you’re just starting out with CRMs, Help Scout is a good option to start off with.
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Freshdesk
Overview
Any small or mid-sized business that needs a fully functional assistance or support department without the associated fees can benefit from Freshdesk. Freshdesk offers a free subscription with an infinite number of users, making it ideal for startups and freelancers.
By automating time-consuming tasks like sorting through requests and assigning tickets, Freshdesk offers a means to speed up customer service support. This solution aids companies looking to cut man-hours hours while allowing personnel to concentrate only on the most crucial tasks.
Top Features
- SLA management
- Ticket support on multiple channels and ticket merging
- Activity logs
- Team inbox
- Canned responses
- Smart notifications
- Custom ticket views
- Collaborative ticketing
- AI-powered ticketing
- Field service ticketing
- Affordable plans
- Multilingual
- Mobile apps
- Triggers
Pricing
Freshdesk has a wide variety of plans for Support Desk and Omnichannel. Their free plans offer the basic features, while their popular Enterprise and Pro plans offer greater features.
Support Desk has four payment plans, including the Free plan:
- Support Desk Plan: Free
- Support Desk Growth: $15 per user per month
- Support Desk Pro: $49 per user per month
- Support Desk Enterprise: $79 per user per month
Omnichannel has 3 payment plans:
- Omnichannel Growth: $29 per user per month
- Omnichannel Pro: $59 per user per month
- Omnichannel Enterprise: $99 per user per month
Pros & Cons
Pros
- 21-day free trial of premium membership
- Paid plans start at $15 per user per month
- Automate acquisitions with sales and support bots
- Omnichannel options: can be used on web chat, mobile applications, WhatsApp for Business, Apple Business Chat, LINE, and Facebook Messenger
- Machine learning automation
- Streamline customer conversations in one place
- Team collaboration tools: Team Huddle, Shared Ownership, Linked Tickets, and Parent-Child Ticketing
Cons
- Complete loss of tech stack flexibility
- Limited number of integrations
- Bugs and ongoing client issues
- Overall quality
Product Rating Summary
Freshdesk is reasonably priced, although it’s limited in terms of integrations. Their free plan is limited in terms of features, so it’s better to opt for one of the paid plans. It’s a good CRM system overall.
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Zoho Desk
Overview
The award-winning, context-aware support desk software, Zoho Desk. Advanced multi-stakeholder process management, multichannel capabilities, embeddable self-service, a strong AI assistant, and all the tools and context your teams require to provide first-rate customer care are all included in Zoho Desk.
Years of expertise in developing, installing, maintaining, and supporting on-premises and cloud software are brought to the table by Zoho. 3 users are included in the free plan so you can get your business off the ground.
Top Features
- Ticket management
- Cloud platform
- Reports and dashboards
- Time tracking
- Mobile capabilities
- API
- CRM and Social Media Integration
- Dashboards
- Leaderboards
- Email marketing
- White Label
- Widgets
- Analytics
- Multi-Language Support
Pricing
Zoho subscriptions are super easy and convenient. The platform offers a pay-as-you-go service- there are no setup fees or contracts. In addition, Zoho offers discounts to non-profit organizations.
There’s even a free sandbox environment where you can test out all the features before proceeding with your purchase. The best part is, the trial run doesn’t require any credit card information.
Zoho Desk has four payment plans, including the Free plan:
- Free plan: $0 and includes one user and 20 subscriptions.
- Basic plan: $49 or $59 per month per user (depending on if you pay annually or monthly) and includes three users and 500 customers
- Standard plan: $99 or $119 per month per user (depending on if you pay annually or monthly) and includes five users and 2000 customers
- Professional plan: $249 or $299 per month per user (depending on if you pay annually or monthly) and includes ten users and 5000 customers
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Excellent price
- 14-day free trial
- Highly configurable
- Tight integration with other Zoho products
- Huge list of features
Cons
- Somewhat complex to customize and use
- Some advanced features only available at higher pricing tiers
- Stodgy user interface
Product Rating Summary
In conclusion, Zoho Desk is a practical help desk solution with flexible pricing. However, some of its features are only available at higher pricing tiers. With a focus on small to medium-sized businesses, Zoho Desk stands out from its competitors’ thanks to its usability, affordability, and reporting capabilities.
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HubSpot
Overview
With the help of HubSpot’s CRM, growth-oriented companies can enhance their connections with leads and customers. The program seeks to make it simple to align team strategy and increase conversion by leveraging the power of skillfully designed sales, marketing, customer support, content management, and operational capabilities.
In order to provide a user experience that is personalized for teams’ working styles, users can connect with over 875 integration apps, APIs, and solutions partners using the software. HubSpot is promoted as the ultimate scaling solution for organizations of all sizes, from small start-ups to large enterprises.
Top Features
- HubSpot Conversations chat widget
- Instant reply bot
- Qualify leads bot
- Book meetings bot
- Support bot
- HubSpot Conversations for teams
- Conversation routing
- Triggers
- Shared inbox
- Tracking user data
- Mobile applications
- Knowledge base
Pricing
HubSpot has 4 payment plans, including the Free plan:
- Starts free
- Starter Plan: $50 per month per user
- Professional Plan: $400 per month per 5 users
- Enterprise Plan: $1200 per month per 10 users
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Seamless integration with HubSpot
- Multi-language content creation
- 24/7 security monitoring and threat detection
- Easy to use user interface
- Unified inbox
- HubSpot Integrations and API
- ABM tools and automation
Cons
- Can be quite costly
- Limited number of features
- Easy to miss conversations
- No chat broadcasting
- No AI, NLP, or NLU
- Limited marketing channels
- No keyword recognition
- Analytics not available for HubSpot chatbot
- Page targeting options
- Messages cannot be used in different chat flows
Product Rating Summary
HubSpot is one of the most trustworthy and effective inbound marketing automation tools around. Along with its free CRM, HubSpot also provides a comprehensive suite of software for marketing, sales, and CRM.
HubSpot assists businesses in becoming top-tier marketers by assisting them in generating more leads, traffic, and conversions. All of this is necessary for businesses to succeed.
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LiveAgent
Overview
The best way to deliver first-rate customer service is through a LiveAgent help desk. You can link every help channel thanks to the 175+ support capabilities that are available.
LiveAgent is accessible in 39 languages and both as a self-hosted or SaaS license.
To ensure fast response times and to fulfill regional legal requirements (for EU in particular), server infrastructure is situated in the USA, UK, and Japan.
Top Features
- Ticket routing
- Tracking and reporting
- Live chat software
- API
- Self-service portal
- Community forums
- Automation
- Native integrations
- Knowledge base
Pricing
LiveAgent offers 4 different plans, including the Free plan. However, the Free plan has some limitations. The most popular plan is the All-Inclusive plan with chat, ticketing, and over 180 features.
- Free plan
- Ticket: $15 per user per month
- Ticket + Chat: $29 per user per month
- All-Inclusive: $49 per user per month
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Software is easy to implement
- The pricing is reasonable
- There’s quick development of new features
- Offers the ability to self-host behind the firewall
- Self-service setup is very useful
Cons
- Its mobile app interface could use some improvements
- More integrations with business systems could be supported by the software
Product Rating Summary
For businesses that want to combine phone, email, and live chat customer support, LiveAgent is a top-notch helpdesk program. The paid plans aren’t ridiculously expensive, and the free plan is well equipped and may be sufficient for small businesses.
Furthermore, LiveAgent does a fantastic job of automatically routing tickets between teams and assisting your support employees in maintaining consistency when handling a high volume of customer requests.
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Gorgias
Overview
Gorgias is, in our opinion, the best live chat and customer care helpdesk for Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce stores.
Users are able to view all customer service inquiries from one place, including phone, social media, live chat, and email. With just one click, you can change/refund orders, cancel subscriptions, give out rewards points, and more.
Reduce support time by using templates, automation, rules, and macros. Your customer base will adore you, and your support crew will be more effective.
Top Features
- Dedicated automation specialist
- Integrates well with BigCommerce, Shopify, and more
- Enables you to manage unlimited users
- Connects all your support channels
- User interface is clean and appealing
- eCommerce-boosting tools
- Affordable plans
- Intent and sentiment detection
- Set smart autoresponders with rules
- Effective email templates
Pricing
Gorgias has 5 pricing plans:
- Starter: $10 per month (only available as a monthly plan) and includes 50 tickets. Additional tickets charged at $0.40 each
- Basic: $50 or $60 per month (depending on if you pay annually or monthly) and includes 350 tickets
- Pro: $300 or $360 per month (depending on if you pay annually or monthly) and includes 2000 tickets
- Advanced: $750 or $900 per month (depending on if you pay annually or monthly) and includes 6000 tickets
- Enterprise: Custom Pricing
A FREE 14-day trial is available.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Plans start at $10 per month
- 14-day free trial
- Broad and growing list of integrations with popular e-commerce and add-on apps
- Email-like user interface offers a familiar environment for most users
- Unique features help its e-commerce orientation
Cons
- Reporting features limited to canned reports with basic export except for niche BI tools
- Tightly focused on only e-commerce customers
- Sometimes gets buggy with its integrations
- Pricing model could impact high call volume customers
Product Rating Summary
If you manage a small or medium-sized online store that utilizes BigCommerce, Magento, or Shopify, the Gorgias CRM software is more than capable of meeting your needs for a support desk. It offers a wide range of apps that work with it, along with a reputable feature set.
The automated specialist is Gorgias’ finest feature as it answers the most common questions from your customers automatically.
But if you’re looking for anything that goes beyond the scope of an e-commerce platform, you should stay away from Gorgias.
Instead, you ought to choose more extensive alternatives, such as Freshdesk and Zoho Desk.
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GrooveHQ
Overview
With the help of GrooveHQ, businesses can easily manage customer care. They feature built-in resources like canned responses, reports, and customer service surveys that speed up tasks and keep personnel productive.
Users can create tickets directly from the site, which makes accessing client issues easier and assists in ticket management. Live chat is another useful feature that enables personnel to instantly address customer inquiries. Additionally, Groove offers integrations to third-party programs like Slack and Trello. Due to its ease of use, attractive design, and reasonable price, GrooveHQ Pro is probably the greatest option for small businesses.
Top Features
- Organize entire customer conversations in one place
- Assign tickets to employees
- Folders
- Private notes
- Metrics
- App integrations
- Easy to create FAQ articles
Pricing
Groove has 4 different plans:
- Starter: $12 or $15 per month per user (depending on if you pay annually or monthly)
- Plus: $20 or $25 per month per user (depending on if you pay annually or monthly)
- Pro: $35 or $40 per month per user (depending on if you pay annually or monthly)
- Company: Custom Pricing
A FREE 30-day trial is available.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Simple pricing structure
- 30-day free trial
- Simple in appearance and execution
- Covers all the standard help desk bases
- Easy-to-use inbox interface
- Customer service widget
- Analytics reporting for agents and knowledge base
- Customizability with integrations
- Reporting and metrics
- Helps to organize email in best way for customer service
Cons
- Uninspiring and dated user interface
- Cost is per user
- Platform can occasionally be slow, especially if there’s large amounts of HTML
- Most features must be added through integration
- Not very customizable
- Can get expensive for large businesses
Product Rating Summary
For small business owners, GrooveHQ Pro is a great option. It’s reasonably priced, simple to use, and provides the key features you require to maintain client satisfaction and solve common requests. Additionally, it integrates with other well-known business tools seamlessly.
However, GrooveHQ might not be a suitable choice if you require extreme customizability because, until you use their API, the product mostly offers boilerplate solutions to solve issues.
However, the system is simple to use and offers all the features that the majority of small businesses need in help desk software.
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TeamSupport
Overview
B2B software and technology companies are the target market for this application. TeamSupport offers customer support by improving internal communication and removing obstacles that can hinder most organizations.
The most significant features of TeamSupport include multi-channel support, integrated screen recordings, real-time internal collaboration, enhanced customer service portals, and built-in reporting tools.
Customers can submit tickets, check their status, search the knowledge base, add screen recordings and attachments, and participate in community forums on the Advanced Customer Service Portal, which is built to seamlessly integrate into the user’s website. This allows customers to get answers any time, day or night.
Top Features
- Customer management
- Customer self-service tools
- Omnichannel support
- Sentiment analysis
- Team collaboration
- Ticket management
- Products and inventory
- Knowledge base management
- Reporting and analytics
Pricing
TeamSupport offers Complete Support, Messaging and Live Chat, and Success. These editions come in the following 5 plans:
Complete Support:
- Essential Support: $49 per user per month
- Enterprise Support: $69 per user per month
- Complete Customer Support Suite: $119 per user per month
Messaging and Live Chat:
- Essential Messaging and Live Chat: $29 per user per month
- Enterprise Messaging and Live chat: $39 per user per month
Success:
- $49 per user per month
A Free trial is also available.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Supports multiple platforms
- Good value for money
- Easy to use
- Great functionality
- Solid list of features
- Great customer service department
Cons
- No free plan or trial available
- Bland design
- Expensive pricing
Product Rating Summary
Although TeamSupport is a reputable helpdesk program, its user interface is outdated and sometimes confusing. It’s an excellent option for SMB operations, but before committing, be sure its specific features are relevant and suitable to your business. Unfortunately, there isn’t a free-trial available to test it out.
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How To Pick The Best Software For Your Customer Service Team?
The size of your support team should be taken into account when choosing the best customer service software for your business. Next, decide what solutions are necessary, together with the characteristics that are required and your budget.
It’s also advisable to read user reviews first and sign up for free trials or demos before making a decision. It’s difficult to find a solution that perfectly suits your support agents, as is something that requires analysis, evaluation, checklists, and testing. To make it easier for you to make a decision and choose the best customer service software for your businesses, follow these steps:
Choose The Channels That Best Suit The Needs Of Your Customers
Since every business is unique, there must be numerous avenues for support and problem-solving. Determine which communication channels your customer care team excels at and which ones they prefer. For instance, live chat may be sufficient for online clothing stores. However, installation and troubleshooting support are frequently given over the phone by software retailers.
Offering your customers multiple ways to contact your business is advantageous since it gives them more options. If this is challenging for you, start with one or two channels before adding more. There is a solution that meets your communication needs regardless of the channel you choose. Some allow you to handle all of your messages on a single platform thanks to social media integrations.
Consider The Features And Functionalities Needed By Your Business
Customer service software developers frequently highlight their most sought-after features, but you should concentrate exclusively on those that you actually need. You should also take into account the software’s user cap, ease of use, adaptability, personalization, and integration possibilities with other third-parties. Choose a package with the features that best suit the needs of your business.
Select A Price Range That Is Within Your Budget
It’s time to select the customer service software plan that best matches your allocated budget after you’ve limited your options to one or two. While investing in customer service software, keep in mind not to spend more than you can afford. Small businesses and startups can start off with the most basic package or a free plan before scaling up later.
Read Reviews Of Relevant Customer Service Software
You have probably already chosen which plan you want to sign up for at this point. Read online software reviews from reliable websites like Fit Small Business, G2, and Capterra before you click the sign-up button. You can get a sense of what to anticipate from the customer service software, as well as its advantages and disadvantages by reading the most recent reviews.
In Conclusion: The Level Of Service You Provide Is Essential
It can be challenging to determine which customer service tool will benefit you and your team the most in terms of the highest level of customer relationship management. Finding a product that satisfies your current needs while remaining within your budget is a key factor for every growing startup. It should also be adaptable enough to handle future needs.
Making a decision might seem difficult, but the alternative—having the wrong tool, unhappy clients, and irritated team members—is much worse. Make the best decision you can by taking your time, being deliberate, focusing on the right tools and considering all of your options. The main priority is to keep customers happy.
Regardless of the platform you select, what matters is the level of service you provide to your clients. Don’t let your efforts to provide the kind of customer service that will entice repeat business to be derailed by your search for the “ideal customer service software.”
