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
Overview
Customer service management and communication is 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.
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Pricing
Intercom has four plans:
The Scale plan includes Salesforce integration, complex workflows, custom bots, and 10 seats.
Pros & Cons
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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 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 to achieve customer success. It enables businesses to scale with self-service alternatives, deliver excellent customer service, and stand out with proactive engagement.
Customer relationships become more significant, more personal, and more fruitful as a result, and all at a lower cost.
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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:
Pros & Cons
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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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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 worry 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.
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Help Scout has three payment plans:
Pros & Cons
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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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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.
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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:
Omnichannel has 3 payment plans:
Pros & Cons
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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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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.
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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:
Pros & Cons
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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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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.
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HubSpot has 4 payment plans, including the Free plan:
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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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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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Gorgias has 5 pricing plans:
A FREE 14-day trial is available.