10 Best Customer Service Tools For Growing Teams
We get it. Finding a customer service tool is like finding a life partner: responsive, intelligent and want to grow with you forever. Like finding a partner, you might find yourself scrolling endlessly looking for the right customer service tool to come along. Whilst we can’t help you to find the one romantically, we can help you to find a customer service tool that’ll want to grow with your business.
What Is A Customer Service Tool Anyway?
Customer service tools are designed to help teams keep on top of their customer enquiries. They can categorise enquiries and have them organised so that they reach the right member of the team.
They are used to manage encounters with customers from one or several channels of communication. This includes email, live-chat, social media, self-service, calls or even forms on your own company website.
10 Best Customer Service Tools For Growing Businesses
- HaloCRM
- SugarCRM
- Freshdesk
- Helpdesk
- Zendesk
- ZohoDesk
- Puzzel
- Agile CRM
- LiveAgent
- Jira Service Management
1. HaloCRM
HaloCRM’s scalability and all-inclusive omnichannel offering makes his product desirable for businesses of all sizes. This customer service tool charges only for seats, so all features are available from the get-go with no hidden fees.
With a partnership approach to their clients, HaloCRM provides a seamless experience for yourselves as well as your customers.
- HaloCRM can digest enquiries from many channels, including: email, live chat, self-service portal, calls, social media and from forms that are embedded into your website – meaning your teams are able to operate solely on one platform for enquiries.
- Minimise agent workload by building a knowledge base that your contacts can browse through to find their answer, or integrate it into the live chat for faster resolutions.
- The HaloCRM customer module stores all of the contextual information about your customers and contacts on top of the data stored for them and their ticket history.
- Monitor customer satisfaction with pre-made 1-click feedback or custom CSAT surveys.
- Access reports and analytics to measure your teams performance and customer happiness. With over 100 out of the box reports and the option to create your own, you can get all of the information you need to ensure efficiency and even agent happiness!
- Mobile app is available for agents on the go, so they can work wherever they are, whenever they want!
HaloCRM includes all features within the licence costs so there are no hidden costs or limits to your company’s growth and scalability within the platform.
You can start a free 30-day trial and try it out for yourself by pressing the button below.
2. SugarCRM
SugarCRM now offers several CRM products and also has a customer service platform to accompany their sell and marketing CRM products. The features on SugarCRM include omnichannel communications and lead management, however some features, like mail and calendar integrations are only available on a pricier subscription.
SugarCRM boasts of its simplicity to manage accounts and opportunities – which is a functionality across all products and has a simple to use interface.
Prices start at £39 per month/per agent for SugarCRM Sell.
3. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a popular CRM software created by Freshworks. On their cheapest plan, Freshdesk offers a ticketing platform with integrations to your email and social medias, as well as a standard knowledge base and an out-of-the-box, pre-built reporting suite.
For the basic package for teams up to 10 agents, the instance is free of charge, however businesses will be hit with financial walls upon growth or if they’d like additional features such as SLA functionality or access to any of their 1000+ marketplace apps.
4. Helpdesk
Helpdesk is a simple customer service ticketing system that can integrate with your mailbox/mailboxes to prevent duplication of response and manage workload. Their platform is great for basic helpdesk’s who do not need to integrate with other platforms. Their basic platform offers all of their products features, such as email templates, canned text and a customer database, with the exception of auditing and security assistance, and you are not provided with software training or assigned an account manager – but they do have a support team available 24/7.
Prices start from £24 per agent.
5. Zendesk
Zendesk provides a omnichannel platform which ingests enquiries from multiple channels, and has configurable workflows with automations to simplify work. For their most-popular package, which includes all of their features, and most customisation options within the reporting suite and additional functionality with workflows and rules – you’ll be looking at £79 a head, which is more pricey than the offerings above, which is why it is more suitable for larger businesses looking for a CRM system.
6. ZohoDesk
Zoho is best known for their CRM product, but also now provide Zoho Desk which is their help desk software. On the basic plan, it offers email processing and SMS, but if you’re looking for a multi-brand tool with live chat and telephony, or customer based SLA’s, you’ll be looking at their professional package.
Prices start at £18 per agent per month.
7. Puzzel
Puzzel is a call-driven customer service tool that aims to reduce traffic on your phones and give callers the best experience possible. For businesses who facilitate all of their customer enquiries through the phone, this could be the one for you.
Their basic package is a simple contact centre with voice, call recording and can integrate with Microsoft Teams, however Puzzel’s omnichannel platform which includes email and chat as well as telephony, or would like access to reporting, you’ll be looking at their ‘Impress’ or ‘Power’ packages.
Prices are per request and there is no free trial available.
8. AgileCRM
AgileCRM is famed for its gamification for sales teams with the visible, up-to-date leader boards of their progress. However they also hav a help desk software that offers free use for businesses under 10 agents, with standard features such as SLA’s, canned text and reporting.
They are also released 500apps which is an eco-system of integration you can add to your AgileCRM for a monthly cost.
AgileCRM are very transparent with their pricing and for helpdesks or sales teams looking for integrations, immediately you will be looking at their standard or regular package, which start at $8.99 or $29.99 respectfully.
9. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a live-chat driven ticketing platform that, when on a certain plan, can pose as an omnichannel helpdesk.
LiveAgent offers customer portal and forum functionality as a standard, with basic ticket functionality, which progresses dependent of your package, knowledge base functionality and levels of customisation, again, based on your package.
Though a strong product, there are a lot of add-on costs if you’d like to integrate with social medias, or add branding to your account – and for the cheapest packages, reporting is not included – which limits growth as there are no growth and productivity metrics available to the business.
Prices start at $8 per agent per month.
10. Jira Service Management
Jira Service Management is a popular tool among IT teams – especially those using Jira DevOps. Jira Service Management has ITIL aligned practices so IT teams can better handle incidents and requests.
As well as email processing as a standard, by integrating with charged add-ons, Jira Service Management can become a omnichannel platform that ingests tweets, facebook messages. They also have a mobile app available on both android and apple so you can access your tickets on the go!
There is a free plan available for teams of 3 or less agents, otherwise prices start from $20 per agent per month.
