Best Customer Service Software in 2023

Customer service is an important aspect of business and good quality software can help to streamline your processes and boost customer satisfaction. It can help you serve your online customers more efficiently and capture useful information you can use for improvement. Since there are numerous customer service tools available in the market, selecting the right one can be a difficult task. To start, be clear about your goals and unique needs. Consider the following list of factors and features as you look for the best customer service tools for small business and enterprises and do informed comparisons.

Our customer service software guide will help you understand the benefits of this kind of software as well as the features you can expect to find in one. After reading this guide, we hope that you become more equipped to choose the right software for your organization. 

Start by signing up for the free trials or demo offered by leading customer service software providers to check out their features free of cost and do a general comparison. We suggest you register for the free trials of the platforms that have received the highest SmartScore rankings and Customer Satisfaction Rating in our customer service software reviews, and to look for the best Customer Service software for your company. These tools are: Freshsdesk, Velocify, XSellco Fusion, Uservoice, BookSteam, OnContact, Preact, Gainsight, Salesboom CRM, and iTouchVision Contact Centre.

By subscribing to free trial, you will get a good idea of what the customer service software you’re trying out can do. You can judge the software better in terms of usability and functionality. Free product trials allow you to experience first-hand the functionalities and benefits that top customer service software can offer.

• Enterprise companies that have plenty of users, complex requirements, and use an integrated software solution across all business units.
• High-volume call center buyers who operate one or more big call centers.
• Small business CRM buyers who wish add to add basic interaction tracking and trouble ticketing capabilities to boost customer relationships with strong support.
• Field service buyers who work for large companies that offer service at the customer location and make use of mobile apps to work on the go.

Whether you’re a company that has your own customer service team or an outsourcing company that specializes in customer support services, a highly capable customer service software is a vital addition to the business tools you’re currently using. The key is to identify your needs and find the software that suits those.

• Freshshdesk: Freshdesk is an award-winning cloud-hosted help desk solution with really useful features and exceptional customer service.
• Velocify: Velocify automates your customer relationship management, lead management, sales management, and sales enablement in one user-friendly system.
• XSellco Fusion: XSellco Fusion is an all-in-one reputation management app designed for Amazon and eBay merchants.
• Uservoice: Uservoice is a SaaS software that enables users to collect information, analyze trends, and study market movements to get to know their customers better.
• BookSteam: BookSteam is a cloud-based, powerful yet flexible online appointment scheduling software.

• Live chat – Helps you provide customer service to your website visitors in real-time.  
• Phone systems – These solutions are used in call centers and include features, such as IVR, call transfer, call recording, and performance reports.
• Ticketing system – This means an email-based solution that helps agents prioritize and answer queries.
• Knowledge base – This is a self-help resource that customers can use to resolve queries on their own.
• Community forums – Users can utilize these forums to ask questions, give tips, and reply to customers’ queries.
• Mobile in-app support – Take your helpdesk wherever you go by using mobile apps to provide customer support.

These are the different types of customer service software. Some programs may cover more than one or all of these functionalities. By knowing the types of customer service software currently available, you’ll know which ones can help your business the most.

• Live chat: Allows agents to chat in real-time with website visitors and automatically capture the content of the conversations in the ticketing system.
• Customer self-service: Provides a customer portal through which customers can find answers to common issues. The content of the self-help portal can include a knowledge base, how-to pages, searchable FAQs, and documentation.
• Knowledge base: Contains a database of descriptions of common issues. This resource can be accessed by external customers or reserved for the internal use of support agents.
• Multi-channel management: This feature enables management of customer interactions received through multiple channels such as phone, live chat, Web, mobile app, Twitter, Facebook, and others. The software stores all interactions and they can be routed to the right agents for resolution.
• Analytics and reporting: Managers can create custom reports that offer insight on time to resolution, team performance, customer satisfaction, and other vital indicators.
• Strategy and Goals: Define your company’s goals for customer service improvement. Which processes do you wish to address with the software? Do you have any industry-specific issues that need to be accommodated? Are you planning to provide customer support through multiple channels, such as phone, live chat, email, and mobile devices? If yes, you need a robust customer service application that accommodates all these needs. If no, you can use a simple single-channel service system.
• Ease of Use: Your agents should find the software easy to use. It should be simple and effective to help them perform their work efficiently. You can use the software to streamline and simplify your workflow so that your agents are able to avoid mistakes. The learning curve should not be steep so that it is easy to train your agents and implement the software with minimal disruption to your business services.
• Scalability: The software should be scalable to meet the demands of your company’s future growth. Opt for a cloud-based solution that makes it easy for you to add or remove users as required. Make sure the vendor offers flexible pricing packages so that you can switch between plans as the needs arise.
• Flexibility: A flexible, cloud-based solution can help your employees access the system from anywhere. They would be able to work from home, use their mobile device to access data, and continue to be productive even in the field. The vendor should offer flexible pricing options that can be changed easily, depending on desired features, number of users, and company size.
• Cost: The best solutions are sure to cost a little more. But don’t be stingy as they offer high-quality features and benefits. Contact the vendor and clarify important details, such as technical support, resources, training, implementation, and the capability to scale up or down as needed.
• Technical Support and Training: Find out if the vendor charges for technical support and training. An initial training program can help your agents learn to use the software quickly and effectively. The vendor should provide 24/7 technical support through multiple channels to help resolve any issues you may have with the software. Select a vendor that has a good reputation for providing reliable technical and customer support.

The features of customer service software vary from one product to another. However, the features listed above are the basic functions commonly found in the top customer service software. To know whether a software offers the features you’re looking for, take the time to read reviews. Better yet, subscribe to the free trial.

• Integrations with Existing Systems: The customer service software should be able to integrate smoothly with other business systems you use such as ecommerce, helpdesk, and financial management solutions. This can help to boost the efficacy of all the tools and improve your employees’ efficiency and productivity. Be clear beforehand about which integrations are important and select a software that accommodates all these priority integrations.
• Customization: You should be able to customize the software with your company’s colors and logo to boost brand awareness and image. The system should enable you to create custom fields so that you can collect more information beyond the basic data.
• Measurement: The customer service software can provide you with insightful reports that offer useful data on key performance metrics, such as time taken for each action, tickets resolved by each agent, ticket flow, etc. This will help you to monitor the performance of your support agents and identify areas for improvement.
• Prioritization: The software can help you to prioritize important customers as well as issues. Your agents are sure to be inundated with customer queries and problems, and they need help in sorting out which issues to prioritize and handle first. For instance, customers who are on the highest tier need priority support and the software should flag their tickets so that agents resolve their queries first.
• Splitting Tickets: This is an important aspect of customer service software. A customer may submit a single ticket that has three different queries that need to be resolved by three different units. Your support agent can split this ticket into three individual ones so that each unit can resolve their respective query.

In general, customer service software helps you provide a better customer experience. This kind of software also unifies your customer support team’s efforts and gives them the tools that make their jobs easier.

• Mobility First: Stats reveal that using a smartphone to access the internet is becoming more popular than using a desktop or laptop for Web access. Therefore, market-leading companies are adopting a “mobile-first” strategy that goes beyond just making their website mobile-friendly. These firms are making all their support channels mobile accessible.
• Omni-Channel Support: Today, you can’t get away with just offering phone and email channels for technical support and customer service. Customers are increasingly using digital channels to purchase goods and they prefer using the same channels for sales support and customer service. Therefore, the need of the hour is to create strategies to maximize the accessibility and availability of customer service channels.
• The Rise of Bots: It is predicted that the majority of customer service interactions will be facilitated by non-human assistants. The use of chatbots is now on the rise. Although the technology is still a work in progress, preparing to leverage it as early as now will significantly help your team, particularly when it comes to reducing tedious tasks.

• How to Retain Customers: It is expensive and time-consuming to find prospects and convert them into paying customers. So, it makes sense to motivate your existing customers to provide repeat business. You can do this by offering excellent support that will make your customers happy. They will keep using your services and products and also recommend them to other people. This can boost your sales and revenue.
• How to Reduce Support Tickets: A large number of queries and support requests can tax your agents. To reduce support tickets, you can offer self-help options, such as a knowledge base and community forums that your customers can use to find out more information about recurring and simple issues. Some software programs can analyze forum questions and help desk tickets for certain keywords and use that information to suggest solutions to help customers. It’s a win-win situation as your customers don’t need to wait to get support, while your agents will have more time to focus on important tickets.
• How to Maintain Personalized Support: At a time where auto-replies and chatbots are dominating the industry, companies are faced with the challenge of keeping their customer interactions personalized and more human-like.
• How to Maximize Customer Support Systems: If your team finds a customer service software difficult to use, it’s possible that they won’t be able to maximize all of its features.

Remember that first impressions last.

You never get a second chance at making a good first impression. This is particularly true for businesses as it is very easy for customers to judge the way you provide services. Make sure that your entire team works toward the development and maintenance of a good brand image.

Collect data regularly.

To provide better customer service, you should make data work for you. Collect and analyze data from your customer support interactions. This will help you plan as you improve your services further.

Know where your customers are.

To ensure more effective customer service, you should know where your customers are. For instance, if your market comes from the younger crowd, it might be more effective to prioritize social media engagement.

Personalize as much as you can.

Even if you use automated replies and chatbots, see to it that you don’t rely solely on machines. Personalize interactions whenever possible.

Customer service software will be a great addition to your business tools, especially if you have a dedicated customer support team. To make sure that you get the most out of this software’s features and benefits, take your time in selecting a program that best suits your needs. Carefully consider the type of software to get. It will also be in your best interest to get one that has scalable features and plans.

There is no doubt that your customer support agents need the help of a high-quality and reliable software to efficiently resolve queries and boost customer satisfaction. Select a solution that offers all the above-mentioned features to boost the efficiency and productivity of your agents. Do not mind the cost of investing in a full-featured, robust solution that is packed with many useful features as you are sure to get good value for the investment in terms of enhanced reputation for customer service.

Furthermore, aside from carefully choosing a particular customer service software to use, you should also ensure that your team applies and follows proven and tested customer service practices. We listed some of these below.