17 Best Sprout Social Alternatives & Competitors of 2024(Sprout Social vs Similar Customer Support Software)

Have you decided that it’s time to move on from Sprout Social? But you don’t know where to start. 

It can be hard to know which customer service software is the best for your help desk needs as there are many options and features available. You need something that is easy to use and that will integrate with all of your other software.

Our Sprout Social alternative guide walks you through the process of choosing customer service software and provides a list of the best Sprout Social alternatives.

The Best Sprout Social Alternatives & Competitors

In this lengthy list of the best alternative to Sprout Social, we’ve listed top-notch customer service platforms that have help desk features like a ticketing system, knowledge base, Live Chat, voice support, and chatbots. Some of them even compile all of your social media messages under one roof for easy social media comment management. We’re confident that you’ll find a Sprout Social alternative for any use case you may have.

Hootsuite

Best for social media comment management and customer support.

Hootsuite is a social media management tool that allows you to publish, schedule, monitor, engage, and advertise on social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and pretty much anything. From a customer service perspective, their tool also connects all of your social media channel inner messages into their software. Answer all your customer messages from one single platform.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Hootsuite has an average of 4.2-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Hootsuite is the best social media calendar and scheduler because it easily curates, publishes, and schedules content that connects with all your audiences from a single dashboard.

• Publish and schedule
• Engage customers
• Monitor
• Advertise
• Analyze

Publish and schedule

Hootsuite is the best social media calendar and scheduler because it easily curates, publishes, and schedules content that connects with all your audiences from a single dashboard.

• Hootsuite planner: The ultimate tool for managing your published and scheduled content across all your social media channels. With Planner, you can see everything in one place with Hootsuite’s handy calendar feature.
• Create high-performing content: Composer makes it easy to create on-brand posts that will engage your audience. With their social media planner tools, content development has never been easier.
• Easy collaboration: Get insights and edits from team members before posts are published to ensure that the content is consistent with your brand.
• Source content from everywhere: With ease, share noteworthy content from across the web with those in your networks by creating search streams for hashtags, keywords, and locations.

Engage customers

Hootsuite will make sure that your social media messages are always being answered promptly and effectively.

• Stay relevant: Keep track of what’s trending and how your posts are performing by creating custom streams that fit your needs. Respond to questions, share items with positive reactions, and click to boost teammate morale – all in one place.
• All incoming messages in one place: Don’t let customer questions get the best of you. With Hootsuite’s Inbox, designed to help you monitor messages from different networks all in one place, it’s easy to filter out what requires action and bulk dismiss what doesn’t.
• Chatbots: Chatbots are excellent for responding to general questions quickly, and when consumers need more in-depth assistance, the conversation can be easily handed off via message to your Inbox.
• Integrate with top CRM tools: Instead of devoting time to developing new CRM processes, integrate your favorite third-party tools, like Salesforce or Zendesk, with Hootsuite. This will ensure that messages are routed appropriately and efficiently to the right department for on-brand handling.

Monitor

Track competitor activities, the performance of your posts and brand mentions, and follow key topics–all from a single dashboard.

• Custom streams: Creating custom streams helps you stay up-to-date on essential topics, trends, and social profiles. You can also respond quickly when opportunities arise.
• Real-time audience insights: Hootsuite Insights, powered by Brandwatch, provides you with an immediate overview of millions of online conversations happening in real time. You can search for any topic or keyword, and filter the results by date, demographics, location, and more.
• Integrate with top social listening tools: If you’re content with the social media software you’re already using, great news! You can integrate Hootsuite with tools like Brandwatch and Talkwalker to get essential insights without ever having to leave your dashboard. For even more options, take a look at Hootsuite’s app directory.

Advertise

Control your paid and organic marketing campaigns at the same time from one easy-to-use control panel.

• Multi-channel functionality: With Hootsuite, you can quickly boost posts, get insights on your social media performance, and generate reports for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn—all from one convenient dashboard.
• Supercharged analytics: See a complete picture of your performance with multi-channel analytics and reporting for both organic and boosted posts. This way, you can bolster your weak spots, play to your strengths, and pivot your strategy to maximize your resources.
• Improved reach: By using paid techniques like ads and boosted posts directed at your target audience, you can ensure that your brand is seen by the right people at every step of their customer journey. This will be further reinforced by organic engagement on your part.

Analyze

Create reports to show how well you are doing on social media and see the progress of your brand.

• Efficient analyzing: From one place, get a 360-degree view of how you’re performing on all social media platforms. You can also set performance benchmarks and monitor improvements with time. Additionally, Hootsuite’s customizable reports make it easy to take in the information that matters most to your organization.
• Optimize for better results: If you want to avoid the tedious task of data crunching, here’s where you can get reliable information about the best times to post. No matter what your goal is– whether it’s gaining exposure, stirring up interest, or getting more traffic– we’ll help make sure you hit that target.
• Improve ROI: With Hootsuite Impact, you can easily calculate the return on investment for your social media campaigns. This way, you can demonstrate to your organization how effective social media can be in driving leads, conversions, and sales. Customizable dashboards feature easy-to-read graphs and tables that provide key performance indicators— perfect for results-oriented stakeholders.

User Experience/User Interface

I generally enjoy Hootsuite’s user interface and user experience. The platform is easy to use and navigate and provides a wealth of features that make managing social media accounts straightforward. However, some aspects of the interface can be a bit cluttered at times, making it difficult to find specific functions. Overall, Hootsuite’s user interface and user experience are considered to be among the best in the industry.

Pricing plans

Hootsuite’s pricing comes in three tiers: Professional, Team, and Business. Their Professional plan includes one user and access to ten social accounts for $49 per user per month. This plan also includes unlimited posts, post scheduling, and access to messages in one inbox. Hootsuite’s Team plan costs $179 per user per month and includes a self-service customer portal, three users, 20 social accounts

Professional — $49 per user per month

• 1 User
• 10 Social accounts
• Unlimited posts
• Post scheduling
• Access to messages in one inbox

Team — $179 per user per month

Self-service customer portal

• 3 Users
• 20 Social accounts
• Access to messages in one inbox
• Roles & permissions
• Assign posts to team members

Business — $669 per user per month

• 5 Users
• 35 Social accounts
• Access to messages in one inbox
• Content & asset library
• Hootsuite customer support

You can try Hootsuite with their 30-day free trial.

Visit Hootsuite

Help Scout

Best all-in-one customer support software for help desk ticketing.

Help Scout helps manage all your customer conversations in one powerful platform that feels just like your inbox. With customizable workflows, advanced reporting, and integrations with top tools like Salesforce and Hubspot, Help Scout streamlines your team’s customer support process for better efficiency and improved customer satisfaction.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Help Scout has an average of 4.5-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Help Scout is the customer communications platform designed to give scaling companies the flexibility and power they need to grow, at an affordable price. Help Scout’s top features include:

• Shared inbox
• Knowledge base
• Live Chat
• Messages
• Integrations

Shared inbox

Having a shared inbox for your team helps improve productivity and build strong working relationships. Help Scout’s easy-to-use interface will have your team responding to customer emails in no time. You’ll also get access to robust tools for organization, automation, and collaboration.

• Assignments: With Email Assignments, you can make sure every email goes to the right person or team. It’s easy to use and makes staying on top of your email inbox a breeze.
• Private Notes: Use the private notes feature to collaborate with teammates on problems and find solutions before replying to emails.
• Saved Replies: Quickly and easily find answers to frequently asked questions so that you can insert them into replies with just a few clicks.
• Tagging: Automating workflows, categorizing types of customer requests, and creating detailed reports is as simple as tagging customer conversations.

Knowledge base

Fewer customer questions and increased happiness? Yes, please! Help Scout’s knowledge base is designed for customers to help themselves so that they can have fewer conversations. Their knowledge base is easy to update for customer service specialists and easy to use for customers.

• Create articles fast: With just a few clicks, you can add text, images, hyperlinks, tables, and videos to your articles. You can also select categories, add related articles and customize your SEO details.
• Help articles across your site or app: If you want to see the Beacon help widget in action, look no further than Help Scout’s very own knowledge base articles. By addressing commonly asked questions and reducing incoming email requests, we’re able to offer relevant and helpful content that everyone can benefit from.
• Provide outreach options in Docs: With their easy-to-use email and chat features, your customers can quickly get the help they need without leaving your Docs site.
• Gain insight from Beacon activity: To find out which areas customers are struggling with, keep track of the web pages and Docs articles they read before asking questions. You can then look for patterns and update any outdated content.

Live Chat

With Help Scout’s live chat support, customers can easily find help center articles and get the answers they need.

• Lead with instant answers: Make article recommendations to customers based on the page they are viewing, so they don’t have to search for answers.
• Self-help is easy: Customer experience is crucial, and Help Scout’s design makes it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for without leaving the page.
• Easy escalation: Customers can easily find answers to their questions by starting a live chat with your team in the same place they were viewing articles.
• All-in-one support tool: If live chat is unavailable, you can send customer support requests to your Help Scout email queue.

Messages

Help Scout provides a way for customers to come to you through email, live chat, and a help center so that you can offer answers or Messages that let you take proactive steps and anticipate your customer’s needs.

Use Messages to meet customers where they need help, without them needing to reach out. Combine Messages with your shared inbox and live chat for an even better customer experience.

• Promote: Make your teams aware of any recent changes, from new marketing campaigns to product launches and sales strategies.
• Update: Keep your customers updated with company news and announcements to avoid any unpleasant surprises.
• Proactively support: Target specific groups of customers who might need help, welcome new users to your product, or start conversations with trial customers.

Integrations

Help Scout integrates with multiple customer relationship management (CRM) tools, including Salesforce and HubSpot. This allows for the seamless transfer of customer information and communication history between Help Scout and the CRM tool.

Help Scout also integrates with several messaging and collaboration tools, such as Slack and Zendesk, as well as e-commerce platforms like Shopify. These integrations allow for improved communication and collaboration between teams, as well as streamlined customer support processes.

Finally, Help Scout integrates with Zapier, which allows for even more customization and integration options with over 1,000 different apps.

Help Scout’s integrations make it easy to streamline and improve the customer support process.

User Experience/User Interface

I’m loving how easy it is to navigate and use Help Scout’s user interface. Everything is clearly organized and easy to find, making it a breeze to get started. The interface is also very responsive and fluid, giving me a great experience no matter what device I’m using.

Pricing plans

Help Scout’s pricing comes in three tiers: Standard, Plus, and Pro. Each plan offers different levels of mailbox and Docs site options, as well as additional features such as live chat and custom fields. The Enterprise plan caters to larger businesses with added security measures and tiered discounts for higher user counts.

Standard — $20 per user per month

• 2 Mailboxes
• 1 Docs site
• Add up to 25 users
• Live chat
• In-app messaging

Plus — $40 per user per month

• 5 Mailboxes
• 2 Docs sites
• No maximum user count
• 25 free light users
• Custom fields

Pro — $65 per user per month

• 25 Mailboxes
• 10 Docs sites
• 50 free light users
• Tiered discounts
• Enterprise security

You can test Help Scout for 15 days for free. No credit card is required.

Visit Help Scout

LiveAgent

Best for Live Chat customer support with fully-fledged customer software add-ons.

LiveAgent is made to provide the best possible Live Chat help desk solution for any sized business. On top of their industry-leading Live Chat tool, they actually can solve all of your customer service software needs from ticketing to a fully-working call center with video calls and IVR solutions!

Their platform is fully customizable with a wide range of integrations, including popular CRM and helps desk tools like Salesforce, Squarespace, and Shopify. Plus, they have multilingual support for over 50 languages to serve your global customer base.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

LiveAgent has an average of 4.6-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

LiveAgent is one of the best help desk solutions on the market, which makes ticket management easy. With their wide range of features and integrations, as well as excellent multi-channel support for smooth customer conversations, you can take advantage of everything they have to offer. LiveAgent’s key features include:

• Ticketing system
• Knowledge base
• Live Chat
• Social media support
• Call center

Ticketing system

Customer service can be a nightmare, but it doesn’t have to be. With LiveAgent, your emails, chats, calls, social media mentions and more will go into one inbox. Automation rules and integrations will help you take care of customer service with just the click of a button.

• Universal inbox: All of your customer’s communication in one place, on a single dashboard that is easily organized.
• Organized customer interactions: Keep all communication channels organized and efficient. Decrease response time for customers and provide faster replies. Easily find customer tickets to improve your workflow.
• Internal tickets and notes: Make a note to yourself and assign tasks to agents within the ticket. Write down any relevant customer information. Set reminders for yourself in the tickets so you don’t forget anything.
• Canned messages: LiveAgent’s pre-written answers will help you resolve common issues faster, so you can focus on other areas of your business. Their solutions are reliable and easy to implement, so you can get back to what’s important: growing your business.

Knowledge base

LiveAgent offers a self-service customer portal to provide the best customer experience possible. This will improve the daily routine of your customer support agents, and take advantage of LiveAgent’s knowledge base tools to provide relevant articles, how-to guides, and other useful information for customers.

• WYSIWYG editor: LiveAgent’s WYSIWYG editor can help you create articles, guides, how-tos, and information segments for your knowledge hub so that it can continue to grow.
• Forum: LiveAgent forum is an important part of your customer support platform. Customers and customer support team members can engage in conversations on the forum to share knowledge and help each other out.
• Feedback & Suggestions: If you take the time to read and respond to customer feedback, your business will not only improve its relationship with customers but also build a stronger knowledge base.
• User-friendly dashboard: Your knowledge base should not only be about helping your clients but also assist your employees with an easy-to-use platform.

Live Chat

LiveAgent offers a live chat platform that provides great customer experiences. The fast live chat widget and advanced features make any customer interaction easy. With real-time support, you can turn website visitors into customers and solve customer queries quickly. Improve customer engagement with the LiveAgent single chat application today.

• Proactive chat invitations: Invite website browsers to chat with a customer care agent in order to catch their attention.
• Website monitoring: With Chat overview, you can see how many website visitors you have, as well as the number of active agents and chats. This is a helpful way to keep track of where your visitors are spending their time on your site.
• Real-time typing view​: By getting your answers ready before the customer sends you a message, you can be proactive instead of reactive. The Real time typing view allows you to see what customers are writing before they send it so that you’re always one step ahead.
• Multilingual chat widget: No matter where your customers are from, LiveAgent can bridge the language barrier. With support for over 40 languages, you’ll be able to provide them with the help they need regardless of location.

Social media support

With LiveAgent, you can connect your social media channels and have all customer service requests organized in one efficient solution. The ticketing system allows you to manage tickets from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Viber- all in one place. Keep your social interactions high with a fully featured communication platform that doubles as a help desk tool.

• Universal inbox: With the universal inbox, social media messages from any platform are sorted and easy to find. Not only that, but the universal inbox also helps you manage communication from all channels in one place so you can keep track of customer conversations more easily.
• Automation rules: By adding custom rules for automation, you can take your customer service to the next level by being faster and more efficient with interactions while Automation takes care of repetitive tasks.
• Departments and tags: Your customer support team’s success lies in its ability to be divided into departments, each with its own specialization. This way, you can ensure that your customers are always getting help from the right expert.
• Macros, attachments and notes: Improve customer service today by using canned messages and predefined answers to speed up response times. With LiveAgent, you can also support various attachment types when replying to a ticket.

Call center

LiveAgent’s cloud-based call center software, LiveAgent, makes it easy to engage with your customers across all channels. LiveAgent’s VoIP (voice over internet protocol) call center phone system is equipped with advanced features such as IVR, call back requests, ACD, smart call routing, call transfers, unlimited call recording, and HD video calls — and that’s just the beginning. With LiveAgent you can provide reliable and personalized service to your customer easily!

• Internal calls: Internal calls enable you to speak with other employees who are working their shifts, as well as transfer calls.
• Call transfers: LiveAgent’s call center has attended and consultative transfers. Attended transfers allow for happier customers, by tieing them to an agent before their call is terminated.
• VoIP call center phone system: With LiveAgent call center, you have the ability to integrate with over 99% of VoIP providers that use SIP Trunk. If your preferred VoIP partner isn’t listed, please contact LiveAgent and they would be more than happy to add them.
• Outbound call center software: Improve customer relations by optimizing outbound interactions through their manual call center.
• Native and third-party CRM integrations: You can ensure your contact center agents provide personalized service at all times with one of LiveAgent’s three CRM integrations, or you can use their native CRM tools.

User Experience/User Interface

I love how easy the user interface is to use. It makes it easy for me to solve customer issues quickly. I can navigate between customer profiles and tickets easily, which makes my job a lot easier.

Pricing plans

LiveAgent’s pricing comes in three tiers: Ticket, Ticket+Chat, and All-inclusive. Each plan offers an array of features to meet the needs of any business. The Ticket plan offers basic ticketing support for $15 per user per month, while the Ticket+Chat and All-inclusive plans offer additional features such as chat buttons and call center support for $29 and $49 per user per month, respectively. All plans come with unlimited ticket history and email addresses, as well as advanced reporting and a customer portal for seamless communication with clients.

Ticket — $15 per user per month

• Unlimited ticket history
• Unlimited email addresses
• Advanced Reporting
• Customer portal + forum
• API + integrations

Ticket+Chat — $29 per user per month

• Unlimited chat buttons
• Feedback management
• Real-time visitors monitor
• Proactive chat invitations
• Chat satisfaction surveys

All-inclusive — $49 per user per month

• Call center support
• Video call
• IVR
• Call routing and transfers
• Hardware IP phone

You can test LiveAgent for 14 days for free. No credit card is required.

Visit LiveAgent

Zendesk

Best for large enterprises looking for an all-in-one customer support solution.

Zendesk is a customer service solution that is easy to use and works for large businesses with big teams. It offers various helpful features such as ticketing, customer profiles, and reporting.

Many businesses use Zendesk to improve their customer support processes and provide efficient service to their clients. It is also customizable, allowing users to tailor its functionality to fit their specific needs.

Zendesk, Inc (ZEN) is a publicly-traded company on NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) and has a long history of being one of the most used customer service platforms. It is a valuable tool for improving customer support and increasing customer satisfaction.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Zendesk has an average of 4.3-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Zendesk makes customer service better. Zendesk builds software to meet customer needs, set your team up for success, and keep your business in sync. It’s everything you need, in one powerful package.

• Ticketing system
• Live Chat
• Help Center
• Voice (call center)
• AI and chatbots

Ticketing system

A great customer experience starts with a fully integrated ticketing system. It’s the go-to place for questions, requests, and concerns from customers. And it provides you with complete information about each customer so that you can offer personalized support.

• Email with unlimited addresses: Zendesk’s email integration is ready to use out-of-the-box, and you can create unlimited email addresses. Plus, their customizable HTML and text templates make it easy to brand your communications.
• Contact form: Place a contact form on your website so customers can reach out to you 24/7.

Live Chat

With Zendesk, you can get messaging that is personalized and engaging right out of the box or customize it to your own liking.

• Web widget: Support your customers by embedding support onto your website. This will allow them to take actions like submit a ticket or chat with an agent in order to get the help they need quickly and easily.
• Mobile SDKs: Support your app development for iOS and Android by utilizing Zendesk’s native software kits.
• Unlimited concurrent chats: Unlike some competitors, Zendesk’s agents can handle multiple chats at the same time.
• Automatic translation: The dashboard automatically translates conversations (powered by Google Translate).

Help Center

Not only is self-service quick and convenient for customers, but they actually prefer it! That’s why a knowledge base is such an important part of your customer experience strategy. Zendesk’s help center software organizes critical information and empowers both customers and agents with that data.

• Contextual self-service: With the web widget and mobile SDK, you can embed your help center and suggest relevant articles to your audience.
• Multilingual content: Give your customers the ability to receive help from you in their own language by localizing your help center into over 40 different languages.
• Theme customization: You can use themes to unify the look and feel of your help centers, no matter how many products or brands you have.
• Search: Allow customers to find the answers they need by expanding the help center search to include all relevant resources.

Voice (call center)

Even in this day and age of technology, sometimes the quickest solution is to talk with a real person. Zendesk’s integrated voice solution not only syncs with all other channels but also lets agents have access to customer information as soon as they receive the call. Now that’s what’s called convenience!

• Voicemail: With automatic voicemail-to-ticket creation, you can easily keep track of customers’ needs and follow up with them promptly. Enable optional voicemail transcription to get a quick overview of why each customer is calling.
• Text messages: With Zendesk’s easy-to-use messaging system, you can respond to customer inquiries quickly and easily. Automated alerts keep you updated on current issues, and proactive text messages help prevent future problems.
• Call routing: With Zendesk, you can ensure that your customers will always be able to reach a live agent by routing calls directly to a specific group of agents or sets of groups. You can also route calls received after business hours or when agents are busy to an alternate phone number.
• Call recording: Recording calls makes it easy to QA, saves time by reference, and shows when troubleshooting.

AI and chatbots

With Zendesk’s AI capabilities, your support team can get answers to customers quickly and efficiently. Whether or not agents are logged in, the bot will always be there to help.

• Answer Bot AI-powered bot solution: Answer Bot provides instantaneous responses to customer questions by using machine learning to reply immediately with available, relevant information. Answer Bot can deliver answers via email, ticket form, live chat, messaging channels such as Slack or API and/or SDK.
• Automate interactions: The key to setting up your bot lies in Flow Builder. This tool allows you to direct the conversation between a bot and your customers. Furthermore, you can publish flows in multiple languages without needing any coding knowledge.
• Intelligent triage: With Zendesk’s advanced AI, you’ll barely have to lift a finger to understand what customers need and how they’re feeling. This way, you can always connect them with the perfect agent for the job.

User Experience/User Interface

I find the user interface of Zendesk’s customer service platform quite complex and hard to use. I appreciate the many features that are available, but it may not be for someone that wants to get their support system up and running in minutes. The user interface is made for large teams in mind.

Pricing plans

Zendesk’s pricing comes in three tiers: Suite Team, Suite Growth, and Suite Professional. Each tier offers various features such as messaging, support channels, AI-powered tools, and dashboards. Users can choose the plan that best fits their needs and budget. Higher tiers offer more advanced features for larger teams with increased support demands. All pricing is based on a per-user per-month cost.

Suite Team — $49 per user per month

• Industry-leading ticketing system
• Messaging across web, mobile and social
• Email, voice, SMS, and live chat support
• Help Center
• AI-powered automated answers

Suite Growth — $79 per user per month

• Self-service customer portal
• AI-powered knowledge management
• Customizable ticket layouts
• Service Level Agreement (SLA) management
• Multilingual support and content

Suite Professional — $99 per user per month

• Live agent activity dashboard
• Integrated community forums
• Private conversation threads
• Customizable and shareable dashboards
• Advanced voice capabilities

You can try Zendesk with their free trial.

Visit Zendesk

Hubspot Service Hub

Best for scaling customer support teams that need top-notch features.

Hubspot Service Hub is a customer service software that makes it easy to foster great customer relationships, connect with the front office, and drive team efficiency. Service Hub is easy to use and, best of all, connected to HubSpot’s full CRM platform. This way you can deliver outstanding service that always puts the customer first.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Hubspot Service Hub has an average of 4.4-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

This software package contains various conversational tools to make automated customer interactions easier. In addition, the CRM gives your business a unified view of each customer so you can get feedback, surveys, and reporting in one place.

Customer Portal

Empowering customers to get the help and information they need, when they need it, minimizes repetitive tasks for support reps and increases customer trust.

• Increase transparency: Your customers will be able to interact with your support and services teams in one central location, making it easier for them to get the help they need.
• Minimize repetitive tasks: The HubSpot CRM platform and shared inbox are closely integrated with customer portals to minimize the likelihood of any duplicate work.
• Your branding: Keep your branding consistent across all platforms by automatically applying your colors, logo, and favicon to your customer portal–no design experience necessary.

Knowledge Base

Having a well-organized website will mean that your customers can easily find the answers they need to their questions, freeing up time for your team so that they can help people who need more assistance.

• Help your customers: Empower your customers by building a library of helpful articles they can refer to whenever they need assistance. Turn commonly asked questions into searchable documentation so that anyone can find the answers they need quickly and easily.
• Improve efficiency: With Hubspot’s product, your support team will be able to answer questions more efficiently and focus on supporting unique cases. This will result in increased productivity for your team overall.
• Track: If you want your articles to actually help, take advantage of their reporting dashboard to see the impact of your pages and improve your knowledge base continually.

Omni-Channel Customer Service

By connecting with customers through multiple channels on Hubspot’s CRM platform, your agents will be able to provide the customer service experience they deserve.

• Deliver support on your customers’ preferred channels: Meet your customers’ need for asynchronous communication with the ability to switch from chat and Facebook Messenger to email, while preserving the conversation thread in one place.
• Have the context you need for every interaction: When teams don’t communicate with each other or work together effectively, customers become frustrated from having to explain their issues multiple times.
• Effortlessly switch between channels: Having to use different tools to fix various issues gradually wears down reps as they deal with an ever-growing number of tickets. Present your team with a central service platform that is easy to maneuver, lightening the load on them.

Live Chat

Real-time user connection on your website translates to more conversions, closed deals, and content customers.

• Connect with website visitors: Match the look of your live chat widget to that of your brand with easy customization, and create targeted welcome messages for different web pages or segments of your audience. This way, you can connect with engaged site visitors who matter most to you.
• Automate with chatbots: HubSpot’s live chat tool will make it much easier for your team to have an unlimited number of personalized conversations. The best part is that you can start using it for free, and no coding is required.
• Helpful for your chat team: By using HubSpot, you not only have a central location for all your live chat history, but also data from HubSpot’s free CRM. This way, everyone on your team is able to find the perfect response quickly and easily.

VoIP calling

Connect with your potential customers through VoIP phone calls that can be recorded and stored on HubSpot for future use.

• Full view of customers’ history during calls: HubSpot’s VoIP software provides the capability to call customers directly from their HubSpot CRM record. This way, you always have a complete view of their needs, activity and interactions with your company. With this kind of clarity, your customers will never need to explain themselves multiple times to different reps.
• Save call logs and notes on your CRM: Never worry about manually logging call details or maintaining records again. With HubSpot CRM, calls are automatically recorded and stored on contact profiles for future reference.
• Prioritize sales calls: Daily calls can easily become a monotonous and time-consuming task, but by utilizing the HubSpot CRM’s data on engagement and contact properties, you can set priorities for your most important calls.

User Experience/User Interface

I’m happy with the user interface and user experience of Hubspot’s Service Hub. Some have commented that it is easy to use and navigate, while others appreciate the variety of features and tools available. A few people have noted that the platform could be more intuitive, but overall, users seem to be satisfied with the product.

Pricing plans

Hubspot Service Hub’s pricing comes in three tiers: Starter, Professional, and Business. Each tier offers different features, such as live chat, shared inboxes, ticket pipelines, and automation. The Starter plan starts at $25 per user per month while the Business plan is $120 per user per month. There are also options for add-ons such as SLAs and custom surveys.

Starter — $25 per user per month

• Live chat
• Shared inbox
• Ticket pipelines
• Simple ticket automation
• Conversational bots
• Calling

Professional — $100 per user per month

Self-service customer portal

• Help desk automation
• Ticket routing
• Knowledge base
• SLAs
• Custom surveys

Business — $120 per user per month

• Permission sets
• Hierarchical teams
• Standard CRM interface configuration
• Sandboxes
• Conversation intelligence
• Goals

You can try Hubspot Service Hub with their free plan.

Visit Hubspot Service Hub

Helpcrunch

Best for minimal & affordable customer service software.

Helpcrunch has all the basic functions of help desk software, but what sets it apart is its customizable chat widget. This allows customers to reach out and receive support in real-time, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing resolution times. Helpcrunch has a robust knowledge base feature that helps provide self-service options for common inquiries and streamlines the support process. Helpcrunch is great if you want to get started with an affordable customer service platform.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Helpcrunch has an average of 4.8-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

The features offered by HelpCrunch include live chat software, email marketing, popups, mobile live chat apps & SDK, a knowledge base, and a chatbot. These tools are designed to help businesses acquire more leads, convert them into customers, and provide fast and delightful customer support.

Live Chat

Helpcrunch’s live chat software will help you acquire more leads on your website, convert them into paying customers, and provide fast and delightful customer support. A knowledge base allows your customers to find answers to their questions without needing any help from you while using the Live Chat. This leaves you free to focus on other tasks.

Email Marketing

Email newsletters are a fantastic way to stay in touch with your customers and promote any news or updates regarding your company or products. You can also target specific deals to certain customer segments, as well as collect their feedback (which will help you fine-tune and improve your service).

Popups

Make your offers stand out! With Helpcrunch’s pageview and visitor-friendly popups, engage with more website visitors than ever before. Zero code is required on your end, so you can focus on what’s important – your business. By exit popup software standards, Helpcrunch provides some of the most irresistible deals at the last second to increase opt-ins, signups, and sales.

Mobile Live Chat Apps & SDK

Support your customers even when you’re on the go! HelpCrunch allows you to send chat replies, follow-up emails, change statuses, and close conversations from your mobile device. This way, you can keep your customers’ happy no matter where they are.

Knowledge Base

Having a public knowledge base website can be extremely beneficial for your business. It allows you to share valuable information with your customers easily and conveniently. Plus, organizing your articles into categories and sections makes it easier for people to find what they’re looking for. And with Helpcrunch’s WYSIWYG editor, writing help articles is a breeze! You can add images, videos, and tables, and optimize content for SEO so that people can easily find the answers they need.

Chatbot

Reduce the amount of effort your team has to put into website visitor interactions by utilizing a chatbot. Personalize the bot’s automated responses to provide relevant self-service information and support so that your team can focus on other tasks.

Pricing plans

Helpcrunch’s pricing comes in three tiers: Basic, Pro, and Enterprise. The Basic plan offers help desk support, a knowledge base, full customization options, and basic automation for $15 per user per month. The Pro plan, priced at $25 per user per month, adds a self-service customer portal and advanced customization and automation options, as well as removing HelpCrunch branding. The Enterprise plan includes everything in the Pro plan, plus unlimited widgets, team members, emails, and a personal onboarding assistant.

Basic — $15 per user per month

• Help desk
• Knowledge base
• Full customization
• Basic automation
• HelpCrunch branding
• Live chat support

Pro — $25 per user per month

• Self-service customer portal
• Help desk
• Knowledge base
• Advanced customization
• Advanced automation
• No HelpCrunch branding

Enterprise — Price on request

• Everything in Pro
• Unlimited widgets
• Unlimited team members
• Unlimited emails
• Personal onboarding assistant

You can try Helpcrunch with their free trial. Set up in minutes. No credit card required.

Visit Helpcrunch

FreshDesk

Best affordable all-in-one customer support solution.

Freshdesk is an all-in-one support solution software that helps you to solve inquiries faster and personalize conversations with intuitive & collaborative support. With Freshdesk, you can handle customer support tickets, offer self-service options with a knowledge base, and even automate support workflows to improve efficiency. Freshdesk also offers integrations with popular apps like Salesforce, Zendesk, Shopify, and more to streamline your customer support process.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Freshdesk has an average of 4.4-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Freshdesk provides a number of features to improve customer service collaboration and automate tedious tasks. These features include ticket prioritization, self-service answer bots, and team task division. The software also offers analytics to help understand customer behavior and trends. In addition, the platform is secure with SSL certification enabled by default.

Ticketing

Email gets the job done, but Freshdesk’s ticketing system is designed to do more than that; it’s created for team collaboration and agent productivity. This means you can prioritize every ticket based on the keywords mentioned. Freshdesk’s Freddy AI software is integrated with ticketing, so you can eliminate boring, repetitive tasks and save time for your agents.

Self-service

Answer bots find the best answer from your knowledge base content and deliver it to customers in real-time, 24/7. These advanced features help you focus on bigger projects by taking care of small customer issues automatically. Web widgets allow live chat with a human agent on your website for more complex inquiries.

Collaboration

Freshdesk provides various features for improved collaboration among customer service teams, helping to deliver positive experiences for customers. For example, agents can easily include teammates in ticket discussions as needed, and team members can see tickets that another team is currently working on. In addition, Freshdesk allows teams to divide tasks and work on them simultaneously.

Automations

It would be amazing to come into work every day to find that all new customer inquiries have been neatly prioritized, organized, and assigned to the right agents. You wouldn’t have any

to-do lists because tedious tasks like following up with people are automated! All you and your team would need to focus on is crafting great responses for your customers.

Analytics

Use Freshdesk’s pre-made reports for quick insights to save time and effort. With a large number of useful reports, you can avoid having to do everything manually. Also, with the added ability to visualize data within the product, you can easily comprehend a lot of information and present it in a way that is efficient and digestible for those who need to see it.

Secure Help Desk

Keep your communication safe and secure with web browser-to-web server encryption. With a Freshdesk account, you get an SSL certificate enabled by default. Within 72 hours, you can have your own support domain or vanity URL up and running too. Plus, add multiple portals to your Freshdesk account–all with authenticated SSL certification.

Pricing plans

Freshdesk’s pricing comes in four tiers: Free, Growth, Pro, and Enterprise. The Free plan includes integrated ticketing across email and social channels, a knowledge base, reporting capabilities, and more. The Growth plan adds automation and access to over 1000 marketplace apps for $18 per user per month. The Pro plan includes multiple product support and custom roles for $59 per user per month. The Enterprise plan is for heavy-users.

Free — $0 per user per month

• Integrated ticketing across email and social
• Ticket Dispatch
• Knowledge Base
• Ticket Trend Report
• Out-of-the-box analytics and reporting

Growth — $18 per user per month

• Automation
• 1000+ marketplace apps
• SLA management & business hours
• Custom Email Server
• Custom SSL

Pro — $59 per user per month

• Multiple products
• Includes up to 5000 Collaborators
• Round-robin routing
• Custom Roles
• Custom Reports and Dashboards

Enterprise — $95 per user per month

Everything in Pro

• Assist bot
• Email bot
• Knowledge base approval workflow
• Auto-triage
• AI-powered social signals

You can try Freshdesk with their 21-day free trial.

Visit FreshDesk

Dialpad

Best call center customer service software for small and large businesses.

Dialpad is a VoIP phone system that allows teams to stay connected across all their devices, both in the office and out of the office. If you need to support your customers over the phone, Dialpad has some great solutions for you. Unlimited calling, SMS, & MMS, AI-powered call and voicemail transcriptions, unlimited video meetings, and web + chat support are their best features.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Dialpad has an average of 4.4-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Dialpad is a VoIP service for businesses that offers HD call quality, video meetings, and messaging for a unified communications experience. It also includes voicemail transcriptions, call recording, and call forwarding. Dialpad is easy to use and integrates with a variety of tools.

VoIP phone service

Dialpad is the ultimate VoIP service for business, offering video meetings and messaging for a unified communications experience.

• HD call quality: Dialpad’s global voice network and split cloud architecture provide businesses with clear calls, no matter their location.
• Truly unified communications: Not only can you make phone calls with Dialpad, but you can also send an instant message to your group thread. You can even shoot an SMS to someone who doesn’t have a smartphone!
• Voicemail transcriptions: Do you want to update your voicemail greeting? It’s simple. Upload a clip or make your own message in Dialpad and modify it in minutes.
• Call recording: Do you have any calls with clients or prospects where important information, like deals or other details, is discussed? Call recordings can be useful in a variety of situations, especially if there’s a disagreement.
• Call forwarding: You can set up call forwarding to a maximum of five phone numbers if you need to step away from your desk for a customer call.

Business phone number

Do you need a business phone number? Dialpad is a complete communications solution for only $15 per month.

• Easy setup: adding new virtual phone numbers or porting your current number is easy
• Use Dialpad on any device, anytime
• Flip phone calls between devices without dropping the call

IVR phone systems

IVR phone systems can route calls automatically and serve as an around-the-clock solution when agents in your contact center aren’t available.

• Look for an IVR tool that is easy to use, with the ability to route calls to anyone in your company, change the pre-set rules on your own, and make sure callers are always sent to the right place.
• With Dialpad, you can make phone calls, have video meetings, and send SMS/MMS + instant messages—all from the same beautiful desktop or mobile app.
• Set up a maximum of five call forwarding numbers so that any missed calls go straight to your colleague, cell phone, or any other phone number.
• Integrate Dialpad with all your favorite tools, including Salesforce, Zendesk, Google Workspace, HubSpot, Microsoft Teams, and more.
• Dialpad tracks all your important metrics in real-time so you can optimize the customer journey and give customers the best possible experience.

Pricing plans

Dialpad’s pricing comes in three tiers: Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. The Standard plan offers unlimited calling, SMS, and MMS, as well as AI-powered call and voicemail transcriptions. The Pro plan adds support for local numbers in 70+ countries, multiple phone numbers per account, global SMS capabilities, and CRM integrations. The Enterprise plan, which is priced on request, includes features such as 100% uptime, dial-by-extension, and priority live agent support.

Standard — $23 per user per month

• Unlimited calling, SMS, & MMS
• Ai-powered call and voicemail transcriptions
• Google Workspace & Microsoft 365 integrations
• Unlimited video meetings
• Web and chat support

Pro — $35 per user per month

• Local number support in 70+ countries
• Multiple phone numbers per account
• Global SMS capabilities
• CRM integrations (Salesforce, Zendesk, HubSpot, Zoho & more)
• Open APIs & Webhooks

Enterprise — Price on request

• 100% uptime
• Dial-by-extension
• Integrations with leading SSO providers (Okta, OneLogin)
• Azure AD SSO integration
• Data retention policies
• Priority live agent support

You can try Dialpad with their 14-day free trial.

Visit Dialpad

Hiver

Best for Gmail-based customer service & help desk software.

Hiver enhances your Gmail so you can provide excellent customer service to each and every client, without breaking a sweat. Hiver is built on Gmail, so you don’t have to worry about learning an entirely new interface. Onboarding new members is simple and easy. Assigning emails can be done with one click, and their status (open, pending, or closed) can be tracked. Colleagues can easily collaborate using Hiver.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Hiver has an average of 4.6-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Dialpad is a VoIP service for businesses that offers HD call quality, video meetings, and messaging for a unified communications experience. It also includes voicemail transcriptions, call recording, and call forwarding. Dialpad is easy to use and integrates with a variety of tools.

Email management

Hiver streamlines email management by allowing users to complete a myriad of tasks directly from their Gmail inbox. From converting emails into actionable items to assigning them to team members, Hiver makes email management simple and efficient.

Live Chat

By having Hiver combine email support with live chat right in Gmail, your workers will find they spend less time trying to learn new tools or flipping between multiple tool applications to complete tasks.

Knowledge Base

With Hiver’s Knowledge Base, you can quickly build up a centralized library of helpful articles that your customers and representatives can access anytime. Thislibrary is easy to monitor so you know exactly how often it is being used and what sort of questions are being asked frequently.

Collaboration

Support teams use Cc/Forwards or external collaboration tools to communicate with other team members about certain emails. However, going back-and-forth can cause delays in responses. Notes allow teams to collaborate better and resolve email queries quicker, without ever having to leave Gmail.

Integrations

With this extension, users can experience Asana’s project management capabilities straight from their Gmail. This includes the ability to collaborate on tasks, add context, and get complete visibility into task status. In addition, teams will be able to manage JIRA projects from Gmail as well. By contextualizing conversations and linking them with Salesforce CRM data, users can save time spent on manually delegating emails.

Pricing plans

Hiver’s pricing comes in three tiers: Lite, Pro, and Elite. The Lite plan includes unlimited shared inboxes and tags, as well as a chat feature and knowledge base for $19 per month. The Pro plan includes SLA violations and business hours, unlimited automation, an AI bot named Harvey, analytics, and Salesforce integration for $49 per user per month. The Elite plan includes SLA reminders, round-robin assignments, custom access control, priority support with an uptime SLA, and a dedicated success manager for $69 per user per month.

Lite — $19 per user per month

• Unlimited Shared Inboxes
• Chat
• Knowledge Base
• Add up to 10 Users
• Unlimited Tags

Pro — $49 per user per month

• SLA Violations & Business Hours 
• Unlimited Automations
• Harvey – The AI Bot
• Analytics 
• Salesforce Integration

Elite — $69 per user per month

• SLAs Reminders 
• Round Robin Assignment
• Custom Access Control
• Priority Support
• Uptime SLA
• Dedicated Success Manager

You can try Hiver with their 7-day free trial. No credit card required.

Visit Hiver

Gorgias

Best for solving E-commerce support requests with conversion intent.

Gorgias is the e-commerce helpdesk that promises to turn your customer service into a profit center. Gorgias allows you to access and edit your customer’s data without leaving the helpdesk interface. This means that you can manage orders, subscriptions, and payments all in one place. If you’re looking for an all-in-one customer support tool that works on Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce, Gorgias might just be what you need to make more sales.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Gorgias has an average of 4.6-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Ticketing system

With Gorgias, order information from Shopify is easily accessible so your agents don’t have to waste time searching for it. This allows them to quickly refund an order or apply a discount if needed.

Social media comment management

To make things more convenient for your support team, Gorgias integrates directly with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. In this way, they can swiftly answer any questions that come up (and automate what doesn’t need immediate attention.)

Live Chat

Add a fast-loading chat widget to your storefront that allows you to talk to customers directly, and solve their questions before they become email tickets. Don’t wait for shoppers to ask a question; set up a chat campaign that automatically messages them first, and offers proactive support or encourages sales. If follow-up questions arise, your team of agents will be ready!

Voice

By using Gorgias’ platform, shoppers will have the option to call your customer service team while allowing your agents to work from one application. When customers call your store, we’ll automatically display their ecommerce history as well as past conversations and related data from any apps you’ve integrated. This way, instead of needing to spend time confirming details,

your agents can focus on resolving the issue at hand.

SMS

Gorgias SMS is the best way to offer text message support for an uninterrupted conversation with customers. With Gorgias, SMS will never be far away when they have a question, so they can go about their day while your agents save the day.

Pricing plans

Gorgias’ pricing comes in four tiers: Starter, Basic, Pro, and Pro Plus. The Starter plan offers 50 billable tickets per month for $10, with 3 user seats and support for 2 social media channels. Both Shopify and Shopify Plus are supported in this plan. As you move up the tier levels, you gain access to more billable tickets, unlimited user seats, additional social media channels, and integrations with platforms like BigCommerce and Magento. The top tier Advanced plan also includes a dedicated Success Manager.

Starter — $10 per month

• 50 billable tickets per month
• 3 user seats
• 2 social media channels
• Shopify / Shopify Plus
• Live chat

Basic — $60 per month

• 300 billable tickets per month
• Unlimited user seats
• 2 social media channels
• 150 active integrations
• BigCommerce

Pro — $360 per month

• 2,000 billable tickets per month
• Unlimited user seats
• 2 social media channels
• Support & revenue reporting
• Magento

Advanced — $900 per month

• 5,000 billable tickets per month
• Unlimited user seats
• 3 social media channels
• Dedicated Success Manager

You can try Gorgias with their free trial.

Visit Gorgias

Salesforce Service Cloud

Best for large enterprises connecting with Salesforce CRM.

Salesforce Service Cloud is a customer service software provided by the world-known Salesforce. Salesforce is known for their enterprise-level CRM system, but they also provide one of the best customer service platform. Salesforce Service Cloud allows companies to manage their customer service process through features such as case management, live chat, knowledge base, and community support. One of the benefits of using Service Cloud is its integration with Salesforce’s other products. This allows for seamless communication between sales, marketing, and customer service teams.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Salesforce Service Cloud has an average of 4.2-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Create a more streamlined and efficient high-touch service center by automating processes and connecting all channels into one workspace for agents.

Case Management

Reduce service costs and stick to your budgetary goals by optimizing high-touch customer service centers. By uniting customer data and automating processes, agents will be empowered to work faster and more efficiently.

Knowledge Management

Salesforce’s knowledge management solution helps agents find the answers they need quickly and efficiently, so customers can get the help they need faster. With recommended articles and optimized search, Salesforce’s solution makes it easy for agents to find the right information quickly, no matter what channel they’re using.

Self-Service

Personalized portals or self-service communities can help customers find answers on their own, reducing the number of support cases. This lowers costs by giving agents more time to focus on complex issues.

Messaging

Save money and stay connected to customers via their favorite digital channels in real-time. Engage in rich conversations on your website, mobile app, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and more.

Chatbots

Reduce the number of cases you have to deal with by using intelligent chatbots. Automate routine requests, help customers figure out what to do next, or connect them with the right agent.

Telephony & Voice

No matter where your customer service agent is, they’ll be able to solve phone cases quickly. With cloud telephony integrated into the service console, productivity tools powered by artificial intelligence are now within reach.

Pricing plans

Salesforce Service Cloud’s pricing comes in four tiers: Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited. Each tier offers increasing levels of functionality and support options. The Essentials plan is a good option for small businesses just starting out with Service Cloud, while the Unlimited plan offers the most comprehensive set of features and support for larger organizations.

Essentials — $25 per user per month

• Case Management 
• Service Console App(s) 
• Knowledge 
• Telephony Integration (CTI) 

Professional — $75 per user per month

• Case Management 
• Service Console App(s) 
• Knowledge 
• Service Contracts and Entitlements 
• Telephony Integration (CTI) 

Enterprise — $150 per user per month

• Case Management 
• Service Console App(s) 
• Knowledge 
• Service Contracts and Entitlements 
• Telephony Integration (CTI) 
• Web Services API 

Unlimited — $300 per user per month

• Case Management 
• Service Console App(s) 
• Knowledge 
• Service Contracts and Entitlements 
• Telephony Integration (CTI) 
• Web Services API
• Premier Success Plan

You can try Salesforce Service Cloud for free with their free trial.

Visit Salesforce Service Cloud

Zoho Desk

Best for an extensive set of ticketing features and Zoho CRM integration.

Zoho Desk is a customer service software provided by Zoho. Zoho is known for its vast variety of business software from CRM to project handling. With Zoho Desk, companies can manage their support tickets and customer interactions in one central location. Some features of Zoho Desk include customizable support portals for customers to submit tickets and integration with popular communication tools like email, live chat, and social media. There are also advanced reporting and analytics to track team performance and customer satisfaction.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Zoho Desk has an average of 4.4-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Zoho Desk gives you an edge over the competition by allowing you to deliver top-notch customer service. Their modern features make it easy to stay on top of every aspect of your customer service effort.

Ticket management

Keep all your customer requests in one place and easily sorted. Whether it’s received through multiple channels or brands, Zoho Desk has you covered.

Omnichannel support

An omnichannel ticketing system helps customer service agents by consolidating support tickets from various channels into a single interface. This way, responses are faster and more organized.

Multi-Brand Help Center

Help your customers distinguish between your different brands by providing each one with its own Help Center. This way, they can manage their expectations for things like service channels, SLAs, notifications, and Knowledge Base articles.

Telephony

With Zoho Desk, you can integrate your help desk with a customer service phone number to receive calls directly. You can then associate the calls with existing tickets or create new ones. Desk gives you all the advantages of traditional phone support, without any of the usual issues.

Social media help desk

Brands can use social media platforms to improve customer satisfaction and create positive brand experiences. Zoho Desk integrates with the most popular social media channels, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, so you can manage all your customer support in one place.

Live Chat

Zoho’s chat widgets let you stay close to your customers even when they can’t find what they’re looking for in your Help Center. Your agents can respond quickly and help them find answers faster, right from the Help Center.

Pricing plans

Zoho Desk’s pricing comes in three tiers: Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. The Standard plan includes email channel support, a ticket system, and a help center for customers. It also includes social media support on Facebook and Twitter. The Professional plan adds telephony support, while the Enterprise plan includes live chat and artificial intelligence options as well as schedule reports.

Standard — $20 per user per month

• Email Channel
• Ticket system
• Help Center
• Social Media (Facebook & Twitter)

Professional — $30 per user per month

• Email Channel
• Ticket system
• Help Center
• Social Media (Facebook & Twitter)
• Telephony

Enterprise — $50 per user per month

• Email Channel
• Ticket system
• Help Center
• Social Media (Facebook & Twitter)
• Live Chat
• Artificial Intelligence
• Schedule reports

You can try Zoho Desk for free with their 15-day free trial.

Visit Zoho Desk

HappyFox

Happyfox is the perfect solution for anyone looking for a practical help desk or customer support software. With their robust support ticket system, self-service knowledge base and community forums, you can reduce chaos and bring order to your support process. Happyfox also offers customizable customer satisfaction surveys and reporting, making it easy to track and improve your support team’s performance. Plus, with integrations with popular tools like Zendesk, Salesforce and Shopify, Happyfox fits seamlessly into any existing tech stack. Try Happyfox today and see how it can streamline your support process.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Happyfox has an average of 4.5-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Ticketing System

HappyFox ticketing system is designed to be easy to configure and use for support agents. It tracks and organizes customer requests, allowing for efficient communication and resolution.

Knowledge Base

HappyFox offers an online knowledge base software that is beautiful, searchable, and ready for social media. Your customers can get help instantly.

Canned actions

With Canned Actions, you can not only change a ticket’s status, priority, or add tags, but you can also include a templated response.

Automations

Help your customers more efficiently by using automation for trivial tasks in your help desk. This will free up time so you can focus on other, more important aspects of customer support..

Customer satisfaction survey

A customer satisfaction survey helps support agents determine how pleased users are with the quality of resolution for a product or service.

Helpdesk reports

Use HappyFox Help Desk to monitor your customer support performance, so that you can quickly identify any areas which need improvement. This will help improve the overall quality of your customer service, and make sure that customers are happy with their experience.

Pricing plans

Happyfox’s pricing comes in four tiers: Mighty, Fantastic, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus. Each tier offers different features such as omnichannel ticket creation, SLA management, knowledge base, and migration assistance. The Enterprise Plus tier even includes a customer success manager. Prices range from $39 per user per month to $99 per user per month.

Mighty — $39 per user per month

• Omnichannel Ticket Creation
• SLA Management
• Knowledge Base
• SSO (GSuite/SAML/Azure)
• SSL Certificate Hosting
• Migration Assistance

Fantastic — $59 per user per month

• Multi-brand Helpdesk
• SLA Breach Notification
• Custom Ticket Queues
• 24/7 Email Support
• Optional EU Data Center

Enterprise — $79 per user per month

• Proactive Agent Collision
• Task Management
• Asset Management
• 24/7 Email/Chat Support
• Uptime SLA

Enterprise Plus — $99 per user per month

• Agent Scripting
• 2 TB Attachment Store
• All-time Reporting History
• 24/7 Email/Chat/Phone Support
• Customer Success Manager

You can try Happyfox for free with their demo.

Visit HappyFox

Intercom Support

Intercom Support is a messaging platform designed to improve communication between businesses and their customers. It allows for personalized messaging, targeted campaigns, and seamless integration with other business tools. One of the key features of Intercom is its ability to segment and target specific groups of customers. This allows businesses to tailor their messaging and provide more personalized communication.

Pros and Cons

3rd Party Reviews

Intercom has an average of 4.4-star 3rd party reviews (in legit sites like G2 and Capterra). Other customers seem to love it and consider it as a great option for their customer service software needs.

Features

Intercom messenger

By adding the Intercom Messenger to your product, app, or website, you’re able to create meaningful engagement with your customers that will result in fruitful relationships.

Inbox

Intercom’s Inbox includes all of the essential features that support teams need to stay organized, collaborate with teammates, and reach more customers efficiently.

Customizable bots

By asking the right questions, Custom Bots prioritize and route new conversations for more efficient support. Chatbots can be tailored specifically to your business needs—connect them to your tech stack, let them automate your workflows, or have them extend your sales and support teams.

Help articles

Make it easy for your customers to find the answers they need, when they need them. With Intercom’s central answering system, you can optimize for all channels – website, mobile app, in-product messages, or chat.

Product tours

Introduce customers to your product with guided experiences that drive adoption. Intercom’s customizable product tours ensure that users get the most out of your product, leading to increased engagement and satisfaction.

Account-based marketing

When potential customers visit your website, greet them with a personalized message so that they can connect with sales while they are most interested.

Pricing plans

Intercom’s pricing comes in three tiers: Support, Engage, and Convert. Each tier includes various features such as live chat for support, team inboxes, help articles, conversational bots, outbound messaging, and meeting booking. Pricing for each tier is available upon request.

Support — Price on request

• Live chat for support
• Team inboxes
• Tickets
• Help articles
• Conversational bots
• Resolution bot

Engage — Price on request

• Outbound email and in-product messaging
• Push messages & notifications
• Custom bots
• Mobile Carousels
• Banner messages
• Salesforce & Marketo integrations

Convert — Price on request

• Conversational chatbots
• Live chat for sales
• Smart lead qualification
• Multiple team inboxes
• Automatic meeting booking
• Conversation routing rules

You can try Intercom for free with their demo.

Visit Intercom Support

TeamSupport

TeamSupport is customer support software that allows you to shift your focus to the customer, without any extra effort. Their software offers ticket management, customer communication tools, and reporting capabilities to streamline your support processes.

TeamSupport’s key features include:

• Ticket management
• Knowdlege base
• Messaging & Live Chat
• SLA management
• Analytics

Pricing plans

Teamsupport’s pricing comes in three tiers:

• Essential — $49 per user per month
• Enterprise — $69 per user per month
• Complete customer support — $119 per user per month

You can contact TeamSupport for a free demo.

Visit TeamSupport

Front

Front is a customer communication hub that technology can’t replace. It ensures every conversation strengthens the customer relationship. Front lets teams manage email, text messages, and social media messaging all in one place. Front also allows for internal collaboration with team members and integrates with other business tools like Salesforce, Zendesk, and Desk.

Front’s key features include:

• Multi-channel messaging
• Live chat
• CRM integration
• Basic automation
• Analytics

Pricing plans

Front’s pricing comes in three tiers:

• Starter — $38 per month (2 users)
• Growth — $245 per month (5 users)
• Scale — $990 per month (10 users)

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Richpanel

Richpanel claims to be an Amazon-Like customer service for your Ecommerce store. They’re are all about providing real-life sales for e-commerce businesses in Shopify and other platforms. With Richpanel’s self-service capabilities, you can reduce the number of customer support tickets by up to 55%. The possibilities with self-service are virtually limitless. You can have multiple, customized answers for the same questions depending on factors like order status, SKU number and much more!

Richpanel’s key features include:

• Email and Live Chat
• Multi-Channel Inbox
• Mobile App
• Shopify Integration
• WooCommerce Integration
• SMS & WhatsApp

Pricing plans

Richpanel’s pricing comes in three tiers:

• Starter — $200 per month
• Regular — $500 per month
• Pro — $800 per month

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Olark

Olark is a live chat software that helps businesses communicate with their website visitors in real time. Olark aims for simplicity in both its user interface and pricing structure, offering a flat monthly rate for unlimited chats.

Olark’s key features include:

• Unlimited chat history
• Customizable chatbox
• Data security
• Advanced reporting
• Advanced privacy features
• Realtime reporting

Pricing plans

Olark’s pricing comes in two tiers:

• Live Chat — $29 per user per month
• Pro — Price on request

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HelpDocs

HelpDocs helps businesses build, host, and monitor their knowledge base so they can focus on customer support. HelpDocs allows users to customize the design and branding of their knowledge base, as well as add and categorize articles. Multiple team members can work on the same article at once, ensuring that knowledge base content is up-to-date and accurate.

HelpDocs’ key features include:

• Ticket handling
• API Access
• Theme customization
• SSL certificate

Pricing plans

HelpDocs’ pricing comes in three tiers:

• Start — $69 per user per month
• Build — $139 per OlarkOlark per month
• Grow — $279 per user per month

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What is Sprout Social?

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is much more than a social media management platform—it has the potential to change your entire organization, not just your marketing strategy. With Sprout Social, you can track and analyze your social media performance, engage with your audience in real time, schedule and publish content, and collaborate with your team all in one place.

Sprout Social’s key features include:

• All-in-one social inbox
• Monitor and engage with messages across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok and LinkedIn.
• Publish, schedule, draft and queue posts
• Social content calendar
• Paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts
• iOS and Android mobile apps

Pricing plans

Sprout Social’s pricing comes in three tiers:

• Standard — $99 per user per month
• Professional — $169 per user per month
• Advanced — $279 per user per month

You can try Sprout Social for free with their 30-day free trial.

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Sprout Social Alternatives Comparison Chart

How to Choose the Best Alternative to Sprout Social

The process of choosing the best customer service software to replace Sprout Social can be daunting, but following these steps can make it easier. First, define your needs and research your options. Once you’ve narrowed down your choices, compare features. Then try before you buy by using a free trial. Finally, get input from others who will be using the software. By following these steps, you can find the perfect customer service software for your business.

Define your needs 

The first step in choosing the right customer service software is to define your needs. What kind of customer service do you need? Do you need a live chat, email support, or both? What kind of features do you need? Make a list of your must-have features and prioritize them.

Research your options 

Once you know what you need, it’s time to start researching your options. Look for customer service software that offers the features you need. Read online reviews to get an idea of how well the software works and what other users think of it.

Consider your budget 

Another important factor to consider is your budget. Customer service software can range in price from free to several hundred dollars per month. Choose a software that fits within your budget and offers the features you need.

Compare features 

Once you’ve narrowed down your options, it’s time to start comparing features. Which software offers the best live chat? Which has the most robust email support? Which offers the most comprehensive set of features? Make a list of pros and cons for each software to help you make your decision.

Try before you buy 

Most customer service software offers a free trial so you can try the software before you commit to it. This is a great way to see how well the software works and whether it’s a good fit for your needs. Be sure to take advantage of free trials before making your final decision.

Get input from others 

If you’re still not sure which customer service software to choose, get input from others who will be using the software. Ask them what they think of the different options and which one they would prefer. Their input can help you make a final decision.

What are the Different Types of Customer Service Software?

The different types of customer service software that are available include live chat software, email support software, social media management software, call center software, knowledge base software, self-service software, and live agent software. These types of software can help businesses to manage customer interactions and resolve customer issues. Reporting & analytics software is also available to help businesses track and analyze customer data.

Live Chat Software

Live chat software allows businesses to communicate with customers in real time via a chat interface. This type of software is typically used on websites and can be used to answer customer questions, provide support, or make sales.

Email Support Software

Email support software is a type of customer service software that allows businesses to manage customer inquiries and complaints via email. This type of software typically includes features such as automated responses, ticketing systems, and knowledge base management.

Social Media Management Software

Social media management software is a type of customer service software that helps businesses to monitor and respond to customer inquiries and complaints on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This type of software typically includes features such as social media monitoring, reporting, and analytics.

Call Center Software

Call center software is a type of customer service software that helps businesses to manage customer calls. This type of software typically includes features such as call routing, call recording, and call reporting.

Knowledge Base Software

Knowledge base software is a type of customer service software that helps businesses to create and manage an online database of information that can be used to answer customer questions or resolve customer issues. This type of software typically includes features such as searchable knowledge bases, article creation tools, and reporting tools.

Self-Service Software

Self-service software is a type of customer service software that allows customers to find answers to their own questions or resolve their own issues without needing to contact a company representative. This type of software typically includes features such as searchable knowledge bases, FAQs, and how-to guides.

Live Agent Software

Live agent software is a type of customer service software that allows businesses to connect customers with live agents who can provide assistance via phone, chat, or email. This type of software typically includes features such as call routing, call recording, and call reporting.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a type of customer service software that helps businesses to manage their relationships with customers. This type of software typically includes features such as contact management, lead tracking, and sales automation. 

Project Management Software

Project management software is a type of customer service software that helps businesses to plan, track, and manage customer projects. This type of software typically includes features such as project templates, task management, and team collaboration tools.

Reporting & Analytics Software

Reporting & analytics software is a type of customer service software that helps businesses generate reports on customer data analytics data. This type of software usually includes features such as customer segmentation, journey mapping, and churn prevention.

Bottom Line

Many teams want to find a support platform that meets all of their needs, is easy to use, and integrates with their other software. The process of finding the perfect customer service software can be overwhelming, but by defining your needs, researching your options, comparing features, trying before you buy, and getting input from others, you can find the best fit for your team.

Our Sprout Social alternative guide can help you with this process and provide a list of the top Sprout Social alternatives. To read more about which is the best customer support software check out our comprehensive list of the best customer support software.

Happy searching!