Top 55 Customer Service Software for 2025: A Detailed Guide (Reviews + Ratings Included)

Picture this: A prospective buyer visits your website. They have some questions about your pricing and refund options. They open up the chat widget – located on the right bottom corner of your website – and instantly receive a response from an AI chatbot. The bot answers their questions and the prospect proceeds to sign up for your product. All of this happens in a span of minutes.

We live in a time and age where such seamless and swift support is becoming the norm, and this can’t be possible without advancements in customer service software.

But which is the best customer service software currently? Do you need to look for live chat, email ticketing, AI bots or knowledge base when you’re researching what to invest in?

Well, the options are aplenty and the search can definitely get overwhelming. But fret not; we’ve got you covered.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ve covered the top 55 customer service software for 2025. To make it easier for you, we’ve slotted them into various categories.

Let’s get started!

Table of Contents

• Help Desk and Ticketing Systems
• Live Chat and Messaging Tools
• Knowledge Base and Self-Service Portals
• AI-Powered Support Tools
• Social Media Customer Service Tools
• Customer Relationship Management Software
• Customer Feedback and Survey Tools
• Reporting and Analytics Tools
• Internal Collaboration Tool
• Project Management Tools
• Community Forum Platforms
• Remote Support Tools
• Empower Your Team with the Right Customer Service Software

Help Desk and Ticketing Systems

When customer emails, chats, and calls come flooding in at once, handling them all at once can feel like a chore. Agents get so busy shuffling between tools and performing the same tasks over and over that there’s a high chance they eventually burnout and don’t get time to build rapport with customers. 

In fact, as per Ultimate AI’s Customer Service Trends 2024 report, 71% of customer experience leaders identify eliminating manual or repetitive tasks as a top area for improvement within their support teams.

That’s where investing in a help desk or ticketing system can work wonders. These tools simplify all this chaos by organizing incoming customer requests and turning them into easy-to-manage “tickets” or “conversations”. 

They help categorize tickets based on priority and assign them to the suitable agents. As a result, your team stays on top of things, can track progress, and manage customer requests more efficiently.

What’s even better? Many of these systems integrate seamlessly with the other tools in your support team’s tech stack, making processes smoother and more streamlined.

In this section, we’ll take a closer look at some of the top help desk and ticketing systems out there and how they can simplify the way you handle customer service.

1. Hiver

Hiver is an AI-powered help desk that you can integrate with Gmail and Outlook. It empowers your support team to assist customers over email, chat (think live chat and chatbots),knowledge base, and phone—all without having to migrate to a complicated interface. 

Some of its notable features include shared inboxes for managing customer emails across your team, rules-based automations to eliminate grunt work, and comprehensive analytics to monitor team performance.

Since Hiver has an inbox-like interface, users can get started in less than one hour. According to one user, “Hiver is extremely easy to use. We hit the ground running right from day one.” 

With no need to toggle between numerous (support) tools, Hiver simplifies workflows, improves collaboration and makes your team more efficient at handling tickets.

Best suited for: Small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) looking for an extremely easy-to-use yet feature-rich help desk.

Key features:

• Shared inbox: Manage group inboxes like support@ or info@ directly in Gmail or Outlook. Ensure all team members have access to incoming tickets – there’s complete visibility into workload. 
• Live chat integration: Engage with website visitors in real-time through live chat.
• Knowledge base: Create and manage a repository of help articles and FAQs. This enables your customers to self-serve.
• AI Summarizer: Turn email conversations into concise notes in a single click. This gives you complete context on a ticket and helps in seamless handoffs between support staff.
• Ticket assignment: Assign tickets to specific team members to establish clear ownership.
• Collision detection: Alert agents when multiple people view or respond to the same customer query.
• Shared drafts: Collaborate on email responses by sharing drafts with team members. This is particularly useful when you need your manager or supervisor to review responses before sending it to customers. 
• Email notes: Add private notes to tickets for internal discussions and for setting context.
• Workflow automation: Automate repetitive tasks such as ticket assignments and status updates. Assign tickets to support staff based on skill level or expertise. 
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Set and monitor response and resolution time targets. SLAs help drive accountability across your support team and ensure customer expectations are consistently met. 
• Analytics and reporting: Access detailed reports on team performance, response and resolution time, and customer satisfaction.
• Customer surveys (CSAT): Send customer satisfaction surveys to gather feedback on quality of service. 
• Integrations: Connect Hiver with other tools and platforms – Airtcall, Asana, Jira, Salesforce, and WhatsApp amongst others – to streamline workflows and make the most out of your help desk experience.
• Round-the-clock support: Get 24/7 vendor support across all plans.

Pricing:

Hiver offers a forever free plan for businesses on a tight budget. For more advanced features, consider opting for one of its paid plans – $19/user/month (Lite),$49/user/month (Pro),and $79/user/month (Elite).

Deliver excellent customer service without breaking a sweat 

2. Kustomer

Kustomer is a one-stop omnichannel help desk solution for large teams looking to integrate CRM and ticketing functionalities – powered by AI – into a single tool. Its unified timeline view offers insight into every customer’s journey, allowing agents to deliver more contextualized and personalized support. 

While Kustomer is an excellent choice for a robust help desk, many users find its interface less intuitive. According to one user, “It has a steep learning curve; at first glance, it is very confusing to the new employees.”  The tool is also much pricier than other solutions in the market.

Best suited for: Large-scale organizations and enterprises looking for a reliable, feature-rich help desk software.

Key Features:

• Omnichannel support
• AI-powered automation
• Customer timeline
• Customizable workflows
• Knowledge base integration
• Advanced analytics and reporting

Pricing:

Kustomer has two pricing plans: The Enterprise plan is at $89/month per user and the Ultimate plan is at $139/month per user.

3. Gorgias

If you run an e-commerce business, Gorgias is probably the first help desk ticketing software you might want to check out. It provides a unified inbox to manage customer inquiries from different channels — phone, email, live chat, and web forms.

The reason why so many e-commerce companies love Gorgias is because it offers robust integrations with platforms such as Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce. These integrations enable support teams to do more than just resolve customer tickets – they can view order details, issue refunds, and even manage subscriptions from a single platform.

Considering the fact that Gorgias is more tailored to ecommerce companies, businesses in other niches might not find its features very useful. 

Best suited for: Mid to large-sized e-commerce businesses.

Key Features:

• Unified inbox
• E-commerce integrations
• Automation
• Customer profiles
• Self-service options
• Reporting and analytics

Pricing:

Gorgias offers five pricing plans: Starter, Basic, Pro, Advanced, and Enterprise. Pricing starts at $10 per month for 50 tickets and goes up to $900 per month for 5,000 tickets.

4. Zendesk

Zendesk is a robust help desk that is known for its extensive feature set. It works by centralizing customer tickets from multiple channels into a single dashboard. Every incoming ticket is assigned a unique ID which helps in tracking status.

The platform’s AI capabilities are quite notable – it routes tickets based on intent, language and sentiment. Additionally, when support staff interact with customers, the AI offers suggestions on what response to send.  

While the platform’s versatility is impressive, configuring and navigating Zendesk can be challenging, particularly for first-time users. The learning curve can feel steep, and Zendesk’s pricing isn’t the most budget-friendly either, especially for smaller businesses or those eyeing its advanced features. One Zendesk user notes that “many advanced features are locked behind higher-tier plans, making it difficult for smaller teams on a budget to fully justify the cost.”

Consider Zendesk only if you don’t mind the initial setup grind (or the hefty price tag).

Best suited for: Large-scale companies and enterprises with sophisticated systems and practices.

Key Features:

• Omnichannel support
• Ticketing system
• AI-powered automation 
• Self-service 
• Reporting and analytics
• Numerous customizations and integrations

Pricing:

Zendesk offers three pricing plans – Team, Growth, and Professional. Pricing begins at $49 per agent per month and goes up to $99 per agent per month.

5. Help Scout

Help Scout is a popular help desk software more suited for small businesses. It offers email, chat, and knowledge base capabilities within a user-friendly interface. 

Its embeddable widget, Beacon, allows you to integrate a contact form, chat box, and self service support right into your website or app. Some of its notable AI features include AI Drafts (to offer suggestions based on past conversations),AI Summarize (to give you a gist of conversations),and AI Assist (to improve your customer communication with tone, grammar and language suggestions). 

While Help Scout is a solid option in the help desk market, some users report that its reporting features fall short. According to one Help Scout user, “Helpscout is not the most extensive product. It feels like some reports are limited in the drilldown capacities.”

Best suited for: Small to mid-sized businesses looking for an easy-to-use help desk.

Key Features:

• Shared inbox
• Knowledge base (Docs)
• Live chat (Beacon)
• Workflow automation 
• Reporting and analytics
• Integrations
• AI-powered capabilities

Pricing:

Help Scout offers three pricing plans: a free plan for up to 50 contacts, the ‘Standard’ plan at $50 per month for 100 contacts and unlimited users, and the ‘Plus’ plan at $75 per month for 100 contacts and unlimited users.

6. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a cloud-based help desk platform developed by Freshworks. It streamlines customer communication by consolidating interactions from email, phone, chat, social, and messaging apps into a unified system.

The platform offers a robust ticketing system to help streamline agent workflows and ensure every ticket can be tracked till resolution. It also comes with handy collaboration features that allow teams across the organization (and even outside) to work together on customer responses, and a self-service portal that gives customers and support agents access to helpful how-to guides and troubleshooting articles.

AI Freddy helps improve agent productivity by automating repetitive tasks, summarizing issues, offering conversation suggestions, and anticipating issues before they arise.

Its vast feature set, however, can be overwhelming for new users. One Freshdesk user notes that “There are so many tools and settings that finding specific features quickly can be tricky, especially for new team members who are still learning the ropes.”

It’s important to note that Freshdesk offers a forever-free plan – comes with limitations, of course – which is perfect for startups or compact teams of up to ten agents. 

Best suited for: Startups, SMBs and enterprises looking for a scalable help desk.

Key Features:

• Omnichannel support
• Ticketing system
• Automation
• Self-Service Portal
• Reporting and analytics
• Helpdesk AI (Freddy)

Pricing:

Freshdesk has four pricing tiers: a Forever Free plan (for small teams),a Growth Plan at $15 per agent/month, a Pro Plan at $49 per agent/month, and an Enterprise Plan at $79 per agent/month.

7. Front

Front is a collaborative help desk that empowers support teams to connect with their customers across email, live chat, social media messages, and text –all from a single inbox. One of the best features of the tool is that it combines the comfort and familiarity of a traditional inbox with the powerful features of a help desk.

The tool fosters real-time internal collaboration via features like in-thread comments and shared drafts. It comes with a host of AI capabilities like AI Compose for drafting emails, AI Summarize for customer query summaries, and AI Answers for 24/7 chat support, enabling businesses to deliver efficient, prompt assistance.

The tool also integrates with third-party CRMs and project management tools to offer teams an integrated view of the customer’s journey.

Best suited for: Medium-sized businesses looking to work collaboratively on customer support queries.

Key Features:

• Omnichannel communication
• AI-powered tools
• Live chat
• Automation
• Analytics and reporting
• Integrations

Pricing:

Four pricing tiers are available: Starter at $19 per user/month, Growth at $59 per user/month, Scale at $99 per user/month, and Premier at $229 per user/month.

8. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk (part of the Zoho suite) is a cloud-based ticketing system designed to streamline customer support for organizations of all sizes. 

The tool offers automation capabilities for support teams to manage repetitive tasks, a customizable knowledge base for customers and employees to self-serve, and a comprehensive reporting dashboard to monitor key support metrics.

Some of its notable AI features include Answer Bot (to share information from your knowledge base with customers and employees),Auto-Tagging (to automatically tag tickets based on its content),Anomaly Detection (to alert you of unusual activities in your ticket streams) and Field Predictions (to automate ticket assignments). 

If you’re using other tools from Zoho Office Suite (such as Zoho CRM),integrating Zoho Desk with them can streamline your customer service considerably. It allows support agents to access relevant customer histories, minimizing time spent switching between apps. 

Though Zoho Desk is an excellent help desk option, given its rich feature set and highly competitive price point, some users remark that the tool can be overwhelming and tends to slow down when managing large amounts of data.

Best suited for: Businesses of all sizes needing a support tool that scales easily.

Key Features:

• Multichannel support capabilities
• Automation
• Knowledge base
• AI-powered assistant (Zia)
• Reporting and analytics
• Integration capabilities

Pricing:

Zoho Desk offers a Free plan and three paid plans: Standard at $14 per agent/month, Professional at $23 per agent/month, and Enterprise at $40 per agent/month.

9. HappyFox

HappyFox is an easy-to-use help desk designed to consolidate support processes. It brings together customer interactions across multiple channels—email, live chat, social media, and phone—under one dashboard. 

The tool offers some unique features like allowing you to break down the ticket resolution process into easily-trackable tasks (including pinning tasks/tickets that need attention),applying bulk actions – changing status or adding tags – to similar tickets, and canned actions that help you send auto-responses based on the type of customer queries.

Though HappyFox comes with the functionalities of most cutting-edge modern ticketing systems, some users report that the initial setup can be complex. One user shares – “The hardest part about the platform was setting up everything with implementation. Especially the email part seemed to be a little more cumbersome than what they originally stated in the demo”.

Best suited for: Organizations of all sizes looking for a scalable support solution

Key Features:

• Omnichannel support capabilities 
• Canned actions
• Task management
• Automation tools
• Knowledge base
• Reporting and analytics
• Integration capabilities
• Multi-lingual support

Pricing:

HappyFox tiered pricing plans start at $9 per agent per month for the Basic plan, Team at $39, Pro at $89, and Enterprise Pro, available upon request.

10. Jira Service Management

Atlassian’s integrated service management product, Jira Service Management, is designed to help IT, development, customer service and operations teams resolve issues quickly yet efficiently. 

Its features include request management, which simplifies the handling, tracking, and resolution of support requests. Incident management focuses on quickly restoring operations after issues arise. Problem management helps identify root causes and document workarounds to prevent recurring problems. Change management ensures that system and process changes are implemented smoothly with minimal disruptions. Additionally, configuration management maintains detailed records of IT systems and processes to enhance oversight and control.

The tool also offers a customizable help center for customers to raise requests and access useful resources, rich customer context for agents to tailor their communication and SLAs to prioritize and act on issues. 

Best suited for: Teams seeking a IT service management and bug tracking tool. 

Key Features:

• Request management
• Incident management
• Problem management
• Change management
• Knowledge management
• Configuration management
• Escalations
• Customizable workflows
• Knowledge base 
• Flexible reporting

Pricing:

Jira Service Management offers tiered pricing plans: Free for up to 3 agents, Standard at $20 per agent/month, Premium at $40 per agent/month, and Enterprise with custom pricing. 

11. Jitbit

Jitbit is a help desk ideal for organizations that want to provide multi-channel support. The tool provides options to assist customers via live chat, chatbots, a knowledge base, and email (supporting multiple email protocols such as IMAP, POP3, and SMTP and in-built spam protection). 

It covers all the basics—a shared inbox, customizable workflows, and reporting –while offering advanced AI-powered features that enable you to draft quick responses to your customers. They also claim that its cloud-hosted help desk takes about 30 seconds to set up.

What stands out about Jitbit is that it provides two types of software to cater to your needs: a cloud-based system for easy, on-the-go use, and a self-hosted system for corporations with strict security policies. 

Although Jitbit is an excellent help desk solution for meeting the basic support needs of businesses, some users feel it falls short in offering advanced customization options.

Best suited for: Businesses of all sizes seeking a user-friendly help desk solution with flexible deployment options.

Key Features:

• Multiple deployment options
• Email integration
• Ticket management
• Automation and macros
• Knowledge base
• Reporting and analytics
• Asset management
• Live chat
• Mobile application
• AI-powered response suggestions

Pricing:

Jitbit offers cloud-hosted plans starting at $24.92 per month and self-hosted plans beginning at $2,199 for a one-time license. 

12. Groove

Groove is an easy-to-use help desk designed for small and medium-sized businesses. It provides features like shared inbox, live chat, social media messaging, and knowledge base. The best part about Groove is that it’s a no-frills, user-friendly tool that many teams love!

Groove helps you streamline your workflows with automation. It provides features like rule-based task management, round-robin case assignments, and reporting dashboards. Teams can even leverage its AI capabilities to summarize tickets and get help in writing responses. They can also conveniently handle tickets with the ‘all inboxes view’ feature – one consolidated mailbox for all customer interactions. 

Despite all this, Groove’s users raise concerns about not being able to reply to older messages in a conversation thread. One user shared, “I would like to be able to select which parts of a conversation to include in responses and ‘forwards’ to users. At the moment, it’s all or nothing. For some longer conversations involving input from various users, it’s not always appropriate for some recipients to see the full discussion. In these instances, I revert to Outlook but then have a disjointed discussion across two platforms.”

Best suited for: Small and medium-sized businesses seeking a straightforward, user-friendly help desk.

Key Features:

• Shared inbox and live chat
• Knowledge base
• Automation and workflows
• Round-robin assignment
• Reporting and analytics
• AI assistance
• Unified inboxes view
• Mobile accessibility
• Integrations

Pricing:

Groove offers three pricing plans: Standard at $20 per user per month, Plus at $45 per user per month, and Pro at $70 per user per month, with a 20% discount for annual billing. 

13. Spiceworks

Spiceworks is an IT management platform that helps with network monitoring, asset management, and help desk operations. It’s a great tool for small IT teams tackling internal requests because it’s completely free.

The interface is simple and plain, but it has everything a typical help desk has to offer: ticketing, customer portal, knowledge base, basic workflows, canned responses, reporting dashboards and SLA monitoring. The tool also lets you create a customized user portal where users can themselves submit and track their requests. It also comes with a mobile app that allows teams to manage service requests on-the-go.  

Do keep in mind that Spiceworks throws up in-app ads as a way to keep the service free, and if you can live with that, then it’s a help desk tool worth considering.

Best suited for: Small and medium-sized businesses seeking a cost-effective IT ticketing system.

Key Features:

• Ticketing management
• Customizable ticket attributes
• Workflow automation
• Knowledge base
• User portal
• Mobile app
• Reporting and analytics
• Community integration

Pricing:

Spiceworks is available free of cost. 

14. HelpCrunch

HelpCrunch is a customer service software that helps you connect with your customers across multiple channels.The platform’s team inbox feature consolidates messages from chat, email, and social media into a single unified system so that nothing gets silo-ed.

Aside from this, HelpCrunch covers all the other basics you’d expect from a good help desk platform—a customizable and AI-powered knowledge base (with translation functionality in its Pro plan),AI-powered chatbots, automation workflows, pre-built templates, and reporting tools. Its AI Editor also helps teams craft and refine their customer communication by assisting them with rephrasing, grammar correction, tone adjustment, and translation.

One thing to note: if you’re looking for a helpdesk solution that is more focused on email support, HelpCrunch may not be the best solution for you. One user shared,“We wanted to use HelpCrunch for mail support. But it turned out to be less suited for this matter and more focussed on chat.”

Best suited for: Small and medium-sized businesses seeking a simple and budget-friendly customer support software.

Key Features:

• Live Chat
• Chatbot
• Knowledge Base
• Email Marketing
• AI Editor
• Pop Ups
• Shared Inbox
• Mobile Apps & SDK

Pricing:

HelpCrunch offers flexible pricing plans to accommodate various business needs, starting at $12 per user per month. There’s also a 14-day free trial available. 

Live Chat and Messaging Tools

A study conducted by Hiver found that 63% of customers prefer to use live chat to reach out to companies. Chat has become a popular support channel because of how easy and quick it is to get support. There’s hardly any wait time and you aren’t passed on from one support staff to another.

So, if you’re a business looking to invest in a live chat and messaging software, what are some of the tops you should be considering? Let’s find out.

15. Intercom

If your business is looking for a chat tool that has very powerful AI features, Intercom should be on your list. Known for its real-time messaging capabilities, Intercom helps you reach out to and assist your customers proactively – both on your website and on your mobile app. 

The one feature its users rave about is called Fin AI Agent. Fin accesses and collates information from all your resources to deliver precise answers, offers multilingual support in over 45 languages, and personalizes communication for customers across channels. It also provides key insights into agent performance while suggesting actions to consistently improve your support quality. Intercom claims to offer a 99.9% accuracy rate and an 82% resolution rate for support queries using Fin. 

Despite its cutting-edge capabilities, Intercom can get extremely pricey for companies with constrained budgets. Check out this Reddit thread on how a company’s Intercom billing shot up by 120% due to the AI chatbot. 

Best suited for: Businesses aiming to drive customer engagement through a unified platform that combines live chat, messaging, and AI-driven bots.

Key Features:

• Unified inbox
• Phone support
• Live chat and messaging
• AI chatbots
• Fin AI Copilot
• Fin AI Agent
• Fin AI Analyst
• Help center and knowledge base
• Automation and workflows
• Integrations

Pricing:

Intercom offers tiered pricing plans with Essential at $29 per seat/month, Advanced at $85 per seat/month, and Expert at $132 per seat/month (additional charges for AI features and proactive support).

16. LiveChat

As the name suggests, LiveChat is a live chat and ticketing system that helps your business offer customer support on the website. The tool offers an option where you can get a preview of how the chat widget will appear on your homepage. 

The software is known for several unique features; chat tags help track conversations effectively and chat transfer allows more experienced agents to take over chats when needed. Additionally, it provides seamless integrations across multiple messaging channels to help teams build a consolidated view of customer data. 

If you’re particular about how you want your chat widget to look, there’s an option to customize it. To improve support quality, you have an analytics dashboard that provides detailed insight into what’s working and what’s not.

The tool’s AI Copilot equips support agents with response suggestions, while chat summaries offer a quick overview of what’s being discussed. Tag suggestions and spelling checks further assist agents in delivering faster and smarter support.

In terms of integration, LiveChat can connect with 200+ tools, including CRMs, e-commerce platforms, marketing automation software, and messaging platforms. Though most of its users seem really pleased with the software, some have raised concerns about its high pricing.

Best suited for: Businesses of all sizes that aim to improve customer engagement through real-time communication  

Key Features:

• Real-time chat
• Messaging sneak-peek
• Chat tags
• Chat transfer
• Chat archives
• Analytics and reporting
• Chat widget customization
• Multi-channel support
• 200+ integrations (including Shopify and BigCommerce) 

Pricing:

LiveChat offers four pricing plans: Starter at $20 per agent/month, Team at $41 per agent/month, Business at $59 per agent/month, and Enterprise on request. 

17. Olark

If you’re on the lookout for a cloud-based live chat software that allows you to interact with customers directly on your website, then Olark is an excellent tool to consider. The platform is tested and certified to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. This means that both the website chat widget and the software used by your team will be accessible to people with disabilities. 

Since you can embed Olark into your website’s HTML, all of your website’s pages can have a live chat widget to help you manage leads, boost sales, and deliver stellar support.

You can even personalize the chat widgets, use automation features such as canned responses and proactive chat triggers, and gain insight into metrics like chat volume and customer satisfaction through detailed analytics. 

Some standout features of the tool include its pre-chat forms, which allow you to collect customer information before the actual chat starts. Messages left by customers when your support team is unavailable are stored in a central place; once the team is back online, they can respond to the customer via chat or email. Olark also provides searchable transcripts, helping you search customer interactions by date, keywords, tags, and other criteria.

One downside to Olark, according to many users, is that the tool doesn’t offer a mobile app for on-the-go support. According to a user, “It was disappointing that there isn’t a mobile app to capture chats when away from the computer and the options are very limited. I really think that a major milestone would be to have an app where agents can respond to customers or prospective customers when not at their workstations.”

Best suited for: Small and medium-sized businesses that want an easy-to-use yet feature-rich live chat solution.

Key Features:

• Customizable chatbox
• Automated messages
• Real-time reporting
• Searchable transcripts
• Custom pre-chat forms
• Team management tools
• Integrations
• Power-ups

Pricing:

Olark offers a Standard plan at $29 per agent/month, with discounts for annual and biennial commitments, and a Pro plan with advanced features and custom pricing. 

18. Drift

Drift (now part of Salesloft’s suite of tools) is a cloud-based AI-powered platform built to help businesses increase leads and drive sales by engaging with prospects at the right place and right time. 

Its AI-powered Bionic chatbots facilitate personalized, real-time interactions with website visitors. These bots are trained on your brand’s specific content and website data, which enables them to provide accurate responses to customer inquiries. Bionic chatbots claim to increase pipeline creation by up to 50%, streamline playbook design by saving over 60 hours, and ensure consistent, engaging buyer interactions. 

That’s not the only kind of chatbots you get with Drifft. Custom chatbots – which are also part of the feature set – can qualify website visitors as leads, instantly route them to your sales team and schedule meetings effectively. 

Despite its vast feature set, the tool has shortcomings, such as the lack of critical features (like its AI-driven qualification bot, Bionic Chatbots) on its lower pricing tiers. Some users have also cited bugs in the web and mobile apps, including slow load times for the dashboard and chatbots misidentifying returning visitors or confusing one customer profile with another. According to one user, “The app can be a bit buggy. Sometimes it will take really long to load, and once it does, the screen is blank, and I can’t view anything on it.” 

Best suited for: Businesses, especially those in SaaS, e-commerce and B2B, that want a conversational approach to driving sales.

Key Features:

• Live chat and messaging
• Bionic chatbots
• Custom chatbots
• Drift Email
• Conversational landing pages
• ROI reporting
• Drift Engage

Pricing:

Drift’s pricing starts at $2,500 per month for the Premium plan. For its Advanced and Enterprise plans – which come with more powerful features – you need to contact their sales team.

19. Userlike

Userlike is a full-fledged live chat and messaging tool that helps brands improve customer communication on their website and across popular messaging apps. 

The tool offers customizable chat widgets that match your company’s branding. It supports video calling and proactive chat invites to engage customers and lead them to their goals. Integration with messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram makes it easier to reach out to customers on channels they’re comfortable with. 

One feature that makes Userlike stand out is its unified Message Center. It brings customers’ interactions from social, email, chat, and messaging channels together in one place and streamlines support processes. You can also set up AI chatbots and link them to your knowledge base – so that they direct customers to the relevant help articles when needed.

And like most live chat software, Userlike comes with an analytics dashboard that offers a complete understanding of how well your company is doing in supporting its customers.. 

Best suited for: Businesses looking to provide real-time support across their website and messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Key Features:

• Unified message center
• Whatsapp campaigns
• AI automation and chatbots
• Video calls
• Analytics and reporting
• Proactive chat
• Multichannel support
• Customization 

Pricing:

Userlike comes with a forever free plan. Its paid plans are as follows: €90/month for the Team plan, €290/month for the Corporate plan, and custom pricing for the Flex plan.

20. LiveAgent

LiveAgent started out as a chat product to help businesses interact with customers in real-time. Over the years, they’ve added more features to become a fully-fledged helpdesk. The product currently supports over 40 languages and is excellent for businesses that have a customer base spanning multiple countries.

The tool offers proactive chat invitations, helping you engage customers at the right time on the right webpage. For instance, if a customer is spending too much time on the checkout page, you can proactively start a chat asking if they’re facing any issues making the payment.

When conversing with customers, you can make use of canned responses to answer commonly asked questions. It’s quite the time saver. There’s also a really cool real-time typing view feature that allows support staff to see what customers input as they type. It helps you be more prepared. 

LiveAgent integrates with various CRM tools (such as Salesforce or Pipedrive),e-commerce platforms (like Shopify or WordPress),VoIP solutions, and social media channels (such as Facebook or Twitter).

Some users of the tool raise concerns about its layout and interface. One user notes, “The UI handling and working often becomes a bit cumbersome for new users as it’s crowded and needs more sorting and arrangement with structuring and layout.”

Best suited for: Companies seeking a unified, multichannel support tool to consolidate email, live chat, call center, and social media into one solution.

Key Features:

• Live chat
• Chat button
• Chat distribution
• Chat history
• Chat overview
• Proactive chat invitations
• Real-time typing view
• Analytics and reporting
• Multilingual support
• Third-party integrations

Pricing:

LiveAgent offers four pricing plans: Small Business at $15, Medium Business at $29, Large Business at $49, and Enterprise at $69 per agent/month, billed annually.

21. Tidio

Tidio is a customer service software that integrates live chat, AI-powered chatbots, and other support channels into a single interface. One of its key features is a visual automation builder that lets you create workflows without any code. You can design what journeys customers take when they ask specific questions.

If you want to respond faster to queries, tap into Tidio’s AI Reply Assistant – it uses GPT-4 technology to offer suggestions to support staff. There’s also the Lyro Chatbot which uses your existing support-related resources to deliver accurate, context-aware responses. This bot, in particular, claims to handle up to 70% of typical customer queries, allowing support teams to focus on the more critical and complex tasks.

The tool comes with a mobile app, but it experiences occasional synchronization issues with the desktop version. One user noted, “The mobile app, though convenient, occasionally suffers from sync issues with the desktop version, which can cause missed messages or delayed notifications.”

Best suited for: SMBs looking for affordable and user-friendly live chat and chatbot solutions. 

Key Features:

• Live chat
• Lyro AI Chatbot
• Tidio AI reply assistant 
• Canned responses
• Multichannel integration
• Automation flows
• Visitor tracking
• Analytics and reporting
• Customization

Pricing:

Tidio offers a free plan and its paid plans start at $29 per month.

22. Tawk.to

Are you a small business that aims to provide stellar support? You might want to check out Tawk.to– a free live chat solution.

The tool allows businesses to track and interact with website visitors in real-time. It has several compelling features such as real-time visitor monitoring, proactive chat triggers, customizable widgets, canned responses and a built-in ticketing system for unlimited agents–all at no cost. 

At the same time, Tawk.io has certain limitations. One user shares, “Tawk.to has limited customization in terms of chat widget design, which may not align with all brand aesthetics. Some advanced features like white labeling require a paid upgrade, which might limit options for full branding control.”

Best suited for: Small businesses with budgetary limitations looking for a reliable and free live chat solution.

Key Features:

• Real-time visitor monitoring
• Unlimited agents
• Customizable chat widgets
• Automated triggers
• Ticketing system
• File transfer
• Canned responses
• Mobile applications
• Analytics and reporting
• Multilingual support

Pricing:

Tawk.to is free for core features, with optional paid services like removing branding for $19/month and hiring chat agents starting at $1/hour.

23. Smartsupp

Smartsupp is an AI-powered support tool that specializes in chat capabilities–both live chat and bots– to help businesses connect with customers in real-time.

Its AI chatbot, Mira AI, learns from your website content and product feeds to provide customers with accurate and relevant information, even outside working hours. In fact, Mira AI can be customized to reflect your brand’s voice and communication style. In case a question falls outside the purview of Mira, it seamlessly connects you to a human support staff.

What gives Smartsupp a one up on other live chat tools is its visitor recording feature. It provides you a step-by-step view of your visitors’ buying habits. It also tells you where your website has issues or might be misleading visitors. 

Smartsupp’s pricing, especially with its AI-powered features as add-ons, is one area of concern.

Best suited for: E-commerce stores and online businesses seeking to enhance customer service and boost sales.

Key Features:

• Live chat
• Mira AI Chatbot
• AI Engage
• Lead generation
• Visitor history
• Visitor recording
• Multichannel integration
• Mobile app

Pricing:

Smartsupp offers a free plan, a Standard plan starting at $14 per month, and a Pro plan starting at $24 per month. Note that all paid plans come with a 14-day free trial. 

Knowledge Base and Self-Service Portals

How many times have customers reached out to your support team with the most basic questions? And how many times has your support team had to type out the same answers over and over again?

If the answer is ‘a lot’, it’s time to evaluate how you’re enabling self-service. According to research, 91% of customers are willing to use an online knowledge base if it’s appropriately designed for their needs.

But, what are knowledge bases? They’re like your company’s 24/7 library—a place where customers can find answers, tutorials and how-to guides as and when they please. No holding time, no back-and-forth email threads— just real-time assistance, right at their fingertips.

Not only do these tools promote self-service, but reduce the volume of repetitive queries your team receives. This gives them more time to handle complex customer challenges and other high-value tasks. In this section, we’ll highlight some of the best tools available to create a seamless self-service experience for your customers:

24. Helpjuice

Helpjuice is cloud-based knowledge management software that helps organizations create a knowledge base for internal teams and external customers. Thanks to its ease-of-use and powerful search functionality, customers can easily find what they need. 

The software comes with an article editor to help you update content. It also lets you check the performance of your articles – How many people are viewing it? How many of them find it helpful?

There’s even an option to customize the knowledge base to align with your company branding. Furthermore, its Swifty AI Chatbot (powered by GPT technology) provides instant and accurate answers to customer queries by referencing your existing knowledge base.

Oftentimes Helpjuice users raise concerns about how complex editing articles on the tool can be. One user commented, “The editing experience was quite rickety. We often lost edits and comment threads, and we were often not sure if anything was actually sticking/being saved. Each iteration of the “new editor” became more-and-more complicated & slower.”

Best suited for: Organizations aiming to centralize information and enable self-service at scale.

Key Features:

• Content management
• Powerful editor
• Multilingual support
• AI-powered assistant
• Custom branding
• Advanced analytics
• Seamless integrations

Pricing:

Helpjuice offers four pricing plans: Starter at $120/month (4 users),Run-Up at $200/month (16 users),Premium Limited at $289/month (60 users),and Premium Unlimited at $659/month (unlimited users).

25. Bloomfire

Bloomfire is an AI-powered knowledge management software that helps organizations consolidate and store information in one place. Its intuitive interface allows teams to quickly build, categorize, edit and retrieve organizational knowledge.

To better organize and categorize information, Bloomfire uses AI to automatically tag content based on what purpose it serves. This makes it easier for support staff to look up specific troubleshooting or how-to guides.

The AI features don’t stop there. The platform helps you generate summaries and key takeaways from articles using AI. Scanning through information becomes a lot easier this way. Additionally, its interactive community features give you the option to comment on or “like” content.

Many Bloomfire users, however, report that the search function can be a hit or miss and sometimes shows results unrelated to what they are looking for. Take this user’s experience, for example – “With the current search features built into Bloomfire, some of our back office associates and CSRs have a hard time finding the data or answers needed.”

Best suited for: Organizations of all sizes seeking to enhance knowledge sharing across teams and departments. 

Key Features:

• AI-powered search and discovery
• AI-powered content authoring tools
• Custom user experiences
• Deep multimedia indexing
• Q&A collective knowledge engine
• Content and document management
• Robust analytics

Pricing:

Bloomfire offers customized pricing plans tailored to your organization’s knowledge management goals, with options for team-wide, department-wide, or company-wide access. 

26. Document360

Document360 allows you to create knowledge bases for various use cases – primarily for serving customers and for internal knowledge sharing.

It has a clean UI and a state-of-the-art editor that makes it easy to write detailed articles in WYSIWYG Markdown and Block Editor formats. Its standout features include advanced analytics, third-party integrations, robust security with Single Sign-On (SSO) and role-based access, and SEO tools that help improve search traffic.

The tool’s embeddable knowledge base assistant integrates with SaaS products and websites, giving users instant access to articles without leaving the page. 

Some users have reported that the tool’s article editor tends to glitch and cause formatting issues. According to one such user, “The article editor can be difficult to use at times; glitches can happen that will slow down work productivity, especially if I have to upload multiple articles back to back.”

Best suited for: Organizations of all sizes that want to manage and publish how-to articles for customers and internal teams.

Key Features:

• Advanced editors
• SEO tools
• Customization
• Category manager
• Version control
• Workflow management
• AI search
• Localization
• Analytics
• Integrations

Pricing:

Document360 offers a Free plan with basic features. Its paid plans start at $199 per project per month for the Professional plan, $399 for the Business plan, and custom pricing for the Enterprise plan. 

27. Guru

Another powerful knowledge management tool on this list is Guru. It aims to create a single source of truth for organizations. This way, your team can stop hunting for answers and spend more time working on what matters—helping customers and driving results.

Heavily powered by AI capabilities, Guru offers Knowledge Agents which are, simply put, AI agents that help you find relevant answers across documents and other sources. You enter a prompt and you get what you’re looking for. Very similar to Chat-GPT.

Teams using Guru have also found its easy-to-create knowledge cards and integration with apps like Slack and Salesforce quite beneficial. 

Some users of the tool point out issues with its search functionality stating that it sometimes suggests unrated articles. As per one user, “You have to enter specific words in order to come up with a result. Although it definitely drives a deep understanding of Guru cards for you to effectively search in it, this kind of search feature will be an obstacle to newbies who are not familiar with the process.”

Best suited for: Customer-facing teams looking for an AI-driven platform to streamline knowledge management. 

Key Features:

• AI-Powered enterprise search
• AI Content Assist
• Knowledge Agents 
• Guru GPT
• AI Training Center
• Advanced integrations
• Powerful analytics
• Customized landing pages

Pricing:

Guru offers an all-in-one plan at $15 per user per month, with volume discounts available, and provides a 30-day free trial. 

28. BookStack

BookStack is a free, open-source, and self-hosted knowledge base platform that allows you to organize and store your company data for both internal and external use. Its simple interface enables you to categorize and color-code content into a Books>Chapters>Pages hierarchy to facilitate easy navigation.

Whether you’re documenting processes or building your team’s knowledge base, BookStack is an excellent option, mainly because it’s free to use!

The software is packed with features like a WYSIWYG editor, robust search functionality, and integration with diagram.net to create simple visuals for free. It also offers support for multiple languages, which is ideal for diverse teams across the globe. And if you’re looking for some control over who can publish and edit content, BookStack has got you covered with its role-based permissions functionality. 

One of the platform’s drawbacks, according to users, is its very restrictive structure. One user shared, “The pre-made structure of Shelves > Books > Chapters > Pages is limiting. File upload is only through a small droppable area, which can cause you to lose the page. – Very limited visual customisation.”

Best suited for: Organizations looking for a simple, free, self-hosted platform to organize and store company information.

Key Features:

• Free and open source
• Intuitive content structure
• User-friendly editing
• Comprehensive search functionality
• Multilingual support
• Role-based permissions
• Integration with diagrams.net
• Dark and light modes

Pricing:

Free forever.

29. ProProfs Knowledge Base

Looking to create online documentation without technical expertise? ProProfs Knowledge Base makes it simple to build manuals and FAQs for both customers and employees.

At the heart of this tool sits a user-friendly WYSIWYG editor, perfect for content creation. Whether you need to add multimedia elements, create tables of contents, or work from pre-built templates, everything’s just a few clicks away.

Collaboration is seamless thanks to flexible role management. By assigning specific roles like admin, contributor, or editor to team members, everyone can work together effectively on content creation and management.

When it comes to search functionality, ProProfs leverages AI to help users quickly find what they need. Beyond search, you’ll find a robust set of features including customizable templates and detailed analytics for tracking content performance. Need to reach a global audience? The platform supports more than 90 languages, making it truly versatile for international teams.

Best suited for: Businesses (small and large) aiming to enhance customer support and internal collaboration by providing centralized and easily accessible information. 

Key Features:

• Content authoring
• AI-powered text editor
• Multi-author collaboration
• Version control
• Customization and branding
• Advanced search functionality
• Analytics and reporting
• Multi-language support
• Integration capabilities

Pricing:

ProProfs Knowledge Base offers a Free plan for startups and micro businesses. Its Business plan starts at $49 per author per month, billed annually, with a 15-day free trial available. 

AI-Powered Support Tools

AI in customer support was initially met with a lot of skepticism. There were fears that it might completely replace human agents. However, perceptions have shifted remarkably. Hiver’s ‘AI vs Human Customer Support’ report found that 44% of support professionals endorse AI’s accuracy in customer service.

But how exactly is AI enabling faster and more efficient customer service? On one end you have AI chatbots that understand context and resolve queries in seconds and on the other, you have AI features that auto-suggest responses for agents and route tickets to the right support staff.

The current capabilities of AI aren’t going to replace human customer service agents – it’s here to empower them. In this section, we’ll explore some cutting-edge AI tools revolutionizing customer support today. Let’s dive in:

30. Ada

Meet Ada, a powerhouse in the customer service automation space. This AI-driven platform helps support teams scale their operations by building intelligent bots that handle customer interactions effortlessly.

At its core lies the sophisticated Ada’s Reasoning Engine™, which does more than just answer queries. By understanding context, tackling complex problems, and pulling accurate information from multiple sources, this AI system autonomously resolves over 70% of customer service inquiries while staying within business guidelines.

What sets Ada apart? Their approach to customization is truly unique. Through a streamlined three-step onboarding process, you can quickly deploy an AI Agent tailored to your specific needs. The process starts by feeding existing support content to train the AI, then refines responses using AI insights, and ensures your brand voice stays consistent through ongoing coaching and feedback.

Beyond the basics, Ada packs some impressive features: create AI agents without touching code, connect seamlessly with your existing tech stack, dive deep with advanced analytics, and engage customers across multiple channels.

But it’s not all smooth sailing. While Ada shines in many areas, some users have hit roadblocks with integrations. As one customer noted, “We have experienced some major bugs within our Zendesk <> Ada live chat integration. This has resulted in a delayed launch of live chat support.”

Best suited for: Businesses looking to automate customer service with AI chatbots.

Key Features:

• No-code automation builder
• Advanced natural language processing (NLP)
• Ada’s Reasoning Engine™
• Multi-channel support
• Personalization capabilities
• Analytics and reporting
• Integration with business systems

Pricing:

Ada offers customized pricing plans tailored to each business’s specific needs.

31. Balto

Picture this: a virtual coach that helps your contact center agents improve in real-time, right in the middle of live calls. That’s exactly what Balto, an AI-powered customer support tool, brings to the table.

During calls, dynamic prompts pop up with recommended responses, while the innovative QA Copilot evaluates every single interaction using natural language scorecards. Managers receive instant alerts when coaching opportunities arise, making performance improvement a continuous process.

Beyond real-time coaching, Balto comes packed with powerful features. The Real-Time Notetaker handles call transcription automatically, while a robust playbook designer helps teams create and share best practices. To keep agents motivated, there’s even a gamification system built right in.

Yet, not everything’s perfect. Some agents find the real-time suggestions disruptive, especially during complex conversations. As one user puts it, “The real-time suggestions can sometimes feel overwhelming, especially during fast-paced calls. When there’s a lot happening at once, having pop-ups or notifications can distract me from the flow of the conversation, making it harder to focus.”

Best suited for: Contact centers looking to enhance agent performance and customer satisfaction through AI-driven guidance and analytics.

Key Features:

• Real-time guidance
• Real-time transcription
• Real-time coaching
• Generative AI
• AI-powered QA Copilot 
• Agent customization
• Automated after-call work

Pricing:

Balto’s pricing is customized based on the number of seats and contract length.

32. Brainfish

Brainfish is an AI-powered customer support platform designed to provide instant (and accurate) answers to users from your company’s existing knowledge base. It helps reduce the volume of support tickets, accelerates response times and allows you to save on operational costs by automating replies at scale. The tool also learns and evolves continuously through customer interactions and feedback.

What makes Brainfish stand out is its sophisticated natural language processing and machine learning capabilities. By analyzing the context and intent behind customer questions, it quickly serves up relevant answers. When human touch is needed, the smart search assistant smoothly connects customers with live agents.

Through its Guidance feature, the platform takes a proactive approach to customer support. Users receive real-time alerts, personalized tours, and in-app messages based on their behavior. Meanwhile, the Actions feature uses machine learning to create dynamic calls-to-action, guiding users through self-service experiences like trial signups or demo access.

However, there’s room for improvement. Despite its advanced AI capabilities, search results aren’t always on point, and the platform’s single-click content integration can be finicky with certain content sources.

Best suited for: Businesses aiming to enhance customer support and product adoption through AI-driven self-service.

Key Features:

• AI-powered search
• In-product guidance
• Dynamic actions
• Knowledge base
• Multilingual support
• Analytics and Insights

Pricing:

Brainfish pricing is based on the number of monthly active users (MAUs) you support, with plans that scale to accommodate businesses of any size. 

33. Yuma AI

If you’re looking to streamline customer support for your Shopify store, that’s exactly where Yuma AI shines. Built specifically for e-commerce businesses, this tool seamlessly connects with your favorite help desk, shipping, subscription, and review platforms to handle customer communication throughout the buying journey.

From tackling order inquiries to managing social media responses, Yuma AI handles it all. The platform’s capabilities extend to tracking returns and refunds, while its smart features automatically tag conversations, generate summaries, and break down language barriers through translations. When things get complicated? No worries – it knows exactly when to bring in human agents.

Think of it as your virtual support team that never sleeps. By taking care of routine customer requests, this AI solution helps cut operational costs and boost agent productivity. The best part? You can scale your support operations without adding more staff.

There’s just one catch, though: Yuma AI caters exclusively to Shopify merchants. If you’re running your store on a different platform, you might want to explore other options.

Best suited for: Shopify merchants looking to level up their customer support with a scalable, AI-powered solution.

Key Features:

• Automated customer service
• Order and payment management
• Feedback and review handling
• Subscription management
• Pre-sales questions
• Post-sales support
• Social media moderation
• Refunds, returns, and exchanges
• Shipping and delivery inquiries
• Tagging and escalations
• Spam and automated replies filtering

Pricing:

Yuma AI offers a 30-day free trial, with plans starting at $350 per month for 500 automated resolutions. Enterprise plans are available with custom pricing.

Social Media Customer Service Tools

Social media is no longer simply a place to only network with friends and family; it’s an essential platform for businesses to provide customer service. Customers today prefer to bypass long hold times on calls for the instant gratification of tweeting, commenting or DM-ing brands to get their issues taken care of.

To meet these customer expectations, there’s a new wave of social media tools are empowering brands through automation, real-time analytics and actionable insights. They’re transforming customer service and enabling brands to offer speedy and tailored support in an always-on digital environment.

Whether you’re a lean startup or an established enterprise, integrating these tools into your social strategy is not only smart, but essential. 

Let’s take a look at some of the best social media customer service tools in the market today:

34. Sprinklr Social

Sprinklr Social is a full-stack social media management platform built to help businesses engage customers across more than 24 social channels, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter),WhatsApp, Pinterest, Reddit and YouTube.

At its core, this powerful platform streamlines content creation, scheduling, and publishing while enabling real-time customer engagement. Through sophisticated social listening and competitive benchmarking tools, teams can track and optimize their social media performance with precision.

The platform’s AI capabilities stand out as a game-changer. Beyond automating routine tasks, the intelligent system routes customer queries to appropriate agents and provides contextual recommendations in real-time. Perhaps most impressively, its visual insights feature analyzes brand imagery – from logos to embedded text – helping teams understand visual sentiment and quickly identify inappropriate brand associations.

For organizations looking to expand their social reach, Sprinklr Social includes robust features for employee advocacy, social advertising, and conversational commerce. 

While Sprinklr Social ranks among today’s top social media customer service tools, users often note its steep learning curve. As one customer explains, “The platform’s numerous features and intricate functionalities can initially feel overwhelming, requiring a significant time investment to fully grasp. While the customization options are extensive, they can sometimes lead to a cluttered and less intuitive user experience.”

Best suited for: Organizations seeking to unify their social media management while driving customer engagement and brand presence.

Key Features:

• Sprinklr AI for customer service
• Content scheduling and publishing
• Omnichannel engagement
• AI-Powered social listening
• Team collaboration tools
• Competitive insights and benchmarking
• Social advertising management
• Conversational commerce
• Employee advocacy

Pricing:

Sprinklr Social’s Social Media Management and Customer Service Solution costs $299 per seat per month, with a 30-day free trial. For enterprise needs, pricing is customized.

35. Sprout Social

Powerful social media management meets sophisticated AI in Sprout Social’s comprehensive platform. Built for brands serious about their social presence, this tool brings together a unified social inbox, robust publishing capabilities, and deep social listening features in an intuitive interface.

The platform’s AI capabilities truly shine in day-to-day operations. Smart chatbots tackle routine customer queries, while OpenAI’s GPT models help craft engaging social posts with tailored tone suggestions. Through intelligent analysis of customer insights, AI Assist streamlines agent workflows by prioritizing responses and routing queries to the right team members.

Want to understand your brand’s social impact? Sprout Social’s detailed analytics deliver a complete view of social conversations around your brand. Teams can track crucial metrics from engagement rates to response times, while measuring customer sentiment across platforms.

Despite its impressive feature set, this tool comes with a few limitations. The pricing structure can strain smaller business budgets, and platform integration isn’t universal. As one user notes, “It has no Snapchat or TikTok integration. Also, it’s really expensive if you have multiple social channels. It’s a reasonable price for 10 channels but since each FB, Insta, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest etc counts as 1 channel, 10 goes fast.”

Best suited for: Organizations aiming to manage and optimize their social media presence through comprehensive tools for publishing, support, engagement, analytics, and social listening.

Key Features:

• Publishing and scheduling
• AI-powered agent assitance
• Workflow automation
• Analytics and reporting
• Social listening
• Engagement tools
• Social commerce integrations
• Mobile accessibility

Pricing:

Sprout Social offers tiered pricing plans: Standard at $199 per user/month, Professional at $299 per user/month, and Advanced at $399 per user/month, with a 30-day free trial. 

36. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is another widely used social media management tool that helps businesses manage their social presence from a single dashboard. It provides features such as content planning and publishing, engagement tools, analytics, and social advertising.

The platform’s AI capabilities pack a powerful punch. OwlyWriter AI, powered by GPT technology, helps teams craft compelling social copy that resonates with their audience. Meanwhile, an intelligent chatbot handles routine customer queries with brand-consistent responses, freeing up teams to tackle more complex challenges.

Creating eye-catching content becomes effortless thanks to seamless Canva integration. Teams can design graphics, schedule posts, and set up automated responses all from one central location. The platform’s smart routing ensures incoming messages reach the right team members, while comprehensive analytics provide crucial insights into post engagement and advertising performance.

If you are new to social media management tools, Hootsuite’s extensive features can feel overwhelming. According to one user, “The dashboard can also feel a bit crowded at times, which makes it challenging for new users to get comfortable.”

Best suited for: Companies seeking a comprehensive solution to manage and optimize their social media presence across multiple platforms.

Key Features:

• Content planning and scheduling
• Audience engagement tools
• Inbox and messaging
• Analytics and reporting
• Social listening
• OwlyWriter AI
• Social advertising
• Team collaboration
• App integrations

Pricing:

Hootsuite offers tiered pricing plans: Professional at $99 per month, Team at $249 per month, and Enterprise with custom pricing.

37. Statusbrew

If you are looking for a cheaper alternative to Sprout Social and Hootsuite, then Statusbrew is an excellent all-in-one social media management tool that you can consider. Statusbrew has a unified dashboard to schedule and publish content on all major platforms (including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn & Google My Business),engage with your customers, and track performance analytics.

Some noteworthy features of the tool include advanced scheduling, sentiment analysis, comment moderation, and a social CRM to give you a deeper understanding of customers and their interaction history with you.

At the core of its AI capabilities sits the Smart AI composer, crafting compelling captions, suggesting relevant hashtags, and generating engaging social posts. Teams can streamline their workflows through intelligent message routing, automatically directing purchase inquiries, support questions, and billing matters to the right departments.

Collaboration becomes seamless with role-based approvals and customizable workflow configurations. The platform plays well with popular business tools, integrating smoothly with Hubspot, Salesforce, and other essential platforms in your tech stack.

However, one common concern among its users is that the tool doesn’t automate Instagram posting.

Best suited for: Businesses seeking an all-in-one platform to manage social media engagement, scheduling, analytics, and team collaboration seamlessly.

Key Features:

• Unified social inbox
• Content scheduling and publishing
• Smart AI Composer
• AI-powered community management
• Approval workflows
• Comprehensive analytics, benchmarking and reporting
• Social listening and monitoring
• Automated moderation
• Integrations with business tools
• Mobile accessibility

Pricing:

Statusbrew offers scalable pricing plans starting at $69 per month for the Lite plan and $129 and $229 per month for the Standard and Premium plans, respectively.

38. Buffer

Buffer is an all-in-one user-friendly social media management platform that allows businesses to effectively manage their online presence across a variety of social channels. Like the other tools on this list, Buffer includes content scheduling and publishing, a unified inbox to streamline all your customer interactions, and a robust analytics suite to track key metrics.

The platform’s AI Assistant takes social engagement to new heights. By generating fresh post ideas and cleverly repurposing existing content, teams can keep their social feeds vibrant and engaging. Meanwhile, the Engage tool’s machine learning capabilities keep teams alert to customer queries, sentiment shifts, and purchase-related comments through a unified dashboard.

Collaboration flows naturally with Buffer’s team-oriented features. Custom approval workflows and the Notes system enable teams to coordinate effectively, leading to faster response times and consistent brand messaging across all channels.

While Buffer excels in many areas, its analytics capabilities have room for growth. As one user notes, “The analytical tools aren’t as in-depth as some other options. If you run a large-scale campaign, you might need more detailed or specialized insights.”

Best suited for: Businesses seeking an intuitive platform to manage and optimize their social media customer service across multiple channels.

Key Features:

• Content scheduling and publishing
• Customized landing page 
• AI Assist
• Approval workflows
• Internal comments
• Analytics and reporting
• Social engagement
• Integrations

Pricing:

Buffer offers a Free plan that helps manage up to 3 channels. Regarding paid plans, there’s ‘Essentials’ which is $5 per month per channel, ‘Team’ which is $10 per month per channel, and ‘Agency’ which is $100 per month for 10 channels.

39. Agorapulse

Social media management becomes streamlined with Agorapulse’s multi-platform solution. Through its unified inbox, teams can capture and respond to customer interactions across platforms, ensuring no message, comment, or review slips through the cracks.

The Inbox Assistant feature automatically sorts and prioritizes messages, while templated responses help maintain quick, consistent communication. For content creation, an AI-powered Writing Assistant adapts your message tone – for example, ‘funny’, ‘inspirational’, ‘shocking’ or ‘engaging’– and writes copies to match the standards of each social media platform.

The tool also allows you to track response times, SLAs, and other actionable metrics. Additionally, it includes advanced scheduling and publishing, social listening, and collaboration features.

One feature Agorapulse falls short on is the ability to review drafts before posts are finalized. One user shared, “I wish Agorapulse had a drafting option. Once you’ve created a post you have to place it in a schedule or queue. Sometimes posts can get launched before being finalized.”

Best suited for: Businesses seeking a comprehensive platform to efficiently manage, monitor, and analyze their social media activities across multiple channels.

Key Features:

• Unified social inbox
• Content scheduling and publishing
• Social listening
• AI Writing Assistant
• Analytics and reporting
• ROI monitoring
• Team collaboration tools
• Social media monitoring
• Sentiment analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Mobile access
• API access

Pricing:

Agorapulse offers a Free plan for individuals managing up to 3 social profiles. Paid plans start at $79 per user per month for the Standard plan, $119 per user per month for the Professional plan, and $149 per user per month for the Advanced plan.

Customer Relationship Management Software

Businesses want to know their customers better. They want to really understand their customer’s preferences, purchase history, issues they’ve faced in the past, and what’ll make them keep coming back.

And if there’s anything that can help you build a comprehensive view of your customers, it’s a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. Think of it as your all-in-one assistant that gives access to important customer data, tracks past interactions, manages sales pipelines, and delivers personalized experiences.

Modern CRMs go beyond data collection and organization. They can deliver predictive insights that help you stay ahead of customer needs and expectations. Get sales projections, understand which customers might be on the verge of churn, when to time your follow ups, and a lot more.

Now, let’s look at some of the top CRM software for 2025:

40. HubSpot

HubSpot is a powerful, all-in-one customer relationship management software, which captures all the interactions a company has with their customers and prospects in one central place.

The tool houses critical data like customer contacts and their interaction history, so your team knows which customers need nurturing and what areas to focus on to build stronger customer relationships.

The platform’s newest innovation, Breeze AI, transforms customer service operations across three key areas. Breeze Copilot assists teams with day-to-day tasks, while Breeze Agents handles workflow automation. For data-driven insights, Breeze Intelligence analyzes patterns and trends to guide strategic decisions.

Speed and efficiency define the user experience. With ready-to-use templates and canned responses, teams can maintain quick, consistent communication. The platform’s core features—including live chat, email integration, call logging, and task management—come together in a clean interface that teams can master quickly.

Some HubSpot CRM users, however, have pointed out that there are limitations in terms of workflow flexibility. One user said, “The limited customization options for more complex workflows can be restrictive.”

Best suited for: SMBs seeking an integrated platform to manage marketing, sales, and customer service operations efficiently.

Key Features:

• Contact management
• Email integration
• Task and activity management
• Live chat and chatbots
• Reporting and analytics
• Pipeline management
• Breeze AI
• Document management
• Mobile app
• Customizable dashboards
• Integration with HubSpot marketing and service hubs

Pricing:

HubSpot CRM offers a free version with essential features, while its Service Hub plans start at $15 per user per month.  

41. Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud stands as a powerhouse in customer service solutions, unifying support operations across email, phone, chat, and social media channels. Through its consolidated console, support teams gain instant access to contextual customer data, enabling personalized service delivery at scale.

The platform’s AI capabilities transform everyday support operations. Einstein Bots handle routine inquiries automatically, while AI-powered Service Replies generate contextual responses for messaging channels. Taking automation further, Service Planner leverages generative AI to optimize support workflows, boost agent efficiency, and maintain compliance standards.

Other important features of the tool include case management for tracking issues and a knowledge base that empowers agents and customers with self-service capabilities.

The platform seamlessly integrates with other tools in the Salesforce suite, so if you have them in your tech stack, you can collaborate better cross-functionally. 

Considering that Salesforce Service Cloud is chock full of features, some users have pointed out that it can get complex and overwhelming, especially for beginners. As per one user, “Initial implementation can be a bit overwhelming. Also, it feels as though there is a lot of change to be managed with Salesforce. This can require a significant amount of training to stay up to date.”

Best suited for: Businesses of all sizes seeking a scalable, AI-powered platform to deliver personalized, efficient, and omnichannel customer support.

Key Features:

• Omni-channel routing
• Case management
• Knowledge base
• Service cloud voice
• Einstein AI and analytics
• Customer service AI
• Field service management
• Self-service communities
• Automation with macros and flows
• Social customer service
• Integration with Salesforce suite

Pricing:

Salesforce Service Cloud pricing begins at $25 per user per month for the Starter Suite. Its advanced plans like Pro Suite, Enterprise, Unlimited, and Einstein 1 Service offer additional features at higher rates.

Customer Feedback and Survey Tools

Want to know what your customers really think about your business? Ask them! Customer feedback and survey tools make it super-convenient to gather opinions of buyers and prospective buyers.

Whether it’s a quick survey sent after every support interaction or a detailed questionnaire sent every quarter that aims to understand customer sentiment on a specific product, feedback tools make it easier to pinpoint what’s working, what’s not and what you could be doing differently.

These tools do much more than help collect data—they give you actionable insights to improve the quality of your products and services. 

In this section, we’ll dive into some of the best tools for listening to your customers and taking action on what they have to say.

42. Qualtrics

Qualtrics is one of the world’s leading experience management platforms. It enables organisations to enhance their customer service quality by collating and analysing (and subsequently acting on) customer feedback from a myriad of channels. 

Through AI-powered insights, interactive dashboards, and advanced tools like session replays and heatmaps, teams can decode user behavior patterns and implement targeted improvements. The platform’s seamless integration with popular help desks and CRMs creates a unified view of the customer journey.

Qualtrics Assist serves as an intelligent companion, using natural language processing to unlock deeper insights from feedback data. Teams can simply ask conversational questions like “What are customers saying about our service?” and receive clear, actionable answers. The system even adapts its survey approach, using AI to generate tailored follow-up questions based on initial responses.

While some Qualtrics users feel that the tool can be a little hard to wrap their heads around, timely assistance from their customer support team makes the experience very smooth. One user shared, “While Qualtrics does have a bit of a learning curve in some areas (Dashboard Mapping, Directories, Workflows, and Automations),the Customer Success Hub and the Customer Service team are absolutely golden. I’ve never been lost for long. They’re easy to contact, very knowledgeable, and full of ideas.”

Best suited for: Data-driven organizations seeking to enhance customer experience management through feedback collection and advanced analytics

Key Features:

• Omnichannel feedback collection
• Role-based dashboards
• Survey design and distribution
• Advanced analytics
• Closed-loop feedback management
• Predictive intelligence
• Actionable reporting
• Qualtrics Assist
• Customizable dashboards
• Integration capabilities
• Automated workflows
• Mobile accessibility

Pricing:

Qualtrics offers customized pricing based on specific business needs and usage.

43. Typeform

Collecting customer feedback becomes engaging and conversational with Typeform’s innovative approach to data collection. Through interactive forms, surveys, and quizzes, businesses can uncover valuable insights about their strengths and areas for improvement.

The platform’s feature set transforms traditional surveys into dynamic experiences. Using distinct templates and conditional logic (Logic Jumps),teams can create personalized paths through their surveys. Rich media integration through built-in libraries adds visual appeal, while AI-powered assistance speeds up survey creation and optimization.

With connections to over 500 tools including Slack, HubSpot, and Zendesk, teams can seamlessly incorporate feedback data into their existing processes. The platform’s signature one-question-at-a-time format keeps respondents engaged, and the experience feels more conversational than annoying.

One drawback of the tool, however, is that it takes a while to learn how to use it. One user said, “When you first use the tool it can be difficult to understand how to use it. Not as intuitive as Google Forms.”

Best suited for: Teams seeking to create engaging, conversational surveys to capture customer insights.

Key Features:

• Conversational interface
• Customizable templates
• Survey maker
• Quiz maker
• Logic jumps
• Multimedia integration
• Integrations
• Responsive design
• Data analysis and reporting
• Collaboration tools

Pricing:

Typeform offers a Free plan with limited features. Its paid plans are as follows: $25 per month for the Basic plan, $50 per month for the Plus plan, and $83 per month for the Business plan, with discounts available on annual billing.

44. Survey Monkey

SurveyMonkey is an online survey tool that helps businesses easily gather and analyze customer feedback. It has an intuitive UI that allows you to navigate the platform and make use of its features with ease.

The platform’s advanced logic capabilities elevate the survey experience. Through branching, skip logic, and question randomization, companies can create personalized paths that maintain respondent engagement. Multiple distribution channels—including email, web links, and social media—ensure surveys reach their intended audience effectively.

Powered by AI, SurveyMonkey’s Genius feature provides tailored recommendations during survey creation. As part of the analysis dashboard, teams get real-time survey results, crosstab reports, and sentiment analysis to help users interpret survey data effectively. 

Although it’s one of the most popular survey collection tools, users have raised concerns about its pricing, especially if they want to collaborate with their team on building surveys. One user shared, “While it’s great as a single-user tool, the cost does add up when you want to bring in more team members. For teams that thrive on shared access and feedback, this setup feels a bit limiting. If there were more flexible options that made team collaboration easier, it would be an even better fit for fostering connected and dynamic research projects.”

Best suited for: Teams seeking an intuitive platform for creating, distributing, and analyzing surveys to gather actionable customer insights.

Key Features:

• AI-powered survey creation and customization 
• Extensive template library
• Advanced customization
• Logic and branching
• Multilingual support
• Diverse distribution channels
• Collaboration tools
• AI-powered analytics and reporting
• Integrations

Pricing:

SurveyMonkey offers a range of plans, including a free Basic option. Its paid plans start at $25 per user per month for the Standard plan, providing additional features and higher response limits.

Reporting and Analytics Tools

In customer service, every interaction tells a story. Customer sentiment, purchases, refund history, behavioral data, and demographics are just some of the many data points available to you.

With the help of reporting and analytics tools, you can make sense of all this data. You can uncover critical patterns and insights hidden in these data points. How likely are customers to purchase product X over product Y? What is their sentiment when they reach out to your customer support team? 

The possibilities are endless. 

So, if making smarter and better business decisions is on your bucket list for 2025, here are some of the top reporting and analytics tools you need to check out.

45. SentiSum

SentiSum is an AI-based customer experience analytics platform that offers meaningful insights into customer interactions across multiple channels. By applying advanced natural language processing across support tickets, calls, chats, and social media interactions, organizations can uncover valuable patterns in customer behavior and sentiment. 

It comes with impressive features like automated customer query tagging, integrations with support software, multichannel feedback integration, and extensive reporting dashboards.

The platform’s AI capabilities demonstrate remarkable precision in emotional intelligence. Going beyond basic sentiment analysis, it detects nuanced expressions of customer satisfaction—distinguishing between phrases like “cancel order” that signal customer dissatisfaction and “damaged delivery” that indicate deeper frustration. This granular understanding helps teams address issues before they escalate.

What sets SentiSum apart is its tailored approach to AI implementation. Rather than using a one-size-fits-all solution, the platform customizes its AI models to each business’s unique data and industry context, ensuring highly accurate and relevant insights.

Best suited for: Medium to large enterprises aiming to enhance customer service by leveraging AI-driven insights from high volumes of customer interactions.

Key Features:

• Automated ticket tagging
• Real-time sentiment analysis
• Customizable reporting dashboards
• Multichannel feedback integration
• AI-powered speech analytics
• Unique tailored modelling
• Automated workflows and prioritization
• Integration with support platforms

Pricing:

SentiSum’s pricing starts at $1,000 per month. 

46. Mixpanel

Mixpanel is a product analytics platform that helps businesses thoroughly understand customer behavior and make data-driven improvements in customer service. 

Some of its important features are advanced segmentation, funnel analysis, and retention reports that help companies understand how customers engage with their products, and what needs improvement. 

The platform’s event-tracking system provides a seamless view of customer journeys across mobile and web touchpoints. Teams can customize dashboards to monitor metrics that matter most to their specific objectives, while the innovative Warehouse Connectors feature unifies data from multiple sources—CRM, billing, marketing, and support—to create a complete picture of customer interactions.

One area where users feel Mixpanel could do better is how it integrates with other tools. According to one user, “It can be challenging to integrate with other platforms in our tech stack. While Mixpanel’s analytics capabilities are strong, creating a seamless data flow between Mixpanel and other tools often requires technical expertise and can be a bit cumbersome.”

Best suited for: Customer support and customer experience teams aiming to analyze user interactions, identify pain points, and enhance service delivery.

Key Features:

• Event tracking
• User segmentation
• Cohort analysis
• Retention analysis
• A/B testing
• Predictive analytics
• Custom dashboards and reports
• Session replay
• Real-time data processing
• Integrations

Pricing:

Mixpanel offers a Free plan with up to 20 million monthly events, a Growth plan starting at $25 per month, and customizable Enterprise plans for larger organizations.

Internal Collaboration Tool

Excellent customer service can never be provided in isolation. Imagine a customer reporting a critical software bug that’s affecting their business operations. The support agent needs quick input from the development team to understand the technical complexity and approval from their manager on the proposed solution,

This is where internal collaboration tools become invaluable.

These tools allow agents to discuss complex customer issues in real time, share conversation updates, or quickly get inputs from higher-ups in the team–sometimes even across functions. 

Let’s take a look at one such collaboration tool that can make your customer service teams more efficient.

47. Slack

Real-time collaboration takes center stage with Slack. Through dedicated channels and direct messaging, teams can organize discussions by topic while maintaining quick, direct lines of communication across the organization.

The platform’s integration capabilities extend its functionality far beyond basic messaging. By connecting with tools like Zendesk, Salesforce, and HubSpot, teams can centralize their workflows, while the Workflow Builder automates routine tasks. When information needs to be retrieved, Slack’s robust search function quickly surfaces past discussions, shared files, and relevant channels.

Project management becomes seamless with Slack’s expanded feature set. Teams can leverage Templates for standardized processes, Lists for task tracking, and Canvas for creating dynamic documents. For support teams specifically, features like Huddle and streamlined file sharing enable swift collaboration with both internal experts and external partners – all of which accelerate issue resolution.

However, the platform’s strength in fostering communication can sometimes become overwhelming. As one user notes, “With multiple channels and constant messaging, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the volume of information, leading to potential distractions.”

Best suited for: Teams and organizations of all sizes seeking a centralized platform for communication, collaboration, and tool integration to streamline workflows.

Key Features:

• Channels
• Direct messaging
• Integrations
• File sharing 
• Search functionality
• Notifications
• Huddles and clips
• Workflow builder

Pricing:

Slack offers a free plan with basic features. Its Pro plan is available at $7.25 per user per month, Business+ plan at $12.50 per user per month, and an Enterprise Grid plan with custom pricing. 

Project Management Tools

Project management tools serve as the backbone of organized customer service operations. Picture a support ticket about a critical software malfunction: one agent investigates the technical details, another coordinates with the development team, while a third keeps the customer updated. Without proper task tracking and coordination, such scenarios can quickly become chaotic.

For customer support teams, the value in project management tools is simple: get full visibility into every customer inquiry, priority tasks, and deadlines. No one is left in the dark about who is handling what.

Let’s take a look at our favorite project management tools.

48. Monday.com

Monday is a robust cloud-based work management tool that enables teams to effortlessly organize, track, and collaborate on tasks. Through customizable dashboards and automation features, teams can organize their work while maintaining clear visibility into progress and priorities.

The platform’s integration with Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI brings intelligence to everyday workflows. Teams can leverage OpenAI for various tasks—from summarizing lengthy discussions to analyzing customer sentiment—while automatic data categorization helps prioritize work based on urgency and type. Not to mention you get 200+ pre-built templates to create workflows so that you can hit the ground running quickly.

Even though Monday.com is an excellent tool to help teams keep track of their tasks and progress, it can be hard to learn and adapt to. One user said, “The learning curve was a bit steep at first, especially with all the customization options—it took some time to figure out what worked best for our team.”

Best suited for: Teams seeking to streamline their workflows and enhance collaboration.

Key Features:

• Customizable boards
• Integrations
• Automations
• AI workflows 
• Multiple views
• Dashboards
• Collaboration tools
• Time tracking
• Mobile access
• Templates

Pricing:

Monday.com offers a free plan for individuals. Its paid plans start at $8 per seat per month for the Basic plan, $10 per seat per month for the Standard plan, and $16 per seat per month for the Pro plan. Enterprise plan pricing is available upon request.

49. Asana

Asana is a powerful work management software that helps teams streamline tasks and collaborate faster. 

Its key features include customizable project views (list, board, calendar and timeline),task assignments with due dates, and real-time collaboration that helps ensure everyone on the team is on the same page about who’s doing what.

Integration flexibility stands as a cornerstone of Asana’s design. By connecting seamlessly with essential tools like Slack, Hiver, Google Drive, Zendesk, and Salesforce, teams can maintain smooth communication flows and track customer service metrics without switching between multiple platforms.

The platform’s AI capabilities transform everyday project management. Smart Projects intelligently generates structured project frameworks, while Project Summaries distills complex discussions into digestible overviews. For teams seeking workflow automation without coding expertise, AI Studio enables the creation of custom AI-powered processes that streamline routine operations.

The platform’s rich feature set can, however, present initial challenges. As one user notes, “The learning curve can be a bit steep for new users. Some features, like reporting and task dependencies, are more complex and require extra time to set up properly.”

Best suited for: Teams and organizations of all sizes seeking a flexible, user-friendly platform to streamline project management and task collaboration.

Key Features:

• Projects
• Tasks and subtasks
• Task assignees
• Custom fields
• Timeline (Gantt view)
• AI for project management
• Calendar view
• Automation
• Forms
• Reporting and dashboards
• Integrations

Pricing:

Asana offers a free Personal plan for teams of up to 10 people. Its paid plans start at $10.99 per user per month for the Starter plan and $24.99 per user per month for the Advanced plan. Enterprise and Enterprise+ plans are available with custom pricing.

Community Forum Platforms

What if your customers help each other answer questions related to your product and share suggestions on how to improve your offerings, without needing to contact customer support? Sounds incredible, doesn’t it?

It’s possible if you build a trusted community forum for your brand.

Community forum platforms are more than just discussion boards. They’re spaces where customers can exchange ideas, resolve issues, and share expertise. These forums help build a sense of community around your brand that can drive purchases and improve brand advocacy over time.

Communities can also drive innovation for brands. In fact, research shows that 90% of companies have used suggestions from their communities to enhance their products or services.

Here are some of the top community forum platforms that you can evaluate for your brand:

50. Bettermode

Bettermode is a community platform for creating branded customer communities and fostering engagement. Through an intuitive organizational structure of Spaces, Collections, and Tags, businesses can create focused hubs for content and conversations—imagine a Resource Center housing dedicated spaces for Knowledge Base articles, Case Studies, and Product Updates.

The platform’s feature set transforms customer service into a collaborative experience. From customizable discussion forums to interactive Q&A sections, Bettermode helps businesses build self-service environments that naturally reduce help desk volume. Gamification elements keep community members engaged, while robust analytics track engagement patterns and community health.

More importantly, its advanced moderation capabilities (with content approval workflows and member management features) help companies maintain a safe and respectful environment for users. This combination of features creates an environment where peer-to-peer support flourishes and knowledge flows freely among community members.

One concern (and perhaps one of the only few) raised by Bettermode users is the steep learning curve associated with the platform.

Best suited for: Businesses aiming to enhance customer service with branded online communities for self-service and peer support.

Key Features:

• Customizable spaces and collections
• Advanced customization
• Gamification elements
• Moderation
• Interactive member engagement tools
• Detailed analytics and reporting
• Third-Party integrations

Pricing:

Bettermode offers a free plan for up to 10 members and 5 spaces. Its paid plans are so follows: $19 per month for the Lite plan, $49 per month for the Pro plan, and $99 per month for the Business plan. Enterprise plan pricing is available upon request. 

51. Discourse

Whether self-hosted or cloud-based, Discourse’s open-source solution enables businesses to create vibrant spaces where customers connect, share knowledge, and solve problems together

The platform’s organizational structure promotes focused discussions through intuitive category management. Think of it as creating virtual neighborhoods—”Feature Requests” for product innovation discussions, “Billing and Payments” for transaction-related queries, and “Community Support” where customers help each other troubleshoot common issues.

The tool has a trust system for active members to gain tiered permissions; in a nutshell, good community behaviour gets rewarded and spammers are ousted. AI-powered moderation tools maintain conversation quality, while integrated escalation features ensure urgent customer concerns receive immediate attention.

Discourse supports both public and private forums, and has a mobile-friendly interface to enable seamless access across devices. 

One area where Discourse might need some improvement is its search function. One user notes, “Although tagging and searching typically lead me to the information I need, there often appears to be duplicate content, making it difficult to identify the ‘newest’ or ‘validated’ answers.”

Best suited for: Businesses looking for flexible software to build self-sustaining online communities that encourage peer-to-peer support and learning.

Key Features:

• Categorization and tagging
• Trust levels
• Real-time updates
• Responsive design
• Rich text editor
• Extensibility

Pricing:

Discourse offers a free, open-source version for self-hosting. Its managed hosting plans start at $20 per month and go up to $ $300 per month. Enterprise plans are available upon request. 

52. Higher Logic Vanilla

Higher Logic Vanilla (formerly, Vanilla Forums) is a community platform aimed at helping businesses build vibrant, organized, and engaged customer communities online. With its robust feature set, organizations can create dynamic spaces where customers and employees collaborate, share knowledge, and learn from each other.

The platform’s Q&A functionality promotes quality content through intelligent upvoting and answer verification systems. To keep members engaged, Higher Logic Vanilla employs strategic gamification—points, leaderboards, and badges reward active participation and encourage meaningful contributions.

Beyond basic community features, the platform offers powerful tools for community management. AI-powered moderation maintains content quality automatically, and unified search helps members quickly find relevant information across forums and knowledge bases. For organizations using tools like Zendesk or Salesforce, the platform’s integration capabilities ensure smooth data flow between systems.

While Higher Logic Vanilla is a robust and effective community platform, some users have reported a lack of flexibility in customizing its features to fit their requirements. According to one user, “It can be a little tricky to completely personalise the product without technical knowledge/assistance.”

Best suited for: Businesses aiming to build interactive online communities that foster self-service, peer-to-peer support, and customer engagement.

Key Features:

• Self-service and collaboration
• Knowledge base
• Theming and customization
• User engagement tools
• Community analytics

Pricing:

Higher Logic Vanilla offers tailored packages—Essentials, Corporate, and Enterprise—to accommodate various organizational needs. Pricing details are available upon request.

Remote Support Tools

As a customer service professional, you must have surely experienced a situation where explaining a solution to a customer over email or phone just doesn’t cut it. The customer might be confused, or worse, implementing the wrong steps.

That’s where remote support tools come in and save the day.

These tools let your support team take control of a customer’s device (with permission, of course),troubleshoot the problem directly, and get everything back on track.

Remote support tools empower IT professionals to troubleshoot customer problems, handle administrative tasks, and service customer devices from virtually anywhere in the world. All they need is an internet connection.

Here are some of the best remote support tools in the market:

53. TeamViewer

TeamViewer is a remote access platform that has a strong customer service use case. Support staff can use the tool to diagnose and resolve technical issues on any device, anywhere in the world.

The platform’s versatility shines through its core features. From instant device access to smooth file transfers, agents can provide real-time assistance across operating systems—Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. For quality assurance and training purposes, teams can record and review support sessions, helping improve service delivery over time.

Security remains paramount with TeamViewer’s robust protection measures. The platform employs 256-bit AES encryption for all remote sessions, safeguarding customer data and system access from unauthorized users.

However, connection stability can be challenging in certain situations. As one user notes, “When internet connection is slow, TeamViewer Remote disconnects without a notice,” highlighting potential limitations in low-bandwidth environments.

Best suited for: IT professionals and support teams requiring secure remote access in order to provide solutions.

Key Features:

• Remote Device Control
• Cross-Platform Access
• File Transfer
• Session Recording
• Multi-User Support Sessions
• Wake-on-LAN
• Remote Printing
• Advanced Security

Pricing:

TeamViewer offers a Remote Access plan at $24.90 per month, a Business plan at $50.90 per month, a Premium plan at $112.90 per month, and a Corporate plan at $229.90 per month, all billed annually. 

54. AnyDesk

AnyDesk is another powerful remote desktop support solution that allows customer service teams to assist customers across multiple platforms – including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. Some of its core features include unattended access, easy file transfer, and remote printing.

The tool’s proprietary DeskRT codec helps maintain high video and sound quality of remote calls even in low-bandwidth environments.

Security remains paramount with robust measures in place. Through TLS 1.2 encryption and two-factor authentication, AnyDesk ensures that remote sessions stay protected from unauthorized access. Teams can also customize the interface and workflows to match their corporate identity and specific operational needs.

AnyDesk users have expressed concerns about the mobile app’s user experience. They also find it challenging to easily access remote desktops from their mobile devices. 

Best suited for: Businesses of all sizes and industries requiring secure and efficient remote access for support, collaboration, and customer service.

Key Features:

• Cross-platform compatibility
• Unattended access
• File transfer and manager
• Remote printing
• Session recording
• Whiteboard functionality
• Address book
• Wake-on-LAN
• Two-factor authentication
• Custom client generation

Pricing:

AnyDesk offers the ‘Solo’ plan at $14.90 per month, the ‘Standard’ plan at $29.90 per month, and the ‘Advanced’ plan at $79.90 per month, all billed annually. 

55. LogMeIn Rescue

Remote support becomes lightning-fast with LogMeIn Rescue. Supporting Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, Chromebook, and Android devices, this tool enables support teams to provide instant assistance across virtually any system.

Speed defines the platform’s core experience. Technicians can launch remote sessions in under 20 seconds without requiring pre-installed software. On one hand, features like instant chat and collaborative tools help teams tackle complex issues efficiently and on the other, the platform’s visual engagement capabilities and AI translation services ensure clear communication across language barriers.

Integration flexibility enhances workflow efficiency. By connecting with popular help desk and CRM tools, LogMeIn Rescue creates a seamless support environment where agents can access customer information and track interactions from a central location.

Some users highlight performance issues with using LogMeIn Rescue on macOS. According to a user, “LogMeIn is not as friendly on MacOS, but it can still work. From my experiences there are more hoops to go through with LogMeIn on MacOS than on Windows.”

Best suited for: IT support and customer service teams looking to offer secure and efficient remote assistance to customers and employees.

Key Features:

• Multi-platform support
• Instant chat
• Technician collaboration
• Advanced diagnostics
• Unattended access
• File transfer
• Session recording
• Customizable branding
• Advanced security
• Integration capabilities
• Robust security measures

Pricing:

LogMeIn Rescue offers a Remote Support plan at $108.25 per month, with an optional Mobile Support Add-on for an additional $37.50 per month, both billed annually. 

Empower Your Team with the Right Customer Service Software

While reading this extensive list of customer service software, it’s important to understand one thing clearly: more tools do not always mean better results. The real secret to great customer service is adopting solutions that will actually empower your team.

Invest in fewer solutions that will give you better results—solutions that keep your workflows running smoothly and allow your team to be rockstar support agents!

Consider these key factors when selecting your customer service solution:

• Integration capabilities with your existing tech stack
• Comprehensive features that reduce tool switching
• Easy implementation and adoption across teams
• Scalability to grow with your business needs
• Real-time analytics for data-driven decisions

The future of customer service technology lies in simplification—choosing platforms that combine power with simplicity, enabling teams to focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Schedule a personalized demo of Hiver