The best customer self-service platforms in 2024.

I keep certain apps on my phone because they send me "happy birthday" wishes, making me feel valued and content. As a business owner, your primary objective should always be customer satisfaction since a happy and pleased customer tends to stay loyal. It goes beyond just products and services; it's about ensuring the customer feels acknowledged and engaged.

This becomes an impossible task to achieve when the customer service software used is unreliable, that is why you must implement an efficient customer service software platform.

 In this article, we will explore the best customer service platforms and the benefits of having a service platform in 2024.

What is customer service management software?

Customer relationship management software is a tool designed to help businesses efficiently handle and manage customer support tickets. It is also referred to as a customer relationship management crm. It acts as a central hub where all customer-related data, such as messages, emails, and phone calls, are stored and managed. This software streamlines the process of providing support by enabling agents to access customer information quickly and respond promptly to their needs.

It also often includes features like ticketing systems, knowledge bases, and analytics tools to further enhance the quality of service provided.

If you're calling a customer care number and you’ve heard “Please hold, your call is being monitored for quality assurance purposes” That is a customer service storing your response to assess and review it later to ensure you had a good customer experience. 

Key features of customer service software.

1. Accessibility and ease of use.

Imagine this: it's your birthday, and you're excited to wear the new dress you ordered. But when the package arrives, it's not even close to what you expected. Frustrating, right? You reach out to the seller hoping to fix the situation ASAP. It's disheartening to deal with this kind of mix-up. Wouldn't it be much simpler if the store had a dedicated channel just for exchanges?

Instead of waiting for customers to complain to support, they could offer a live chat option with specific sections, including one solely for sorting out exchanges or order mistakes. This way, customers wouldn't have to jump through hoops to get the help they need.

Hazel Edwards, the owner of Gillian Roberts Bridal Boutique says “Ease your customers' pain”. When customers make decisions to use your service, they believe they will be able to reach a customer support team to help resolve issues without delay. 

Your customer service team needs to be accessible 24/7. Plus, the customer service platform should be super easy to use; implementing a user-friendly interface is key to improve customer satisfaction.

2. Personalization and customization options.

Personalized customer experience makes a customer feel heard and seen. A personalized experience allows customers to get information that is meant for them without getting overloaded with information. 

Customization also extends to the branding of the business, including elements such as color schemes, logos, and terminology. By maintaining consistency with the company's brand identity, businesses can reinforce their image and build stronger connections with customers.

According to a 2021 McKinsey report, 76% of customers express frustration when they don't receive personalized experiences from businesses. Implementing an efficient customer service software solution can simplify the process of personalization, ensuring that businesses can meet customer expectations effectively.

Personalized interactions enable businesses to tailor their communication and offerings to match individual preferences and behaviors. This may involve segmenting customers into different groups and delivering targeted messaging, support resources, or promotions based on their unique interests and needs.

3. Integration capabilities with existing systems.

In a recent blog post, we emphasized that the best customer service software has API integrations and compatibility with other existing systems just like Simpu. 

Integrated systems help provide businesses with a comprehensive overview and allow businesses to enable efficient communication systems to optimize this integration. 

You can connect two or more applications and use it to carry out tasks.  Integration centralizes customer data, minimizing errors and enabling customer service representatives to respond promptly to inquiries, thus enhancing efficiency.

Simpu’s features allow you to onboard your favorite go-to tool for easy and seamless communication, you can integrate WhatsApp so you can respond to customer inquiries or Google Sheets for collation of customer information.

4. AI and machine learning capabilities.

We are in the era of bots, and other types of AI tools. It is only right businesses use technology to their advantage and with customer service software solutions

With, customer service software you can make use of AI so responses can be faster. 

 By automating responses to common complaints and questions, businesses can significantly reduce response times, improve efficiency, and ultimately, enhance the overall customer experience.

5. Multi-channel support (e.g., Web, Mobile, Social Media).

Businesses should have more than one communication channel to connect with customers, whether through email, SMS, or social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. Centralizing customer communication removes the inconvenience of lengthy response times, ensuring swift interaction.

Instead of juggling multiple platforms and struggling to keep up with incoming messages, customer service agents can focus on addressing customer concerns effectively. Moreover, a multichannel customer support system allows you to provide a seamless and consistent experience across all communication channels.

Whether a customer reaches out via email or social media, they can expect the same level of responsiveness and quality of service.

6. Security and data privacy measures.

It's crucial to ensure your customers' data is save. Implementing security measures such as encryption, regular updates, and access controls can help you achieve this. Conduct employee training and compliance checks quarterly to ensure everyone understands and upholds data protection protocols, minimizing the risk of breaches.

Sharing passwords among team members and using multiple devices poses a significant security threat, potentially exposing sensitive business information to unauthorized access. With a shared inbox like Simpu, you can grant individual team members access without sharing passwords. This eliminates the need for password sharing and enhances security.

Simpu allows unlimited users to access the platform without compromising account security. When team members leave, simply remove their access to your shared inbox instead of changing all passwords.

The 10 best customer service software platforms.

1. Simpu.

Simpu is a customer support software that simplifies communication between the business and its customers. Simpu built several features to help businesses interact better with their customers.

Simpu has three core products - shared inbox, SMS marketing and Email marketing. The omnichannel shared inbox software is a centralized platform that integrates various channels like live chat, email, SMS, and social media channels into one inbox. The two SMS marketing focuses on helping businesses push out important messages to their customers whenever they choose. 

You can easily design and execute interactive and exciting marketing campaigns tailored to your audience's preferences and behaviors. What are the key features of the omnichannel product and marketing suite:

Key features:

• Real-time collaboration: Simpu has collaboration features like internal comments which allows the customer service team to interact with each other in real time to solve customer requests. The shared inbox helps to manage customer conversations across all channels, enabling support teams to efficiently respond to inquiries using a unified platform.

• Automation: With Simpu’s chatbots, customers can get responses to their issues without the need to interact with a customer support team. These automated responses for common inquiries speed up resolution for customers.

• Analytics & Reporting: On Simpu, the CSAT reviews provided by customers will give clarity to businesses. With these insights, they can measure their team performance and effectiveness. You can gain insights into customer interactions and team performance

Simpu’s marketing suite allows businesses to personalize communication with customers through email and SMS marketing. Some of the key features of Simpu’s marketing suite are:

• Email and SMS Marketing Campaigns: Simpu's campaign design features all brands to create compelling marketing campaigns that resonate with their target audience and goals.

• Customer Analytics: On Simpu, you can easily track the performance of SMS and email campaigns and  monitor key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, based on the insights gathered from the data, you can also  streamline your marketing strategies to improve performance over time. Whether it's by adjusting targeting criteria, optimizing messaging, or experimenting with different campaign formats.

• Automation: Simpu's automation feature simplifies customer engagement by allowing you to set up email triggers for routine actions like welcome emails, and for an e-commerce store you can set “abandoned cart reminders”. 

Personalized communication and canned responses enhance the customer experience and reduce your workload, By closely monitoring the performance of this main you can optimize their strategies for better results.

User-Interface.

Simpu has a user-friendly and intuitive interface that makes it easy for your team to collaborate and utilize its features effectively. Also, based on your industry, a personalized experience is designed to appeal to their wants. Simpu's interface sets the stage for collaboration, innovation, and success.

Compared to other customer service systems, Simpu’s pricing is cost-effective, especially for small businesses. At a pocket-friendly rate on Simpu, customers get to enjoy necessary features that will advance their business. The omnichannel inbox alongside other customer service tools, like the live chat and also Simpu’s email and SMS features, has been developed to make communication seamless for customers.

Simpu is trusted by small businesses and enterprises, A customer story notable mention is Earnipay.

Earnipay is a B2B company that faced challenges with its previous customer support platform, Freshdesk. They could not respond quickly to customer issues and it slowed down their progress and they wanted a  solution, they switched to Simpu, which merged all support activities into a unified tool, and increased their productivity. With Simpu's shared inbox product, 

Earnipay doubled its overall productivity and efficiently tracked customer satisfaction scores, achieving an impressive satisfaction score of 80%. Earnipay has achieved remarkable success in streamlining support operations and enhancing customer satisfaction.

2. Aircall.

Aircall is a cloud-based voice customer software company for sales and customer support teams. It has desktop and mobile application modes. Customer support teams can call customers through the application.

Key features:

• Call analytics and call management: When phone calls are made between agents and customers, the conversation is monitored to ensure it complies with certain guidelines set by the brand. It simplifies call routing and management with features like call queues for even distribution among team members. 
• Virtual phone numbers: Aircall gives users the option of getting local and international virtual numbers that allow them to receive calls from customers all over the world. Through these virtual numbers, businesses can expand their reach, and maintain a professional brand image in today's interconnected world
• Shared contacts: Aircall allows customer service teams to access and manage a centralized database of contacts within the Aircall platform. This means that all team members can view and interact with the same set of contacts, ensuring consistency in communication with customers

Benefits:

• Customization: Based on a customer’s location and call priority, businesses can customize their phone system to suit business needs
• Data analytics: Through call history by agents and customers, Aircall provides comprehensive analytics and data on how they can improve their communication with customers.

Aircall’s user-friendly interface allows businesses to easily configure call flows, add or remove team members, and manage different phone numbers. 

3. Intercom.

Intercom is a service platform designed to enhance customer engagement through live chat and messaging, with streamlined messaging across multiple channels for service agents' convenience.

Key features include simplified ticketing, allowing users to create inboxes with automated responses, and a variety of integrations for customer service agents.

Intercom's pricing is on the high side and that makes it difficult for businesses with limited budgets to make use of a customer service tool.

You can read more about the difference between Intercom and Simpu.

4. Front.

Front is a service platform developed to simplify communications for businesses that carry out support through emails. They use an omnichannel inbox to control communication from multiple channels. 

Key features:

• Unified communication: You can respond to customer requests from social media, email or phone from one unified system.
• Customization: Front allows businesses to change their colors, and texts based on brand guides and goals. When brands customize their platform's appearance to match their brand they will be creating a consistent experience for their users,
• Live Chat: Customers can connect with agents in real time through their live chat feature. The live chat functionality increases customer satisfaction by providing a convenient and responsive channel. 

Benefits:

• Workflow automation: Team members can streamline workflows to resolve issues faster.
• Omnichannel inbox: Through this shared inbox, agents can collaborate with other team members and access inquiries from all communication channels simultaneously. 
• Minimal learning and efficiency: Front works like any other email inbox but it is seamless and allows for easy assignment of tickets

Although Front offers a collaborative interface aimed at improving seamless communication, its pricing structure, which charges per seat, may be deemed expensive. However, when compared to Simpu, businesses can access similar modern solutions at a more affordable price.

5. Helpscout.

Helpscout is a service platform with shared inbox feature that allows customer support teams to track customers through emails and live chat. Some key features:

• Centralized Dashboard: The shared inbox allows customer agents to connect with users through a unified support system.
• Automation: Users are kept engaged on the software application through the in-app templates on the website.

Benefits:

• Helpscout has a pre-built performance reporting dashboard that helps teams measure their productivity depending on the metrics set by them
• Increases efficiency through the inbuilt support system that automates responses to customer inquiries.

Helpscout takes into consideration small businesses, there is a free trial for new users but the pricing differs based on whether the standard or basic plan is subscribed 

6. Trengo.

Trengo is a customer service software provider that allows businesses to manage inquiries from multiple channels using a shared inbox. It offers features for resolving inquiries with canned responses and email templates. Additionally, it provides a chat widget for engaging website visitors and setting up automated greetings.

Key features:

• Multichannel system: Through the multichannel system, businesses can manage communications across others and it also allows the tracking of data through the in-app analytics tool

Benefits:

• Diverse communication channels: Through Trengo you can decide what platform you because some customers may prefer email for formal inquiries, while others may prefer using WhatsApp. Through these multiple channels, Trengo ensures that businesses can engage with their customers in the most effective and preferred manner they will want to use to reach customers based on their preferences and convenience. 
• Unified system: Despite using multiple channels, the customer service system is unified, meaning all communications are managed through a shared inbox. you can view and respond to messages from different channels within the same shared inbox and there will be no need to switch between multiple platforms. This unified approach ensures workflow and ensures that no messages are overlooked or duplicated.
• Consistent experience: Regardless of the channel chosen by the customer, Trengo ensures they have a unique experience and personalized support

Trengo has a modern and user-friendly interface that facilitates seamless switching between inboxes and multiple accounts. However, its pricing is structured into four categories, with no option for a free trial or plan.

Best practices.

Trengo shared best practices and tips on how to boost customer satisfaction,  which are:

• Businesses should send surveys to customers to understand their performance and how they can improve. It’s important to keep these surveys concise to increase response rates. 
• In this survey, you are to Include open-ended questions to allow customers to provide detailed feedback in their own words, offering deeper insights into their experiences.
• Continuously seek feedback rather than making it a one-time occurrence to stay aware of evolving customer trends.
• Choose the right timing to request feedback while the customer's experience is fresh, considering sending surveys after a few interactions rather than after every reply. You can send in your survey after they’ve carried out a few transactions or shopped from your store a few times

Overall it’s important to act on the customer feedback you received by creating a plan to address concerns and improve customer satisfaction, whether through follow-up sessions, additional surveys, or other methods.

7. Missive.

Missive is an inbox ticketing system that allows teams to collaborate through mail. All inquiries received from different multiple channels can be viewed by all team members on the mail. Some features are:

• Team inbox: This is a shared inbox for the assignment and collaboration between agents.  Everyone on the customer support team will have a team having access to the same inbox communication streamlined, and duplicate efforts will be minimized.
• Internal chat: When agents face challenging inquiries or require assistance, they can reach out to their colleagues without leaving the email screen.

 Missive allows for swift collaboration and problem-solving, as agents can quickly seek guidance, share insights, or escalate issues as needed.

• Webchat: This is a live chat of the website that connects a customer to a support agent. This live chat functionality provides customers with immediate assistance and support, allowing them to ask questions, report issues, or seek guidance without having to leave the website. 

Support agents can handle incoming chat requests, inbound and outgoing calls and respond promptly to inquiries.

Benefits:

• Streamlined collaboration: Missive helps teams streamline their collaboration allowing for quick and effective communication and problem-solving. By consolidating all inquiries within the email interface.
• Centralized communications:  Missive provides a centralized platform that allows you to manage customer interactions, reducing the risk of overlooking or duplicating responses.

Missive has flexible pricing depending on the business and its needs. They allow users to enjoy a free trial till they are ready to upgrade. 

8. Zendesk.

Zendesk is an omnichannel developed to meet the needs of any type of business. Some of the major  features are:

• Centralized system: Zendesk allows complaints and inquiries via any communication to be centralized and that increases response time for users. 
• Automation: With Zendesk Automation processes are easily streamlined and manual task is reduced  
• Analytics and reporting: The reporting and analytics tools on Zendesk give businesses  insights into the performance of your support team 

While Zendesk boasts an intuitive interface, its pricing may be expensive and not suitable for small enterprises. In contrast, Simpu provides a powerful and collaborative tool with extensive features for at least three team members, making it a more cost-effective option compared to Zendesk.

9. Freshdesk.

Freshworks/ Fresh desks is a cloud-based AI customer service system that combines features like messaging, ticketing, and self-service into one single solution. It is a multichannel and customers can reach their customer agents through any channel.

Key features:

• Self-service automation: The fresh work system has an AI that helps with incoming customer messages and it has been able to solve 70% of queries and reduce wait times
• Copoilot: This is an AI assistant for support agents that helps these agents by managing customer interactions and then summarizing these issues to customer agents. Enabling seamless collaboration between teams.
• Ticketing: Each customer inquiry is logged as a ticket, allowing support agents to track and manage the status of each issue throughout its lifecycle. Ticketing ensures that customer issues are addressed promptly and without haste, as agents can assign, escalate, and collaborate on tickets to ensure timely resolution

Benefit:

• Data-driven decisions: The AI system helps analyze performance and ensure efficiency is attained.  
• Multichannel support; Customers can reach out to the agents using any channel of their choice and expect a prompt response.
• Scalability: Integrating their customer service suites allows for easy navigation and scalability of the business.

Freshwork is a user-friendly and intuitive interface that reduces training time and boosts agent productivity. The price takes into consideration small and big businesses. The software allows for a 21-day trial for testing premium features. 

10. LiveAgent:

This is a cloud-based help desk with a wide range of features to drive customer satisfaction. It is a multichannel that uses its system to streamline communication through its support, ticketing, and live chat features. 

Key features:

• Ticketing system: customer inquiries can be handled from one interface and it ensures there is no collusion among agents when it comes to the resolution of issues
• Live chat: customers can communicate with with the customer support team in real time

Benefits:

 Accessibility and personalized service: Live chat’s support tool is available in 45 languages and the knowledge base system is available 24/7.

Apart from its easy-to-use interface, it takes into consideration pricing for small and to large businesses and allows for a 14-30 days free trial

What are the benefits of using a customer service platform?

1. Improved customer experience.

A customer service platform helps you create a better experience for all customers. Customers can experience efficient customer support that leads to customer satisfaction. A lot of your customers will remember you based on the type of experience they’ve had. 

Effective customer service software allows businesses to gain insights from data, enabling them to offer personalized support tailored to individual customer needs.

2. Creates self-service options.

Investing in customer service tools that have a chatbot or a knowledge base system is so important as a business owner in today's world where customers are extremely sensitive.

Customers should easily find answers to problems they are facing without having to reach out to a support representative, and this reduces the workload on customer support representatives.

3. Efficient ticket management.

Streamlined ticket management facilitates the smooth handling of inquiries and customer complaints by customer service agents. The team lead can assign tickets using various routing methods based on the team's structure. Typically, support tools are configured to distribute tickets evenly among support agents by default. 

4. Reduce the customer service team’s workload.

Customer service agents are required to perform multiple tasks at the same time - solve customer A’s problem, follow up on customer B’s order purchase, collect customer feedback and so much more.. This is where customer service software tools come in handy for your team. An efficient customer service software enables your team to receive messages from any channel, respond to customers, assign conversations to other team members and collect feedback from customers - all automated.

This allows customer service agents to focus on more complex problems and perform effectively.

What are the different types of customer support software?

Several types of customer support software can be implemented by organizations:

1. Help Desk.

According to Finance Online, 86% of service teams note that having help desk software increases their productivity. Help desk software is used to manage and respond to customer inquiries. It has features that prevent support agents from carrying out repetitive acts. It also helps organize customer complaints or inquiries into a ticketing system that describes the priority level and status of an issue.

An interesting thing to note about the help software is that customers can reach out through any communication channel, and they are also able to access a knowledge base where they can solve their problems independently. Reporting and analytics are easy with help desk software; you can track key metrics and make room for improvement.

2. Self-Service.

Self-service software is a crucial component of customer service support. having a knowledge base of FAQs and guides allows customers to resolve their issues more quickly, efficiently, and better. Self-service allows customers to easily find answers, troubleshoot issues, and perform tasks independently without having to connect to customer service support. 

This may include articles, step-by-step guides, tutorials, and FAQs covering various aspects of a product or service. The importance of self-service cannot be overstated for startups and organizations. It leads to enhanced customer satisfaction, reduced support costs, and increased customer engagement. 

Equipping customers with the tools they need to address their concerns, self-service software enables businesses to decrease support expenses and build deeper connections with their customers.

3. CRM.

"Customer is king" is a term used in the business world. As an organization, you must constantly come up with new ways to communicate with customers and also pass across messages and information. 

CRM tools help keep customers engaged and build a relationship with these customers. It helps businesses manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. 

CRM software allows businesses to do more with less; they can manage and track customer interactions throughout the customer lifecycle, from marketing to sales to customer service. By providing easy access to customer data, the software enables better collaboration and increased productivity across all departments that interact with customers. 

4. Live Chat.

According to Truelist, six out of ten B2B companies use live chat, and 73% of people consider live chat the best way to communicate with a business. 

This software allows customers to speak with a customer support team in real-time, and that is amazing. The amount of rivals in the business world providing real-time answers to customers allows you to have an edge over competitors in the industry.

When real-time answers are provided to customers, you have an edge over competitors in the industry. The implementation of live chat software has been known for strengthening long-term relationships and improving customer support productivity. 

Simpu's live chat tool provides round-the-clock access for customers to connect with the business. With this live chat feature, ensuring customer satisfaction becomes effortless as the chatbot aids customers with their inquiries.

Why use customer service software solutions in your business?

Using customer service software solutions offers numerous benefits that can significantly enhance your support operations and overall business performance.  Here are 10 reasons why:

1. Improved productivity and efficiency.

It enhances productivity among support agents. Routine messages can be automated with templates that answer all of the customers' questions, eliminating the need to type replies from scratch.

With access to sufficient data, an unlimited number of canned messages can be implemented for commonly asked questions, allowing agents to focus on more complex tasks.

This can be done easily with chatbot, where customers can easily find answers to commonly asked questions. 

2. Centralizes communication channels for easier management.

It is easier to resolve customer complaints when there is easy access to their history and previous service requests. Without customer service,  resolving issues will take longer than it should.

A centralized communication channel also allows for consistency in communication, ensuring that customers receive a cohesive and reliable experience regardless of how they choose to reach your organization.

3. Reduces support costs by automating routine tasks:

Implementing automation in customer support processes can help reduce the number of customer support agents you have responding to customers rather than working behind the scenes to resolve the complaints. With automation, you can streamline routine tasks such as ticket assignment, and response generation. 

The agents will focus on more complex inquiries. This increased efficiency and productivity means that fewer customer agents are required to handle the workload effectively and you will be able to save more money because you will no longer need to hire more people on your support team. 

4.  Access to data-driven insights.

The only way to improve your business is through data and with the right customer service software you can get insights from your customers' interactions and feedback. Through these data, you can understand what they don’t like about the brand and their pain points.

These insights can provide valuable information about customer satisfaction levels, emerging trends, and not just the pain points. For example, data analysis may reveal patterns indicating specific products or services that are frequently associated with customer complaints or inquiries, allowing businesses to address underlying issues or enhance those offerings.

5. Scalability and flexibility.

When considering purchasing a customer service software, scalability and flexibility are crucial factors to consider. A scalable customer service software solution can accommodate an increasing volume of customer inquiries, users, and data without sacrificing performance or efficiency. This means that as your business grows, the software can seamlessly handle higher workloads and accommodate additional features or functionalities without requiring significant adjustments or upgrades.

There is no doubt that customer service software plays an important role in enhancing customers' experience, achieving business goals, and driving business growth. Closely, you’ll notice that these offer accessibility, personalization, and integration capabilities to streamline support processes and these are the features needed for a second-to-none customer service system.

Essentially, self-service options empower customers to find solutions independently, reducing the workload on support teams. 

Sign up for a 14 day free trial to enjoy our easy-to-use and cost-effective shared inbox.