9 Ways Automated Customer Support Enhances Your Service & 33 Tools to Use

Get insights into 9 benefits of automated customer support and 33 tools to boost your service. Optimize your support strategy with these effective solutions.

Aug 13, 2024

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9 Ways Automated Customer Support Enhances Your Service & 33 Tools to Use

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Your team is overwhelmed with customer support tickets. You want to improve customer satisfaction and deliver faster responses, but your budget is tight and you can’t afford to hire more staff. If this situation is familiar, automated customer support might be the solution. This blog will explain how automated customer support tools can help you improve your customer service KPIs and enhance customer experience without significant costs.

AI customer support solutions like ChatBees.ai can help you achieve your goals by streamlining support operations and reducing your agents' workload. As a result, your team can deliver faster responses and better resolutions, improving customer satisfaction and overall CX.

What Is Automated Customer Support?

Automated customer support is the technology that helps customers resolve their issues without human intervention. These systems help businesses respond to incoming customer queries faster, improving overall satisfaction.

These solutions leverage automation technologies to provide immediate customer assistance and reduce reliance on human agents. Customers who contact businesses for help prefer automated support over speaking to a human.

The Advantages of Automated Customer Support Over Human Assistance

This is because automated customer support systems can solve issues faster and provide instant answers, whereas human agents may need time to respond and are often limited in their capabilities. A recent study revealed that 67% of consumers prefer automated support over human assistance.

How Is Automated Customer Support Different From Traditional Customer Support?

Automated customer support systems differ from traditional customer support methods because they can solve customer problems without human intervention. Traditional customer support relies on human agents to answer customer queries and resolve issues. When a customer reaches out to a business for help, they will have to wait until a human is available to respond to their inquiry, which can take time.

Automated customer support systems are always available to immediately assist customers and solve their issues in seconds. If a customer has a simple question or concern, they can avoid the lengthy process of waiting for a human to respond and receive an immediate answer from an automated system instead.

Key Features of Automated Customer Support

Automated customer support systems can vary in complexity, with some more advanced than others. Here are some of the key features that define these systems:

Automation: The primary function of automated customer support systems is to reduce human intervention in customer service. These systems use automation technologies to respond instantly to customer inquiries and solve their issues without human involvement.

Self-service: Automated customer support systems empower customers to help themselves. Rather than reaching out to a human for help, customers can find answers to their questions independently, improving satisfaction and reducing business costs.

Personalization: Automated customer support systems can analyze customer data to deliver personalized experiences. This helps increase customer satisfaction and improves business-customer relationships.

Availability: Unlike human agents, automated customer support systems are always available. Customers can reach out for help at any time of day and receive immediate assistance, regardless of whether it’s a holiday or outside of regular business hours.

Integration: The best-automated customer support systems can integrate with existing business software and communication channels to streamline operations, improve functionality, and enhance customer experiences.

How Does Automated Customer Support Work?

1. The Customer Reaches Out to Support

When we talk about automated customer support, we primarily refer to chatbots and other AI tools that can handle customer queries without human intervention. When a user visits your website and has an issue they must resolve, automated customer support ensures they can find a solution immediately—even if your team is unavailable.

2. The Chatbot Engages with the Customer

Once the customer initiates a conversation, the automated customer support tool greets them and asks questions to better understand the issue. This process is similar to how human agents operate; the bot converses with the user to collect details about their problem.

3. The Bot Tries to Solve the Problem

The next step in the automated customer support process is where the real magic happens. The AI tool uses the information gathered to solve the customer’s problem accurately. In cases where the issue is straightforward, the bot can resolve it quickly and efficiently. If the problem is more complex, the bot will attempt to troubleshoot the issue by suggesting a series of steps for the customer to try.

4. The Bot Hands Off the Issue to a Human Agent

What happens if the automated customer support tool cannot solve the customer’s problem? In this case, the story doesn’t end there. The bot will hand off the issue to a human agent. Thanks to the detailed conversation before the handoff, the customer won’t have to repeat themselves to the human support representative.

5. The Customer Problem is Solved

The customer will get the help they need to resolve their issue. Automated customer support speeds up the process and improves overall customer satisfaction.

Ticket Resolution

Automated Ticketing System

Customer Service Knowledge Base

Slack for Customer Support

Ticket Triage

AI For IT Support

Ticket Handling Best Practices

Automated Email Response Customer Service

AI Ticketing System

9 Benefits of Automated Customer Support

Benefits for Customers: Get Better Customer Support With Automated Solutions

Automated customer support solutions help customers resolve their issues faster and more conveniently than traditional support.

1. Faster Response Times

Automated systems, such as chatbots, provide customer support with instant responses to:

Customer queries

Reducing wait times

Improving overall customer satisfaction

Customers hate waiting for answers, and even a few minutes can feel like an eternity when you are frustrated with a product or service. Automated systems alleviate this problem by providing immediate answers to customers.

Enhancing Customer Satisfaction with AI Chatbots in Live Chat Support

When a customer initiates a live chat with an AI chatbot, the bot greets the customer and immediately begins to pull up information related to the customer’s issue. After collecting enough data to help the customer, the bot resolves the issue or hands the conversation off to a human agent to take over.

This process drastically reduces a customer has time to wait for answers and improves overall satisfaction rates.

2. 24/7 Availability

Automation allows continuous support, ensuring customers can seek assistance anytime, regardless of business hours. Customers don’t just want fast support; they want it on time.

Automated customer support systems like chatbots and help centers are always available to assist, even if a business has closed for the day. This means no more frustrated customers leaving your website or social media pages because they couldn’t get help outside of normal business hours.

3. Self-Service Tools

Customers can access self-service options, such as a knowledge base or FAQs, to find answers to common questions without directly interacting with support agents. Automated customer support tools like knowledge bases and FAQs empower customers to solve their problems independently without waiting for a human agent to assist them.

This lightens the load on customer support teams and helps customers return to enjoying their purchases quickly.

4. Improved Productivity

Workflow automation streamlines complex processes, reducing manual workload and enabling agents to handle more customer support requests. Customer support teams have a lot on their plates.

Not only do they have to assist customers with their issues, but they also have to follow internal protocols, document processes, and communicate with other team members. Automating customer support helps simplify these tasks so agents can focus on what they do best—helping customers.

5. Enhanced Collaboration

Automated ticketing systems and communication channels facilitate collaboration among support team members, ensuring a coordinated and efficient response to customer issues. Customer support automation also improves collaborative efforts within customer service teams.

When an automated system resolves a customer issue, it can notify the right team members of the outcome. This ensures everyone stays on the same page and helps avoid miscommunications that could frustrate customers.

6. Access to Real-Time Data

Customer service automation tools provide real-time analytics, enabling support teams to make data-driven decisions and respond effectively to emerging trends or issues. Another significant benefit of automating customer support is access to real-time data.

Automated customer support tools collect and analyze data on customer interactions, enabling support teams to identify trends and improve internal processes.

7. Cost Savings

Automation reduces the need for extensive human resources, leading to cost savings in labor and operational expenses. There’s no denying that businesses can save a lot of money by automating their customer support operations. The more a business can reduce its reliance on human agents and external resources to handle customer inquiries, the more it can save.

8. Scalability

Automation allows businesses to scale their customer support operations more easily, handling increased customer inquiries without a proportional increase in staffing. As companies grow, their customer support operations need to grow as well.

Automated customer support tools make this process seamless. Businesses can easily handle more customer inquiries as they grow and even manage periods of rapid growth or unexpected surges in support requests, such as during a crisis or product recall.

9. Customer Retention

Improved customer service, quick issue resolution, and proactive engagement contribute to higher customer satisfaction and retention rates. One of the most important benefits of automated customer support is its ability to improve customer retention rates.

With automation, businesses can respond to customer inquiries more quickly and resolve issues before they escalate. These improvements lead to better customer experiences that help build trust and loyalty.

AI Customer Service Software

Ticketing System Workflow

Help Desk Process

Hubspot Ticketing System

AI Customer Service Agent

Real-Time Agent Assistance

Ticket Management System

Digital Customer Service Tools

Slack Ticketing System

Service Desk Automation

Customer Service Automation Software

Help Desk Analysis

Help Desk Automation

7 Examples of Automated Customer Support in Action

1. Automating Onboarding Emails to Delight New Customers

Sending automated onboarding emails to new customers is like having a personal assistant to help you onboard your new customers. With customer support automation, you can automatically send new customers emails to help them acclimate to your product and improve their experience — all without lifting a finger.

You can start by sending out emails one, three, or five days after the customer has signed up. You can automate more advanced emails to trigger based on user activity. When I recently purchased a new sports watch and connected it to Strava, a running app, I started getting emails to set certain things up.

Personalized Onboarding Emails for User Engagement and Self-Sufficiency

Once I’d uploaded my first activity, Strava reminded me to sync my heart rate monitor. Because these onboarding emails are specific to the user, they have a bigger impact. Plus, they prevent customers from needing to talk to customer service agents for help – they already have all the information they need to be successful.

2. Creating Feedback Loops to Improve Customer Satisfaction

Customer support automation can help you create feedback loops to improve customer satisfaction. Sense Labs used Nicereply to build an automated real-time feedback loop.

Using Nicereply, we can immediately respond to customers when they contact us, have a productive interaction, and see their feedback and ratings within minutes, says Aisha Strauss, Director of Customer Success at Sense. If the interaction isn’t satisfactory, we can reach out immediately, taking our customer support to the next level of 100% follow-through.

Ensuring Customer Satisfaction Through Automated Feedback and Escalation Processes

This approach has helped us provide the best-in-class customer experience. Sense automatically sends out a customer satisfaction survey after every interaction.

If the customer responds negatively, the conversation is automatically escalated so a senior team member can step in and help. This ensures that every interaction is resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.

3. Proactive SLA Assignments to Improve Response Times

Service Level Agreements are critical to maintaining customer trust. Automating customer support can help you meet your SLAs. Cisco Meraki run automations on every email that comes through their inbox.

With reminder tags, they can ensure emails are responded to in under 15 minutes. If no one has replied within that time, the tag will flag the message as urgent, says Michael Randall, Sales Support Team Lead.

Streamlining SLA Compliance with Automated Follow-Up Notifications

The front automatically informs us when we need to follow up. This ensures that their Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are met internally and externally. It’s important to note that these automations don’t require much knowledge to set up.

There’s no programming required. Because Cisco Meraki uses Front, they only have to indicate the tags they want to be applied and what they want them to mean. The platform handles everything automatically.

4. Assigning Conversations to Specific Team Members to Improve Efficiency

Automated customer support can also help you assign conversations to specific team members to improve efficiency. Hootsuite’s customer success team uses automations to make sure the right person handles each customer contact. Sometimes, that person is the customer’s account manager, but sometimes, it’s a more technical team member with unique expertise.

Laura Ene, Customer Success Team Lead, says, We love that we can leave a comment on an email and escalate it, and we know that nothing will get lost in Slack. Automations are perfect for ensuring everything moves smoothly and nothing gets dropped. In a busy team like Hootsuite, that’s critical.

5. Paging PagerDuty for Critical Customer Issues

The great thing about automations is that they can run 24/7 – even when it’s impossible to have agents always watch. This makes automations a great way to trigger notifications for critical issues like downtime or VIP customer inquiries.

Jason Dugdale, Tooling and Support Engineer at Front uses Zapier to bring an on-call agent’s attention to urgent conversations. When a conversation in Front triggers our 24/7 on-call alert, we trigger a PagerDuty alert for the on-call agent, explains Jason.

Enhancing Urgent Response Management with Automated Alerts and Integrations

They’ve set it up so that only certain customers can trigger the alarm by sending an urgent message. They’ve also set up a Zap to @mention that teammate in front and bring attention to that conversation. The Zap can also send a message to Slack for additional visibility. The behind-the-scenes automation ensures that the entire team can rest easy.

6. Improving Team Happiness to Reduce Customer Support Burnout

Not all automation needs to be customer-facing to be valuable. Sam Olson, Support Manager at Hudl, uses Zapier to build internal automations that keep his team running smoothly.

Sam says he’s combined a Slack workflow with Zapier to make it easy for someone to request a schedule change and then be notified when that change was approved. They also have set up birthday automations and Spotify playlist automation to help build team camaraderie.

7. Tagging Incoming Tickets to Improve Response Times

Tagging customer support tickets is a big part of most support agents’ jobs. But this is a task that no one wants to do. That’s why improvements in automated tagging are so exciting.

MonkeyLearn’s natural language processing (NLP) software enables companies to detect themes, keywords, and sentiments in natural language. Archer, an investment management software company, used MonkeyLearn’s automation platform to triage, tag, and sort through many customer conversations.

The Impact of Automation on Ticket Management and Efficiency at Archer

Alyssa Wilkowski, Senior Programmer Analyst at Archer explains why these automations were so crucial to their success. To efficiently absorb our fast-increasing volumes, we required automations to stand in as quarterback of our tickets, to file but take no action on others, and to recognize and escalate requests for which we are contractually obligated to meet specified service levels. Their automation solution improved response times by 65% and agent productivity by 20%.

Step-by-step Guide on How to Automate Customer Support

1. Identify Your Needs: Where to Target Automation in Customer Support

When determining your customer service automation requirements, consider where automation software will have the biggest impact. If your phone inquiries outpace my email inbox, you should focus on an IVR system.

But remember not to neglect customers’ preferences for omnichannel support. You must provide a consistent, reliable communications journey across channels, choosing software with high functionality and responsiveness.

Integrating Agile AI Customer Service Software for Adaptive Workflow Management

As you find the best way to incorporate AI customer service software into your company’s workflow, remember that it should be agile enough to keep pace with customer expectations and changes. Say you add a sophisticated AI chatbot to your website.

As your customers learn that my live chat support is very efficient, your chat volume may surpass your phone queues. An integrated customer service software solution allows your agents to transition easily to wherever demand is highest.

2. Know Which Customer Service Tasks Can Be Automated Effectively

Your automated customer service system is your first line of defense. What are the high-volume, simple tasks your support team spends a lot of time on?

These tasks might be:

Greeting customers and assuring them that their message was received

Gathering customer data (like account numbers) to populate forms

Prompting customers to reset passwords

Verifying accounts

Troubleshooting for products that aren’t working as expected

Triaging tickets to the appropriate representatives

Such tasks are simple to automate, and the right software will do so while seamlessly integrating into your existing operations.

The Impact of Automation on Degreed’s Customer Satisfaction and Team Efficiency

Degreed, an educational platform that helps users build new skills, turned to Zendesk to manage its high ticket volume after experiencing rapid growth. With Zendesk, Degreed improved team efficiency and transformed its customer service strategy by automating certain activities, leading to a 16 percent improvement in its CSAT score.

Automation improves team efficiency and enables Degreed to run a lean team during hyper-growth. We’ve come a long way in the last three years, and Zendesk has been a massive part of that success story–Kevin Barry, VP of Global Technical Services and Support at Degreed

3. Flag Customer Service Tasks That Shouldn’t Be Automated

Alternatively, you’ll also want to identify specific customer service tasks that live agents should perform. These tasks may include:

Speaking with customers who prefer to talk on the phone

Handling highly complex customer support interactions

Onboarding new customers

Facilitating upgrade and cancellation requests

With automated customer service solutions effortlessly handling simple, high-volume tasks, your live agents can dedicate their time to providing support in situations that benefit from the human touch.

4. Make Sure Your Team Is Aligned

To reap the benefits of automated customer service, you must ensure your customer service team is on the same page. You’ll want to:

Train your support team on the automation tools at their disposal so they know how to use them.

Determine which support team members manage and maintain your automated customer service tools.

This way, your agents will know:

What to do when a customer service ticket is escalated to them

Where to find the relevant information needed to help a customer quickly

Who to go to for system fixes, questions, and feedback sharing

5. Test Your Processes and Results Before a Complete Roll-Out

Before completely rolling out automated customer service options, you must ensure they work effectively. Failure to do so may result in your business pushing out automated customer service solutions that don’t meet customer needs or expectations, leading to bad customer service.

You'll want to ensure your AI chatbot can accurately answer common customer questions before pushing it live on your site. With the new support option, you can rest easy knowing your customers are in good hands. you’ll need to give your support team a chance to test the automated customer service software so you can proactively identify any areas of concern.

6. Monitor Your Automation Processes and Improve Them as Needed

It’s essential to continually monitor your automation processes to ensure your customers receive high-quality service. You can’t fix problems you don’t know exist. Every support interaction should end with a survey allowing customers to rate their experience and provide feedback.

Their input lets you make necessary changes to improve your automated customer service experience. You should also consistently audit your automated customer support offerings to ensure everything is accurate and working correctly. This may include auditing your knowledge base, updating my pre-written responses, and testing the responsiveness of your chatbot.

Connectors and Integrations

ChatBees focuses on optimizing Real-Time Agent Guidance (RAG) for internal operations, such as customer and employee support. The software boasts accurate responses and easy workflow integration through a low-code, no-code approach.

ChatBees' agentic framework enhances response quality, enabling operations teams to handle higher query volumes without needing DevOps for deployment and maintenance.

Boosting Response Quality and Efficiency with ChatBees' Agentic Framework

This improves predictability and accuracy, enabling these operations teams to handle more queries. No DevOps is required to deploy and maintain the service.

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

33 Best Automated Customer Support Software in 2024

1. ChatBees.ai

ChatBees' agentic framework enhances response quality, enabling operations teams to handle higher query volumes without needing DevOps for deployment and maintenance.

Boosting Response Quality and Efficiency with ChatBees' Agentic Framework

This improves predictability and accuracy, enabling these operations teams to handle more queries. No DevOps is required to deploy and maintain the service.

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

2. Watermelon Pulse: The Chatbot for Websites

Looking for an AI chatbot for your website? With Watermelon Pulse AI Chatbot, you can engage

with leads or answer customer questions on your website without having a team member working on it.

The Watermelon Pulse chatbot handles any language with a conversational approach. It allows you to integrate GPT4-supported technology into your day-to-day customer service. With Watermelon, you can automate up to 96% of all support requests.

3. Intercom: The Personalization Expert

Intercom helps you to deliver personalized customer service at scale. You can provide in-context responses, which means that you will know how to deliver personal and unique support based on your customer or visitor's behavior.

With Intercom automation, your customer service team can use chatbot assistance to respond to over 30% of common customer inquiries. The Intercom platform integrates easily with over 350 platforms.

4. Aircall: The Phone Support Specialist

Aircall leverages cutting-edge cloud technology, eliminating the need for traditional desk phones. It allows you to arrange customer service teams regardless of location.

Your customers do not only request support via website chats or emails; phone support is a key aspect of your customer service, and Aircall helps you automate it.

5. NICE CxOne: The 360 Cloud Customer Experience Platform

NiceCXone is a 360-cloud customer experience platform with advanced analytics, automation, and real-time guidance. It can manage your customers throughout their lifetime with your business, from the first touchpoints, such as a live chat or a message through social media, to upselling or in-platform service.

6. Kayako: The Collaboration Booster

Kayako is a great collaborative tool for customer service. With features like automatic conversation routing, you can address the right agent and customer at the right time.

Your workload will be reduced due to its amazing efficiency for teams. Kayako helps with the regular customer experience towards customers and offers a unique option for the internal corporate helpdesk to boost employee efficiency.

7. DevRev: The All-in-One for Tech Companies

Software type: All-in-one customer service automation software for new-age tech companies to support their futuristic visions. Key features: Automated ticket routing, self-service tools, and service analytics

8. Salesforce Service Cloud: The Complex Problem Solver

Key features:

Case management

Knowledge base

Automation

Workflow

Salesforce service cloud throws down the gauntlet for complex customer journeys. This CRM-powered platform leverages AI for intelligent case routing, prioritization, and automated workflows.

With seamless integration to Salesforce CRM, agents gain a 360-degree view of every customer. A robust knowledge base empowers self-service, while real-time dashboards keep you on top of key performance metrics. Whether you crave social media engagement or robust call center functionality, Salesforce service cloud scales with your needs, making it a dominant force in digital customer service software.

9. Zoho Desk: The Flexible Customer Service Software

Key features: Ticket management, self-service, and process automation Zoho Desk is CRM software that streamlines customer communication across various channels such as:

Phone

Live chat

Social media

Its workflow process automation is designed to be flexible and straightforward to implement. It also helps automate frequent activities and enhance the support team’s productivity.

10. Zendesk: The Customer Experience Focused Platform

Key features:

Ticketing system

Standard bots

Prebuilt analytics dashboards

Zendesk is a customer service software focusing on customer experience. Zendesk has built an AI to support automating customer service functions. It understands customer experience so that agents can facilitate personalized customer service.

11. Live Agent: The Small Business Solution

Key features:

Knowledge base

AI assistant

Live chat buttons

Live Agent is a customer service software best suited for small businesses. Its user-friendly features and streamlined ticketing systems contribute to seamless support operations, including customer request management and personalized customer messages.

12. Tidio: The Round-the-Clock AI Support

Key features:

Live chat

Ticketing

Social media integrations

Tidio, an AI-driven customer service platform, empowers continuous customer support, handling inquiries around the clock. It helps consolidate all live communication channels into a single dashboard for prompt assistance. Lyro, a conversational AI proficient in 7 languages, engages with multiple customers concurrently, allowing your support team to prioritize high-value or unique requests.

13. Hubspot Service Hub: The Omnichannel Support Activator

HubSpot’s Service Hub is a service management software that enables you to conduct:

Seamless onboarding

Flexible customer support

Expand customer relationships

Service Hub delivers efficient, end-to-end service that delights customers at scale. This tool activates and automates your omnichannel support strategy. It also lets you offer self-service support:

Live chat

Knowledge base

Customer portal

Create customer service

Utilizing KPIs and Analytics to Refine Customer Service Strategies

KPIs, get customer service analytics and data to improve your strategy, and obtain customer feedback (e.g., create and share surveys). Custom objects store and customize the data necessary to support your customers.

Reporting dashboards consistently surface actionable data to improve areas of your service experience. Service Hub makes it easy to conduct team-wide and cross-team collaboration. The software comes with agent permissions, status, and availability across your team so you can manage all service requests efficiently.

14. Front: The Collaborative Customer Communication Tool

Front provides a strong, collaborative inbox that supports:

Chat

Social media

Other forms

Of communication with customers. This improves the customer experience by ensuring every service rep has access to the same information. You can automatically assign conversations to certain employees to avoid sending multiple customer responses or having incoming emails slip through unnoticed.

15. Freshdesk: The Support Software with an Intuitive Interface

Freshdesk's intuitive customer service software prides itself on features that organize your helpdesk, plan for:

Future events

Eliminate repetitive tasks

Manage new tickets

You can also streamline conversations across various channels and collaborate with the rest of your team on complex cases. While your team's responses are automated and will be sent out faster, quicker options are available for customers who need more immediate solutions.

16. TeamSupport: The B2B Customer Service Software

This customer service software is ideal for B2B companies. It encourages more communication between team members by allowing multiple agents to collaborate on the:

Exact tickets

Products

Customers

Solutions

TeamSupport helps customers manage their service experience. The customizable, flexible interface lets customers chat with agents, search for answers and solutions, and check on the status of their open cases.

17. Creatio Service: The Low-Code Solution

Creatio is a CRM and low-code automation system with a service product that works as a full-cycle service management system — meaning this product allows for easy management of your omnichannel communications. Its interface helps your agents concentrate by only showing the data they need to complete the task.

There are many other helpful features, such as customer segmentation — grouping customers by specific parameters to help automate responses within segments:

Social media integrations

Knowledge bases

Data synchronization

And more

18. RingCentral Contact Center: The Comprehensive Contact Center Software

RingCentral is a comprehensive customer service automation software that uses an AI-driven approach to communication. It caters to businesses of all sizes across various industries, ensuring you can provide tailored support based on your customers' needs. The platform is compatible across many different channels.

This means that it not only supports queries based on a customer's preferred methods, but it also collects real-time data and analytics across all channels, giving you a holistic overview of customer experience and agent performance. These AI-driven reports include metrics like:

Call volumes

Agent activities

Customer sentiment

Trending topics

19. Issuetrak: The Ticket Management Platform

Issuetrak is a ticket management platform designed to assist organizations in handling customer support, help desk operations, and complaint management across various channels. Its capabilities in integrating with tools such as:

Zapier

Gmail

Choosing Issuetrak: Key Features for Omnichannel Customer Support

I chose Issuetrak as a customer service automation software because it offers robust features that cater to omnichannel ticket submission, which is essential for modern customer support.

Its standout capabilities include:

Issue Hub

Round-robin issue assignment

Flow features

Which collectively enhance the management of customer inquiries across various communication channels.

20. NinjaOne: The IT Management Software

NinjaOne is a unified IT management software that caters to IT departments and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) needs by offering a comprehensive suite of tools for device and workflow management. It provides a unified IT management platform that includes endpoint management, allowing IT professionals to monitor and manage devices within their network.

It also offers patch management capabilities to ensure systems are up-to-date and secure. The platform features a remote control for troubleshooting and support, a helpdesk for managing IT requests, and backup solutions to protect critical data. The platform caters to IT departments and managed service providers (MSPs).

21. Hiver: The Email Management Support Tool

Hiver is a customer support solution that integrates directly with Gmail, providing businesses with:

Email management

Collaboration

Analytics

Automation

Multi-channel support capabilities

Hiver is particularly effective for organizations relying on Gmail for customer service operations. It is designed to work seamlessly within the Gmail environment, a unique selling point for businesses already embedded in the Google ecosystem.

What differentiates Hiver is its suite of features tailored for Gmail, including email management, collaboration, analytics, and automation. These features collectively provide a streamlined customer support experience within a familiar interface.

Boosting Efficiency with Hiver’s Automated Email Delegation

Hiver's automation capabilities are designed to enhance team efficiency and email management within Gmail significantly. These capabilities include automated email delegation, where incoming emails can be automatically assigned to the appropriate team members based on predefined rules such as:

Sender

Subject

Content

This ensures a balanced workload distribution and timely responses.

22. Stonly: The Interactive Knowledge Management Tool

Stonly is a knowledge management platform designed to empower customer service through the creation and dissemination of interactive step-by-step guides and decision trees. I chose Stonly because it offers a modern approach to knowledge management. Its platform is designed to:

Drive fast

Accurate resolutions using step-by-step guides

Decision trees

AI-powered answers for agents and customers

This focus on interactive content helps in addressing customer queries effectively. What makes Stonly different is its emphasis on automations and AI to expedite service delivery. The tool allows for the automation of actions within help desks and other systems, and it utilizes AI to swiftly:

Create

Update

surface

The most relevant information is that this integration of technology aids in serving customers more efficiently.

23. Tenfold: The Communication Integrator

Tenfold’s Integration system unifies existing communication platforms such as:

Salesforce

Cisco

Microsoft Dynamics

To empower your marketing automation team to use channels your customers are already familiar with. Their valid Chrome extension allows for instant data access across any of your tabs at any time.

Personalization, customer profile screens, knowledge base, and universal communication layers enable customer insights at the point of interaction. Tenfold offers:

Standard

Advanced

Additional options plans

They are only available at request pricing from the company.

24. Yellow.ai: The Enterprise-Level AI Customer Service Automation Tool

Yellow.ai is a combat-proven enterprise-grade AI-first customer service automation platform for leading brands worldwide, including:

Sony

Lion Parcel

Coda

Hyundai

Pelago

Randstad

Tiket.com

Papa John and more

With an extensive list of over 1100 customers in 85+ countries, Yellow.ai offers enterprise-level generative AI-powered customer service solutions. Yellow.ai’s customer service automation platform tackles the limitations of manual processes and inadequate automation tools.

Transforming Customer Service with Yellow.ai’s Advanced AI Automation

Leveraging its robust AI engine, it automates a staggering 90% of queries across 35+ channels, seamlessly integrating with your existing tech stack or operating independently. This translates to a 60% reduction in operational costs, empowering businesses to achieve superior efficiency and cost savings.

Let’s examine the unique features of Yellow.ai, customer service software that can transform your CS and CX with advanced automation solutions.

25. ServiceNow: The Enterprise Automation Powerhouse

As customer service software, ServiceNow bulldozes customer service complexities with its enterprise-grade automation muscle. Its self-service portal empowers customers to find solutions independently while intelligent workflows streamline repetitive tasks for agents.

ServiceNow’s generative AI, christened Now Assist, delivers real-time suggestions and guides reps toward efficient ticket resolution. This robust platform integrates seamlessly with industry leaders like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, making it a heavyweight contender in the digital customer service software arena. Its comprehensive capabilities cater to businesses of all stripes, ensuring a frictionless customer experience across every touchpoint.

26. Sprinklr Service: The Unified Customer Service Platform

Sprinklr Service obliterates customer service silos with a unified, AI-powered platform. This omnichannel powerhouse handles 30+ digital, social, and voice channels seamlessly, delivering real-time actionable insights.

This customer service software’s unified agent console empowers agents with a complete customer view, including:

Case history

CRM data

Survey results.

Sprinklr Service tackles compliance with AI-powered scoring, and multi-level dashboards keep you on top of KPIs and team performance. This feature-rich platform redefines enterprise customer service.

27. Kustomer: The Customer-Centric Customer Service Software

Kustomer customer service software crushes customer churn with a data-driven approach. Its unified timeline consolidates customer interactions from all sources, empowering agents with a complete view of every touchpoint.

Leverage AI-powered features that analyze conversations identify sentiment, and classify inquiries. Kustomer streamlines workflows with pre-written replies, suggested actions, and intelligent ticket routing. Real-time reporting dashboards keep you in control, with up-to-two-year data retention and customizable export options. Kustomer equips your team to deliver exceptional customer service experiences.

28. Gorgias: The Ecommerce Customer Service Powerhouse

Gorgias’ customer service software has several features, including a help desk and a shared inbox system allowing support staff to address consumer inquiries. It conquers e-commerce customer service with laser focus.

This omnichannel powerhouse integrates seamlessly with leading platforms like Shopify, giving agents instant access to:

Customer data

Order details

History

Its AI-powered arsenal automates repetitive tasks, from identifying ticket intent to crafting pre-written responses. Empower efficiency with customizable workflows for:

Automated ticket routing

Tagging

Closure

Prioritize high-value customers with VIP flags, ensuring every inquiry receives the attention it deserves.

29. Help Scout: The Easy-to-Use Customer Service Software

Help Scout AI customer support software offers an easy-to-use platform, robust APIs, and various integrations. The system is designed for quick setup with:

Integrated email

Self-service

Live chat capabilities

The platform includes a range of AI features that streamline processes without coding or plugins. You can also customize this AI support software to your team’s needs for improved efficiency.

30. Dialogflow: The Google Conversational AI Tool

Google Cloud Dialogflow offers conversational AI tools for customer service. Two main chatbot and voice bot versions are available: ES standard for SMEs and CX advanced agents for larger and more complex use cases.

This software from Google is based on the BERT language model and integrates with many channels seamlessly, including:

Website

Apple iOS

Android mobile applications

It provides a visual builder and AI voice chatbots that help to provide more efficient support for shoppers.

31. Tiledesk: The Open-Source AI Customer Support Solution

Tiledesk is a versatile open-source AI customer support solution with features like chatbots powered by Chat-GPT and a drag-and-drop interface for simplified bot creation. This makes Tiledesk simple for any user level, and no technical skills are needed.

This software offers community support and great customer service whenever you encounter system development or setup issues.

32. Jira Service Management: The IT Customer Service Software

Jira Service Management is a customer service platform tailored for IT sector teams and designed to integrate easily with Atlassian tools. Utilizing Jira facilitates managing tasks and roles on projects, allowing powerful solutions to be applied to resolving problems effectively.

This solution may not be suitable for non-IT support staff due to its technical complexity. When there’s an emphasis placed upon technology within an organization, this can become quite advantageous by responding quickly and efficiently while streamlining incoming requests related to customers alike.

33. Olark: The Real-Time Customer Support Tool

I’ve been using Olark for real-time customer support, and it’s been fantastic for personalizing our customer interactions. It lets us chat directly with customers visiting our website, allowing us to resolve their issues on the spot and improve their overall experience.

What sets Olark apart is its ability to let us see customer activity in real-time so that we can initiate conversations at just the right moment. Customizing the chat widget to match our brand was a breeze, making everything look seamless on our site.

12-Step Buyer's Guide to Choosing the Right Automated Customer Support Tool

You don’t necessarily have to use the best customer service ticketing software. Choose software that is best for you and your team.

When evaluating your needs for automated customer support, you don’t necessarily have to use the best customer service ticketing software. Choose software that is best for you and your team.

Addressing the Complex Challenges Faced by Customer Service Agents

Customer service agents face numerous challenges, including dealing with software bugs, monitoring multiple service channels, and handling constant customer requests. They must also make client interactions feel personable rather than informal and rote.

Customer reps often have to deal with irate customers, discounts, feature requests they cannot fulfill, and queries they don’t have answers to. They have a lot to do. It would make sense first to figure out what they need.

1. Understand the Requirements (and Goals) of Your Team

Remember, any software you pick will only play a supporting role, with the leading role belonging to your support team. Asking them what they require of customer support ticketing software is crucial.

If your team has been using another help desk solution thus far, ask them what they like or dislike about it. Teams that use Gmail for customer support often complain of a cluttered inbox, difficulty discussing customer requests, and inability to keep track of customer interactions.

Balancing Complexity and Usability in Multi-Channel Support Tools

Teams that use feature-heavy multi-channel tools to manage support must deal with complex interfaces, advanced features, and additional training. Support reps want software with a simple interface that helps them assign requests easily – one with a simple learning curve. Once you’ve identified the needs of your team, it’s time to talk shop.

2. Make Sure the Software is Easy to Use

Complex software will be a headache for your team. You’re investing in customer service ticketing software to simplify support for your agents, not complicate it. Your chosen software should be easy to set up, and navigate and increase your agents' productivity.

While evaluating software, consider the following details:

Are the main menus easily accessible?

Did you notice any complex terminologies?

Did you have to browse endlessly to find features?

The Importance of Intuitive Design in Customer Service Software

If you had difficulty navigating the software, your team will likely have, too. You also want to pay attention to the software's design. Your support agents will likely spend much of their day using your customer service ticketing tool, so you want to ensure it is intuitive.

Design refers not merely to fancy images or over-the-top colors but to the synergy of elements such as:

Fonts

Colors

Buttons

Other visual elements

Software with a clean and welcoming interface will be more straightforward for agents. If you use Gmail, something that works on top of it and blends in neatly, that would be great.

3. Ensure the software is easy to set up

Customer service software should have a simple learning curve and interface. This is where user onboarding comes in. User onboarding equips customers with enough information to find value in a product and know how to use it. Good onboarding processes often include the following:

Product tours

Contextual cues

Demos

Emails

Learning-by-doing options

Ensuring Immediate Value and Ease of Use in Customer Service Software

The product's benefit should be apparent when users sign up. You should be able to perform basic functions such as streamlining support tickets, creating replies and email templates, creating SLAs (Service Level Agreements), and setting up teams in the app without needing additional support. The more intuitive and easy the customer service management app, the less training new team members will require. This saves both time and money for your business.

4. Keep the software’s scalability in mind

Your business will grow in a few years, and you want your customer service software to grow. As your business scales and goes from being a small business to an enterprise, so will the number of customer requests and service agents. Here’s the tricky part: how do you ensure that your help desk software is geared for scalability?

You should watch out for a few indicators: Check out a few case studies on the website to see if large teams use the software.

Another cue to look: at is whether teams across the organization use the software (finance, accounts, operations, or anybody else).

Explore the Pricing page: to see if there is a full-fledged plan for large teams. Look for an Enterprise plan. Look for no limits on the number of team members or caps on the number of times you can perform a task.

Look for add-on APIs and integration with other communication channels: phone calls, WhatsApp, SMS services, live chat software, customization, etc.

These may impact the final price that you have to pay. See if the automation feature supports various actions (you’ll need them more when your team grows). You must look for canned replies as well. If the above checks yield favorable results, you can be confident that the customer service solution will scale up as your team grows.

5. Consider its ability to drive seamless remote work

Remote work has existed for a while, but many companies now know its benefits. In February 2020, the pandemic plunged half the world into a lockdown, forcing workers to work from home.

According to CNBC, some companies plan to allow their employees to work remotely, even after the threat of the virus abates. Remote work is here to stay.

Essential Features for Remote Customer Support Software

Planning to reap the benefits of remote work? You need customer support software that equips you to do so. As a remote team, walking over to a coworker’s desk is impossible to discuss a customer request.

Nor is it possible to get coworkers to jump in on customer calls. To succeed as a remote customer support team, it’s key to use a tool that facilitates:

Communication

Collaboration

Task management

All in one place. You need customer service ticketing software that helps you easily Assign customer requests to the right agents/team members and check the status of requests:

Pending

Unresolved

Unassigned

Discuss customer requests privately with your team in real-time. Does it come with a mobile app that lets your team members access their helpdesk on the go? When browsing software websites, look for these specific features, then pick your favorites.

6. Find out how well the software helps ease team collaboration

Collaboration is one of the mainstays of stellar customer support, not just remote work. It’s worth reiterating that your customer support software must facilitate smooth collaboration.

All team members should be able to monitor each other’s responsibilities, pending tickets, and the status of responses to requests. The team avoids duplicate effort and is more productive.

Enhancing Cross-Department Collaboration in Customer Service

Along with helping the customer service team stay informed, the tool should also help them collaborate with other departments in the organization. Customer service issues are often interlinked with other departments, such as:

Engineering

Billing

Operations

Marketing

They shouldn’t rely on third-party collaboration tools or messaging tools like Slack to avoid switching screens and losing context. Instead of pushing emails from one inbox to another, agents should be able to rope in other team members with a simple @mention or a similar effortless option.

This will ensure customer queries are solved promptly. The functionality of sharing notes on customer requests privately is also key to effective collaboration.

Your agents should not have to juggle multiple apps simply to ask whether your promotional offers are still on or how long your website will be down.

7. Evaluate its reporting and analytics capabilities

You’ve probably heard the adage,

What gets measured

Gets managed

Often attributed to Peter Drucker.

Let’s talk about tracking metrics. Which are the numbers you want your customer service ticketing software to track? There are two types of metrics you want to keep an eye on quantitative and qualitative metrics.

The former will show you the performance of your team in absolute numbers like:

Average handle time

Time to first response

Interactions per resolution

The volume of requests

Common trends in customer issues

Unsolved requests.

As the name implies, measures the quality of service offered to customers via your contact center, including:

Your customer satisfaction score

Net promoter score

Customer retention rate should help you here

You also want to measure individual employee performance to nudge them in the right direction.

You must also ensure that the software helps you measure trends and correlations over some time.

Leveraging Tags and Metrics for Tracking Customer Service Performance

The ups and downs in your team’s performance will ultimately lead to improvement and solid customer relationships. The ability to add tags is another feature that helps you track and report changes around customer requests.

With the help of tags, you can measure the growth or decline of queries around a specific feature or request type over time. Tracking and reporting customer service metrics in customer service tools is essential if you want your team to reach their full potential.

8. Verify the software’s ability to automate routine customer service tasks

Customer service teams that move fast often have a secret weapon: automation. Here’s what to look for:

Automatically assigning requests

Believe it or not, with some tinkering, all your customer requests may fall into the hands of the right agent, and your tickets may be kept from the routing process. Imagine the number of:

Hours

Effort

Resources saved

If you implement this in your team. Your software should allow you to set up a few simple if this, then that workflow rules around customer communication. Your tickets will automatically be assigned to your team members based on keywords such as billing, bugs, sign-up, and deactivation.

Autoresponders Autoresponders

In customer support, they get a bad name and are often criticized for making support feel robotic and impersonal. It can feel robotic if your autoresponders start with Please don’t type above this line or if your emails are sent from a Customer service representative.

The fact is that it’s virtually impossible to be present 24/7 to answer customer queries as soon as they roll in, even if you have a globally distributed call center team. The key is to make your auto-responder sound as human as possible. Here’s an example to get you started:

Hey Paul,

Thanks so much for reaching out. We received your request. While this is an automated email, I assure you someone from my team will contact you in 24 hours. For your reference, our business hours are __ to __ PST. Until then, thanks for your patience. Have an awesome day!

Cheers, Sabrina.

Saved Replies

These are replies agents often find themselves typing in response to common queries. Instead of typing the same response repeatedly, it’s best to look for software that allows agents to save their best replies and use them later.

9. Take a look at review sites

Reviews by bloggers, tech websites, and app marketplaces often paint a different picture than the software's website or feature pages. Websites such as:

Capterra

CNET

Will help you learn about the general pain points, common bugs – and even the quality of customer support the product delivers. You don’t just want to dig for the dirt, though.

Identifying Positive Themes in User Reviews Through Comprehensive Analysis

Note down positive themes that appear frequently while reviewing user reviews. The key here is to go through as many reviews as you can. This sounds obvious – but most people tend to form an opinion quickly. We’d say read up (or even skim through) 50 reviews or so. That’s when you start noticing a pattern.

10. Speak with power users

While review sites do provide you with a deep overview of the software in use, power users of the product can give you the real scoop – the stories that people don’t tell on review sites. The key is asking the right questions.

The most important thing you want to ask them is:

What happens when things go wrong?

How do they safeguard their customer data?

There will always be downtimes, or things don’t work how they should.

Assessing Customer Care and Engaging with Power Users for Informed Software Selection

How a company handles such situations will tell you how much they care for their customers – whether they’ll help when you need them. And getting in touch with power users is not all that difficult.

LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit: pretty sure they’ll be around in one of them. After this last bit of research, you may want to pare down your list even more and only keep 2 to 3 software options for first-hand testing.

11. Test the software/request for a demo

All said and done, only personal experience with a ticketing system helps you understand how easy and intuitive it is to use. Every software offers free trials – be sure to take advantage of those. The good thing is that most of them will offer full-featured trials.

Evaluating Software: Criteria, Features, and Customer Support During Testing

When testing software, be sure to keep all your essential criteria in mind. Make notes on features you like and dislike, which will help you compare how each software fares. You can also request product demonstrations, which come in handy as you can ask questions and discover the features they’re proud of.

Be sure to include a few people who’ll be using the software. You also want to learn if the software offers good customer service. Use their self-help tools, send an email inquiry, or contact their live chat or phone support teams. Only a company that offers great customer service and cares about its customers can empower others to do so.

12. Review your test results

Once you’ve tested your shortlisted software, it’s time to review the results with your team. Look at your notes and your team's, and quickly analyze what works and what does not. It’s important to remember your future requirements.

Future-Proofing Your Software Selection: Anticipating Long-Term Needs and Scalability

Take a moment and think up what you might need a year/two down the road. It sounds obvious, but it’s easy to fall for something that fits into the present but might not scale very well. You’ll likely have a winner that everyone in your team agrees with.

Even though you may have spent considerable time choosing customer service ticketing software for your team, its impact on your customer service and performance is immeasurable. Take out time. No haste.

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