Automation isn’t something you can put on the back burner. This is true for businesses of every size, from startups to multinational corporate entities. Typically, you see automation in supply chain management and accounting processes. However, customer service automation can have a revolutionary impact on how companies understand and deliver service.
Consumers don’t just value good customer service nowadays – they expect it – and they want it fast. In fact, 75% of online customers expect help within 5 minutes, and automating customer service functions can help you deliver.
Current Trends in Customer Service Automation
Customer service automation is constantly growing and changing. But in the field today, there are a few standout trends significantly impact businesses and their customers.
Self-Service Automation
Self-service automation empowers customers to solve certain issues on their own. Automated systems like knowledge bases, self-service portals, and community forums help them to independently find solutions to their problems. Customers can deal with issues at their own pace, which is especially convenient during non-operating hours.
Enhancing Human-to-Human Interactions
The reality is that bots and automated systems can’t do it all. Technology such as machine learning continues to outdo itself day after day. However, customers still crave authentic personal engagement with real people. The trick is to balance things out. Harness tech like virtual assistants and co-browsing tools while integrating human warmth and connection.
Empowering Customer Service Teams
Automation isn’t only about making things happen instantaneously. It’s true that customer service automation can take on repetitive and mundane tasks. But that also means agents can now focus on complex, critical-thinking-based tasks that machines can’t handle.
AI-Enhanced Support
Not many of us can say that we haven’t used a chatbot before. Businesses have taken advantage of the round-the-clock benefits of AI chatbots. Today, chatbots are more sophisticated, capable of quickly answering straightforward questions. AI’s predictive algorithms can also analyze past customer interactions to speculate any potential needs or issues in the future.
The Impact of Customer Service Software Solutions on Businesses
Investing in customer service software solutions is what will help you reap the benefits of customer service automation. Businesses who adopt these tools see quicker responses, reduced manual efforts, and much-improved customer satisfaction. They also see the following changes.
Elevates Your Customer Service Experience
Just over 60% of surveyed customers say getting an issue resolved quickly is the most important part of customer service. Meanwhile, over 55% say long wait times are the most frustrating.
Adopting a customer software solution helps to make your business operations run more smoothly. But more importantly, it’s a smart investment into the customer experience and your brand reputation. Today, people expect customer service to be quick, personalized, and highly accessible. So, it pays for companies to invest in platforms that will satisfy these expectations.
Creates Accountability in the Support Team
Customer service teams are often left to their own devices, and customer service software creates the accountability that businesses need. Some software records and analyzes your support team’s interactions. With this, you have measurable data and a transparent view of your productivity. Each team member assumes responsibility for the customers they serve, so the business can spot opportunities for training and acknowledgment.
Empowers Customers with Self-Service
When businesses put power in the hands of the customer, they reduce the workload on their customer service teams. Notably, 82% of consumers are okay with using self-service options. What’s more, 46% of those people don’t expect good results. So, it’s clear that having the option there in the first place can be a powerful tool.
Gauges Your Progress with Metrics
Customer service software solutions can also provide tangible metrics for your entire business. Without this data, gauging how your company is performing can be like grasping at straws. With it, you get a window into resolution rates, response times, customer satisfaction scores, and other useful information.
Top 20 Customer Service Automation Tools and Software
Businesses today are spoiled for choice with tools to meet every possible need. But don’t worry! We’ve put together a list of the top 20 customer service automation tools and software to consider for your business.
Helpdesk Customer Support Automation Tools (300 each)
Helpdesk automation tools make sure your business delivers on promptness. Furthermore, they improve the quality of your immediate customer support.
Zendesk
This full-service solution features a rich messaging solution, a smart knowledge base for self-service, and built-in routing and intelligence so the right agents receive the right tickets. Especially for businesses expected to scale, their suite of tools makes it easy to handle all aspects of customer service.
Pricing – Tiered pricing at $69, $115, or $149 for 1 agent, with savings on annual plans, an Enterprise plan option, and the ability to add more agents. There are also basic plans for their ticketing system for managing emails that cost $19, $55, or $115, depending on the features you need.
Freshdesk
Freshdesk focuses on streamlining a company’s ticketing system through a unified AI-powered workspace. Neatly sort your tickets by priority and instantly get them assigned to the right teams and agents. With a tailored self-service experience to support your automation and workflows, customers can also help themselves find answers faster.
Pricing – Start for free at $0 for up to 10 agents, or upgrade to Growth ($15/agent/month), Pro ($49/agent/month), or Enterprise ($79/agent/month) for more capabilities.
Hiver
With Hiver, you can run a multi-channel help desk through Gmail, including voice communication, a knowledge base, a chatbot, and live chat features to handle queries quickly and accurately. Furthermore, Hiver has the native feel of the Gmail interface, teams can instantly deliver top-notch support and simplify operations.
Pricing – Tiered plans include Lite ($19/user/month), Pro ($59/user/month), and Elite ($99/user/month) to choose from, depending on your needs.
LiveAgent
LiveAgent allows you to connect with customers on all channels, get higher resolution rates, and do so much quicker with 130+ ticketing features and 200+ integrations. The solution features a ticketing system, customer portal, call center, and live chat tools that ensure your customers actually get the answers they’re looking for.
Pricing – Plans are based on business size, with small business ($9/agent/month), medium business ($29/agent/month), large business ($49/agent/month), and enterprise ($69/agent/month) plans available. Monthly billing is available at an increased price.
Knowledge Base CS Software
A knowledge base provides customers with a comprehensive database of information on common queries where they can resolve issues on their own. With this tool, you don’t an agent to be available to sort out issues – knowledge bases are available 24/7.
Zoho Desk
Zoho’s selection of cloud software includes Zoho Desk, a knowledge base management tool that can centralize all your content. Through the platform, you can make information accessible in over 50 languages, separate articles by subcategory, make your knowledge base SEO-friendly, and even foster a collaborative approach with access permissions.
Pricing – Tiered plans include Standard ($20/user/month), Professional ($35/user/month), and Enterprise ($50/user/month) plans. You can also save up to 35% with yearly plans.
Help Scout
Ever wish you had a consolidated view of all customer issues? With one, you can keep every conversion with external parties all on one unified platform with Help Scout and offer real-time support. The best part is that you can easily create a self-service help center with a no-code builder and customize it to fit your brand – vibrant colors, fun images, and more.
Pricing – Standard ($20/user/month), Plus ($40/user/month), Pro ($65/user/month) with higher tiers featuring more shared inboxes, larger knowledge bases, and other more advanced features.
Document360
If you’re looking for an advanced knowledge base creation platform, Document360 lets you manage and share product documentation, manuals, wikis, SOPs (standard operating procedures) and other knowledge base items. With a robust content editor, technical writers, developers, customer support teams, and product owners can all create and manage all business documents using one tool.
Pricing – Free ($0), Standard ($149/project/month), Professional ($299/project/month), Business ($399/project/month), and Enterprise ($599/project/month), priced on a yearly plan.
Helpjuice
Helpjuice is a knowledge base builder that is powerful yet simple enough for teams to collaborate on. Tons of authoring and formatting options allow businesses to structure and visualize their documents exactly how they want to. Intelligent analytics also give insight into what’s impactful and what users are searching for so you can make edits for maximum effectiveness.
Pricing – Starter ($120/month for up to 4 users), Run-Up ($200/month for up to 16 users)), Premium Limited ($289/month for up to 60 users), and an Enterprise plan with unlimited users at a custom price.
Live Chat Tools for Customer Service Automation
Live chat offerings are all about providing real-time assistance to customers through human engagement.
Gladly
Gladly blends the usefulness of AI and the warmth of human agents with its very own customer service platform. With this tool, you bring personal and natural interactions to your brand through chat, native voice calling support, and insight into the customer and their activities with your business.
Pricing – Hero Package (starts at $180/person/month) and Superhero Package (starts at $210/person/month). Both plans are billed annually.
Olark
Olark is a useful chat widget that can be integrated into your website with accessible tools that make help inclusive for people with disabilities. Customize your chat box to your brand, deploy chatbots, discover summary reports and actionable insights, and engage and understand your customers with customer profiles to provide great service.
Pricing – Just one plan starting at $29/month/seat, with a 35% off deal with a 2-year commitment.
HappyFox
The HappyFox live chat widget can give your business a fast chat support system that allows for multiple sessions at once. Unlike many services, HappyFox boasts unlimited agents on all pricing plans and integrates visitor monitoring, pre-chat form fields, and unlimited chat history into the mix.
Pricing – Starter ($29/month), Growth ($49/month), Scale ($149/month), and Scale Plus ($299/month) are available on both monthly and yearly plans, with twice the amount of chats available on a yearly plan.
Userlike
Userlike offers a range of no-code automation and chatbot features, including an effective AI chatbot, a smart FAQ knowledge hub, and contact form suggestions. Their Website Messenger keeps you and your customers in touch with Whatsapp, Facebook, and Telegram capabilities and multimedia messaging options (calls, bots, files, and more).
Pricing – Team ($90/month), Corporate ($290/month), and a Flex enterprise solution with custom pricing, increasing in widgets, seats, and messaging apps the more expensive the plan.
Call Center Software for Customer Support
Call center software creates more seamless and impactful phone interactions for businesses.
Dialpad
Dialpad takes the traditional customer phone conversation to the next level. Their dashboard provides instant call summaries and recommended action items so you never miss an opportunity to improve your customer service. The omnichannel AI Contact Center lets agents connect with customers on every channel and optimize their interactions.
Pricing – Standard ($15/user/month), Pro ($25/user/month), and Enterprise (custom pricing) on annual plans.
Talkdesk
Talkdesk helps to modernize your telephone customer service. They trim down after-call work, improving self-service rates, and displaying revealing insights that can improve customer interactions. Agents can see an overview of each customer and their conversation details and can get real-time AI guidance.
Pricing – CX Cloud (Digital) Essentials ($85/user/month), CX Cloud Elevate ($115/user/month), and CX Cloud Elite ($145/user/month).
Twilio Flex
Twilio Flex brands itself as a digital engagement center for end-to-end customer journeys. It focuses on improving existing call center solutions by displaying context for each customer for personalized interactions. Their solution integrates with countless other systems so your business can collect and process valuable customer data.
Pricing – Per-hour pricing starting at $1/active user/hours or per-user pricing starting at $150/month/user.
RingCentral
Transform your contact center with AI-first tools such as AI-generated summaries, omnichannel unification, interactive voice response technology, and analytics tools that will help agents throughout the customer service process. Through just one platform, agents can become more knowledgeable about the customer and provide more intuitive and valuable experiences.
Pricing – Core ($30/user/month), Advanced ($35/user/month), and Ultra ($45/user/month) plans, with prices paid annually.
Social Media Platforms for CS
Businesses can interact with customers directly through social channels, building stronger relationships and resolving issues in an authentic manner.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social works to manage your social media platforms and extract the right insights for informed business decisions. While it lets companies engage with customers and publish posts in an organized way, it also provides useful analytics features to show you what’s working with your audience and what isn’t.
Pricing – Standard ($199/seat/month), Professional ($299/seat/month), Advanced ($399/seat/month), and Enterprise (custom pricing). Prices billed annually.
Buffer
Besides Buffer’s content publishing feature, there is Buffer AI. This assistant focuses on engagement and analytical features. Buffer AI helps brands generate more valuable and inspirational content. Meanwhile, the analytics and engagement features inform interactions with customers, growing reach and engagement, which leads to stronger loyalty.
Pricing – Free ($0), Essentials ($5/month – 1 channel), Team ($10/month – 1 channel), Agency ($100/month – 10 channels), plans billed yearly (or monthly for additional costs). Each additional channel comes at a cost of $5 or $10.
Hootsuite
Famed social media marketing tool Hootsuite comes with a plethora of tools so businesses can get more out of their social media interactions. Their social listening tools help you tune into your audience and competitors for insights, while engagement tools allow you to engage with followers more authentically.
Pricing – Professional ($99/month with 10 social accounts included), Team ($249/month with 20 social accounts included), Enterprise (Custom pricing with 50 social accounts included). Plans billed annually.
Meltwater
Meltwater is all about media intelligence. It allows businesses to harness AI to explore insights, understand their audience, and engage with customers in a bespoke way. By keeping tabs on messages, comments, and all interactions, companies won’t ever miss another opportunity to connect with their customers. Their suite features a range of channels and strategies that break down all the data for you.
Pricing – Meltwater doesn’t display their pricing on their website but has four plans: Essentials, Advanced, Suite, and Enterprise to accommodate scaling needs.
Customer Service Automation is the Future of CX
Choosing a future without customer service automation would simply be like taking a step back. Businesses would have to grapple with poor efficiency, slower responses, and plenty of inaccuracies – all things that customers associate with bad service. Use AI and customer service automation tools, however, and you’re ready to deliver a next-level customer experience that outshines the competition.
With these software solutions, you not only change the customer experience but also empower your agents and keep your business informed about its performance in measurable ways. As your business becomes free of those basic, repetitive tasks, you can focus on delivering value in areas that matter more.
Aya is Scale Support’s blog manager. When she’s not wrangling content briefs, editing article drafts and handling on-page SEO, she is crafting messages for Scale’s other communication materials. Aya writes about SaaS startups, marketing for startups, search engine optimization, and pop culture.
