I’m sure you have stumbled on dozens of articles telling you which are the best customer support software. And why would anyone need to know that? Well, because support is one of the most important aspects of every e-commerce website — even if you have a small business, you will want to offer support to your customers in order to help them make the right purchase decision.
The best customer support software complements your staff with the right tools to manage a large volume of inbound requests. We reviewed the Best Customer Service Software for Ecommerce and narrowed it down to a few solutions that we believe can help you be more effective, efficient and provide a positive experience for your customers.
Trying to be a retailer in this day and age is a job by itself. In order to compete with big retailers like Amazon, you need to give your customers efficient and fast customer support. The only way to do this is by providing excellent customer service. But these days, no matter how good your customer service is, a lot of people will come to you online first. And that’s why you’ll need the best customer service software for ecommerce.
You may have your own ecommerce online store; you might have just started the business; or maybe you are an expert in it. In any situation, you need good customer support system that can help you provide better customer service and make your customers happy. Even if your store is a small one, you need a solid and clear support system.
Ecommerce Automation Software
There are several types of automation software you can use for your ecommerce business. The most popular tools are:
Jumplead
Jumplead lets you generate and nurture leads through marketing automation. An effective eCommerce automation tool to convert your online store visitors into customers. Jumplead is a complete package to manage your marketing activities and handle customer accounts.
You can also manage leads and respond to customers through Jumplead. With real-time activity data and engaging customers through live-chat and email makes it an efficient tool for automation.
Key features:
- Capture leads from landing pages, forms and overlays
- Nurture them through personalised marketing automation
- Manage leads through CRM
- Feature email campaigns and live chat
Pricing plans:
- Free plan available
- Solo – 49$ per month
- Starter – 99$ per month
- Pro – 199$ per month
- Enterprise – 299$ per month
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a popular email marketing platform for mid to large scale eCommerce stores. You can easily automate your online store with targeted campaigns based on purchase activity and website engagement.
An intuitive tool that lets you know more about your customers, gather data and personalise your promotional activities. Mailchimp also helps in increasing the conversion rate and turnover of an eCommerce store.
Key features:
- Pop-up forms
- Email campaigns + product retargeting emails
- Digital & social media ads
- Recover abandoned carts
Pricing plans:
- Free plan available
- Essentials – 10.39$ per month
- Standard – 15.52$ per month
- Premium – 310.45$ per month
QuickBooks
QuickBooks is the leading online accounting software that is a complete package for your eCommerce store. It lets you create invoices, generate reports and check costs incurred. Best suited for businesses ranging from small to mid-level companies.
QuickBooks can be operated on multiple platforms and has a creative visual interface. Complete accounting software for organising and managing multiple tasks in one place.
Key features:
- Compatible on the computer, laptop or smartphones
- Account creation / Shareability
- Custom invoice templates and generate reports
- Unlimited customer support
Pricing plans:
- Simple Start – 16$ per month / 151$ for annual
- Essentials – 25$ per month / 237$ for annual
- Plus – 34$ per month / 322$ for annual
Freshdesk
- FREE 21-DAY TRIAL
- PLANS START AT $15/MO
- EXTENSIVE LIST OF FEATURES
- TRUSTED BY 150,000+ BUSINESSES
Freshdesk is another one of the most popular help desk solutions on the market today.
That’s because it’s simple and easy to use. That’s why it’s trusted by 150,000+ businesses, including American Express, HP, and Panasonic.
One of the major reasons for the popularity is that Freshdesk is very cost effective. They offer a free forever version of their award-winning customer service software. You get unlimited agents and the ability to track incoming tickets from email and social media.
For the small business that needs a better way to respond to incoming questions, Freshdesk is everything you need at no cost.
When you are ready to upgrade, Freshdesk offers several plans at competitive prices. Choose the channels you want to communicate, the type of support you want to provide, and design workflows that make sense for your line of business.
You won’t have to try and fit your customer service experience into a rigid template if you go with Freshdesk.
They offer a number of very useful features:
- Ticketing
- Collaboration
- Field service
- Automation
- Customer self-service
- Reporting
- Multi-channel support
This is great if you want to streamline your customer service solutions on a single platform. As such, Freshdesk makes team collaboration and automation a breeze.
If you’re currently using another help desk solution and you’re unhappy with it, Freshdesk makes it easy for you to switch to its software. Their team will help you make the switch over easily.
And with Freshworks Academy, their in-house training service, you’ll be able to train any member of your team to nail the Freshworks system in no time.
Here’s an overview of the plans and pricing. All rates are based on an annual plan. The prices are a bit higher if you go month-to-month.
Free
- Unlimited agents
- Email ticketing
- Team collaboration
- Knowledge base
- Ticket trend reports
Growth — $15 per month per agent
- Automations
- Collision detection
- Marketplace apps
- Helpdesk
- SLA management
- Business hours
Pro — $49 per month per agent
- Automated ticket assignment
- Custom agent roles
- Custom portal
- Enterprise reporting
- Multiple time zones and SLAs
Enterprise — $79 per month per agent
- Ticket assignment based on skills
- Create a testing environment without affecting agents or customers
- IP Whitelisting
- HIPAA compliant
- Extendable API rate limit
Omnichannel pricing (which includes phone and messaging chanels) starts at $29 per month per agent. It’s definitely cheaper to stick with fewer channels, but this is an exceptionally low price for omnichannel support.
Freshdesk integrates with hundreds of the most popular business software brands, so it will likely dovetail right into your system without a lot of costly set up.
Freshdesk has omnichannel add-ons and features for field service management for an additional fee. Try it free with a 21-day trial.
LiveAgent
- 100% FREE FOREVER PLAN
- UPGRADES STARTING AT $15/MO
- ALL-IN-ONE SOLUTION
- SIMPLE AND FLEXIBLE TOOLS
LiveAgent helps you manage all customer requests from multiple channels in a single platform.
Merge all communication and support to one place—no matter where your customers are.
LiveAgent saves you time, simplifies the process, and allows you to increase the profitability of your support team.
LiveAgent has tools for:
- Email ticketing
- Live chat
- Voice and video calls
- Social media integration
It’s built for the modern customer service team. Your employees only have to navigate a single interface in order to be present for customers on any channel you need.
With LiveAgent, the entire customer conversation is right in front of your agents–even if it began with a chat, switched to email, and then to phone.
Customers don’t have to repeat information, and the agent isn’t scrambling to find information. It’s just a better experience for everyone.
Here’s a closer look at the plans and prices for LiveAgent’s customer service software:
Free — $0 forever
- 7 day ticket history
- 1 email address for ticketing
- 1 live chat button
- 1 phone number for call center support
Ticket — $15 per month per agent
- Unlimited ticket history
- Unlimited email ticketing
- Load data from your CRM
- Multi-brand support
Ticket + Chat — $29 per month per agent
- Unlimited live chat
- Real-time visitor monitor
- Chat invitations
- Chat satisfaction surveys
All-inclusive — $39 per month per agent
- Unlimited call center support
- Video calling
- Gamification
- Unlimited call storage
For all of the paid plans, LiveAgent has add-on pricing for features like social media integration, time tracking, audit logs, and more.
Overall, it’s a simple and flexible tool for managing live customers with ticketing and live chat. Try it for free.
HubSpot
- 100% FREE FOREVER PLAN
- ADVANCED FEATURES START AT $40/MO
- WIDE RANGE OF SOLUTIONS
- FREE SOFTWARE FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE
HubSpot is one of the most well-recognized CRMs in the industry.
They have a wide range of software and solution suites for managing relationships with customers.
These offerings are segmented into three main categories: sales, marketing, and service.
The HubSpot Service Hub is their exceptional solution for managing customer issues through service tickets. Building out a workflow to move customers from issue to resolution does not require any special training.
The best part: they offer free CRM solutions, including software for customer service.
Free features include ticketing, live chat, chatbots, team email, and a conversations inbox. That’s a ton for a free offering.
Oh, and you’ll also benefit from free email templates, closed ticket reports, and time-to-close reports.
HubSpot is proof that you don’t need to spend a ton of money on improving your customer service with software. After all, this won’t cost you a thing.
For those of you who want access to advanced features and benefits, here’s an overview of the paid plans:
Starter — $45 per month
- Includes two paid users
- Canned snippets
- Meeting scheduling
- Agent productivity reports
- Calling
Professional — $360 per month
- Includes five paid users
- Ticket status, routing, automation, and pipelines
- Knowledge base
- 1:1 video creation
- Custom reporting
- Surveys for NPS, experience, and support
Enterprise — $1,200 per month
- Includes ten paid users
- Playbooks and goals
- Hierarchical teams
- User roles
- Single sign-on
- Integrates with Slack
All rates are based on an annual contract. You can get the HubSpot Service Hub month-to-month for 20% more.
HubSpot also offers exceptional product bundles for all CRM categories in a single solution. So if you want to get software for service, sales, and marketing from a single provider, HubSpot is the best option for you. Bundles start at $112.50 per month. Try it for free.
Zendesk
Zendesk is almost synonymous with online customer service these days. It’s used by some of the biggest tech names out there, including Uber and Shopify, and provides a complete customer service solution for every step of the customer journey.
Zendesk includes:
- A ticketing system that allows you to manage customer tickets from a single dashboard
- A live chat application you can install on the website, enabling better customer feedback and the opportunity to connect at critical times during the customer journey
- Ability to call both from landlines and mobile, as well as text messaging capabilities
Through Zendesk, you can also create your own custom knowledge base to make it easier for customers to find the information they’re looking for and provides its own CRM. Its analytics and reporting features are robust and easy-to-use.
Tip: Integrate Facebook Messenger with your Zendesk service to automate ticket generation that can be tracked
Salesforce Service Cloud
Another insanely popular option among customer support tools, the Service Cloud is powered by AI and usable for a wide range of customer-facing tasks.
Some of its more prominent features include:
- Integrated customer data – access all of your tickets from a single space
- Detailed customer analytics – allowing you to improve customer experience based on relevant data
- Calls – your agents can make calls to a phone number from the tool itself, and access data about a specific customer before they hit the call button
- Multi-channel support – customers can contact you via several channels, be it your website, social media or your landlines
Salesforce offers an excellent all-in-one solution if what you are looking for is one tool to rule them all. This desk software can house all the information you need, meaning you never have to bother with integrations – although you can connect it with other tools, if you need to.
After a 30-day trial you can pay as little as $25 per month to use Salesforce Service Cloud.
Building the Perfect Ecommerce Website
When it comes to growing your business these days, you have to have an online presence.
Even traditional brick-and-mortar stores should have a way to answer customer questions, provide valuable business info, and give users the option to shop online.
Using one of the best ecommerce website builders, you can create a store that appeals to customers and shows off your product catalog, all with a design that’s easy to use.
For most users, we recommend Wix. However, be sure to use the criteria we talked about as you go through the process of finding the right builder for your new ecommerce store.
Conclusion
Customer support is important for online businesses, especially when you have lots of visitors and users. If a customer has a problem, it’s essential to offer them an efficient solution and give them an impressive service every time. That’s why customer support software should be your first choice when you want to improve your customer service.
If you own an e-commerce store, providing engaging, effective customer service will certainly boost your sales. That’s why so many sites are switching to customer service software to automate their customer service department.