The Best Customer Service Software for 2022

Understanding exactly what is available out there and what is best placed to serve your business needs is no easy task though.

To help you, we’ve put together this handy guide, taking you from the basics of what customer service software is and its benefits, all the way through to what’s best in class on the market.

What is customer service software

Customer service software refers to a set of tools and platforms that businesses use as a way to manage, track, streamline, and therefore improve their customer service efforts.

This software could function solely within a single channel, or across a whole range of channels encompassing everything from email and live chat to self-service solutions such as a knowledge base or chatbots. 

Why you need customer service software

Customer service software helps you meet customer expectations and build a happy, loyal customer base. 

These days, if a customer isn’t satisfied with the service they receive, they can easily find what they want elsewhere — competition is more fierce than ever. Not only that, but fail to provide the level of service customers have come to expect and they won’t just walk away, they may even voice their dissatisfaction through review sites or social media, potentially damaging your reputation. 

Customer service software also makes the ever-increasing array of channels available to customers more manageable. Without these tools at their disposal, businesses would quickly get lost in a quagmire of unanswered queries and frustrated customers. 

What are some of the benefits of customer service software

There are many benefits to using customer service software for your business. Some of the most important are:

• Measure and report on customer service performance. You can’t improve what you don’t measure as the saying goes. Built-in reporting features give you access to the kinds of metrics and insight that can help you see what areas need addressing and enhance the customer experience. 
• Gather feedback. It’s important for customers to feel that they have a voice. Setting out opportunities for them to feed back to you, such as by taking surveys after live chat interactions shows you care while helping you better understand their needs so you can tailor your service to meet them.  
• Help customers help themselves. Many customers actually want to solve issues themselves. Self-service features, such as a knowledge base, mean that customers can take control, easily getting the information they need as and when they need it.
• Improve collaboration and consistency. Companies often have a wide range of customer-facing employees. Customer service software provides a way to keep track of customer queries and coordinate replies across multiple teams, as well as setting up workflows and templates that standardize processes to ensure that customer experience stays the same no matter who they are dealing with.
• Quicker and more effective customer support. Customer support software is a boon for customers and companies alike. Features such as templated responses to emails and shortcuts on messaging services help agents do their job more efficiently, freeing up more time to use their customer service skills to help others in need. And, thanks to features like automation and routing, customers will always get the most appropriate help from the get-go.
• Scale up effectively. All successful businesses grow. But if the customer service structure can’t grow with it then that causes problems down the line. With customer service software, you can keep a handle on those increasing customer numbers while still providing top-quality service. Not only that, but you can add in further functionality by integrating other third-party customer service tools when required.   
• Create a centralized customer data repository. Nothing is more frustrating to a customer than having to waste time repeating themselves or being put on hold while support agents dig around trying to find the relevant information. With a single data source at their fingertips, agents have all the context they need to provide a continuous customer service experience to each and every customer. 

The types of customer service software

There are a number of different types of customer service software available to choose from. The most common of those are as follows. 

Help desk software

A help desk solution provides a way to organize, manage, and respond to service-related customer requests by distributing them among team members. It also gives customer service agents total control on how they follow-up long-term cases. The idea is to centralize all customer service streams to create a better customer experience, while making agents’ lives easier, too. 

The helpdesk software itself can include a variety of other tools such as a knowledge base or live chat. However, that is not necessarily always the case and depends on the exact piece of software in question. Others may need this kind of functionality added in through integrations.

Phone support

It may seem old school, but a call center can still be an incredibly important aspect of customer service. There’s a human element that’s difficult to replicate through other communication channels.

Contact center software helps smoothen the customer experience by ensuring customers are routed to the correct agents in the correct departments whilst automating certain elements of the process to improve efficiency.

Shared inbox

A shared inbox can be a powerful tool, enabling smooth routing and collaboration across an organization. That may be just email based or could even include receiving and responding to customer emails in the same dashboard as live chat, social media, SMS, and more. With all communication in one place, teams can manage customer communication far more easily ensuring no message falls through the cracks

Knowledge base

A knowledge base is a navigable library of information that users can draw on. It allows businesses to collect, store, and share knowledge about a particular product or service which customers can then use to solve issues and improve their understanding.

The articles contained within a knowledge base range from FAQs, to troubleshooting guides, user manuals, and any other information customers may find useful. While the content is usually predominantly text, it can also involve graphs, videos, and diagrams.

Live chat

Live chat software enables real-time, online communication via written messages on a webpage or in an app, often launched out of an icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, 

It’s an effective way to deliver rapid support, as customers reach out to agents from a business’ website with ease and get immediate answers. Unlike on phone calls, agents are able to hold multiple chats simultaneously, meaning they can do their job more efficiently. There is also the option to direct customers to further resources, such as knowledge base articles, through the chat widget. 

Cobrowsing

Cobrowsing, sometimes referred to as collaborative browsing, is a technology that allows agents and customers to collaborate even more effectively by using software to interact with the same webpage together at the same time. 

Instead of a confusing back and forth over the phone or on live chat, agents are able to see exactly where it is that customers are getting stuck and so better understand the problems they are facing. Customer issues can be solved much faster, as customers simply follow the agents' lead by watching their visual cues on screen. 

Social monitoring software

Social media is fast-becoming a hotbed of customer support that companies simply cannot afford to ignore. Social monitoring software helps businesses build a deeper understanding of the kinds of issues customers are talking about by tracking relevant hashtags, keywords, and mentions. This way, it helps companies stay informed about their audience and industry and be proactive in addressing customer concerns. 

Chatbots

Chatbots communicate with humans using text, or even voice (think Alexa and Siri). They’re often found popping up at the bottom of webpages to ask customers if they need any help. They can also be found on messaging platforms such as Facbook Messenger or on native apps. Customers can pose questions like “What time does the New York store open?” to receive information, or make a selection from predetermined options to get the help they need. 

Chatbots work using scripts stored in the backend. Once a user selects an option or asks a question, the chatbot will check for the programmed response and use that to move the conversation on.

Latest trends in customer service support software

Customer service is always evolving. Here are some of the top software for customer service trends to keep in mind to help you stay on the forefront. 

Omnichannel support

An omnichannel approach is quickly becoming a must for any modern business. It allows companies to interact with customers across multiple different channels while treating each interaction as part of a single, frictionless whole. That’s great for customers, they never have to repeat themselves.

Omnichannel means companies can interact with modern consumers in a contextually relevant way at every point in their journey, regardless of the channel they access from. This improves customer interactions and creates a more engaging experience. Doing it relies on using customer service software that brings all data together into one centralized system. 

Real-time remote troubleshooting

Emails and ticketing systems have been the mainstay of customer service troubleshooting for a while. But we now live in an always-on fast-paced world and customers are no longer willing to spend time waiting around for answers. They want them straight away and without the need for an endless back and forth.

This has seen more and more companies move towards remote, real-time troubleshooting solutions, allowing them to be there the moment their customers need them and resolve the issues on the spot. Some real-time support channels are already better established, such as live chat or phone support. Others, such as cobrowsing, are very much on the up.

AI chatbots

Chatbots have been on the rise for a while and that shows no sign of abating. An ever-increasing number of businesses are looking to bots to automate routine questions, help with generating leads, and triage customer inquiries.

Now, advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning are set to make chatbots more powerful than ever before, improving their understanding of users, and allowing them to create more human-like conversations.

Personalization

Personalization is nothing new, but it’s gone to a whole new level in recent years. Customers have come to expect to be treated like a unique individual, not just a number. 

This kind of personalized service is all about knowing each customer and their individual interaction history when they contact support. It’s never been more important to eliminate data silos and centralize support processes.

Video

Video exploded in popularity during the pandemic. It has the power to enhance customer service experiences in a totally different way to other channels, bringing agents and customers face-to-face no matter the physical distance.

Companies have seized the opportunity to use video as a way of bridging the gap between the online and offline worlds in customer experience, for example by using it for virtual showroom tours, providing in-person advice, or assessing products for damages and repairs.

How to choose a solution that’s right for you

It’s all-too-easy to head out into the marketplace and get lost in all the exciting features that are out there. Before you know it, you’re left with an expensive white elephant. And that’s no good for anyone.  

To make sure that doesn’t happen, follow these steps:

1. Understand your own needs and lay out clear goals. Ask your customer service team and support team what they need to do their job most effectively. If they’ve used similar software in the past, ask them what they liked and disliked about it. It’s important to be crystal clear in what you want to achieve with the software, too, e.g. improve customer satisfaction rating by X. That way, it’s far easier to judge whether it’s been a success or not.
2. Make sure the software is user friendly. Customer service software should be there to make your employee’s lives easier. That means any solution you choose has to be easy to use, easy to set up, and easy to scale. Look for intuitive navigation, a clear and informative onboarding process, and the ability to integrate third party ad-ons where appropriate. It’s also important that users are able to access remotely.
3. Check that it aids with collaboration. Any customer service software worth its salt should help rather than hinder collaboration. Agents shouldn’t have to switch into other software like Slack to make sure they are on the same page. The aim is to be able to avoid switching screens and losing context wherever possible. 
4. Assess reporting and analytic capabilities. Improving your customer service is dependent on knowing how your efforts are performing and it’s also necessary to understand how that performance changes over time. So, a robust reporting package that includes all relevant metrics is a must. It’s a good idea to have functionality that can gather customer feedback about your service as well as insight into key metrics like response times.
5. Find reviews. There’s no better source of information than users already experienced in the software you’re interested in acquiring. Review sites are good places to start and will be packed with useful information. To take this to the next level, though, get in touch with power users. This provides an opportunity to ask questions specific to your use case rather than relying on the information that’s already out there. 
6. Test the software. It always pays to test something before committing to rolling it out. Full-featured free trials give you the option to get to grips with a software and see it in action before entering a long-term agreement. Run a test that most closely represents how you would want to use it moving forward for maximum relevance and make sure to pre-plan carefully.
7. Review your test. Once you’ve done the test, sit down with all relevant parties to review what has worked and what hasn’t. That will involve gathering feedback from those that have used it as well as looking at how the software has impacted the metrics you’re interested in. 

The 10 best customer service software

To help you in your quest for the best customer service software, we’ve put together ten of the top customer service software solutions available out there that you may want to look into. 

As there is no one-size-fits-all approach to customer service, and your particular needs may vary greatly from the next, we’ve put together a selection of different tools covering a number of different scopes, ranging from single channel solutions all the way up to some all-encompassing help-desks.

Conclusion

There’s no shortage of software for customer service out there. That’s indicative of the fact that modern businesses have come to rely on these types of tools to help them deliver top quality customer experience and create a customer success culture. And because of that, they should be part of your arsenal, too. Just remember to stick with what suits your individual business and goals and you’ll be putting a smile on your customers’ faces in no time.