Customer service tracking software helps organizations collect, manage, and respond to customer support requests. Customer support tools can also gather tickets from various communication channels like emails and phone calls and organize them on a single platform.
But with so many customer support tools out there, which one should you pick?
Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered.
In this article, we’ll cover the six types of customer service tracking software and highlight the top ten customer service software in the market. Then, we’ll walk you through the three benefits of customer service software and guide you on how to choose one.
This article includes:
(Click on a link to go to a particular section)
- 10 Best Customer Service Tracking Software
- 6 Types of Customer Service Tracking Software
- 3 Key Benefits of Customer Service Tracking Software
- How to Choose the Best Customer Service Software for Your Business?
Let’s dive in.
10 best customer service tracking software
You can pick from tons of customer issue tracking software — each serving different business requirements. To get the most out of the software, you need to find one that suits your business needs and budget.
Let’s look at ten excellent customer service solutions and their features and pricing plans:
1. Zendesk
Zendesk is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, founded in 2007.
The app provides SaaS customer service, sales, and other customer communication products across 160 countries and territories.
Learn about Zendesk and its features in detail.
Key features
- Assign agents different roles like advisor, staff, team leader, chat-only agent, and more.
- Communicate with customers from inside the platform with its customer database tool.
- Collects and stores customer information and interactions in a single place.
- Provides automated 24/7 customer support via help centers, chatbots, and other AI-powered features.
Pricing
Zendesk customer support software’s paid plans start from $19/agent per month.
Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.4/5 (2500+ reviews)
- G2: 4.3/5 (2500+ reviews)
2. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk is a customer support software launched in 2016 by its parent company, Zoho Corporation. It’s a one-size-fits-all solution for any business looking for efficient customer service features.
Key features
- Generates blueprints for every ticket so that your customer service team can track its status easily.
- Has a multi-channel ticketing system that collects and organizes support tickets from various platforms
- Send a ticket automatically to the right department and agent by setting up assignment rules.
- Integrates with translation apps like Google Translate to provide contextual translation for the support team.
Pricing
Zoho Desk is free for up to three agents. Paid plans start at $18/agent per month.
Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (1500+ reviews)
- G2: 4.4/5 (2500+ reviews)
3. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a popular US-based helpdesk software founded in 2010.
This customer service management software has a ticketing system designed for team collaboration and agent productivity. The tool is used widely among SMBs, enterprises, and e-commerce platforms.
Key features
- Helps identify bottlenecks in the ticketing system with time tracking functionality.
- Improves agent experience with a helpdesk gamification feature that rewards agents for resolving tickets successfully.
- Respond faster to customers by simplifying complex workflows with no-code bots.
- Find and solve urgent tickets using keywords and search filters.
Pricing
Freshdesk offers a free plan with limited features. Their paid plans start at $18/agent/month.
Customer rating
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (2000+ reviews)
- G2: 4.4/5 (2000+ reviews)
4. HubSpot Service Hub
HubSpot Service Hub is a customer service software with an advanced ticket management system.
This help desk solution also offers a live chat feature and knowledge base functionality.
Additionally, these features are synced with their CRM tool, HubSpot CRM. This means that you can align your customer support tasks with sales and marketing projects.
Key features
- Use automation features to boost the efficiency of your support agents.
- Take your customers’ most frequently asked support questions and tickets and transform them into an optimized knowledge base of help articles.
- Allows agents to create up to 300 dashboards to help them track their metrics.
- Automatically routes customer requests to the right support agent.
Pricing
Pricing plans start at $50/agent/month.
Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.4/5 (100+ reviews)
- G2: 4.4/5 (600+ reviews)
5. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a multi-channel customer support solution aiming to help businesses reduce response time and optimize ticket tracking. Established in 2006, the tool is one of the best-rated live chat widgets with automatic chat routing and a built-in CRM.
Key features
- Offers cloud-based call center software to reduce call hold time.
- Has completely customizable and scalable ticketing functionality.
- Converts all mentions, comments, and messages from social media into tickets.
- Notifies support agents when a ticket hasn’t been answered for a long time.
Pricing
LiveAgent offers a customizable free plan. Its paid plan starts at $15/agent per month.
Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (1000+ reviews)
- G2: 4.5/5 (1300+ reviews)
6. Slack
Slack is a communication tool that helps your service team resolve support tickets quickly and efficiently.
Despite being a communication platform, it can act as a customer support software by helping your service team communicate effectively around the clock.
Get to know more about Slack.
Key features
- Speeds up the support ticket resolution process by using the advanced AI-powered search feature to find answers across files, channels, and messages.
- Integrate Slack with Freshdesk or Zendesk so agents can connect with colleagues without leaving the ticketing tool.
- Provide customers personalized and live help through a dedicated Slack channel.
- Connects with external organizations using enterprise-grade security features to protect customer data.
Pricing
Slack offers plans that start at $8/agent/month.
Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (20K+ reviews)
- G2: 4.5/5 (28K+ reviews)
7. Jira Service Desk
Jira Service Desk, offered by Atlassian, is an ITSM (IT Service Management) software solution. It helps agents in startups and enterprises with omnichannel ticket resolution.
Key features
- Manage ticket escalations by creating queues and issuing mentions.
- Collect information from all support agents and store it as easy-to-access answers.
- Resolve tickets quickly by distributing equipment and other assets to customer issues.
- Offers a premium self-service portal with machine learning.
Pricing
Contact Jira Service Desk for a custom quote.
Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.4/5 (200+ reviews)
- G2: 4.2/5 (600+ reviews)
8. Salesforce Service Cloud
This CRM system lets support agents automate service processes, streamline workflows, and find answers quickly.
Salesforce Service Cloud aims to build customer relationships and improve customer satisfaction by empowering agents with the right customer service tools.
Learn more about Salesforce Time Tracking.
Key features
- Improve customer experience by integrating the app with the Salesforce Customer Success Platform.
- Record each customer interaction so that you can resolve similar issues in the future with ease.
- Call customers with a click of a button with the tool’s telephony integrations.
- Make well-informed decisions based on real-time reports.
Pricing
Salesforce Service Cloud’s paid plans begin at $25/agent/month when billed annually.
Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.4/5 (500+ reviews)
- G2: 4.1/5 (1500+ reviews)
9. Help Scout
Help Scout is a US-based help desk software founded in 2011. The organization is completely remote and offers premium customer service through its help desk software.
Key features
- Customize your knowledge base.
- Access performance reports for each customer support team member.
- Escalate customer requests easily from the knowledge base stage to live chat.
- Evaluate your support request volume based on channels, busiest time, and trending topics.
Pricing
This help desk software’s paid plans begin at $25/agent per month.
Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (100+ reviews)
- G2: 4.3/5 (200+ reviews)
10. TeamSupport
TeamSupport is a B2B customer support software that helps businesses provide great customer service by enhancing support team collaboration.
Software Advice, a service advisory and user review company, named the tool in its 2020’s top CRM software list.
Key features
- View and track every support request, ticket, or issue that has been submitted to your support department.
- Gauge the customer sentiment from their tone using AI.
- Remind support agents to follow up on pending tickets nearing their SLA (Service Level Agreement).
- Show customers exactly how to solve an issue by sending pictures, videos, or screencasts.
Pricing
TeamSupport’s paid plans start at $50/agent/month when billed annually.
Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (700+ reviews)
- G2: 4.4/5 (600+ reviews)
Now let’s see how to classify these customer service software based on the the specialized services they offer.
6 types of customer service tracking software
Let’s look at the six different types of customer service software:
1. Live chat
Live chat software helps businesses engage with customers in real time via messaging.
Using this software, customers can get in touch with you easily from your website or mobile app.
Additionally, you can use advanced technology like AI (Artificial Intelligence) powered chatbots to handle customer requests and chat with customers around the clock.
Some popular live chat software include LiveAgent, Salesforce Service Cloud, and Zendesk.
2. Phone support
With phone support software, you can quickly resolve issues that customers report via phone calls.
Other features found in phone support software are IVR (Interactive Voice Response), the ability to set business hours, call recording, smart internal routing, and call queuing.
Few prominent phone support software in the industry include Zoho Desk and Zendesk.
3. Email
Email support software manages email tickets and generates automatic emails as replies.
Additionally, the tool brings emails from different mailing platforms under one umbrella, also known as a shared inbox. This way, your agents won’t have to juggle multiple email accounts. They can read, reply, and send emails from a single account.
Few great email support software include Help Scout and Jira Service Desk.
4. Knowledge base
Knowledge base software optimizes knowledge collection, arrangement, and retrieval for agents and customers.
A good knowledge base software makes self-service easy and encourages customers to resolve issues without consulting an agent.
Some popular knowledge base software include Freshdesk and Zoho Desk.
5. Social customer service
Social customer service software automatically creates tickets for all customer complaints or queries a company gets from social media platforms like Facebook and manages them.
These tools are widely used due to the convenience and popularity of social media.
Famous social customer service software include Zoho Desk and LiveAgent.
6. Help desk
A help desk software allows customers to send questions and complaints to an organization.
It also helps agents resolve these issues like escalation, the routing of difficult tickets to managers.
Widely used help desk software include HubSpot Service Hub, Slack, and TeamSupport.
3 key benefits of customer service tracking software
Most businesses don’t have customer support software when they start.
However, it’s necessary to invest in one as your customer base expands and your business grows.
Let’s look at some benefits of customer service tracking software that make it a necessity:
1. Improves customer loyalty and satisfaction
Customer tracking software is built for improved customer service management.
They have features that enable:
- Automation of processes.
- Knowledge base integration.
- Optimization of workflows.
- Reduction of response time.
Customers who receive a quick service are usually happier and more likely to be loyal and buy your products or services again.
Learn how to improve customer satisfaction with these 20 no-nonsense tips.
2. Streamlines self-service
Customers usually search a company’s website for solutions to their issues.
And having a poorly maintained knowledge base will only confuse the customer further and lead to poor customer experience. Further, out-of-date chatbots and live chats can delay responses if they can’t access information from the knowledge base readily.
On the other hand, having to update your site’s knowledge base regularly can be incredibly time-consuming.
Fortunately, customer support software can streamline the creation, maintenance, and management of your knowledge bases for you.
3. Boosts agent experience and productivity
Since a customer service tool maintains and manages knowledge bases for you, agents can use these tools to retrieve data quickly.
On top of that, agents can access a customer’s history in seconds. This way, they can gain context around the customer’s issue and avoid asking more questions.
Additionally, customer service tools give you insight into useful performance metrics like customer satisfaction and response time. You can use this data to monitor your team’s productivity.
However, these metrics might not give you a complete picture of agent productivity.
Fortunately, Time Doctor can help you out here.
Time Doctor is an agent productivity management tool that has several features like interactive time tracking, productivity reports, and distraction alerts to keep your agents focused.
With these features, you can track how much time is spent on specific customer support tasks and make sure your agents are productive.
How to choose the best customer service software for your business?
Customer support software is designed to optimize customer support operations for different teams and businesses.
Some are developed to meet the needs of a small business, others for large enterprises. However, they all specialize in different communication channels.
For example, LiveAgent is mainly a live chat software that streamlines customer support via live chat. Whereas, Freshdesk has remote customer support, making it a decent choice for a call center with a flexible work system.
You need to consider your company’s unique needs before you choose a customer support tool.
Here are some factors that can help you decide:
- Consider the size of your support team: Larger support teams require advanced collaboration features and role-based ticketing. In contrast, small ones will need only a basic tool like live chat software.
- Determine the method of customer communication: Identify your business’ key customer support channels and buy software accordingly. For example, a social media company would rely on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms for customer service. As a result, they could opt for social customer service software.
- Learn about software features: Before you decide, you need to research a few customer service software and their features. This way, you can determine if the software has every key feature your business requires and if the price meets your budget.
Wrapping up
Customer support plays an important role in customer satisfaction and retention for all businesses. However, it can be difficult to manage as your business grows.
Fortunately, with the right customer issue tracking software, you can track, prioritize, manage, reply, and resolve ticket requests with ease.
To find the right customer support software for your business, take a look through the list of best customer tracking tools in this article and refer to the tips we covered before making a decision.
