In today’s competitive market, providing exceptional consumer care is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity. Consumers expect seamless, efficient, and personalized support across all channels. To meet these rising expectations, businesses are turning to sophisticated Consumer Care Tools. These tools empower support teams to manage inquiries effectively, streamline workflows, and ultimately, foster stronger customer relationships. Let’s explore some of the leading consumer care tools available in 2024, examining their features, pricing, and how they can elevate your consumer care strategy.
1. Zendesk
Zendesk stands out as an award-winning consumer care tool designed to enable businesses to deliver rapid and personalized support at scale. It’s a comprehensive platform that allows agents to efficiently handle consumer requests from various channels within a unified workspace. This eliminates the frustrating need to switch between different dashboards and applications, boosting agent productivity and ensuring a smoother consumer experience.
Agents gain access to crucial consumer information, such as past support interactions, providing a holistic 360-degree view of each consumer. This is further enhanced by over 1,500 readily available integrations, allowing Zendesk to seamlessly connect with other essential business systems. Collaboration is also streamlined, with built-in integrations for platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, enabling agents to easily connect with teammates and other departments directly within Zendesk.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is deeply integrated into the agent workspace, making Zendesk a truly intelligent consumer care tool. This AI assists consumer service teams in managing higher ticket volumes while maintaining excellent consumer satisfaction. It intelligently identifies and categorizes incoming tickets based on priority, intent, sentiment, and language, and even considers agent capacity and skills to ensure optimal routing. Real-time agent guidance is another key AI feature, providing ticket summaries and tools to refine the tone of responses, ensuring consistent and professional consumer communication. Leveraging data from over 18 billion real service interactions, Zendesk’s AI is pre-trained to understand consumer service dynamics from the outset.
Furthermore, Zendesk provides advanced reporting and analytics, offering valuable insights into operational efficiency and evolving consumer needs. This data-driven approach allows businesses to adapt quickly to changing consumer expectations and optimize their support processes. With enterprise-grade security features, Zendesk also ensures the safety and privacy of consumer data, building trust and confidence.
Zendesk is designed for ease of use, maximizing agent productivity and enabling businesses to keep pace with consumer demands. Its out-of-the-box functionality means rapid implementation and a quick return on investment, without the need for extensive developer support or costly third-party consultants. This makes Zendesk a powerful and cost-effective consumer care tool for businesses of all sizes.
Pricing: Plans begin at $19 per agent per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
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2. Intercom
Intercom offers a consumer care tool that leverages automation and messaging to empower internal consumer service teams. Intercom Messenger functions as a valuable extension to a business’s existing support infrastructure. Intelligent routing capabilities ensure consumer inquiries are directed to the most appropriate agents based on their expertise, availability, and consumer history.
The platform efficiently generates tickets from Messenger and other communication channels, including email, and consolidates them into a shared inbox. Intercom Messenger facilitates both live chat support and self-service options, empowering consumers to find solutions at their own pace.
Fin, Intercom’s AI-powered tool, provides conversational support by addressing frequently asked questions and proactively suggesting relevant help center articles. Additionally, Fin can summarize conversations within the inbox and automatically populate key ticket information, saving agents valuable time and effort. Intercom also boasts a marketplace featuring over 350 integrations, extending its functionality and compatibility.
Pricing: Plans start at $39 per seat per month. A 14-day free trial is offered.
Further reading: Explore the Intercom integration for Zendesk and a comparison between Zendesk vs. Intercom.
3. Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud is a robust consumer care platform providing agents with an omnichannel workspace to manage consumer support interactions. Within their workspace, agents can access comprehensive context for each ticket, including consumer contact information, past interactions, and purchase history. The Swarming feature facilitates team collaboration on complex cases by enabling the addition of agents with specific skills to a dedicated Slack channel, ensuring efficient problem-solving.
Salesforce Service Cloud allows agents to customize workflows and automate ticket routing to the appropriate support agent, enhancing efficiency and responsiveness. Furthermore, robust reporting and analytics features with pre-built dashboards enable management to monitor team performance across various channels. Reports can also include Swarming metrics, such as top responders and case resolution rates.
It’s worth noting that Salesforce, while powerful, can be complex and may require a steeper learning curve for users. Because Salesforce is a broader platform encompassing sales and marketing solutions alongside consumer experience tools, businesses primarily focused on enhancing their consumer service might find specialized consumer care software more streamlined and easier to implement for their specific goals.
Pricing: Plans start at $25 per user per month. A 30-day free trial is available.
Further reading: Learn about Salesforce integration with Zendesk and a comparison of Zendesk vs. Salesforce.
4. Front
Front is a versatile consumer care solution that empowers users to configure automated workflows and integrate multiple communication channels into a centralized shared inbox. This shared inbox is a core feature, keeping all consumer inquiries organized in one location. It automatically consolidates inquiries from various channels and intelligently routes messages to the most qualified agent.
Every consumer interaction is meticulously logged, providing agents with access to a complete consumer history for informed and personalized support. Front includes built-in collaboration tools, facilitating seamless team communication on tickets. Unified reporting provides valuable analytics on team performance and consumer satisfaction, enabling data-driven improvements.
Businesses can also create a comprehensive help center to empower consumer self-service. Knowledge base administrators have granular control over user permissions, defining who can create, edit, and publish content. The help center seamlessly integrates with the live chat system, allowing consumers to easily transition between self-service resources and direct support.
Pricing: Plans start at $19 per seat per month. A 7-day free trial is offered.
Further reading: Explore a comparison of Zendesk vs. Front.
5. Tidio
Tidio is a user-friendly consumer care platform specifically designed for small and midsize businesses. Featuring a comprehensive help desk ticketing system, Tidio enables users to effectively organize and manage consumer requests within a shared inbox. The software can convert emails, live chats, and social media messages into tickets, all routed to a central team inbox for efficient management.
Tickets are highly customizable, allowing users to add notes and create custom tags for improved organization and tracking. Tidio can automate ticket assignment to agents and automatically close tickets upon resolution, streamlining workflows. Automated satisfaction surveys can also be sent post-interaction to gather valuable consumer feedback.
Tidio’s live chat tool incorporates pre-written responses, enabling agents to quickly answer common questions and maintain consistent messaging. The chat window provides a real-time view of what consumers are typing, allowing agents to prepare responses proactively, enhancing efficiency and responsiveness. Tidio also features Lyro, a conversational AI chatbot capable of providing automated consumer support for routine inquiries.
Pricing: Plans start at $29 per month. A free plan and a 7-day trial are available.
6. Bitrix24
Bitrix24 offers a comprehensive online consumer support software solution. The platform enables teams to deliver omnichannel support and manage consumer requests from a single, centralized location. Businesses can customize the platform to queue requests by channel and configure pre-written responses and wait time rules, ensuring consistent and efficient support delivery.
Every consumer interaction across all channels is logged within the integrated CRM system. The system automatically collects consumer data and creates a new lead profile if a consumer does not already exist, enriching consumer data and providing valuable insights. Bitrix24 also offers both pre-built and customizable activity reporting features for performance monitoring and analysis.
Bitrix24’s built-in video calling functionality allows agents and consumers to connect face-to-face for more personal and effective issue resolution. Screen sharing and recording capabilities enable agents to visually demonstrate solutions, guide consumers through steps, and capture sessions for future reference or training purposes. Videoconferencing is also available for broader team collaboration, supporting group discussions with up to 48 participants.
Pricing: Plans start at $49 per organization per month. A free plan and a 15-day free trial are available.
7. HappyFox
HappyFox is a dedicated consumer care solution and help desk management software provider. It features a robust ticketing system to help teams organize requests and offers a unified consumer view for seamless omnichannel support. With automation, customizable workflows, and AI-powered chatbots, HappyFox helps automate routine tasks, freeing up agents to focus on more complex issues.
Managers can leverage HappyFox to effectively coordinate work schedules. They can define team work hours and configure schedules to align with service level agreements (SLAs), ensuring consistent service delivery. The scheduling feature also accounts for non-working hours when calculating time-based conditions, improving SLA accuracy.
HappyFox also provides self-service options, including an online knowledge base, empowering consumers to find answers independently and reducing support ticket volume. Consumers can track support tickets, participate in community forums, and access help center articles and FAQs, all within a centralized self-service portal, enhancing consumer autonomy and satisfaction.
Pricing: Plans start at $29 per agent per month. A free trial is available.
Further reading: Learn about HappyFox Workflows integration with Zendesk.
8. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk offers a feature-rich consumer care software solution with tools and automation options designed to streamline agent workflows. Zoho Desk provides omnichannel support with a single-view dashboard, enabling agents to efficiently manage consumer issues in one centralized workspace. The ticket management system allows for ticket organization based on status, due date, and priority, improving workflow efficiency.
Additional Zoho Desk features include self-service resources, SLAs, AI-powered assistance, an advanced response editor, and integrated analytics. The platform enables tracking of consumer data and generation of reports with key performance metrics, providing actionable insights. Users can also create custom dashboards to visualize and monitor specific ticket metrics, tailoring the platform to their specific needs.
Zoho Desk features Zia, an AI-powered assistant, which can detect consumer sentiment based on their language and intelligently route tickets to agents with relevant context and expertise. Zia can also automatically tag tickets and notify agents of unusual activity within the ticket workflow, enhancing proactive support and issue resolution.
Pricing: Plans start at $7 per user per month. A free plan and a 15-day free trial are available.
Further reading: Explore Zoho integration with Zendesk and a comparison of Zendesk vs. Zoho.
9. ServiceNow
ServiceNow is a cloud-based consumer care tool designed for enterprise-level organizations. It provides a consumer self-service portal that empowers users to create service requests or access help center articles without direct agent interaction. Consumers can also engage in community forums to ask questions and share experiences, fostering peer-to-peer support and community building.
Businesses can leverage ServiceNow to automate workflows, assisting agents with repetitive tasks and improving overall efficiency. Users can design processes to identify, log, resolve, and close incidents, eliminating redundant data entry and streamlining workflows. Teams can also create cross-enterprise workflows, providing comprehensive end-to-end visibility and process management.
ServiceNow also offers consumer service management (CSM) tools enhanced with generative AI technology. The Now Assist tool provides AI-powered response suggestions, empowering agents to respond more quickly and effectively. ServiceNow’s AI also offers proactive suggestions to guide agents towards efficient ticket resolution, improving first-call resolution rates and overall efficiency.
Pricing: Contact ServiceNow for pricing details.
Further reading: See a comparison of Zendesk vs. ServiceNow.
10. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a consumer care tool that prioritizes live chat functionality. Key features include real-time typing view, consumer service website monitoring for proactive chat engagement, and proactive chat invitations based on agent availability and status. LiveAgent’s universal inbox consolidates help requests and routes them to the most appropriate agents based on predefined criteria.
Beyond its robust chat tool, LiveAgent’s help desk incorporates built-in call center software with both inbound and outbound call capabilities, a comprehensive ticketing system, a knowledge base, and detailed reporting and analytics tools. Businesses can record calls, establish interactive voice response (IVR) flows, and monitor agent activity in real-time. Consumers can request callbacks, eliminating the need to wait on hold and preserving their place in the queue for improved consumer experience.
Users can customize LiveAgent’s workflow automation tools using the Rules feature. Rules can automate ticket routing, tagging, and resolution processes, streamlining workflows and improving efficiency. LiveAgent is also highly customizable with a library of integrations to connect with various third-party tools, extending its functionality and compatibility with existing business systems.
Pricing: Plans start at $9 per agent per month. A free plan and free trials of 7 or 30 days are available.
11. Freshdesk
Freshdesk, a consumer care product from Freshworks, offers a platform designed to empower support teams to effectively manage, prioritize, and respond to consumer requests from a single, unified location. Its ticketing system consolidates requests from across various channels into a central team inbox for streamlined management. Trend reports provide valuable insights into ticket activity, enabling data-driven improvements.
Users can configure ticket fields to automate routing, categorization, and prioritization of incoming requests, ensuring efficient workflow management. Custom ticket statuses can be created to provide agents with clear visibility into the current stage of each ticket. The system can also intelligently detect when a consumer ends a conversation with a “Thank you” message, preventing accidental ticket reopening and ensuring accurate ticket status.
However, it’s important to note that the Freshworks platform comprises three distinct systems: Freshdesk, Freshchat, and Freshcaller. Each system operates within its own workspace, potentially requiring agents to navigate between multiple tabs to access complete consumer information. This separation could potentially slow down consumer service and increase the risk of agents missing crucial information.
Pricing: Plans start at $15 per agent per month. A free plan and a 14-day free trial are available.
Further reading: Explore a comparison of Zendesk vs. Freshdesk.
12. Hiver
Hiver is a multichannel consumer care help desk specifically designed to integrate seamlessly with Google Workspace. Rather than requiring a completely new platform adoption, Hiver adds essential consumer service features to a company’s existing Google applications, including shared inboxes, analytics, and SLAs. Businesses seeking to leverage their existing Google infrastructure for consumer communications can benefit from Hiver’s streamlined integration.
Hiver’s shared inbox offers customizable views, allowing users to select conversation categories and filters to personalize their email view and prioritize relevant inquiries. Conversation ID enables users to track email threads by assigning a unique number, facilitating easy retrieval and reference on demand. Notes and @mentions (tagging) features facilitate internal team collaboration without the need for email forwarding or copying, streamlining communication within email threads.
Additionally, businesses can build a knowledge base to house FAQs, instructions, and troubleshooting guides, empowering consumer self-service and reducing support ticket volume. Consumers can easily navigate through articles using an embedded search bar. If consumers are unable to find the information they need, they can conveniently submit a support ticket directly from within the knowledge base.
Pricing: Plans start at $15 per user per month. A 7-day free trial is available.
13. ProProfs Help Desk
ProProfs offers a comprehensive help desk solution for consumer support. The software empowers teams to effectively manage, track, and resolve tickets, ensuring efficient issue resolution. It includes a shared inbox for seamless team collaboration, allowing agents to view all conversations in one centralized location. Agents can prioritize tickets, automate routine tasks, and tag teammates into conversations for collaborative problem-solving.
Agents can easily access a consumer’s complete ticket history and export conversations as PDF documents for record-keeping or further analysis. Private notes facilitate internal team communication and collaboration through side conversations, enhancing internal efficiency. Collision detection helps prevent multiple agents from unknowingly working on the same ticket simultaneously, improving resource allocation and efficiency.
ProProfs also offers additional features, including a knowledge base for consumer self-service, providing consumers with access to articles and FAQs for independent problem-solving. Its integrated live chat software enables real-time support via a web widget, providing immediate assistance when needed. ProProfs also includes surveys to help teams collect valuable feedback and track consumer satisfaction (CSAT), enabling data-driven improvements.
Pricing: Plans start at $19.99 per operator per month. A free plan and a 15-day free trial are available.
Further reading: Learn about ProProfs integration with Zendesk.
14. Help Scout
Help Scout’s consumer care software consolidates consumer data, interactions, and history into a shared inbox, providing agents with comprehensive context for every request. Its shared inbox includes features like private notes for internal collaboration and collision detection to prevent agent overlap on the same issue.
Help Scout’s AI tools include AI Summarize and AI Assist. AI Summarize efficiently condenses lengthy email threads into concise bullet points for quick comprehension, while AI Assist provides suggested text while agents are composing replies, improving response speed and consistency. AI Assist can also refine content, adjust tone, and translate text into different languages, enhancing communication effectiveness and personalization.
Businesses can easily administer short-form surveys and collect consumer satisfaction ratings directly on their website or within their app, gathering valuable feedback at key touchpoints. Help Scout also maintains an apps and integrations directory, offering over 100 integrations for support, marketing, e-commerce, communication, CRM, and analytics, extending platform functionality and compatibility.
Pricing: Plans start at $20 per user per month. A 15-day free trial is available.
Further reading: See a comparison of Zendesk vs. Help Scout.
15. HubSpot Service Hub
HubSpot Service Hub offers a shared inbox that provides agents with immediate access to consumer history, ticket information, and queue details, ensuring agents have the necessary context for efficient support delivery. HubSpot Service Hub seamlessly connects with HubSpot’s CRM, synchronizing data across its suite of tools and providing a unified consumer view across the HubSpot ecosystem. Agents can also utilize a mobile inbox, enabling them to stay responsive and active while on the go.
With HubSpot Service Hub, businesses can create custom consumer portals and feedback surveys, enhancing consumer engagement and feedback collection. The consumer portal empowers consumers to view, open, and respond to their support tickets independently, increasing self-service capabilities. Consumers can also access the company knowledge base directly from the portal, further promoting self-sufficiency.
Users can automate follow-up responses based on survey results to gather deeper insights on specific topics and address consumer feedback proactively. Key performance metrics, such as agent productivity, response time, and support volume, are readily available through the reporting and analytics dashboard. Each dashboard can accommodate up to 30 reports, providing comprehensive performance monitoring and analysis capabilities.
Pricing: Plans start at $18 per month for two users. A free plan is also available.
Further reading: Learn about HubSpot for Zendesk and a comparison of Zendesk vs. HubSpot.
16. Kustomer
Kustomer is a dedicated consumer care platform designed to help support teams effectively manage consumer interactions and build lasting relationships. It consolidates consumer data from diverse sources into a unified timeline view, providing agents with a chronological thread of consumer history, preferences, and interactions. Agents can readily access pre-written replies, suggested actions, and ticket tagging options, streamlining workflows and ensuring consistent responses.
Kustomer incorporates AI tools that utilize natural language processing to intelligently detect consumer intent. It can analyze conversations and track consumer sentiment, enabling businesses to proactively identify both satisfied and dissatisfied consumers and tailor their approach accordingly. Support teams can also leverage Kustomer’s AI to classify and route conversations based on consumer historical data, ensuring efficient and personalized routing.
The platform includes live reporting and analytics dashboards that display real-time consumer service metrics, providing up-to-the-minute insights into performance and trends. Kustomer can retain data for reporting purposes for up to two years, enabling long-term trend analysis. Users can perform one-time data exports or establish regularly scheduled report exports for consistent data access and analysis.
Pricing: Plans start at $89 per user per month.
Further reading: See a comparison of Zendesk vs. Kustomer.
17. Gorgias
Gorgias is a specialized consumer care software solution offering a help desk with a shared inbox system, designed for support teams to collaboratively manage consumer queries, particularly for e-commerce businesses. Gorgias integrates seamlessly with e-commerce platforms like Shopify, providing agents with direct access to crucial consumer details, such as consumer data, order information, and order history, all within the support interface.
The software offers robust automation features, including AI-powered responses, pre-written responses for frequently asked questions, and customizable templates to efficiently handle repetitive inquiries, freeing up agent time for more complex issues. AI can intelligently scan incoming tickets to identify their intent, automatically closing spam messages and efficiently answering legitimate requests, such as order status inquiries.
Gorgias also features a highly customizable interface, allowing businesses to build tailored workflows that automatically assign, tag, and close tickets based on predefined rules. Pre-written responses enable agents to provide standardized answers to common questions, ensuring consistent messaging and efficient handling of routine inquiries. The system can also accommodate rules to identify VIP consumers, enabling prioritization of their requests and ensuring premium service for high-value consumers.
Pricing: Plans start at $10 per month. A free trial is available.
Further reading: See a comparison of Zendesk vs. Gorgias.
