The 14 Best Customer Service Tools [2022 Ready]

Good customer service costs less than bad customer service.

Businesses lose $2378 each second due to poor customer service. Be smarter! Invest in good customer service tools and save on the loss of customers.

The problem is, that nowadays, customers are demanding like never before. They want faster and better.

At the same time, most of the customers won’t think twice before leaving you. Statistics show that 51% of customers will never do business with the company again after one negative experience.

These new expectations lead to new challenges. To be able to resist them, you need to stock up on helpful tools.

With that in mind, we created a list of the best customer service tools, that will help you to overcome these challenges and obstacles and make you and your customers happy.

Table of contents:

1. Why Do We Need Customer Service Tools?
2. Phone Software
3. Ticket/E-mail Software
4. Chat Software
5. Knowledge Base
6. Social Media Support
7. Video Conferencing
8. Meeting Schedule
9. Online Community
10. Customer Feedback
11. Video Recording Tool
12. Incident Communication
13. Project Management/Bug Reporting
14. Personalized Videos
15. Newsletter Tool
16. What Customer Service Tools To Start With?

But first, let’s take a look at the reasons why customer service is so important and why do customers switch brands.

Why Do We Need Customer Service Tools?

No matter how funny it sounds, customer service reps are the gatekeepers of your brand. They fight until the end to fix customer issues and do their best to rectify the situation and make the customer happy again.

They are the bridge between the user and the product or service, they serve as a library for all company-related questions and translate customer experiences to the product team.

No company can survive without customers. That means customer service teams are literally responsible for the further fate of the business itself.

The goal of any business is development and growth. But as the customer base grows, the number of problem reports also grows.

Along with the increasing number of problem reports, it is becoming easier to forget/lose something. Moreover, wait times are getting longer what annoys customers.

For that reason, you need to arm yourself with helpful customer service tools that will support you in continuing growth.

And in case if your company credo is:

“We don’t hold anyone. Wanna walk away, there is the door. I will even hold it for you”,

you need to know, that it is 6-7 times more costly to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing one.

Moreover, 95% of customers share bad experiences. While a single negative review can cost the average business an average loss of 30 customers.

So support your agents with the best customer service tools and avoid these problems.

Customer Service Tools

Phone Software

Statistics say that the majority of customers would call instead of reach out online because they’re looking to get a quick answer (59%) or talk to a real person (57%).

Offer your audience a seamless solution to contact you and get their issues resolved in a snap.

Moreover, phone software has helpful features that can improve customer experience, such as IVR.

It’s important because of the accuracy – one of the principles of good customer service.
Implementing software such as IVR will help your reps serve customers more accurately.

Such a system saves time and resources by sorting the callers and connecting them to the right customer service rep instantly. This way, they get connected to the reps that – for sure – will help them resolve their issue.

And as 30 % of customers are switching brands because they have been passed around to multiple agents, you will avoid losses.

That’s why I see phone software as one of the most important customer service tools.

Example: Channels – $24/month

Channels is a phone system that helps businesses offer better customer support. Inbound Calls, IVR, toll-free numbers, international numbers from 75+countries, call recordings and monitoring, reports, lead generation and other features that will give your customer support a boost.

Ticket/E-mail Software

Don’t forget the importance of email in Customer Service. Email is still a critical customer service channel, generally ranking second (to telephone) in customer preference studies.

Another reason to use emails is transparency – one more customer service principle. Your goal is to make the process of solving customers’ issues solved as clear as possible.

Instead of just accepting a ticket from your customer you can send a series of emails describing how deep you’re in the process of getting an issue solved.

Example: HelpDesk – $19/month

HelpDesk is an email helpdesk software that centralizes all incoming emails into one common system. It lets you organize emails into tickets, share constant updates with your customers about the status of their issues, measure and improve processes such as response time or staff time spent on tickets.

Chat Software

One more way of communication with customers is live chat.

Statistics say that 38% of consumers are more likely to buy from a company if they offer live chat support. And 51% of consumers are more likely to stay with or buy again from a company if they offer live chat support.

It’s clear that live chat can have a significant impact on user experience.

At the same time, a poorly designed and clunky chat screen is worse than no live chat at all. So if you decide to add this feature to your site, make sure to choose the right one for your business.

Example: LiveChat – $16/month

LiveChat is a help desk software that gives you the possibility to support your customers instantly with live chat or chatbot.

Knowledge Base

Lately, people have become very comfortable with technologies.

Nowadays, many of us prefer getting the information on our own without the need of contacting anyone.

Don’t believe it? Remember the last time you googled your symptoms before visiting a doctor.

Knowledge Base Software will help you to organize self-serve customer service by creating your own knowledge base, so your customers can find answers on their own.

Example: ProProfs Knowledge Base – $30/month

ProProfs Knowledge Base is an easy-to-use tool that can be used to create a public and private knowledge base, documentation, manuals, guides, and more. While the tool helps customers solve problems on their own with a self-service knowledge base, it can also be used internally for knowledge sharing and team collaboration.

Social Media Support

One of the principles of good customer service is accessibility. The best way for your company to achieve that is to go omnichannel. And as we live in the era of the Internet, that’s just silly not to use it.

Because the Internet is a wide-spread area made of many independent platforms, you may need help with managing all your accounts.

Example: Hootsuite – $29/month

Hootsuite is a platform where you can manage all your social media in one place. It lets you find and resolve social support messages quickly and efficiently.

Video Conferencing

Face-to-face interactions are very powerful when it comes to your business.

Moreover, there are some solutions that are impossible to explain in words.

While video meeting you can see the screen of your client, virtually walk him through trouble-shooting steps, or even just take over and fix the problem entirely while him watching. Thus, video conferencing will come in handy for both customer service tasks and even lead generation efforts.

Example: LiveWebinar – free.

LiveWebinar is a meeting solution that offers online meetings, training, technical support, video webinars, and conference rooms.

Meeting Schedule

As we care about speed and efficiency, we need to manage our time properly.

Meeting schedule software will relieve chaos and let you focus on your customers’ immediate needs while eliminating the chance of unwanted repeat bookings.

Customer waiting time will be minimized and time-to-resolution will be reduced, ultimately improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Example: OnceHub – $10/month

OnceHub is a scheduling solution that helps you to reduce time-to-resolution, maintain customer loyalty, and increase customer satisfaction.

Online Community

As we all know, communication is the key. And fortunately or not, people like to communicate and to share.

There are plenty of forums where people talk about names for their cats or eating chalk, so why not create a place where they can talk about you and your product?

With online community software, you can create your own community and moderate it.

Example: Vanilla – $689/month

Vanilla is a cloud-based customer community software, that can deflect support tickets, encourage self-service, reduce churn and get feedback.

Customer Feedback

Why feedback is important for your business?

Simply because it helps to improve products and services, measure customer satisfaction, improve customer experiences and retention.

It’s also a reliable source of information for other customers. It helps you to take business decisions and create a better image, by showing that you value your clients’ opinions.

Example: Nicereply – $39/month

Nicereply offers you real-time customer feedback, survey distribution, and analytics.

Video Recording Tool

While you support hundreds or thousands of customers, you need to be as efficient as possible, that means fast, helpful and at the same time personal.

Let’s not fool ourselves, email or live chat are not always a suitable option. It’s less personal and in some cases, your team misses some information needed to properly support the customer base.

A video recording tool is another solution for solving customer problems.

It may help to raise customer satisfaction and positively impact the way your team works.

When your team needs to explain a more complex topic to a customer, just send a quick video instead. Walking the customer through the information in a visual way is more effective than writing a long essay on the subject – and the customer will appreciate being saved from a long read. You can upload multiple customer service videos, which will help potential buyers understand your offer.

Examples:

Loom – free

Loom is a work communication tool, that helps you to get your messages across through video.

Movavi – free/paid

When you want to go beyond quick and basic videos for your customers, Movavi lets you get creative with special effects, templates, and ready-made intros. A tool is a great option for detailed product demos and engaging guides for an improved customer experience.

Incident Communication

Have you ever faced a situation, when you wanted to use a site and it wasn’t working?

I remember I was in the line at the checkout but wasn’t sure if I have enough money for my purchases. So I wanted to check it in my online banking, but it wasn’t working.

Such situations are a customer service disaster. By proactively notifying users of downtime, you can turn a bad situation into a memorable customer experience.

Incident communication software is a great solution to inform your users about incidents or future scheduled maintenance.

Example: StatusPage – $29/month

StatusPage is the community piece of your incident management process, that easily communicates real-time status to your users.

Project Management/Bug Reporting

Speed and accuracy are the main qualities your customers will be looking for.

Yet, oftentimes speed and accuracy don’t go well together. That’s why project management software is here to help.

Plan, track and organize the work of a support team. Use boards to make sure not a single problem has remained unresolved and to turn the customer experiences up to 11.

Example: Trello – free

Trello is a project management tool, that enables you to organize and prioritize your projects, work more collaboratively and get more done.

Personalized Videos

The statistics are clear – Zendesk’s 2020 Customer Experience Trends Report proves that 76% of customers are open to personal service. 

The reason for that is simple – this kind of service increases the chances to meet your customer’s expectations. Otherwise, he or she might feel misunderstood, leave your store, and never come back.

One efficient way to provide such a service is a personalized video. What is even more encouraging, it can be made with a rather low budget.

The best tool to achieve that is a great video hosting platform. You just engage your customer success team to work on doing research, creating, and publishing customized videos.

Example: Cincopa – $9/month 

A video hosting platform, Cincopa offers features, such as RecTrace that enable you to easily create personalized videos and send them out to customers. You can create a number of Cincopa accounts per customer and effortlessly switch between them when needed. As a result, you provide your customers with a much-needed individual approach.

Newsletter Tool

An email newsletter is a perfect way to connect with your customers.

Sending an email newsletter with updates, various policy changes, or just a “just stopping by” email with a beautiful story or content generated by your employees shows just how much you care.

Ask for a review, and you will be able to distinguish any problems that need to be passed down to your customer service team before they become impossible to solve.

Generally speaking, when thinking of a newsletter, we’re thinking about beautiful, customizable templates, mobile responsiveness, segmented marketing messages, and triggered actions.

Example: Moosend, $8/month

Moosend is a newsletter tool that can give all of the above and more, allowing you to deliver tailor-made marketing messages and connect with your customers.

What Customer Service Tools To Start With?

Well-organized customer service can be the main power of your business. Based on Customer Service principles and with the help of the right tools it can work for you as a sales, marketing, and PR machine.

Not all applications are needed at the beginning, but it is worth to implement them as soon as possible if the need arises, it will save time and money.

Start small and keep adding new tools according to the needs your business requires. As long as you keep your customers first while choosing new tools, you will always make the right choice.