Updated: October 04,2022
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Today, we take a look at the best customer experience management software.
We’ll go over some of the best options for your business and what makes each of them good. Programs are evaluated by their:
We’ll also go over each example’s pros and cons. You’ll be able to make an educated decision on which program is best for your particular situation.
So let’s get started.
Zendesk - Best overall
Freshdesk - Best for automated customer service
Sprout Social - Best for startups
HubSpot Service Hub - Best integration with HubSpot CRM
Salesmate - Best for sales companies
LiveAgent - Best for live chat support
PipeOne.me - Best for messaging app support
Bitrix24 - Best on-premises program
EngageBay All-in-One - Best value
Acquire - Best for video and live support
Easy to use
Secure
Highly detailed
Zendesk is a leading customer experience platform that integrates with tons of apps and social media messaging services. It runs a powerful CRM at its core and has great collaboration features for a smoother workflow. It’s a fantastic choice for medium and large-scale businesses, and it’s easy to see why it’s a market leader.
Setting up Zendesk is easy. It has a good-looking user interface that is easy to navigate. It is also super stable and secure. If you encounter issues, customer support is there to help you out, although reviews on their helpfulness are mixed.
A bunch of CX tools are available at your disposal to make customer service easier. First of all, you can integrate Zendesk directly into a particular section of your website. Say a visitor heads to the FAQ section - there, they can access your support team directly through the platform.
Zendesk is also a program for tracking old and new tickets. Everything is funneled straight into your account so you know exactly what’s going on at all times.
And, of course: metrics.
Zendesk gives you insight into useful data about your users’ experiences and your team’s effectiveness. That way, you will know exactly what steps to take to make your workflow better.
As for pricing plans? This is what Zendesk can cost you:
Zendesk is a complete customer experience suite ideal for medium and large-scale businesses. Not only does it give you tools for better efficiency, it also provides you with tangible data for monitoring.
Accessible
Free version
Detailed insights
Freshdesk has a smart ticketing system with lots of automation options at hand. It’s great for offering instant customer service, and its dashboard is compatible with both computers and mobile devices. Best of all, it has a free version you can try out. And with its fantastic support for integrations, your team will have all sorts of avenues to help your clients.
Freshdesk’s UI is fairly seamless, which helps with accessibility. However, some might have trouble when first learning the ropes of the program. As a CX software, Freshdesk has plenty of features, but resources to help out newcomers to the platform are lacking. Once you’ve gotten used to the program, however, getting around it is easy enough.
The sector where Freshdesk really shines is creating automations to optimize your customer experience.
First of all, there is the help widget. This is an embedded button you can add to your pages that quickly direct your customers to your support staff. Assist your visitors with a combination of both automated responses and direct interaction.
Freshdesk even uses algorithms to detect when customers are rage-clicking. This allows you to reach out to them before they leave.
But what sets Freshdesk apart from other customer experience platforms is the automation.
You can set rules and parameters for custom scenarios and be notified whenever they happen. Sort them by urgency and decide whether they can be resolved automatically or require intervention from a team member. There are tons of choices.
Here are the available options for pricing plans:
Freshdesk is undoubtedly unmatched when it comes to automated customer service. Although its learning curve may seem steep for some, its pros far outweigh the potential cons.
Affordable
Social analytics
Fantastic reporting
Sprout Social is an excellent choice for small or midsize businesses. It’s a program with great reporting and social listening capabilities and a modern interface to top it all off. Its insights give you the necessary information to develop your business, and its collaboration functionality makes for easy team coordination.
Sprout Social’s user interface is fairly sleek and modern, however, it has occasional issues with clunkiness. It is a relatively well-organized customer experience platform with an intuitive menu design. Sprout Social’s customer support is also reliable and fast.
Where Sprout Social really shines is in its reporting capabilities. They are detailed, easy to start with, and require little customization to get their full potential.
The program also has a social listening dashboard built-in, however, this is only exclusive to the Professional and Advanced plans. Monitor messages across multiple social media platforms, such as TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and others.
You can also use the platform to schedule social media posts wherever you have an online presence.
Sprout Social also supports integrations to third-party apps like LinkedIn and other social media. The integrations could be expanded on, however, as they are currently fairly limited.
Here are the possible pricing tiers:
When it comes to customer experience management software, Sprout Social is a great choice for mid-sized companies.
CRM integration
Easy to use
Good UI
HubSpot is a well-known name in the CRM sphere. The company’s Service Hub is a great addition to any business which wants to boost its customer experience management. It integrates natively with HubSpot’s CRM service and it has features like a ticketing service and live chat.
HubSpot Service Hub is made as easy to use as possible for existing HubSpot CRM users. Its sorting capabilities make for easy management of various customer interactions. It’s easy to integrate with the HubSpot CRM and its simple interface leaves little room for confusion.
The HubSpot Service Hub has built-in live chat, which is perfect for real-time customer experience management. Its ticketing system is also made to integrate smoothly with the CRM, making it one unified hub for customer management.
Automation features are also present, although they are somewhat lacking when compared to alternatives.
Customer insights are also detailed and give you information about retention, engagement, and efficiency.
What will HubSpot Service Hub cost you? Here are your options:
It’s a fantastic tool for those already familiar with HubSpot’s CRM service. It features a clean, easy-to-understand interface and great ticket tracking systems with built-in live chat.
Automation features
Minimalist UI
Real-time tracking
As its name suggests, this should be your go-to customer experience management platform if you’re into sales and marketing. It is accessible through any platform, computer, Android, and iOS, without any app downloading required. Salesmate offers a minimalist UI with reliable insights into your team’s performance and tools for improving customer experience.
Salesmate is cloud-based and compatible with both PCs and mobile devices. It is a great alternative for smaller businesses that won’t need the countless features some alternatives might offer. It is also fairly affordable and has an intuitive setup process and a clean, if somewhat convoluted, user interface.
Salesmate offers plenty of customer experience tools suited for sales and marketing.
The insights are one of them. Many detailed statistics and graphs show you information about your lead generation, activity, and email efficiency.
Salesmate also integrates with over 700 business apps. Among these are Slack, Gmail, Mailchimp, Zapier, and many others.
If you’re a business that relies on email marketing, you’re in luck.
Salesmate supports bulk emails, as well as many options to customize them. Its new drag-and-drop email builder lets you create your own templates exactly in the way you want them. And their smart emails feature is a great way to quickly send personalized messages to your clients.
As for pricing, here is what Salesmate has to offer:
Salesmate is affordable and accessible. It is a fantastic choice for startup businesses that deal in sales or marketing.
Offline messaging
Great live chat support
Affordable
LiveAgent is a customer experience management system specializing in real-time support and live chat. It features a ticketing system, automated ticket distribution, and a built-in CRM to optimize your workflow.
LiveAgent is based entirely in the cloud and has a neat-looking user interface. Navigating the dashboard can be tricky at times, and the amount of information displayed on the screen can be excessive. That said, LiveAgent does have online videos which act as a general overview of the software.
The main thing about LiveAgent is its live chat capabilities.
Its customer experience management tools can integrate with various channels like email, voice chat, and messaging apps. Unfortunately, some vital integrations, like WhatsApp and LinkedIn are missing.
LiveAgent also has a built-in ticketing system. This gives you a central dashboard through which you can see all your customer inquiries.
There are email templates that you can configure yourself for sending out newsletters.
Tons of features for monitoring, like how many customers are online, on what page, their chat history, and so on.
Finally, the built-in CRM means you can easily store and access information about your customers.
Here is a list of the available pricing tiers:
LiveAgent is specifically designed for real-time client experience management. It’s affordable and has a free trial, although its user interface may take some time to get used to. If you’re looking for live chat support, this should definitely be up for consideration.
Affordable
QR code support
Great interface
PipeOne.me is all about providing live chat support through messaging apps. It can integrate with various popular third-party applications like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and SMS. It also has a bunch of extras like QR code support and web chat widgets.
PipeOne.me works through your browser. The central dashboard can be accessed via computer or mobile devices, and a dedicated mobile app is currently in development. The platform’s interface is user-friendly and modern-looking. The service is also affordable and has a 30-day free trial in case you’re looking to try before you buy.
While PipeOne.me isn’t super feature-rich, its CX tools are focused and well maintained.
PipeOne.me works with WhatsApp, Telegram, web chat, Facebook Messenger, and SMS. Support for each of these modes of communication can be managed through the central dashboard.
Clients can also start conversations directly through your web pages via the live chat widget. A third option is initiating chats via QR code, which certainly makes PipeOne.me stand out from other alternatives.
All your conversations are stored in a central CRM dashboard where you can view details about your contacts and chats.
PipeOne.me starts at $25/month for 100 contacts and unlimited team members.
When it comes to mobile chat support, PipeOne.me should be on your radar. It makes for easy communication and requires little technical knowledge to set up. It is also more affordable than other alternative customer experience management solutions and offers a free trial.
On-premises version
Lots of features
Good UI
Bitrix24 is unique in the sense that it has a downloadable on-premises program, both for PCs and mobile devices (iOS and Android). It has a free plan for an unlimited number of users and supports add-ons for many third-party applications. It’s an all-in-one workspace meant to bring insight statistics, customer experience, and website building under one roof.
Bitrix24 tries to be accessible to everyone, and it gives you choices. There is an on-premises downloadable program in case cloud workspaces aren’t your thing. This goes for both PCs and mobile devices. The service is free to try with the basic plan and supports an unlimited number of users.
Bitrix24 offers tons of customer experience management services. It essentially plays the role of an all-encompassing dashboard for your business. However, this comes at the cost of an overall lack of polish and customizability.
First of all, there are the collaboration features.
This includes chat functionality between team members, video calls, a dedicated company workspace, and a calendar for scheduling.
The built-in CRM lets you keep track of your contacts and customer inquiries. It also has a dedicated analytics tab where you can check in on your team’s performance.
Finally, there is something that you won’t see in most customer service software systems - a website builder. While simplistic, the builder lets you customize your web pages, images, and build your own widgets into it.
Now, what about pricing? Here are the available choices:
Bitrix24 offers a lot of functionality. And while most of it is rudimentary, it serves a lot of purposes as a universal dashboard for your business. If you’re looking for an on-premises alternative, this is it.
First 15 users free
Automation
Live chat
EngageBay All-in-One comes with a CRM, sales bay, and marketing tools at your disposal. It’s a customer experience suite with live chat and ticket tracking, but also with custom web page building features. The best part - the service is free for the first 15 users.
EngageBay is accessible, easy to set up, and affordable for small businesses. It is a digital experience management platform where everything is in one organized dashboard. Getting the hang of the program is easy enough, and customer support is easy to reach.
The All-in-One suite combines customer experience management with lead generation and marketing tools.
It comes with live chat software with automation capabilities. Very suitable for quick customer service with personalized messages and detailed visitor profiles.
Its automation capabilities go beyond just the live chat. Marketing and emails are other benefits. Choose from a wide variety of email templates or build your own with a drag-and-drop interface. It’s an intuitive program, albeit lacking polish in a few spots.
You can even use EngageBay to create your own landing page. The customization options are far from ideal, but its designer is easy to get around and included in the free version.
As for the other pricing tiers, here is what you have:
EngageBay’s All-in-One suite is an excellent set of customer experience management services. It is affordable, feature-rich, and easy to understand, making it a great choice for startups.
Chatbot support
Cobrowse
Voice and audio chat
Acquire has fantastic tools for collaborative support. Create your own chatbot which can quickly resolve issues without the need for a support agent. Or, while assisting a customer, annotate elements directly on their screen for easier guidance.
Acquire is a rather focused program - not very feature-rich, but the few things it does, it does well. It’s a simple platform that is easy to get around and implement for your business. The chatting services it provides are responsive and of high resolution. And while its pricing is only available on request of a quote, it is still a good choice for startups.
Acquire’s customer experience systems include a live chat, first and foremost, which is fairly simple.
If you would like to automate responses, you can create your own chatbot which will handle customer requests. Video and audio chat is also an option for connecting to your team members or clients.
Finally, there is Cobrowse.
This is a unique feature that lets you see your customer’s screen and place annotations for easier support. All of this is supported natively by Acquire, no additional downloads or add-ons necessary.
Acquire is a small, but focused system of tools for providing live customer support. It is both secure and accessible. If you’re a smaller business that doesn’t need a wide array of features, Acquire is a great choice.
Choosing the right program for your business is a matter of evaluating each software’s capabilities. It’s essentially an answer to the question: how much does a program fit your needs?
Here, we are going to discuss some of the variables to consider when choosing one of the customer experience systems.
You can’t cut through steak with a spoon.
Each of the software solutions we’ve discussed so far is best for slightly different uses. That’s why you need to have the appropriate software for your purposes.
For instance - is your customer management dedicated to providing live chat support? In that case, you will need a program that is explicitly made for that use.
So save yourself the headache. Explore your options and choose the correct software for your business.
Another really crucial point to consider.
Some customer experience software can get expensive quickly. And rightfully so, as many of them offer in-depth features suited for large businesses.
But not all of them are like this.
If you’re a startup business, working with an expensive program may be out of your budget. This is why there are many affordable alternatives that provide similar functionality to their premium counterparts.
How easy a program is to learn is an important aspect of your team’s productivity.
Ideally, you want to spend as little time as possible fighting the interface and instead focus on helping customers. Having a program with a slow or clunky dashboard could obstruct your efficiency and lower your productivity.
So what do you do?
Many CXM platforms are designed to be as accessible as they can be. If you think learning the ropes might be an issue, it might be worth considering a more beginner-friendly program.
A platform’s ability to integrate with other third-party applications is crucial to productivity. And when it comes to integrations, not all programs are created equal.
Lots of software is designed with the explicit purpose to integrate with other apps.
Others are likely to focus on specific integrations with one particular subset of programs. Like how HubSpot’s CRM and Service Hub are meant to work in tandem.
Bottom line:
Your choice of customer experience program should line up with the other platforms your work relies on.
Do you do a lot of work with LinkedIn, for instance? Then make sure your customer support can integrate with it.
This is an aspect that often gets overlooked until it becomes an issue.
Don’t neglect it.
Your company and your customers’ data needs to be tightly protected from leaks and malicious attacks. Select a program that takes security seriously and uses industry-standard encryption.
You may be tempted to skip this aspect, but you will save your future self a lot of potential headaches if you consider it now while you can.
Providing a good customer experience is not just about the software you use.
A lot of it has to do with your approach. Here are some ways of managing the customer experience which may seem counterintuitive at first, but are worth looking into.
What better way to detail your customers’ journey than visually?
A customer journey map lets you plan out in detail the ways in which your clients interact with your business. It makes you have a better grasp of their needs, the paths they take, and the perceptions they might have.
Plan out your ideal future customer experience, then stick to that plan, and you’ll be in great shape.
Okay, this does have a little bit to do with software.
What sits at the heart of a good customer experience? The employees who make it happen. They drive the whole thing. But they can’t do it without the proper sets of tools.
What’s more:
Managing customer experience is all about interaction with your employees.
So give them the means to take matters into their own hands. At the core of a quick customer experience are rapid responses. You cannot do that if every action needs approval by a manager. Create a direct line of communication between the agent and the client.
What is the key to leaving a positive impression on your customers?
Making them feel respected and heard.
How do you do that? Personalization.
There are many ways you can achieve this. Customized thank you emails after purchase. Personalized survey questions. Offer custom recommendations based on geolocations, past purchases, and user preferences.
Managing the customer experience by personalization leaves clients more likely to engage and return in the future. Don’t look past it!
There is a reason why artificial intelligence is so ubiquitous in customer experience management. It saves time, manpower, and resources. It’s an investment that is undoubtedly going to make its returns in the long run.
Many of the solutions on our list have tools for automation and AI.
Don’t overlook them. Chatbots can greatly reduce the cost of customer support and automation is a key part of speeding up your workflow.
Customer support is just one part of managing customer experience.
But it is nonetheless very significant. By focusing on your customers, you are sending a message that your business values the opinions of its clients. This makes them more likely to leave with a positive impression and potentially return in the future.
Customer service is also a good way to gather feedback.
Your support agents are the first people to hear about customer experiences. Take the time to evaluate this feedback and address it.
So there you have it - a customer experience program is absolutely crucial to maintaining a successful relationship with your consumers.
In this article, we went over ten of the best solutions for your business. Each of them with a different purpose and scope. Some are good for startups, others for live chatting, and so on.
Which one you pick for your business depends entirely on the functions you’ll want to use as a company. It is important to select a program that suits your needs.
But that is only a part of the puzzle.
Developing a strong customer experience is just as much about planning as it is about the tools you use. Empower your employees with the right tools, get feedback, and use the power of customer journey maps.
Making sure your clients walk away happy is a long-term approach to success. But it’s one that pays off.
Customer experience platforms like Zendesk and HubSpot are designed for CXM. It is not just about customer support. These programs help you gather customer data and turn them into a better experience for your clients.
Automation saves a lot of time and it reduces costs that would normally go towards manual CXM. It also makes customer support much quicker and is a way of providing 24/7 service.
CXM is about creating an environment that leaves a positive impression on your clients and makes them want to return. Customer experience management software can help you maximize consumer engagement through data and create the best consumer journey possible.
Georgi Karaivanov
My fascination with technology began from quite an early age thanks to computers and video games. Nowadays, I love anything related to music production and astronomy. Coincidentally (or is it?), both of those have a great deal to do with tech. Honestly, most of the stuff that can be accomplished with modern electronics kind of seems like magic to me. This is why I feel this strong need to constantly learn more about it and talk about it, almost to the detriment of others.
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