“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” – Jeff Bezos, CEO and Founder, Amazon.
This quote perfectly encapsulates the evolving landscape of business-customer relationships. While price remains a significant factor, exceptional customer service has emerged as a crucial differentiator for businesses today. In fact, customer service is now considered a key pillar for sustained growth and customer loyalty.
Consider this: a Hiver survey revealed that a staggering 72% of customers will switch brands after just a single negative experience. Furthermore, over half (52%) of customers expect their issues to be resolved within 24 hours. These statistics underscore a clear message: modern customers demand seamless, efficient, and memorable experiences.
To meet and exceed these heightened expectations, businesses must strategically invest in the right technology. This means equipping customer-facing teams with tools that not only enhance efficiency but also empower them to work smarter, ultimately leading to world-class customer experiences.
To guide you in this crucial endeavor, we’ve compiled a list of 10 essential customer service tools. This list will explore what these tools are, why they are indispensable, and how they can significantly benefit your business in delivering exceptional customer care.
What is a Customer Support Tool?
At its core, a customer support tool is any technology designed to help support teams manage, organize, and efficiently respond to customer inquiries, complaints, and requests. These tools become increasingly vital as businesses grow. As your customer base expands, so does the volume of queries your support team handles. Without the right systems in place, managing this influx can become overwhelming and detrimental to customer satisfaction.
Customer support tools are not just about easing the burden on your support staff; they also streamline the process for customers to reach out for assistance. By implementing the right tools, you create a more accessible and responsive support system, fostering stronger customer relationships.
In this guide, we will delve into a comprehensive range of customer support solutions, from robust email helpdesks to real-time live chat systems and comprehensive knowledge base platforms. These tools represent the most powerful arsenal you can equip your team with to deliver outstanding customer care.
10 Essential Customer Support Tools to Power Your Business
We’ve done the research to bring you a curated list of top-tier tools, categorized for easy understanding:
| Tool Category | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Help Desk Ticketing System | Centralizes, organizes, and tracks customer inquiries from various channels. | Hiver, Zoho Desk, Zendesk |
| Knowledge Base Software | Empowers self-service by providing FAQs, tutorials, and guides. | Hiver, ProProfs, Helpjuice |
| Live Chat Software | Enables instant, real-time communication for enhanced engagement. | Hiver, Pure Chat, ThriveDesk, ProProfsChat, LiveChat |
| Social Listening and Monitoring Tool | Tracks brand mentions and sentiment across social media platforms. | Hootsuite, Sprout Social |
| Customer Feedback Survey Tool | Collects valuable feedback using surveys and key metrics like NPS and CSAT. | SurveyMonkey, Typeform |
| Internal Communication Software | Facilitates quick and contextual team communication for efficient collaboration. | Slack, Microsoft Teams, Hiver’s Email Notes |
| Project Management Tool | Organizes and prioritizes support tasks across different channels for better workflow. | ClickUp, ClientVenue, Asana, Timely Time Tracker |
| Reporting Dashboard | Provides visual and interactive dashboards to analyze key customer support metrics. | Hiver’s Reporting and Analytics, Qualtrics, Databox |
| Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software | Manages customer interactions, stores vital data, and improves information accessibility. | HubSpot, Salesforce |
| AI Email Management Software | Leverages AI to efficiently sort, prioritize, and assist in responding to emails. | Intercom, Sanebox |
1. Help Desk Ticketing System
Are your customer messages scattered across multiple channels like email, chat, social media, and phone? This fragmented approach can lead to missed inquiries, delayed responses, and ultimately, frustrated customers. This is where a help desk ticketing system becomes indispensable.
A help desk is a centralized platform designed to consolidate, assign, and meticulously track all incoming customer queries, regardless of the communication channel. A robust help desk ticketing system allows customer service teams to log each support request as a ticket, creating a streamlined workflow for managing and resolving issues. These systems automate ticket routing to the appropriate agents, facilitate team collaboration, and ensure timely responses, all contributing to superior customer service. For instance, implementing a dedicated customer service email management software can drastically improve email handling efficiency, ensuring no email slips through the cracks.
Popular help desk software options include industry leaders like Zendesk and Zoho Desk, alongside user-friendly solutions like Hiver. Hiver distinguishes itself by operating directly within Gmail, eliminating the need for support teams to learn and adapt to a separate, complex platform. This ease of use and rapid setup makes Hiver an exceptionally efficient choice.
Streamline customer inquiries with an efficient help desk ticketing system.
2. Knowledge Base Software
In today’s digital age, customers are increasingly inclined to seek answers independently before reaching out for direct support. We live in an era of self-service, where “Googling it” is often the first instinct. This trend is strongly supported by data; Harvard Business Review reports that 81% of customers across various industries first attempt to resolve issues on their own.
Investing in knowledge base software is a strategic move to cater to this self-service preference. A knowledge base allows you to create, organize, and share a wealth of self-help content. This content can include frequently asked questions (FAQs), detailed how-to guides, video tutorials, and step-by-step troubleshooting articles. The primary benefit of a comprehensive knowledge base is a significant reduction in the workload of your customer support team, as customers can find answers to common questions independently.
Furthermore, your support team can leverage the knowledge base as an internal resource. When addressing common inquiries, agents can quickly access pre-approved answers and solutions, dramatically improving response times and ensuring consistent information delivery.
For businesses seeking to implement a knowledge base, Hiver, ProProfs, and Helpjuice are highly recommended platforms, each offering robust features and user-friendly interfaces.
Empower customers with self-service solutions through a comprehensive knowledge base.
3. Live Chat Software
Live chat software has become an indispensable customer support tool for businesses aiming to provide immediate and personalized assistance. Its impact on customer satisfaction and sales is undeniable.
According to Invesp, customers who engage with businesses via live chat tend to spend 60% more per purchase compared to those who don’t. Moreover, a significant 77% of customers may abandon a purchase if live chat support is not available. These statistics highlight the critical role live chat plays in the customer journey.
Live chat enables real-time communication with customers directly on your website or within your mobile app. This immediate interaction allows you to offer proactive support, answer questions instantly, and guide customers through the purchase process seamlessly. Live chat transcends being just a support channel; it becomes a powerful tool for enhancing customer engagement and driving conversions.
However, it’s crucial to recognize that a poorly executed live chat experience can be more detrimental than offering no live chat at all. Ensuring your live chat is responsive, staffed by knowledgeable agents, and integrated smoothly into the customer journey is paramount.
Leading live chat software providers include Hiver, Pure Chat, ThriveDesk, ProProfsChat, and LiveChat, each offering diverse features to suit different business needs.
Offer real-time support and boost customer engagement with live chat software.
4. Social Listening and Monitoring Tool
In today’s interconnected world, social media platforms are vibrant hubs of customer conversations. Are you actively listening to what customers are saying about your brand online? Do you have insights into how your products and services are perceived on social media channels?
Social listening and monitoring tools are designed to address these critical questions. These tools empower you to track brand mentions, analyze customer sentiment, and gain a comprehensive understanding of your brand’s perception across social media. By using these tools, you can closely monitor conversations about your brand and even your competitors, extracting valuable insights to personalize customer experiences and tailor your strategies.
Furthermore, social listening is crucial for proactive customer service. By monitoring brand mentions, you can identify customer complaints or negative feedback in real-time and respond swiftly before isolated issues escalate into widespread negative sentiment. This proactive approach to social media customer care can significantly enhance your brand reputation.
When it comes to social listening and monitoring tools, Hootsuite and Sprout Social are recognized as industry-leading platforms, offering robust features and comprehensive analytics.
Monitor brand sentiment and engage with customers on social media using listening tools.
5. Customer Feedback Survey Tool
Customer feedback is the lifeblood of continuous improvement and customer-centric growth. Surveys, a time-tested method for gathering customer opinions, remain invaluable tools for understanding customer perceptions and driving positive change.
Understanding your customers’ thoughts and experiences is paramount to your business success. Deploying customer feedback surveys to gauge opinions on your products, services, and support interactions provides actionable insights into areas of strength and areas needing improvement. This feedback loop is essential not only for refining your offerings but also for making informed decisions about your technology investments, such as choosing a tech stack that aligns with customer needs.
Customer feedback surveys typically revolve around key customer experience metrics. These customer experience metrics include the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which measures customer loyalty; the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), which gauges satisfaction with specific interactions; and the Customer Effort Score (CES), which assesses the ease of resolving issues.
Popular and effective survey tools include SurveyMonkey and Typeform, both offering user-friendly interfaces and robust features for creating and distributing surveys.
Gather valuable customer insights and improve experiences with feedback surveys.
6. Internal Communication Software
Effective customer support often necessitates seamless collaboration within support teams and across different departments. Customer service agents frequently need to consult with colleagues, seek input from specialists, or coordinate with other teams to resolve complex issues. This is where robust internal communication software becomes crucial.
Equipping your support team with an easy-to-use internal communication tool, potentially supplemented with features like screen recording for clear communication, significantly enhances collaboration. These tools facilitate quick, contextual discussions, allowing frontline agents to efficiently seek assistance from team members or experts across the organization without disrupting workflows or resorting to lengthy email chains.
Hiver’s Email Notes, for example, provides a streamlined way for agents to add notes and questions directly within email threads, enabling contextual collaboration. This reduces reliance on email for internal communication, minimizing inbox clutter and streamlining workflows.
Other popular internal communication platforms include Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Fellow.app, each offering features designed to enhance team collaboration and communication efficiency.
Enhance team collaboration and streamline communication with internal communication tools.
7. Project Management Tool
Delivering exceptional customer service often involves managing multiple tasks, projects, and initiatives simultaneously. Customer service teams are not just reactive; they are also involved in proactive projects aimed at improving processes, enhancing customer experiences, and addressing recurring issues. To effectively manage these diverse responsibilities, a project management tool is essential.
A project management tool provides the necessary structure to organize, prioritize, and track the progress of your team’s tasks, regardless of the communication channel or project scope. It offers 360-degree visibility into ongoing activities, ensuring that deadlines are met, and tasks are efficiently managed. These tools facilitate collaboration by enabling document sharing and communication among stakeholders involved in resolving customer queries or implementing support improvements. By empowering support teams to track individual tasks, deadlines, and project milestones, project management tools contribute significantly to delivering consistently great support.
Recommended project management tools include ClickUp, ClientVenue, Asana, and Timely Time Tracker, each offering features tailored to enhance team productivity and project organization.
Organize tasks and improve workflow efficiency with project management tools.
8. Reporting Dashboard
To continuously improve customer support, it’s crucial to measure performance, identify trends, and pinpoint areas for optimization. A reporting dashboard provides the visual and interactive means to analyze the quality of your customer support efforts. These dashboards showcase critical metrics that offer detailed insights into your support team’s interactions with customers and the impact of these interactions on key business outcomes like customer loyalty and retention.
Robust and in-depth analytics are essential for dissecting data, identifying patterns, and gaining a thorough understanding of your customer support performance. An effective reporting dashboard allows you to slice and dice data, analyze metrics from various angles, and drill down into specific areas for detailed investigation.
Vacasa, a global vacation rental management company, exemplifies the power of data-driven customer support. By leveraging Hiver’s analytics dashboard, Vacasa achieved an impressive 80% reduction in support email handling time. This case study highlights the tangible benefits of utilizing reporting dashboards to optimize customer service operations.
Other recommended tools for data analysis and customer service reporting include Qualtrics and Databox, offering comprehensive features for data visualization and performance tracking.
Analyze performance and improve support quality with reporting dashboards.
9. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is designed to be a central hub for managing all customer interactions across various touchpoints. While CRMs serve multiple departments within a business, they are particularly valuable for customer support teams.
For customer support, CRM software excels at storing comprehensive customer details, logging customer inquiries, and tracking the progress of support issues. A CRM provides a centralized database accessible to all team members, ensuring that anyone interacting with a customer has immediate access to vital information, including past orders, communication history, and ongoing support requests.
This centralized data accessibility streamlines support interactions, enhances personalization, and contributes to improved customer retention. In fact, studies indicate that investing in a CRM system can lead to a significant 27% increase in customer retention rates.
Leading CRM platforms include HubSpot and Salesforce, both offering extensive features tailored to manage customer relationships and empower support teams. For businesses operating in the B2B space, tools like TinyEmail can further enhance prospecting and customer relationship management efforts.
Manage customer interactions and enhance data accessibility with CRM software.
10. AI Email Management Tools
The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized various aspects of business, and customer service is no exception. AI-powered email management tools are leveraging AI to streamline email handling, enhance efficiency, and improve overall email communication for customer support teams.
These intelligent tools utilize AI algorithms to sort, prioritize, and even assist in responding to emails. They can automatically categorize emails, identify urgent inquiries, and suggest relevant responses, significantly reducing manual effort and improving response times. AI email management tools enhance both internal and external communication, improve team visibility, and foster ownership of email-related tasks. Furthermore, these AI systems are designed to learn from user behavior over time, becoming increasingly adept at predicting preferences and anticipating customer needs.
Sanebox is a prominent example of AI email management software, known for its intelligent email filtering and prioritization capabilities. Intercom is another popular platform with robust AI features that enhance customer communication and support workflows.
Recommended Read: 8 Best AI Email Management Tools in 2025
Customer Support Tools Set Your Teams Up For Success
Implementing a strategic mix of these essential customer service tools is a powerful investment in your team’s efficiency and your customers’ satisfaction. Whether it’s a help desk to streamline inquiries or a feedback survey tool to gauge customer sentiment, always keep the ultimate goal in mind: to delight customers and create memorable, positive experiences. Just as choosing the right board management software is crucial for internal efficiency and governance, selecting the right customer service tools is paramount for external success and customer loyalty in today’s competitive landscape.
If your business utilizes Google Workspace and you are seeking a customer service solution tailored to your environment, Hiver is specifically designed for you.
Hiver, recognized as the world’s first help desk built for Google Workspace, empowers numerous global brands to deliver fast, human-centric customer service directly from their familiar Gmail inboxes. Moreover, Hiver offers built-in analytics, live chat, CSAT surveys, collaboration features, and automation capabilities, all seamlessly integrated within the Google Workspace ecosystem.
Intrigued to see how Hiver can transform your customer service? Start your free 7-day trial of Hiver today and experience the difference firsthand!
FAQs
- How can a help desk ticketing system benefit customer service teams?
- A help desk ticketing system streamlines support workflows by centralizing, assigning, and tracking customer queries from various channels. It automates ticket routing and facilitates team collaboration, leading to faster response times and improved customer service.
- Why is Hiver recommended as a help desk software in this article?
- Hiver is recommended for its user-friendly interface and seamless integration within Gmail, allowing for quick setup and efficient customer query management without requiring teams to learn a new platform.
- What is the role of knowledge base software in customer support, and which tools are suggested?
- Knowledge base software enables customer self-service through FAQs, tutorials, and guides, reducing the workload on support teams. Recommended tools include Hiver, ProProfs, and Helpjuice.
- Why is live chat software considered an essential customer support tool?
- Live chat software provides real-time communication, enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction. Studies show that customers using live chat tend to spend more and are more likely to complete purchases. Examples include Hiver, Pure Chat, ThriveDesk, ProProfsChat, and LiveChat.
- How do social listening and monitoring tools contribute to customer support strategies?
- These tools track brand sentiment and mentions on social media, enabling businesses to personalize experiences, proactively address customer feedback, and respond quickly to potential issues. Hootsuite and Sprout Social are recommended.
- What is the importance of customer feedback surveys, and which tools are suggested for implementation?
- Customer feedback surveys are crucial for gathering insights into product and support quality, helping businesses understand customer perceptions and areas for improvement. SurveyMonkey and Typeform are suggested tools.
- How does internal communication software, like Hiver’s Email Notes, enhance customer support efficiency?
- Internal communication software facilitates quick and contextual team discussions, reducing reliance on email and streamlining collaboration. Hiver’s Email Notes is highlighted as a tool for efficient team communication within email threads.
- Why is a project management tool emphasized for customer support teams?
- Project management tools help organize, prioritize, and track tasks across different communication channels, providing visibility into team activities and ensuring efficient workflow management. ClickUp, ClientVenue, Asana, and Timely Time Tracker are recommended.
- What is the function of a reporting dashboard in customer support, and which tools are recommended for creating reports?
- Reporting dashboards provide interactive insights into customer support metrics, aiding in performance analysis and identifying areas for improvement. Hiver’s Reporting and Analytics, Qualtrics, and Databox are recommended for creating customer service reports.
- How does Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software benefit customer support operations, and which CRMs are mentioned?
- CRM software centralizes customer data, manages interactions, and enhances information accessibility, improving support efficiency and personalization. HubSpot and Salesforce are mentioned as popular CRM examples.
- What is unique about Hiver as a customer service tool for Google Workspace users?
- Hiver is uniquely designed for Google Workspace, operating directly within Gmail and offering a comprehensive suite of customer service features, including analytics, live chat, and automation, within the familiar Google environment.
- How can businesses explore Hiver, and what is the offer presented in the article?
- Businesses can explore Hiver through a free 7-day trial, allowing them to experience its features and benefits for delivering fast and human customer service directly from Gmail.
