“Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” – Donald Porter.
Managing customer emails can be tough. It’s like a never-ending task – the constant influx of inquiries, concerns, and feedback can quickly become overwhelming, leading to missed messages, delayed responses, and dissatisfied customers.
That’s where customer service email management software comes in. It’s a smart solution to simplify email management, improve customer service, and reach inbox zero faster.
If your customers need assistance, they should get it at the right time. That’s why I created this comprehensive list of customer email management tools to help you get your hands on the best option.
In this blog, I will share a list of tools and how they can help you in customer support.
Let’s explore each of the tools in detail.
List of the Best Customer Service Email Management Software
To be honest, many blogs are out there talking about different email management tools. It can be confusing, right? But I want you to know that I’ve dug deep to ensure I’m only sharing the best ones.
I’ve used many of these customer service email management tools over the past ten years. Some I’ve tried myself, others come highly recommended by my colleagues and a few I discovered through trusted software review websites.
So, you can trust that these recommendations are based on real-world experience and research.
1. ProProfs Help Desk – Best for Automated Customer Service
ProProfs Help Desk has made my life easier as a customer service professional.
What struck me about this software is its transparent pricing. In an industry where hidden costs and surprise fees can be frustrating, clearly understanding what I’m paying for right from the start is incredibly refreshing. This gave me the confidence to invest in this tool, knowing exactly what I’m getting into.
The user interface is another big win for me. It’s simple and intuitive, which means I didn’t have to spend hours figuring out how to use it.
But perhaps the most impressive aspect is the automation capabilities. Managing customer service can be incredibly demanding, with countless tickets, responses, and notifications to handle.
With ProProfs Help Desk, I’ve been able to automate many of these mundane and repetitive tasks. Ticket routing, responses, notifications – you name it, I can automate it.
I was also able to automate my customer service and lead generation process using website chatbots. The tool allowed me to create chatbots for various purposes, whether it’s for sales, customer service inquiries, appointment bookings, or any other specific need.
What You Will Like:
- Has a Gmail-like interface that makes it easy to use and navigate
- The customer satisfaction survey feature helps identify how you can improve your customer support
- The shared inbox feature enables managers and agents to manage customer-facing inboxes efficiently
- Easily organize support tickets with labels, priorities, and statuses
What You May Not Like:
- Frequent feature rollouts can be confusing for some users
- More industry-specific canned response templates can be added
Pricing
Starts at $20/user/month. (Single plan inclusive of all premium features)
2. Hiver – Best for Email Support
I’ve had a great experience using Hiver, a Gmail-based customer service tool. With Hiver, I can easily manage emails, live chat, voice, and WhatsApp support within the Gmail interface.
Its shared inbox, shared labels and email templates simplify team collaboration, making it easy to provide personalized support.
Notes, approvals, and automation streamline our workflow, while analytics help us track performance and response times.
Hiver is user-friendly, requires no extra training or software, and is budget-friendly. It’s a practical, efficient solution that has significantly improved our customer service.
What You Will Like:
- Effortlessly manage email and chat within Gmail
- Share private notes for context among team members
- Automate email routing with round-robin ticket assignments
- Keep track of SLA violations to improve customer satisfaction
What You May Not Like:
- Hiver is exclusively tailored for Gmail, limiting its compatibility with other communication channels
- Enhanced reporting metrics and charts are missing from the tool’s offerings
Pricing
Starts at $15/user/month
3. HelpSpot – Best for Organizing Customer Requests
Are you drowning in a flood of customer service emails?
Well, I’ve found the perfect solution for you – HelpSpot!
With this customer service email system, you can easily organize and manage all customer requests in one place. And guess what? You can even customize it to capture exactly the information you need.
With HelpSpot, you have a centralized inbox that keeps all customer requests organized and easily accessible, so you never miss a beat.
What’s more impressive is that you can manage and reply to your tickets with a clean single-page interface. You can use a WYSIWYG editor or Markdown to create detailed responses and insert pre-written replies with #.
What I found more interesting is that you can assign tickets to specific agents, ensuring clarity and accountability. Plus, the knowledge base helps create and store helpful resources, speeding up ticket resolution and reducing customer inquiries.
And the best part?
HelpSpot offers collaborative tools, self-service portals, automation, and robust reporting to make our lives easier and our support even more efficient.
What You Will Like:
- Intuitive interface that resembles an email inbox, making it easy for agents to learn and use the software
- Supports unlimited email accounts and allows you to consolidate tickets from different sources in one place
- Straightforward pricing model based on seats and gives all agents access to the same features, regardless of how you run the software
- Offers multi-brand functionality that lets you create dedicated dashboards for each brand or department and manage tickets accordingly
What You May Not Like:
- Lacks built-in live chat feature, but it can integrate with third-party chat tools like Olark or SnapEngage
- The software is not very scalable and can slow down when handling a large number of tickets
Pricing
Starts at $14/agent/month, billed annually
4. Zendesk – Best for AI-Powered Service
Another customer email management software I would recommend is Zendesk. The AI feature of this tool is already making waves by speaking the language of customer service like no other.
Its AI model is built on billions of real customer interactions, which means it understands the customer experience inside and out.
That translates into personalized support from day one, and who doesn’t want that?
Zendesk’s AI tools are like an extra hand for our support team, suggesting responses and detecting customer intent, so we’re always prepared and refreshed. Zendesk’s Answer Bots uses artificial intelligence to provide automated responses to customer queries. It uses machine learning to suggest relevant articles from the Zendesk Knowledge Base, which can help customers solve their problems without waiting for an agent.
And here’s the exciting part – Zendesk is teaming up with OpenAI to bring us generative AI capabilities that feel incredibly human. It’s a whole new level of customer service!
What You Will Like:
- Unified workspace for multi-channel support management
- Modular architecture for customizable software configurations
- Robust ticketing and routing system for efficient organization
- Powerful analytics and reporting tools for performance measurement
What You May Not Like:
- Additional charges for certain features such as IVR call routing and Answer Bot
- Designed for large enterprises and complex customer service workflows. It might not be suitable for small businesses and ecommerce that need a simple and affordable solution
Pricing
Starts at $55/user/month
5. Freshdesk – Best for Omnichannel Support
I’ve recently discovered Freshworks, and it’s truly remarkable. Their customer service suite is a versatile tool for businesses of all sizes.
Whether you’re a startup or a large corporation, this all-in-one solution can revolutionize how you handle customer support.
Imagine effortlessly handling customer queries and issues across email, chat, social media, phone, and more, all from a single, intuitive dashboard. The omnichannel solution empowers your support team to respond promptly and effectively, regardless of your customer’s preferred communication channel.
One feature I like about the tool is the AI-powered self-service option. Freshworks uses Freshbots, which means you can provide quick answers to customers, reducing wait times and boosting issue resolution.
This customer service email management software offers a unified agent workspace to supercharge agent productivity.
The benefits are clear: improved customer satisfaction, enhanced agent productivity, and a streamlined support process.
What You Will Like:
- Advanced ticketing system to resolve customer issues
- Streamlined admin tools that drive efficiency through AI-powered workflow automation
- Promises a rapid ROI along with 1,200 integrations
- Freddy Copilot suggests responses, recommends actions, and summarizes events
What You May Not Like:
- Freshdesk’s third-party integrations are available only with paid plans. If you want the tool with other apps that you already use, you will need to upgrade to a higher plan
- The free version and growth plans of Freshdesk lack some important features such as team dashboards, chatbots, and social ticketing
Pricing
Starts at $15/user/month
6. Zoho Desk – Best for Personalized Service
My experience with Zoho Desk has been positive. It’s a cloud-based customer email management software offering various features. The multichannel support capability allows businesses to assist customers across various channels, ensuring a seamless communication experience.
The context-aware ticketing feature is noteworthy, as it consolidates customer context from multiple sources, helping agents provide personalized support efficiently.
Customizable workflows enable businesses to adapt ticketing processes to their specific requirements, enhancing efficiency. AI-powered insights assist in monitoring customer service performance and identifying areas for improvement.
Zoho Desk’s customizability is valuable, allowing businesses to tailor it to their needs, including custom fields, email and SMS templates, and branding.
What You Will Like:
- Be available for your customers across email, phone, chat, social media, and web forms
- A contextual AI assistant that provides relevant solutions, tags tickets, analyzes sentiments, and notifies agents of unusual activities
- Enable customers to find quick answers by themselves with a knowledge base, a community forum, and guided conversations
- Automatically organizes incoming tickets to make agents more productive
What You May Not Like:
- Some users have reported that the customer support team is not as responsive or helpful as they claim to be
- Zoho Desk can be slow or laggy, especially when dealing with large volumes of tickets
Pricing
7. HubSpot Service Hub – Best for Knowledge Base
As someone who relies on HubSpot, I can attest to its prowess as a versatile customer support email software. It simplifies customer service by bringing together all our customer data and communication channels within a single platform. I can efficiently support, retain, and expand our customer base with it.
I particularly appreciate the feature that allows us to create a customer portal and a knowledge base. It empowers our customers to find answers and resolve issues on their own, which is a win-win for both parties.
Being able to use omnichannel messaging, live chat, VoIP calling, and inbound calling in real-time through their preferred channels has greatly improved our customer interactions.
And the icing on the cake? HubSpot’s training, consulting, and technical service teams have helped us optimize our service strategy and operations.
What You Will Like:
- The platform is known for its user-friendly interface and easy setup process
- Offers a wide range of features to support sales, marketing, customer service, and content management teams
- Integrates with a wide range of other business software, making it easy to streamline your workflows
- HubSpot CRM scales as your business grows, so you can stay on the same platform as you add more users and data
What You May Not Like:
- Limited customization options so it may not be a good fit for businesses with very specific needs
Pricing
Starts at $18/month and billed at $216/year
8. Spiceworks – Best for Cloud Accessibility
Spiceworks, a cloud-based email management software for customer service, plays a pivotal role in user request handling and project management. Its standout feature lies in its customizability, allowing businesses to establish and tailor their web portal. This not only simplifies ticket submissions but also enhances the overall user experience.
Businesses can maintain impeccable order and efficiently sift through tickets by creating distinct organizations with unique email addresses, categories, and attributes.
The addition of a native mobile app for Android and iOS devices further extends its utility, enabling professionals to manage help desk tasks from virtually anywhere.
What sets Spiceworks apart is its automation prowess. It empowers businesses to establish automated responses, rules, and views for tickets.
What You Will Like:
- One-stop shop for many IT needs as it offers a wide range of features, including network monitoring, inventory management, help desk ticketing, and community forums
- The interface is intuitive, and the documentation is comprehensive
- Can be scaled to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises
- Has a large and active community of users and contributors
What You May Not Like:
- Can be slow and unresponsive on large networks with a lot of devices
- Spiceworks is supported by advertising. Some users find the ads to be intrusive or annoying
Pricing
Free for all users
9. ManageEngine – Best for Workflow Automation
I’ve had the opportunity to explore ManageEngine’s offerings, and I must say, their approach to workflow automation is truly impressive. Among their suite of tools, OpManager stands out as a network monitoring solution that seamlessly integrates with IT automation workflows.
What’s remarkable is the ease with which users can create workflows.
OpManager provides a wealth of pre-built checks and actions, enabling automating a wide range of processes, from service management to incident handling.
As the best customer service email management tool, it helps you track, utilize, and share customer-specific information to improve your customer service. You can provide better communication, offers, and services to customers by evaluating your previous interactions with them.
The customer self-service portal allows customers to raise tickets, check their ticket status, and search the knowledge base.
What You Will Like:
- Monitor and manage a variety of servers, applications, devices, and networks using a single platform
- Have comprehensive features that make it easy to track, manage, and report on IT service requests
- Offer advanced reporting and dashboard capabilities that provide key performance and capacity data
- Supports a range of security features such as encryption, authentication, and audit trails
What You May Not Like:
- May require some technical expertise or training to set up and configure properly, especially for complex or customized scenarios
- May have some bugs or glitches that affect their performance or functionality, especially after updates or upgrades
Pricing
Starts at $10/technician/month
10. Help Scout – Best for Managing Client Communication
In a world where customer satisfaction can make or break a business, Help Scout stands out as a tool that truly understands the importance of effective client communication.
The tool’s ability to create and organize support tickets makes it one of the best customer service email management software. This streamlines customer inquiries and ensures that no issue falls through the cracks.
Collaboration within the team also becomes a breeze, thanks to Help Scout’s intuitive interface that encourages communication and teamwork.
But it doesn’t stop there. Automation is a buzzword in today’s fast-paced world, and Help Scout doesn’t disappoint. The software allows you to set up workflows that can automate repetitive tasks, saving you valuable time and effort.
Plus, keeping a finger on the pulse of your customer service operation is a breeze, thanks to the insightful performance metrics that Help Scout provides.
What You Will Like:
- Clean interface that is very functional and can be used for multiple aspects of the business
- Offers a free trial and affordable pricing plans that are worth every penny
- Allows for conversations via email that involve multiple customers
- Has a Docs feature that allows for creating FAQ pages and a Chat feature that enables real-time support
What You May Not Like:
- The search function is not very smart and sometimes fails to find what you need
- Does not have a way to merge several tickets at once or to make a note/reply and keep the ticket open
Pricing
Starts at $20/user/month
Which Customer Service Email Management Software Should You Choose?
So, out of all the customer support email software, which one is the best?
Choosing the right customer service email management software depends on several factors, including your specific needs, budget, and preferences. Here are my top 3 choices:
Option A: ProProfs Help Desk
ProProfs Help Desk stands out for its transparent pricing, which provides clarity from the start. The user-friendly interface requires minimal training, making it accessible to all. Its impressive automation capabilities, including lead generation and customer service chatbots, can greatly enhance efficiency and customer support.
Option B: Hiver
Hiver integrates seamlessly with Gmail, offering a familiar interface for managing emails, live chat, voice, and WhatsApp support. Shared inboxes, labels, and templates simplify team collaboration and personalized support. The workflow is streamlined with notes, approvals, and automation, while analytics enable tracking performance and response times. Also, It’s user-friendly and budget-friendly.
Option C: HelpSpot
HelpSpot provides a centralized inbox, customizability, and skill-based ticket assignment, ensuring clarity and accountability. The knowledge base and collaborative tools accelerate ticket resolution and reduce customer inquiries.
In the end, I would recommend ProProfs Help Desk as the best customer service email management software. With ProProfs, you gain confidence in your investment, ease of use, and the ability to streamline and automate various tasks, ultimately enhancing your customer support operations.
Learn More About Customer Service Email Management Software
- What is customer service email management software?
Customer service email management software is a specialized tool designed to streamline and enhance the process of handling customer inquiries and support requests via email. It enables businesses to efficiently manage their email communication with customers by centralizing incoming messages, automating repetitive tasks, categorizing and prioritizing emails, assigning them to the right agents or teams, and providing a collaborative platform for responding to inquiries promptly and effectively. This software often includes features like email ticketing, canned responses, email tracking, analytics, and integration with other customer support tools.
What Is Email Management Software & How it Helps Declutter Your Inbox?
- What are the key features to look for in customer service email management software?
When choosing customer service email management software, prioritize key features for efficient support. Email integration ensures a unified system, while automation streamlines repetitive tasks. Shared inboxes foster team collaboration, minimizing response delays. Analytics and reporting tools help assess performance and customer satisfaction. Customization options allow tailoring the software to your specific needs, and multichannel support ensures seamless communication across various platforms. Additionally, knowledge base capabilities enable agents to access valuable resources, enhancing problem-solving efficiency. Prioritizing these features will help you select software that optimizes customer service email management.
- Why do businesses need email management software for customer service?
Businesses require email management software for customer service to streamline communication, enhance efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction. These tools centralize customer inquiries, ensuring prompt responses and reducing the risk of overlooked messages. Automation features simplify repetitive tasks, enabling staff to focus on more complex issues. Analytics and reporting provide insights into performance, helping companies make data-driven improvements.
- How can automation improve customer service through email management software?
Automation can enhance customer service via email management software by streamlining responses, categorizing emails, and prioritizing urgent inquiries. It can send automated acknowledgments, route emails to the right department, and even answer common queries instantly. This reduces response times and ensures consistency and accuracy in customer interactions. Automation can schedule follow-up emails, gather customer feedback, and analyze data to identify trends, enabling businesses to continuously improve their email support processes and ultimately enhance the overall customer experience.
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