The best customer service software to help deliver the best customer experience

What is customer service software?

A customer service software is a centralized ticketing system that consists of simple and advanced features that help your organization receive, organize, resolve, and analyze customer queries. Simply put, it is a shared inbox that helps you streamline customer interactions and request routing from different communication channels like email, SMS, social media, live chat, and others.

A comprehensive ticket management suite will consist of allied solutions like FAQ and knowledge base management, automation software, analytics software, and chatbots, in addition to being an omnichannel customer service solution. It is also usually complemented with integrations that connect it with CRM software, messaging, social media, and other tools.

Benefits of customer service software

The benefits of a comprehensive customer service platform are multi-fold for companies of any size and field, be it a small business, start-up, or large enterprise. Employing the correct ticketing software can affect a variety of use cases — from increasing customer loyalty and improving your company’s bottom line to reducing response time and creating a better environment for your support team. Below are some key benefits:

1. Boost agent productivity and experience
Providing your team with the resources to do their work well is a necessity. A service desk equipped with features such as reporting, analytics, and help desks as mobile apps will not only improve your team’s performance by easing the query resolution process but also help them be more prepared to address customer issues and support tickets in real-time in a collaborative manner.

2. Increase customer loyalty and relations
Personalized and timely service can go a long way when it comes to customer service that aims to reduce churn and improve satisfaction levels. An adept customer service software will store contextual customer data and communications, helping you provide proactive and personalized support that would improve your customer’s trust in your services and product and also improve retention rates.

3. Ability to leverage automation, reporting, and analytics
Automation features like Smart Rules help your team devote more time to activities that can have a positive impact on the customer service efforts rather than focusing on repetitive tasks. Reporting and analytics tools help you make smarter, data-driven decisions based on selected metrics that improve team productivity , reduce the volume of incoming tickets, and result in happier customers and agents.

4. Provide access to self-service
Self-service features like knowledge base, FAQs, and community forums help you encourage customers to look for solutions by themselves, saving themselves time. This gives your support team the time to direct their efforts towards activities that need their attention, reducing churn and response times and improving engagement. Features like automatic ticket routing also help save time and reduce the first response rate.

How does a typical customer service software function

Customer service software usually works through a series of steps:

1. Collecting requests are queries is the first step. An omnichannel ticketing system such as HappyFox Help Desk will consolidate requests from channels like SMS, email, live chat, phone call, APIs, etc., and bring them to one platform so they can be answered from a unified space.
2. Organizing and managing these collected requests and ensuring that they are correctly routed to the concerned agents is an important step. This helps reduce response times and increases the chances of faster resolution. At HappyFox, we do this via queues, tags, and custom fields that are segregated on the basis of where requests are coming from and what team they are meant for. It helps our clients manage high ticket volume in a timely manner.
3. Collaboration is an important aspect of successful customer service. It allows your team to work in tandem with each other, sharing the volume of tickets based on expertise and working hours. We offer features like agent collision detection, admin and agent level permissions, and Private Notes. Better internal communication and collaboration help customer service agents solve customer requests fasters and more effectively.
4. No customer service tool is complete without a variety of apps, integrations, and APIs that connect to their operations. HappyFox Help Desk is compatible with customer relationship management (CRM) solutions like Salesforce, Keap, and Pipedrive, messaging apps like Slack, WhatsApp, and Microsoft Teams, e-commerce solutions like Shopify, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and project management tools like Asana, Gitlab, and Wrike. We are also equipped with our own apps like HappyFox Live Chat, Chatbot, Workflows, BI, and Assist AI that complement the features of Help Desk. You can check out our complete list of apps and integrations here.
5. Responding to a query or request the best way possible is the desired result of any customer service effort. HappyFox Help Desk helps you achieve this with access to text editors that support rich media and are easily formattable. We also provide you with easy ways to use the helpdesk to respond via channels the request was received including social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, or messaging apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams. Other features like canned actions and access to a knowledge base system help your customer service team provide answers faster.
6. The customer service cycle is not complete after resolving a request. To stay on top of query trends, agent performance, and other metrics like response time, satisfaction levels, incoming ticket volume, and SLAs that are important to your organization, you need to leverage reporting and analytics features that will help you make data-driven decisions and improve your customer communication efforts.

What makes customer service software stand out today?

1. Focus on personalization
   It is essential to provide a memorable customer experience that strays away from the regular one-size-fits-all approach. One way of doing this is by hyper-personalizing service efforts by leveraging available and contextually relevant customer data or customer information like what they are browsing, searching for, purchasing, and asking about with AI-powered and data analytics tools. If you are able to do this, you can expect higher levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
2. Prioritizing data security and privacy
   As we move towards a more digital world, ensuring top-level compliance and security features is no longer optional. It pays off to have checks in place that secure data with data encryption at transit and rest and vulnerability scans. HappyFox’s security features like 2FA and audit logs decrease the risk of unauthorized access. We also adopt industry-accepted security & privacy frameworks with GDPR, SOC 2 Type II, and CCPA certifications to help customers and clients feel at ease sharing personal data with your customer support team.
3. Higher adoption of automation
   Usage of automation and technology like artificial intelligence (AI) in customer service is on the rise and for good reason. It reduces the workload of your customer service team by employing APIs, workflows, and chatbots to automate tasks like answering repetitive queries, assigning agents, or even sending follow-up communications to customers. Getting onto the automation bandwagon means giving your support agents more time to spend on fruitful customer conversations.
4. Emphasis on self-service
   Customers don’t want to wait around for information. They want quick and easy access to solutions without having to get in touch with other people. Investing in knowledge management systems that are equipped with knowledge creation, updating, and analytics features is a must. It will not only encourage self-service of solutions and improve rates of customer success but will also reduce the volume of incoming tickets.

10 best customer service software tools that boost customer and agent experience

1. HappyFox Help Desk
   HappyFox Help Desk is an all-in-one help desk ticketing system that aims to provide faster and better support for your customers. It collects, organizes, and manages your incoming queries from all channels and gives you effective ways to respond to them with its internal feature and range of affiliated third-party apps and integrations. It also has a robust reporting and analytics setup that can crunch your support data and help you make an informed decision.
2. Slack
   A majority of workspaces today use Slack for internal communication. It is a messaging app for businesses that helps people collaborate and connects them to the information they need. HappyFox’s Help Desk integration with Slack allows creation, updating, and the ability to reply to tickets from within the app while improving communication and collaboration amongst your support team. It also lets you access and searches your knowledge base from within the app.
3. Microsoft Teams
   Teams is a business communication platform developed by Microsoft that has created some ripples in the workspace communication and customer service space. When integrated with a customer support system like Help Desk, it can ease communication, and collaboration, and allow ticket actions without leaving the known interface of the app. You can also @mention the HappyFox Bot and follow it up with a search term to search for support articles.
4. Pager Duty
   PagerDuty is a cloud computing solution that manages an incident response platform for IT departments. HappyFox’s bi-directional integration with PagerDuty lets customer support teams create incidents in the app from any support ticket created within the help desk. Customers can be kept up-to-date on all incident-related information and timelines through regular updates.
5. Ring Central
   Ring Central provides cloud-based business communications solutions, that when paired with the support tools in HappyFox, can help you gain swift clarity on issues from customers through a phone call from the comfort of the help desk interface. It also gives you context and a ticket history of the caller, helping you provide a personalized service experience. Each phone call will also be logged as a new ticket or as an addition to an existing one.


6. HappyFox Chatbot
   Integrating your customer support efforts by deploying HappyFox Chatbot within your Help Desk can help you deflect about 70% of your incoming queries, saving your customer support team the time and effort they would normally spend in answering repetitive questions. Technology like AI, NLP, and ML drastically reduces the wait time for your customer by facilitating easy ticket creation, real-time communication sync, and service agent efficiency.



7. Stripe
   Stripe dominates the online payment processing field for internet businesses today with its suite of payment APIs. Integrating HappyFox with Stripe gives you access to contextual billing information about each customer related to subscriptions, payments, and orders within your help desk.
8. Pipedrive
   Pipedrive is a web-based Sales CRM and pipeline management solution that enables businesses to plan their sales activities and monitor deals. When used with Help Desk, it bridges the gap between your sales and support teams by helping you manage contacts, track leads, and close deals.
9. FreshBooks
   Freshbooks is a cloud accounting app that helps companies handle their finances in a secure and easy manner. When integrated with HappyFox, your customer support team can map your HappyFox tickets to FreshBooks projects, maintain time logs, and invoice for time spent on a ticket from the ticket screen.

Investing in customer service software is an important decision. You need to consider various metrics and be aware of the recent trends in the customer service management space and what accompanying integrations you might require to be on par with your competitors. With a customizable, scalable, and adaptable solution like HappyFox Help Desk, you can ensure a smooth and data-driven support experience that keeps your customers and support reps happy.