10 Best Ecommerce Customer Service Software Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 20 tools reviewed.
With so many different ecommerce customer service software solutions available, figuring out which is right for you is tough. You know you want to streamline communication between customers and your business, handling inquiries and complaints efficiently—but now need to figure out which tool is best. I've got you! In this post, I'll help make your choice easy, sharing my personal experiences using dozens of different customer service tools with online stores of all sizes, with my picks of the best ecommerce customer service software overall.
What Is Ecommerce Customer Service Software?
Ecommerce customer service software is a digital tool designed to manage and improve customer interactions in online retail settings. The purpose is to centralize customer communication channels like email, live chat, and social media into one platform, making it easier for businesses to respond promptly and effectively to customer inquiries, complaints, and feedback.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Ecommerce Customer Service Software
Here’s a list of the top ecommerce marketing software I evaluated for your consideration. You can learn more about each option’s essential features, pricing, and why I believe they’re worth your attention.
Richpanel is an all-in-one ecommerce customer service software solution that offers a self-service customer portal and agent helpdesk.
Why I picked Richpanel: The platform makes an excellent addition to this list because Richpanel is an all-in-one option that provides everything your business needs to handle customer support functions. Richpanel does this by helping customer service teams and departments implement a self-service portal with an “Amazon-like” experience with options to track orders, request returns, exchange items, and more without needing to reach your service team. The second function Richpanel provides is an agent helpdesk that helps your customer service team manage all customer interactions across all channels, including email, live chat, social media, or calls, and a ticketing solution that presents your agents with customer information such as order history, enabling them to better serve your customers.
Richpanel Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include automations to help your customer service team eliminate repetitive tasks and maximize productivity. Richpanel’s agent hand-off capabilities help provide all customer context to ensure they get the information they need to offer a quick resolution.
Integrations include native integrations to empower your customer service team to manage everything from one screen, such as Aircall, Attentive, Blotout, Hubspot CRM, Magento, ReCharge, Segment, Shopify, Smile.io, and WooCommerce. You can also use Richpanel’s API to create custom integrations.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Clean user interface
- Comprehensive information
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Can be slow at times
- Limited number of integrations
Help Scout is an email-based ecommerce customer service software that enables online stores to manage multiple workflows across various departments.
Why I picked Help Scout: The platform is a popular ecommerce customer service software that offers a robust shared email inbox that manages all support requests from a central area. Help Scout is an email-based customer service platform that helps your teams manage internal and external email interactions. Help Scout uses automation to help your team manage customer service emails by tagging them to ensure they go to the correct department and create customer service reports.
Help Scout Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include tools to get you started right away, such as ticket management and email templates. You can also use one email account but allow multiple people to respond to incoming emails and assign them to specific individuals.
Integrations include connections with the tools you’re likely already using, such as Aircall, Freshbooks, Highrise, Hubspot, Mailchimp, Mixpanel, Pipedrive, Shopify, Slack, WooCommerce, and other software options. If you need custom integrations, you can create them using a paid Zapier account or Help Scout’s API.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Quick and helpful customer support from the vendor
- Simple collaboration capabilities
- Intuitive software layout
Cons:
- No telephone support capabilities
- Limited customization options
Odoo CRM is a free ecommerce customer service software that helps agents track and manage top customer service opportunities to make buyers and potential buyers happy.
Why I picked Odoo CRM: With Odoo CRM, you get a free ecommerce customer service software and relationship-building platform that your teams can use to communicate with buyers who need help. Your teams can also follow up with customers’ questions over the phone or through integrating email capabilities. Odoo allows you to create dial queues on customers and automatically manually or automatically from the browser.
Odoo CRM Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include predefined reporting dashboards, or you can create your own that fits your needs and share filters with the rest of your team. Odoo CRM also provides an activities and call management tool that enables you to organize activity sequences per customer service opportunity.
Integrations include connections with over 160 tools and business solutions, such as Boss Insights, Google Analytics, Hubspot CRM, Mailchimp, Microsoft Teams, Pipedrive, QuickBooks Online, RingCentral MVP, Salesforce, Zoho CRM, and other software options. You can also create custom integrations with your current systems through the platform’s API or a paid Zapier account.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Reminders and scheduled notifications work well
- Simple user interface
- Easily creates customer support tickets
Cons:
- Lack of documentation and learning resources
- Some performance and speed issues
Freshdesk is a cloud-based omnichannel ecommerce customer service software that enables teams to simplify customer support requests into a single location.
Why I picked Freshdesk: The platform offers intuitive capabilities your team can use to track and manage support tickets and customer interactions across multiple channels, such as email, phone, chat, and social media. When using Freshdesk, you can convert requests from these channels into tickets and unify ticket resolution. Freshdesk helps your business manage all customer queries in one centralized space, allowing you to connect with several channels and platforms to gather all the information your teams need to quickly and effectively respond and keep customers happy.
Freshdesk Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include a customizable dashboard that allows you to manage teams and make data-driven decisions to increase productivity. Freshdesk also offers auto-assignment rules that automatically assign support tickets based on your agents’ skills or availability or distribute them equally among your team members.
Integrations include connections with over 1,000 third-party applications, such as Dropbox, Google Analytics, Hubspot CRM, Mailchimp, Microsoft Teams, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Shopify, Slack, Zoho CRM, and other software options. When using Freshdesk, you can create custom integrations with your current systems through the platform’s API or a paid Zapier account.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Many AI and bot tools are available
- Easy for beginners
- Excellent omnichannel customer support capabilities
Cons:
- Vendor’s customer service needs work
- Large number of features create a learning curve
Textline empowers ecommerce businesses to modernize customer support through an SMS channel.
Why I picked Textline: Many modern customers prefer to text customer support over other communication channels, so to help your brand capitalize on this, I added Textline for consideration. With Textline, you can securely communicate with ecommerce customers using various phone numbers. Your team can use the platform to schedule texts, implement automated replies, and include URLs, images, and other file attachments to messages.
Textline Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include tools to help you track team availability and conversations and monitor conversations. You can also send surveys to help you discover customer needs and confidently provide solutions.
Integrations include connections with third-party applications to help you add texting to your current customer experience workflows, such as Aircall, Gorgias, Help Scout, Hubspot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Shopify, Slack, Talkdesk, Zendesk Support, and other software options. You can also use the platform’s API or a paid Zapier account to make custom integrations.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Easily schedules messages
- Simple communication tracking
- Excellent vendor customer support
Cons:
- Analytics needs improvement
- Search function is challenging
Gorgias can integrate with stores using some of the top ecommerce platforms and help digitize customer service functions.
Why I picked Gorgias: The platform is a well-known ecommerce customer service software that’s specifically designed to work on major ecommerce platforms. Gorgias started as a customer service tool for Shopify but then extended its reach by integrating with other large ecommerce website builders such as BigCommerce, Magento, and WooCommerce. These integrations allow you and your team to handle all customer service tasks directly from your ecommerce platform.
Gorgias Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include the ability to proactively deliver fast responses, both manually and through automation, across multiple formats and channels. Gorgias also provides access to AI-based article recommendations that scan through all company articles and find one that includes an answer to customer questions.
Integrations include connections with top tools used by many ecommerce organizations, such as BigCommerce, Cloudtalk, Klaviyo, Magento, Recharge, Returnly, ShipMonk, Shopify, WooCommerce, Yotpo, and other software options. Gorgias also allows users to create custom integrations with their current systems through the platform’s API or a paid Zapier account.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- User-friendly features
- Solves many customer service pain points
- Integrates with multiple ecommerce builders
Cons:
- Slight learning curve
- Reporting functionality is limited
LiveAgent offers advanced live chat functions that help your customer service agents manage all customer queries from multiple channels.
Why I picked LiveAgent: I added LiveAgent for consideration because it combines robust live chat capabilities with a help desk system. You can use LiveAgent’s live chat functions to automatically create multiple canned responses to answer frequently asked customer questions, assign chats to different team members, send customer feedback surveys, and more. Your agents can follow customer interactions through a resolution journey across multiple channels while staying in the same ticket thread.
LiveAgent Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include an extensive ticketing system that empowers customer service teams to handle all customer inquiries from a single interface. You can also take advantage of the platform’s gamification capabilities that encourage your team to perform better in a fun, motivational environment.
Integrations include connections with many popular ecommerce business tools to enhance customer satisfaction, such as Intercom, Magento, Mailchimp, Pipedrive, Prestashop, ShipStation, Shopify, Slack, WordPress, Zoho Mail, and other software options. You can use a paid Zapier account or LiveAgent’s API to create custom integrations with your toolset.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Live chat tools enhance customer relationships
- Excellent automation capabilities
- Intuitive and user-friendly
Cons:
- Mobile app needs work
- Only allows one pre-defined answer to a ticket
eDesk offers customer service automation capabilities to help online brands deliver excellent customer service everywhere they sell.
Why I picked eDesk: I chose to add eDesk to this article because you can use its automation tools to provide the support your customers expect from an online business. The platform’s automations can handle all the heavy lifting for your teams by suggesting answers depending on text analysis and previous replies related to similar issues, helping your teams from constantly searching for data and typing replies. In cases where the automations aren’t providing a suitable answer, your agents can reduce response times through the platform’s stock answers, template replies, and snippets.
eDesk Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include routing support ticket capabilities to help you optimize team workflow by sending customer issues to agents best suited to resolve them. eDesk also offers a comprehensive dashboard with reports to help you analyze and conduct performance checks.
Integrations include connections with over 250 marketplaces, web store platforms, and social channels to ensure you can support customers wherever you sell, such as AfterShip, Aircall, BigCommerce, Gmail, Klaviyo, Magento, PrestaShop, ShipStation, Shopify, WooCommerce, and other software options. You can also use eDesk’s API to create custom integrations with your systems.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Displays all customer interactions on one screen
- Ticket assignment decreases response times
- Links sales directly to the platform
Cons:
- User interface needs more customizability options
- Vendor’s customer support needs work
Tidio is an ecommerce customer service software that allows small businesses to deliver high-level customer experiences.
Why I picked Tidio: The platform is an excellent option for small businesses because these organizations can add Tidio to a website in five minutes without having any coding expertise. All of your customer interactions are located in the Tidio panel, and the vendor offers a mobile application that simplifies your customer service processes. Your small business can also use Tidio to get information regarding what website visitors are doing and where they came from and monitor critical analytics.
Tidio Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include triggering live chats on your website to answer visitors’ questions in real time. You can also make product recommendations or give custom discounts based on the visitor’s browsing behavior.
Integrations include connections with tools such as Active Campaign, Agile CRM, Google Analytics, Hubspot, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Zendesk, and other software options. You can create custom integrations whenever necessary through Tidio’s API or a paid Zapier account.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Excellent pricing for small businesses
- Shows all website activities
- Allows users to see who’s on their site
Cons:
- AI isn’t suitable for complex queries
- Setting up chatbots can be cumbersome
Zendesk offers end-to-end customer service solutions for enterprise-sized organizations that cover an array of customer helpdesk needs during every step of the customer journey.
Why I picked Zendesk: The platform is one of the most popular overall customer service software on the market, especially for large ecommerce businesses. Zendesk offers a suite of tools your business needs to manage customer service across several channels, such as email, voice, live chat, social media, and more. Even with the most complex ecommerce enterprise operations, Zendesk offers an AI tool that provides built-in intelligence and context to help your agents resolve issues faster through automatically generated suggestions and reduce repetitive work throughout your customer service workflow.
Zendesk Standout Features and Integrations
Standout features include the ability to hold internal conversations regarding customer queries before passing along external answers to customers. Zendesk also allows users to configure trigger automation to assign tasks, create customer service tickets, or send emails based on time-based triggers or specific actions.
Integrations include connections with over 1,300 applications to make Zendesk work perfectly for your business, such as Aircall, Intercom, Mailchimp, Nutshell CRM, PandaDoc, Recurly, Shopify, Slack, Trello, Zoho Analytics, and other software options. You can also use a paid Zapier account or Zendesk’s API to create custom integrations with your business’s toolset.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Easily filters support tickets into various queues
- Comprehensive enterprise solutions
- Robust reporting and analytics features
Cons:
- Customer support needs work
- Some social media integrations don’t connect well
Best Ecommerce Customer Service Software Summary
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Richpanel | From $24/user/month | Website |
| Help Scout | From $20/user/month | Website |
| Odoo CRM | Free | Website |
| Freshdesk | From $18/user/month | Website |
| Textline | From $59.97/month | Website |
| Gorgias | From $10/month | Website |
| LiveAgent | From $15/agent/month | Website |
| eDesk | From $69/user/month. | Website |
| Tidio | From $29/month | Website |
| Zendesk | From $49 per user/month | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareOther Options
The following is an additional list of other ecommerce customer service software options that will help you directly impact customers’ experiences.
- HubSpot CRM
Best for beginners
- Salesforce Service Cloud
Best AI-powered ecommerce customer service software
- LiveChat
Best for online chat and web analytics.
- Kixie
Best advanced calling and texting solution.
- Smartsupp
Best for delivering personalized experiences.
- Issuetrak
Best for tracking customer tickets, issues, and requests.
- EngageBay
Best for engaging web visitors.
- HelpCrunch
Best for customizable chat widgets.
- InMoment
Best for customer experience analytics.
- monday CRM
Best for controlling customer service funnels.
Selection Criteria For Ecommerce Customer Service Software
Here’s a short summary of the main selection and evaluation criteria I used to develop my list of the best customer service solution for ecommerce businesses for this article:
Core Functionality
A software’s core functionality determines how it fits within a specific category, such as ecommerce customer service. So, to make it onto this list, I focused on solutions that all provide the following functionality for ecommerce brands.
- Multi-channel communication; this enables businesses to manage customer inquiries and interactions across various communication channels, such as email, live chat, social media, and phone.
- Ticket management and tracking; organize and prioritize incoming requests, track their status, and assign them to appropriate team members for resolution.
Key Features
When choosing the best ecommerce solutions for this article, it can often come down to the tool’s features and how they align with specific needs. The following are some of the most crucial features I looked for when comparing the options in this list.
- Service Level Agreement Management: Configuring business hours and service level agreement targets for various customer requests within a help desk solution will immediately set expectations between your brand and customers.
- Custom Support Portals: By hosting a customer portal that’s customizable to meet your needs, you can enable your business to offer simple self-service experiences for online shoppers.
- Help Desk Reports: Built-in help desk reports and analytics help you track and measure your support team’s performance in real-time or periodically as needed.
- Live Chat: Real-time chat support from your website lets you quickly connect with customers, provide the answers they need, or direct the query to a suitable team member.
- Collaboration Tools: Many ecommerce customer service solutions enable teams to tag specific people into a conversation for their input; they can also allow team members to leave notes on specific customer inquiries and have conversations that aren’t sent to the customer.
- Message Templates: Ecommerce customer help desk tools can offer pre-built message templates to ensure your team provides instant answers instead of generating new messages for the same common query.
Usability
Time-strapped ecommerce customer support teams don’t have time to work with software that is awkward, unintuitive, and requires extra training. A platform’s quick response time, page loading speed, and agility when switching between features significantly impact your team’s efficiency and productivity. I look for top ecommerce customer service platforms that are intuitive, easy to set up, and simple for teams to understand and implement in their daily workflow. They should also offer remote access if you and your team aren’t tied to an office; allowing everybody on the customer service team to respond to queries while on the go will help your business continue to build loyalty and make buyers happy.
Software Integrations
A significant factor in implementing ecommerce customer service software is to improve productivity and minimize the number of tools required to complete tasks. Integrating with your current toolset is essential for effective ecommerce business operations, and the platform you choose must offer simple customer data transfers from your social media, CRM, shipping and fulfillment tools, marketing solutions, and ecommerce platforms. This significantly improves customer service, helps create targeted marketing campaigns, and ensures you receive accurate product recommendations to increase sales.
Automation
Automation capabilities within an ecommerce customer service platform can improve your business’s workflows and customer interactions. Setting up a solution that handles specific processes and actions, such as sending follow-up emails, can save your team time and money. So, I ensured to add options that offer automation features to help you deal with simple customer service tasks and customer questions, allowing you to focus on more complex issues. You can also use the money automation saves for better customer service agent training.
People Also Ask
There are many frequently asked questions people have when searching for new ecommerce customer service software, and you might have some too. So, to make this article more beneficial, I added some of the top questions people also asked about these tools and answered them to help you during this time.
How much does ecommerce customer service software cost?
The final cost of your ecommerce customer service software is dependent on the size, scope, and nature of your business. Many options base their price on the number of agents on a customer support team. The features in your package can also significantly impact your price. Accessing a platform with features bundled within a plan is typically more affordable. Still, some vendors give ecommerce businesses an option to customize with add-ons at an extra charge to the base subscription price. But, to make this article as helpful as possible, you can expect to pay anywhere between $9/user/month to $69/user/month. There are also free tools available and vendors who offer free plans.
What are the types of ecommerce customer service software?
To meet the needs of different ecommerce businesses, there are multiple types of ecommerce customer service software that exist in the marketplace. Here’s a brief overview of the various customer service platform categories you’ll find during your search.
- Knowledge Base: This provides pre-approved answers to common customer questions, empowering customers to help themselves and lower the number of queries needed to be handled by a live agent or via email.
- Live Chat or Chatbots: Incorporating live chat capabilities on your website allows customers to always reach an agent by messaging them; it typically appears as a small button on your store site that customers click to activate and open a chat window.
- Phone Support: To help your business offer excellent phone support, many ecommerce customer service tools offer effective call center capabilities, allowing your teams to route calls, provide additional context, and hold effective conversations.
- SMS/MMS: Many ecommerce customer service software offer SMS/MMS messaging capabilities to help you serve customers in real-time, assign customer conversations, search and filter interactions, and enable effective collaboration.
- Email or Shared Inbox: This software provides a group inbox that uses email aliases such as help@ or info@, allowing multiple customer support agents to access the shared inbox and manage the emails it receives.
- IT Remote Access: Often used by ecommerce businesses selling computer software or software as a service (SaaS), remote access software allows your agents to offer support to remote customers by taking control of your customers’ systems through a secure connection.
- Ticketing Software: Ecommerce customer service software based on ticket management gathers customer queries and assigns each to a ticket, which your team can manage from within the tool, allowing each ticket to be tracked and monitored in real-time.
- Social Media: A social media-based customer service solution helps your business track customer queries and issues across social platforms and flag them so your team can quickly respond.
- Customer Relationship Management: These platforms manage the complete, end-to-end relationship your business has with customers, starting with collecting contact information, segmenting customers for outreach, nurturing leads, and upselling buyers after purchases.
- Omnichannel: You can use omnichannel customer service tools to connect with customers through their preferred channels, such as live chat, email, social media, and more, and get a significant overview of their information on a unified system.
What are the benefits of ecommerce customer service software?
Ecommerce customer service software is vital for online businesses to provide exceptional customer support, enhance customer satisfaction, increase revenue, and improve overall operational efficiency. Here’s a list of benefits highlighting these tools’ significance to an ecommerce organization.
- Efficient Query Resolution: Ecommerce customer service software can resolve customer queries faster, helping improve overall customer satisfaction.
- Multi-Channel Support: Manage customer inquiries across various channels like email, chat, social media, and more from a centralized platform, enabling your business to increase customer engagement.
- Collect Customer Data: Collecting and utilizing customer data allows your business to personalize support and interactions, resulting in a boost in cross-selling and upselling.
- 24/7 Availability: Provide round-the-clock support, reducing cart abandonment rates and increasing revenue.
- Knowledge Base Integrations: Integrating a knowledge base into the software reduces support ticket volume by 70%, freeing up agents for more complex inquiries.
- Real-Time Analytics: Access real-time data and analytics to identify trends and areas for improvement, resulting in a 25% increase in first-contact resolution rates.
- Automated Responses: Implement chatbots and AI-driven responses to handle routine inquiries, reducing response times.
- Customer Feedback Loop: Collect and analyze customer feedback to refine products and services, leading to an increase in customer loyalty.
- Reduced Customer Churn: Proactive support and personalized interactions can reduce customer churn in an ecommerce organization.
- Cost Efficiency: Ecommerce customer service software can reduce operational costs, making it a cost-effective investment for any online brand.
Other Ecommerce Customer Service Software Reviews
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, there are many customer service software on the market, and you might need more options to ensure you implement the best solution for your business’s needs. To help, here are some more ecommerce customer service software reviews that list and evaluate other platform options worth considering.
The Takeaway
Clearly, there is a significant number of ecommerce customer service software options available to help your business improve customer experience, satisfaction, and sales. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and only you can determine which solution is best for your organization. But, to help with this process, I recommend utilizing as many free trials as possible that are offered by vendors and conducting customer satisfaction surveys. This will help you develop a more informed opinion about what your brand needs for its customer support team.
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