The Top 15 Customer Service Tools for Automation
Jairo Guerrero
| 12 min
What is there to automate in customer service?
The contact with your customers comes in various ways: phone calls, emails, website live chats, social media DMs, etc.
Depending on your organization your most active channel might be different. That is why in this article, we will review a wide spectrum of tools for your customer support automation. From the tool stack we present, take the tools that best fit your business, team and budget.
⚙️ Start Automating Your Customer Service with our AI Assisted Live Chat
5 Pillars of Automated Customer Support
Here are the main aspects we looked at for this customer service software automation tool list.
Automated Conversations with AI Chatbots
As we are talking automation, we checked which customer service platforms integrate AI technology first. True automation is achieved through leveraging artificial intelligence and we took the tools that facilitate:
Prompt chat responses
Easy handover to the right agent
Personalized interactions with customers
Automating Phone calls
A big percentage of customer automation goes to phone calls. You will likely need a larger customer service team to handle more calls unless you automate them. We chose customer calls automation platforms that allows:
Location-independent customer service.
In-depth call analytics,
Easy integration other tools
AI-assisted transcription
Help Desk & Ticketing Automation
Team efficiency is crucial in your helpdesk setting. Which is why this automation tool-stack article prioritizes software that is outstanding at ticketing automation. We also selected software that has integrated history tracking and automated ticket assignment to allow service agents to, for example, know within seconds the conversation context. With the right ticketing workflows your team will deliver much better support with less effort.
💡 Check the best help desk for eCommerce
Full Customer Experience Automation Suites
Customer service tasks have evolved to cover a wide range of tools and solutions: you might only need specialized software for calls or a full-service platform like customer service software 360 suites. We have included in this article all-in-one suites that will help you to manage customer interactions from every single customer touch point. With features such as:
Full centralized data management
In-depth Analytics and Tracking
Ticketing systems
Automated Customer Feedback
Customer service is all about getting real-time feedback from customers. Therefore we selected platforms that allow you to collect customer input & feedback, analyze trends, and empower decision-making with direct reviews from your customers. Automated feedback will help you to easily create a dashboard to highlight where you can improve to make your customers happier.
Let's see which tools we got for you.
+15 Tool-Stack for Automated Customer Service Software in 2024
Below we have listed the top 15 tools you will need for a fully automated customer service. We did not list just random customer service tools, we picked the best of each segment to get you the list with the full tool-stack for customer automation:
Phone call automation
Conversational AI
Live chats
Bots
Along with each "best" tool we listed 2 or 3 alternatives. In total you have more than 15 tools to choose from for your customer service automation efforts.
Here is the customer support automation software that if you implement soon, you will be ahead of 99% of the customer experiences out there.
Watermelon Pulse - Customer Conversations Automation (Chatbot)
Looking for an AI chatbot for your website? With Watermelon Pulse AI Chatbot you can engage with leads or answer customer questions on your website without having to have a team member working on it.
Watermelon Pulse chatbot will handle any language with a conversational approach. It allows you to integrate a GPT4-supported technology into your day-to-day customer service. With Watermelon you can automate up to 96% of all support requests.
Key Features of Watermelon Pulse AI Chatbot for customer service automation:
Human-like Conversations: Get answers for your customers right away with Watermelon's advanced conversational features.
Smooth Chatbot-Human Transitions: Watermelon AI bot facilitates smooth transitions between the AI chatbot to your customer experience team for more complex enquiries.
Simple Setup Process: Easily set up your website bot with the ready-to-use chatbot integration of Watermelon. No-code and smooth process. In any platform and channel.
Adaptability Across Languages and Platforms: Don't stop your customer service automation on your website only. Your audience might also be active in WhatsApp or Instagram. You can easily have a chatbot implemented for any channel with Watermelon's powerful integrations.
Reviews:
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars on:
Pricing:
Watermelon's pricing plan starts at just €99 per month.
Link: Pulse GPT-4 Powered AI Facebook Chatbot
Watermelon AI Chatbot Software Top 3 Alternatives:
ChatBot: The best AI chatbot alternative to Watermelon AI.
Price: 52,- USD/month - Free trial 14 days
Reviews: Capterra 4.7 / 5
Gorgias: The best option for Shopify customer automation
Price: 50,- USD/month.
Reviews: Capterra 4.7 / 5
Engati: AI chatbot powered by eSenseGPT
Price: on request.
Reviews: Capterra 4.0 / 5
Intercom - Customer automation for larger organizations
Intercom helps you to deliver personalized customer service at scale. You can provide "in-context" responses meaning that you will know how to deliver personal and unique support based on your customer or visitor's behavior. With Intercom automation your customer service team will be able to use a chatbot assistance to respond to over 30% of the common customer enquiries. The Intercom platform integrates easily with over 350 platforms.
Benefits of Intercom
Hundreds of integrations: You can connect easily with your current business platforms like Shopify, your CRM, email, ticketing, social channels such as WhatsApp or Facebook, your CMS, reporting tools, etc.
Self-service help center: Intercom provides a tool to build your own help center so your customers can easily access useful guides and resources to find solutions to their queries on their own. A help center will lower the direct questions that your customer service team has to handle. Your customers will enjoy a seamless and user-friendly experience.
Disadvantages of Intercom
Limited AI Capabilities: Despite Intercom offering AI chatbots for your customer service, you will still have to create workflow conversations manually, instead of letting the AI bot to do all the work. The AI technology is not used at its best and this will be decremental for your team's workload.
Limited Customer Support: It might be difficult for you to reach the customer service team of Intercom in case you run into issues with the platform, like technical issues or account level questions, such as billing or pricing changes.
SEO Limitations: The help center library that you can build with Intercom is a great help to allow a customer self-service yet there are limitations in the display of relevant data, such as FAQs, being not reachable sometimes for the search engines crawlers.
Intercom Top 3 Alternatives
Zoho Desk
Price: Starts at 7,- USD/m with a 15-day free trial
Reviews: G2 4.4 / 5
LiveAgent
Price: Starts at 9,- USD/m per agent with a 14-day free trial
Reviews: G2 4.5 / 5
Sprinklr
Price: Starting at 299,- USD/m
Reviews: G2 4 / 5
Aircall - Automation for customer service calls
Aircall leverages cutting-edge cloud technology, eliminating the need for traditional desk phones. Aircall allows you to arrange customer service teams regardless of location. Your customers do dot only request support via website chats or emails; phone support is a key aspect of your customer service and Aircall helps you to automate it.
Aircall automation advantages:
In-depth Analytics: The analytics feature in Aircall's software allows for real-time tracking and management of team call activity through the conversations log. Aircall platform also provides monitoring features to ensure highest standards and even a "Call Whispering" feature to help agents with advance assistance during live calls.
Integration Features: One of the key advantages Aircall's automation features is the integration capabilities with other tools and systems. With Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), you can connect your phone devices with your computers. Aircall also provides Webhooks & API endpoints to allow complex integrations with other tools in your business stack, so you can create tailored connections. You can also sync your current contacts with Aircall system from different sources such as Google Apps or your current CRM
AI assistance & Transcription: Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing transcription services by offering AI-generated call summaries, making it easier to quickly grasp the main points of a conversation. By using key topic recognition, users can easily identify important discussion points for effective call monitoring and coaching purposes. Additionally, analyzing talk-to-listen ratios provided by AI can give valuable insights into speaker dynamics and caller engagement levels, allowing businesses to optimize their communication strategies. With AI-powered transcription services, organizations can streamline their workflows and improve overall efficiency in handling calls.
Aircall disadvantages
Performance issues: Due to the complexity of the medium (phone calls) Aircall might have issues with quality such as robotic voices, calls that are dropped, and recurring issues on the customer support due to devices or networks.
Complex onboarding: The onboarding process might last quite long until you can actually enjoy the benefits of automated phone calls. Also the addition of team members or integrating other tools and systems might require quite some time to be implemented.
Aircall Top 3 Alternatives
Cloudtalk
Price: 25,- USD/m with a 14-day free trial
Reviews: G2 4.3 / 5
Justcall
Price: Starting at 49,- USD/m
Reviews: G2 4.2 / 5
Talkdesk
Price: Starting at 85,- USD
Reviews: G2 4.4 / 5
💡 Check the best (AI) chatbots for customer service
NICE CxOne - All-in-one customer service automation in the cloud
NiceCXone is a 360-cloud customer experiences platform with advanced analytics, automation, and real-time guidance. NiceCXone can take over your customers during their entire life-time with your business. Starting from the first touch points such as a live chat or a message through social media all the way to upselling or in-platform service.
NICE CxOne advantages for customer service automation:
AI assisted customer support: You can analyze all customer conversations with Nice CxOne's accurate speech-to-text transcription and CX AI APIs for better data management. The AI technology will help you to better guide human agents to offer the best customer experience.
Integrations with 3rd parties: You can easily integrate your current tools and business software with NICE CxONE. For example connecting to your CRM or sales software can be done with a few clicks directly from the NICE CxONE dashboard.
Customer Experience Analytics: NICE CxONE uses data-driven insights to quantify improvements in agent's productivity, customer satisfaction & engagement to allow you to set the right targets and goals for your team.
NICE CxOne disadvantages
Product Limitations: NICE solutions have some limitations such as customization of customer service reports and lack of dynamic dashboards or difficulty in using the solution on mobile devices.
Performance issues: Daily outages and technical issues might occur too frequently while using NICE. For example, call routing and call handling might be problematic for your customer service team. You might also experience calls that drop or poor call quality.
NICE CxOne Top 3 Alternatives
HubSpot
Price: 792,- EUR/m for enterprise or 20,- EUR/m for pro individual features. For individuals there is a free subscription.
Reviews: Capterra 4.5 / 5
Freshdesk
Price: Starts for free with pro features from 15,- USD/m per agent
Reviews: G2 4.4 / 5
Tidio
Price: You can start for free with pro features from 29, EUR/m.
Reviews: G2 4.7 / 5
Kayako - The Best Helpdesk Software for Teams
Kayako is a great collaborative tool for customer service. With features like automatic conversation routing you can address the right agent and the right customer at the right time. Your workload will reduce due to its amazing efficiency for teams. Kayako helps not only with the regular customer experience towards customers but offer a unique option for internal corporate helpdesk to boost employee efficiency.
Why Kayako is good for customer service automation
Efficient Team Collaboration: With Kayako you can divide and conquer. Group conversations, assign tickets, collaborate on the same case, etc. All your agents will be aligned and will offer the best support to your customers.
Single-View Customer Experiences: Kayako developed an interesting and helpful approach to customer service: the SingleView. With the customer single view, the customer service agent can easily know within a few seconds everything about the person they are talking to: order history, viewed pages, previous conversations, etc. You will be able to treat each customer as an individual with personalized support.
Friction-Free Support: Say goodbye to email chains and disjointed notes with centralized communication, enhancing efficiency and reducing response times.
Kayako's disadvantages
No AI Assistance: Despite the unique approach of Kayako in the helpdesk space, their solution does not count with AI assisted support which might lead to a higher workload for your service desk team.
Performance Issues: Kayako's system might have some issues from time to time, which could end up affecting your customer service team unable to respond to customer inquiries promptly and efficiently.
Integrations Limitations: You might experience some technical blocks when integrating your social channels or other CRM system with Kayako.
Kayako 3 top alternatives
HelpScout
Price: 20,- USD / m
Reviews: G2 4.4 / 5
Front
Price: 59,- USD / m
Reviews: G2 4.7 / 5
HappyFox
Price: 26,- USD / m
Reviews: Capterra 4.2 / 5
Customer Experience Automation Examples
Customer Support Automation with AI Bots
Green Bubble, a prominent player in the online plant market in the Netherlands, has transformed its customer service approach by integrating innovative AI chatbot technology. As a specialist in large indoor and outdoor plants, Green Bubble's standout feature is their 'Personal Plant Shopper', offering a unique and personalized shopping experience through WhatsApp.
The AI chatbot implementation marks a significant enhancement in customer service. Capable of autonomously handling 90% of customer inquiries, it processes about 600 conversations monthly, with half occurring outside regular business hours. This leads to increased efficiency and heightened customer satisfaction.
Green Bubble is also developing an advanced plant guide for their website, utilizing Watermelon's Web Scraper feature. This addition will enrich the chatbot's capabilities, providing extensive plant knowledge and facilitating an integrated ordering system, further simplifying the customer experience.
eCommerce Customer Service Automation with the power of conversational AI #1
HUUS.nl, a booming webshop specialized in home interior products, had also booming customer inquiries as its online presence grew. Despite having a live chat feature, their customer service team found themselves overwhelmed by repetitive queries, consuming valuable time that could be allocated to other tasks. So the Huus team wanted to automate all repetitive tasks to lower the service team workload so they implemented a live chat + AI chatbot named Guus.
Huus has automated 65% of customer interactions, significantly reducing the workload for the customer service team. This automation has led to the equivalent of one full-time employee being freed up. The Watermelon chatbot operates 24/7, handling most inquiries, while a dedicated human agent remains available during extended hours for personalized assistance.
eCommerce Customer Service Automation with the power of conversational AI #2
Ticketpoint, one of the largest event ticket providers in the Netherlands, faced the challenge of ensuring efficient customer service. With 200,000 tickets sold for events like Toppers concerts, the need for prompt assistance was paramount. Recognizing the potential of chatbots, Ticketpoint embarked on integrating Chatbot Kees from Watermelon.ai into their customer service operations. The chatbot automated most conversations coming from the webshop and allowed the agents to handle more complex cases directly with the live chat.
Within just three weeks of deployment, Chatbot Kees seamlessly integrated into Ticketpoint's customer service team, automating an impressive 80% of customer inquiries. This automation not only relieved the workload of human agents but also ensured round-the-clock customer support, enhancing service accessibility and efficiency. With Kees' proactive approach, weekends became more enjoyable for the team, and customer queries were addressed promptly, contributing to heightened satisfaction levels.
Benefits of Customer Service Automation Tools
Reduces Customer Service Costs
Customer service automation tools are the best method for businesses to cut costs and improve efficiency. Automation will help you for example, to reduce the FTEs you need to cope with your customer service efforts. Also any improvement you do towards customer service automation will help your team to become more efficient and it will lower the costs in training and development. Lower costs, happier employees and happy customers.
Reduces Human Errors
When your customer service team runs into too much work, they will work under stress and make more mistakes. You as a manager will run into the same issue: workload high, efficiency low. The automation tools we presented to you in this article offer one key advantage: reduce human errors, like for example incorrect order entries or missed follow-up tasks.
By automating repetitive tasks and processes your team can minimize the risk of errors and therefore unhappy customers. A great customer service experience is what makes customers stay or go to your competitor.
Personalized Customer Experience 24/7
With automation software you can customize your service responses to be unique and individual to every customer's needs and you can operate 24/7 without human agents having to be present all the time. Let's take AI chatbots for example, as conversational bots learn from every interaction you can solve almost all customer questions with an AI bot. Being available all the time results in improved lead generation and overall increased sales opportunities.
Reducing Customer Wait Time
Customer service automation tools do not need to switch conversations or calls. Each tool can handle hundreds of interactions at the same time which allows fast-response service. For example, (AI) chatbots, IVR systems, and automated email responses can handle common inquiries and issues quickly and efficiently without the need of your team to answer manually. Your customers will receive immediate assistance without having to wait in long queues or on hold leading to increased loyalty and positive word-of-mouth referrals.
💡 Start Automation with The Best AI Chatbots
FAQ’s On Customer Service Automation Software
What software is used in customer service?
Customer service utilizes a range of software to enhance interaction and support provided to customers. Customer service solutions include AI chatbots for automated conversations without human intervention, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platforms for managing customer interactions, and specialized tools for automating phone calls. There are also full-service customer service platforms that offer an all-in-one solution, integrating various aspects of customer service from initial contact through follow-up, leveraging advanced analytics and automation.
Which tool is most useful in customer service?
AI chatbots are increasingly recognized for their ability to ease the process of customer support without the need of human agents. AI chatbots will lower your team's workload significantly so they can take care of the most complex cases manually with for example a live chat. With AI chatbots and live chats your customer support will reduce waiting times and with conversational AI you can deliver personalized customer experiences with a human touch.
Live chats were so far the most useful customer service tool but with AI technology the conversational chatbots are taking over to achieve fully automated customer service.
How do you automate customer service jobs?
Automating customer service jobs involves implementing technology that can take over routine tasks without human intervention. You can achieve customer service automation through:
Integrating AI chatbots on websites, social media platforms, and messaging apps to answer frequently asked questions and guide users through common processes.
Using IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems and automated call distribution in phone support to direct callers to the appropriate service or information.
Employing automated ticketing systems that categorize, route, and prioritize support requests for efficient handling by customer service teams.
Leveraging CRM platforms with automation features to manage customer interactions, follow-ups, and analytics seamlessly.
What is CRM service automation?
CRM service automation is a business approach towards using different tools to automate repetitive customer service tasks. For example, answering FAQs, assigning customer support tickets, scheduling follow-ups or creating customers groups based on their history data. Most B2B and B2C businesses need automation to lower their workload and increase efficiency and also to enhance the overall customer experience as your team can deliver personalized support in a promptly manner.