Customer Service

The ultimate client support tools

Jake Johnson

Updated: Sep 20, 2022 · 8 min read

Toolkit for download in this article

online customer support tools

You work hard to get leads and clients in the door. It’s disappointing when a poor experience erases all that hard work and causes you to lose valuable business. 

The challenges of providing outstanding service are many. And as a small business owner, chances are it’s overwhelming to keep track of and respond to client inquiries in a timely, accurate and delightful way. 

But as a small business owner, you know that client support is important. You’re in good company.  According to Tom Byun, GM of Small Business at LivePerson, a recent survey reports that customer service is the number one priority of small business owners. All the more reason to make the most of your best customer service tools.

There is no shortage of tools out there to try and help you streamline and manage your client support workflow. That’s a good thing. But it can be pretty difficult to know just where to turn and what will work best for you. Who has time to sort through all the options? 

Thankfully we do. Below are 10 solutions that you can put to use in quick work—and that will make you work a lot quicker (and efficiently). Any of them can be used on their own, or in conjunction with each other. Ultimately it’s about determining what approach will work best for you and sticking with it.

The result will be happier clients and happier bottom lines for you.

1. Freshdesk (All-in-one) 

Freshdesk online customer support tool

Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer support platform that was founded with the mission of enabling companies of all sizes to provide great customer service.”  

Features: Ticketing, team inbox, service level agreements, analytics and mobile apps.

 2. Twitter (Do-it-yourself)

twitter online customer support tool

Whether you are not yet ready to invest in full-scale client service software, or you would like to expand the reach of your customer service efforts, Twitter offers your customers a simple and accessible way to communicate with your brand in real time.  Many brands large and small use Twitter to create a better customer experience. 

3. Liveperson (Chat) 

Liveperson online customer support tool

Take client connection to a whole new level:  LiveEngage identifies those more likely to need a chat and sends them a personalized invitation. Others who just need a quick and easy answer, for example, will see different types of engagements — such as banners, panels, toasters, etc. — to help them in the right direction.”

Features: Multiple language support, an analytics dashboard and the ability to update and optimize on the fly. 

4. Helpjuice (Knowledge base) 

Helpjuice online customer support tool

“Get fewer support emails & more happy clients. Helpjuice is easy-to-use knowledge base software that guarantees 50 percent less support emails and more happy customers.”

Features: External knowledge base for clientss and internal knowledge base for your team, fast and intelligent search and completely customizable, advanced analytics.

5. Keap (Client management software)

Whether you’re a solopreneur or managing a team, Keap can help resolve some of the chaos of following up with your leads and clients. Our software recognizes client activity through all your business applications—like QuickBooks, Outlook, Gmail, and Xero—and can organize and prioritize next steps of interaction. The app also manages a wide range of customer service follow-up, like billing, upsell opportunities, meetings, and more. 

6. Zingle (Text-based) 

Zingle online customer support tool

Zingle is based on the idea that since “everyone texts, your business should too”.  

Texting is popular because it’s fast and easy. Zingle helps customers access products or services without extra hassle and get faster responses – all improving customer satisfaction

Take Keap's Lifecycle Automation Assessment to identify growth opportunities for your business.

Features: Service tracking, custom messages and response times, date and time stamped confirmations. 

7. Survey Monkey (Customer satisfaction survey) 

“Get the feedback you need to keep your customers happy. From measuring satisfaction to capturing your Net Promoter Score, online surveys help you understand what you’re doing well  - and what you need to improve.”

Surveys create an easy and interactive way to improve service and get critical feedback from the people who matter most – your customers.  

Features: Survey templates, custom logo and branding, advanced logic, mobile app, data analysis and target market surveys.

8. Muut (Community Forums)

Muut online customer support tool

Commenting and forums are embedded right on your site improve user engagement, garner more return visitors and foster a greater sense of community.  

Muut enables you to add commenting to your blog, online store, and picture gallery, start a support channel on a dedicated page, while the forum aggregates all of the discussion. “

Features: Embeddable forums and commenting, single system aggregation, custom integration, mobile responsive and Google Analytics integration.

9. Google Voice (Voicemail) 

“Google Voice gives you one number for all your phones, voicemail as easy as email, free U.S. long distance and low rates on international calls”  

For a small business owner on the go, the ability to effectively manage communications is vital to keeping clients happy. Google’s free service allows a small business without a full customer support team or fancy software keep client calls under control and manage notifications, accessibility, and response. 

Features: Search and prioritize calls, use different rules and greetings for different contacts, share calls with your team, specify where and when to receive calls and receive email notifications of calls and text messages. 

10. Basecamp (Project Management) 

“Basecamp keeps people on the same page so no matter what your role is, everyone works toward a common goal: finishing a project together.”

Basecamp is a project management system and at first glance, it may not seem to have much to do with customer support or be much in regards to online customer support tools. However, with a little outside-of-the-box thinking the software can be used to create to-do lists with clients for finalizing deliverables, ongoing maintenance, logging bugs or ongoing conversations and progress check-ins.

Features: Team and clients collaboration, consolidated communication, due dates, keyword filters, project catch up and file download.

11. ProProfs Survey Maker

“ProProfs Survey Maker is a SaaS-based online survey solution designed to offer comfort to organizations, marketers, educators in collecting customer feedback and conducting market research.

Skip the guesswork and create attractive online surveys to measure customer satisfaction with the perfect out of the box survey software. Choose from a variety of templates and questions to get the relevant feedback. To let the respondents know it's you, customize the theme by adding your branding and other desired features. That’s not all, leverage on the advanced reporting to know how much your business has been able to meet the needs of customers-and evaluate the performance of the company’s support team.

Features: Ready-made survey templates, question library, customization options, easy to use survey editor, skip logic, branching mobile surveys, smart reporting, intelligent analytics, integrations.

No matter what tools you ultimately use, there is both art and science to great customer support.  Check out this post to learn more and keep your customers so happy they come back for more.

Special thanks to Jeanette LeBlanc for research and editorial assistance.  

Was this post helpful?
Illustration of Keap growth handbook
How can you grow your business to the next level? Take our assessment to find out.

The Small Business Growth Assessment will reveal where you are on your path to growth and help you identify common pitfalls so you can avoid them. Plus, you’ll get FREE curated resources to get you to the next stage.

Take the assessment

You may also like

{{ deSlug(record.displayCategory || record.secondaryCategory || record.primaryCategory || '') }} | min read

 

Knowledge is power, get some more...

Hello, have a question? Let's chat.

Got it