Marketing, Sales Automation, and CRM

Boost your marketing and sales efficiency with these top-notch automation tools designed to drive revenue growth.

UpLead

UpLead is a premier B2B lead generation platform offering access to over 160 million verified business contacts. With features like real-time email verification, data enrichment, and CRM integration, it supercharges your sales prospecting efforts with 95% data accuracy.

Deal: UpLead is offering a secret Black Friday deal that gives you 15% off monthly plans & 30% off annual plans. Visit their website and contact the team via chat to unlock this exclusive offer. No coupon code required.

Deal Validity: 11/21/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Signaturely

Signaturely simplifies the digital signing process, allowing businesses and individuals to send, sign, and manage documents online effortlessly. With legally binding signatures, you can close deals faster and eliminate the hassle of paperwork.

Deal: Enjoy 20% off monthly plans and 40% off annual plans on both Personal and Business subscriptions. Simply reach out via live chat to claim your discount.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

SendX

SendX provides a user-friendly email marketing platform with a drag-and-drop editor and over 1,000 professional templates, making it easy to craft stunning emails quickly.

Deal: Get 40% off with Coupon Code: SENDXBF2024 during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Deal Validity: 11/29/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Mailtrap

Mailtrap offers a straightforward email marketing solution, allowing you to create, schedule, and send impactful campaigns that resonate with your audience.

Deal: 25% off for 12 months on Sending Basic and Business plans with PROMO CODE: BFCM24

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/31/2024

Get the deal

EngageBay

EngageBay is an all-in-one platform integrating marketing, sales, and support with a free CRM, ideal for startups and growing businesses.

Deal: Get 40% off lifetime on all first-time purchases across all plans.

Deal Validity: 11/14/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Venntive

Venntive is a comprehensive RevOps-GTM platform that unifies sales, marketing, and customer success teams, enhancing revenue through alignment and efficiency.

Deal: 25% off the first 12 months or 35% off the first year of an annual subscription.
Deal Codes: BFCM25% OFF (monthly) – BFCM35% OFF (annual)

Deal Validity: 11/24/2024 – 12/24/2024

Get the deal

Storylane

Storylane enables marketing and sales professionals to create interactive demos within minutes, enhancing customer engagement and conversion rates.

Deal: 20% off for the first year with PROMO CODE: STORYLANE20

Deal Validity: 11/9/2024 – 12/25/2024

Get the deal

SocialBu

SocialBu is a comprehensive social media management and automation platform, streamlining your social media activities for better efficiency.

Deal: 50% off on all yearly plans

Deal Validity: 11/24/2024 – 12/31/2024

Get the deal

Circleboom

Circleboom is a comprehensive social media management tool that simplifies scheduling, posting, and analytics for social media platforms.

Deal: 50% Discount on all plans.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

PostNitro.ai

PostNitro.ai automates carousel post creation with AI for more engaging social media content.

Deal: 30% off monthly plans, 50% off annual plans.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/1/2024

Get the deal

Snov.io

Snov.io offers efficient tools for multichannel email campaigns and high client conversion rates, including LinkedIn automation and detailed campaign reports.

Deal: 50% off on premium plans.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Reply.io

Reply.io is your all-in-one, AI-powered sales automation platform designed to help you automate outreach, generate quality leads, and close more deals.

Deal: 40% OFF annual plans (available for ‘Email Only’ and ‘Multichannel’ plans). Use promo code “BF2024” at checkout.

Deal Validity: 11/20/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

lemlist

Lemlist helps you reach inboxes and get replies with personalized cold outreach. Use email, LinkedIn, and phone calls to connect with leads.
Deal: 30% OFF all plans with the code “LEMLISTBLACKFRIDAY2024”.

Deal Validity: 11/28/2024 – 12/1/2024

Get the deal

Moosend

Moosend offers an email marketing and marketing automation platform to simplify customer engagement and campaign management.
Deal: 20% off monthly plans for 12 months (Code: BF20MOO) and 40% off annual plans (Code: BF40MOO)

Deal Validity: 11/7/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

GetResponse

GetResponse empowers marketers and small business owners with tools for email marketing and audience engagement.

Deal: Up to 40% off all plans for the first 12 months.

Deal Validity: 11/26/2024 – 12/4/2024

Get the deal

NetHunt CRM is a powerful sales automation tool integrated with Gmail. It captures leads, organizes customer data, visualizes sales pipelines, automates workflows, and monitors team performance.

Deal: 15% OFF for all pricing plans.

Deal Validity: 11/18/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

MySignature

MySignature helps small businesses, creators, and freelancers enhance professional branding and email communication.

Deal: 30% off for the first payment on all yearly plans with code “BFW2024”.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Newoldstamp

Newoldstamp is an email signature management platform for designing and implementing brand-consistent signatures organization-wide.

Deal: 25% off on any annual plan (recurring discount for all future payments). Use code “BF2024NOS”.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

NoForm AI

NoForm AI is an AI-powered chatbot designed to enhance lead generation on websites.

Deal: 50% OFF the monthly plan for the first year for new customers.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

Warmy.io

Warmy.io makes your email channel dependable with its all-in-one email deliverability solution.

Deal: 50% off the annual subscription.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

RetargetKit

RetargetKit is a versatile toolbox for digital marketers, affiliate marketers, and agencies, offering features like branded URL shorteners, lead generation tools, call-to-action links, and more. It also includes advanced options like A/B testing, conversion tracking, link cloaking, and geo-targeting.

Deal: 50% OFF on ALL plans with coupon code “BFCM24”.

Deal Validity: 11/10/2024 – 12/10/2024

Get the deal

SendFlock

SendFlock simplifies creating and managing personalized email campaigns for sales and marketing teams. It helps reduce spam rates, automates email sequences, and consolidates communications in a unified inbox. Perfect for boosting response rates and nurturing leads.

Deal: 50% OFF on ALL plans with coupon code “BFCM24”.

Deal Validity: 11/10/2024 – 12/10/2024

Get the deal

Flowla

Flowla transforms sales and onboarding by centralizing files, to-dos, and client updates in one organized digital space, enhancing collaboration and efficiency.

Deal: 25% off for 3 months on monthly Pro & Team plans.

Deal Validity: 11/12/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

Consolto

Consolto makes live website meetings easy, so you can convert visitors into customers faster.

Deal:

• 90% off (limited to 5 availabilities) with the code 90OFFBF24
• 75% off (10 availabilities) with the code 75OFFBF24
• 50% off (30 availabilities) with the code 50OFFBF24
• 30% off (100 availabilities) with the code 25OFFBF24

Deal Validity: 10/15/2024 – 12/4/2024

Get the deal

Omnisend

Omnisend helps ecommerce brands drive sales with email and SMS marketing, all in one platform.

Deal: 30% off for 3 months for new customers using code “BFCM300FF”.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/5/2024

Get the deal

Saleshandy

Saleshandy helps automate cold email campaigns for more efficient outreach.

Deal: Up to 50% off on all annual Outreach plans.

Deal Validity: 11/18/2024 – 12/1/2024

Get the deal

Woorise

Woorise makes lead generation easy with customizable landing pages, forms, and viral giveaways.

Deal: 50% off on all plans using coupon code “BLACKFRIDAY” during checkout.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024

Get the deal

Folderly

Folderly improves email performance by tackling deliverability issues so your messages hit the inbox.

Deal: 50% off annual subscriptions for new clients.

Deal Validity: 11/28/2024 – 12/31/2024

Get the deal

MailBluster

MailBluster is a powerful email marketing platform offering automation, drag-and-drop editors, real-time tracking, and pro templates to simplify campaigns.

Deal: 50% off on upgrade plans and up to 30% off on monthly usage.

Deal Validity: 11/21/2024 – 12/5/2024

Get the deal

Social Champ

Social Champ is an all-in-one social media management tool that enables users to create posts, analyze content, perform social listening, and conduct competitor analysis across 11 social media platforms.

Deal: 50% off all plans.

Deal Validity: 11/13/2024 – 12/15/2024

Get the deal

Scrollsequence

Vyper makes it easy to create gamified giveaways, contests, and loyalty programs that drive leads and customer growth.

Deal: 50% off on all plans.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/31/2024

Get the deal

Mailmodo

Mailmodo helps you create interactive emails with AMP technology, allowing users to engage directly in their inbox for better results.

Deal: 20% off on annual plans.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 11/30/2024

Get the deal

Vyper

Vyper allows you to create engaging giveaways, contests, referral programs, and loyalty campaigns. Use gamification to build stunning campaigns and landing pages to generate leads and customers effectively.

Deal: 50% off + Free Viral Brand Building Course worth $499.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Seamless.AI

Seamless.AI is a B2B contact search engine, helping businesses find and connect with potential customers effortlessly.

Deal: Sign-up for a New Account Today and Get 3x Search Credits. Create a new account before the end of the month using this special link and you’ll get 200 search credits free instead of 50.

Deal Validity: Confirm subscription by 11/30/2024.

Get the deal

No-Code Website and Form Builders

Create professional websites and forms effortlessly without any coding or design experience.

Pixpa

Pixpa is an all-in-one, no-code website builder for creatives and small businesses, featuring an in-built online store, dynamic blog, client galleries, and marketing tools.

Deal: Use promo code BLFPIXPA55 to get up to 55% off on annual plans.

Deal Validity: 11/29/2024 – 12/31/2024

Get the deal

Dorik

Dorik is a no-code, AI-powered website builder that allows anyone to create a stunning website in minutes, with no design or coding skills required.

Deal: Flat 50% discount on annual plans.

Deal Validity: 11/14/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Weblium

Weblium simplifies the process of creating websites, turning your concepts into polished, functional sites with ease.

Deal: Up to 55% off on any annual plan.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

BlogHandy

With BlogHandy, embedding a blog into your site is quick and easy—just two minutes.

Deal: 50% off any subscription for the first year.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/1/2024

Get the deal

CookieYes Agency Program

CookieYes provides an all-in-one cookie consent management solution for agencies to manage multiple client websites, ensuring compliance and creating revenue opportunities.

Deal: 40% off + an extra $250 off (for the first year).

Deal Validity: 11/20/2024 – 12/5/2024

Get the deal

ZipWP

ZipWP is the fastest AI-powered website builder, designed to create functional and attractive websites effortlessly.

Deal: 30% off.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

Simvoly

Simvoly makes it easy to build stunning websites and sales funnels with its drag-and-drop design tools.

Deal: 50% off on all plans for the first 6 months.

Deal Validity: 11/29/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

SEO Tools

Enhance your online visibility and domain authority with these SEO and link-building tools.

SE Ranking

SE Ranking offers a comprehensive SEO toolkit with features like rank tracking, keyword research, competitor analysis, and website audits.

Deal: 20% off all annual plans and add-ons, in addition to the year-round 20% annual discount.

Deal Validity: 11/20/2024 – 12/4/2024

Get the deal

Mangools

Mangools offers a suite of user-friendly SEO tools for keyword research, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and competitor insights.

Deal: 35% off all plans for a lifetime.

Deal Validity: 11/18/2024 – 12/8/2024

Get the deal

GMBapi

Manage and optimize all your Google Business Profile listings and citations from a single dashboard.

Deal: Full access for 3 weeks.

Deal Validity: 11/16/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Serpstat

Serpstat is a comprehensive SEO platform trusted by global brands like Samsung, Uber, and Shopify. It offers tools for SEO competitor analysis, advanced keyword research, in-depth backlink analytics, precision rank tracking, and AI content optimization.

Deal:

• Double credits on ALL tools and features.
• FREE BONUS: +2 months with an annual plan.
• MEGA BONUS: +6 months with a 3-year plan.

Deal Validity: 11/29/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Localo

Localo is an all-in-one local SEO tool designed for optimizing Google Business Profiles and monitoring performance.

Deal: Save up to 50% lifetime in this exclusive Black Friday deal.

Deal Validity: 11/22/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Seobility

Seobility is an all-in-one SEO software that helps you identify and fix website issues, track rankings, and optimize content to boost your search engine performance.

Deal: 60-day Premium free trial plus a 15% permanent discount on monthly Premium thereafter.

Deal Validity: 11/22/2024 – 12/13/2024

Get the deal

Scalenut

Scalenut is an AI-powered SEO and content marketing platform to boost search engine rankings and drive organic traffic.

Deal: 60% Discount, 3X Limits + Guaranteed Rewards.

Deal Validity: 11/19/2024 – 1/5/2025

Get the deal

TrueRanker

TrueRanker is an alternative SEO Google rank tracker. Providing accurate SERP results in a very easy to use UI

Deal: Plans up to 70% OFF

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

HR Tools

Streamline your HR tasks with these helpful tools.

Recooty

Recooty uses AI to make hiring easier, from job posting to candidate matching and analytics.

Deal: 40% off on all plans.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/10/2024

Get the deal

Xobin

Xobin provides an all-in-one solution for evaluating skills.

Deal: 60% off on annual plans (limited slots available).

Deal Validity: 11/11/2024 – 11/26/2024

Get the deal

HR Partner

HR Partner is a complete HR software system designed specifically for small and mid-sized companies, helping streamline HR processes efficiently.

Deal: Save 50% on your first 12 months.

Deal Validity: 11/26/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Risely

Risely is an AI-powered co-pilot for leadership development, helping leaders enhance their skills and drive better team outcomes.

Deal: 50% off the first invoice for any plan with code “BFCM2024”.

Deal Validity: 11/15/2024 – 12/31/2024

Get the deal

Project Management and Collaboration

Improve team coordination and project execution with these collaboration tools.

Beekast

Beekast transforms your meetings, training sessions, or events into engaging and productive experiences with its collaborative platform.

Deal: 50% off on Beekast’s Starter, Pro, and Business Plans

Deal Validity: 11/18/2024 – 12/1/2024

Get the deal

Spacebring

Spacebring offers an all-in-one virtual office management software, streamlining team collaboration and tracking KPIs in real-time.

Deal: Enhance your virtual office experience at an unbeatable price!

Deal Validity: 11/20/0020 – 11/30/2024

Get the deal

Mailbird

Mailbird offers a sleek email client for PC and Mac, featuring multi-account management, a unified inbox, and third-party integrations. With over 4 million users, it’s perfect for simplifying email communication.

Deal: Get up to 82% off on the Mailbird Premium Plan.

Promo Code: None required.

Deal Validity: 11/28/2024 – 12/4/2024

Get the deal

DocuGenerate

DocuGenerate is a flexible platform for generating high-quality PDF documents, including contracts, invoices, agreements, and proposals.

Deal: 50% OFF for the first 3 months with promo code “BLACKFRIDAY2024”.

Deal Validity: 11/10/2024 – 11/30/2024

Get the deal

Gyde

Gyde is an AI-powered browser extension that automatically creates step-by-step guides with screenshots and videos for explaining complex processes.

Deal: Free Forever Plan and 50% off yearly paid plans.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/31/2024

Get the deal

MindPal

MindPal is a platform for building AI agents and multi-agent workflows.

Deal: Get 60% off all yearly plans with code “BLACKFRIDAY24”.

Deal Validity: 11/17/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

IdeaBuddy

IdeaBuddy helps you brainstorm and plan your business ideas with ease.

Deal: 40% off all annual and lifetime plans.

Deal Validity: 11/27/2024 – 12/4/2024

Get the deal

MinutesLink

MinutesLink is an advanced AI note-taker designed to make meetings more productive by recording, transcribing, and generating accurate minutes.

Deal: 50% off all plans.

Deal Validity: 11/15/2024 – 12/15/2024

Get the deal

Content Creation

Create or enhance your content efficiently using these tools.

The Multiverse AI

The Multiverse AI provides AI-generated headshots for your team, perfect for remote branding without the hassle.

Deal: 30% off all AI headshots with BLACKFRIDAY30

Deal Validity: 11/7/2024 – 12/15/2024

Get the deal

neuroflash

Neuroflash provides AI-powered tools for generating, personalizing, and optimizing marketing content efficiently.

Deal: AI Power Marketing Pack + 50% off the first month for Starter or Pro plans.

Deal Validity: 11/18/2024 – 11/30/2024

Get the deal

Heights Platform

Heights Platform helps you create courses and build communities with Heights AI 2, making it easier to launch a successful business.

Deal: Enjoy 35% off for 2 years on Basic and Pro plans, available on both monthly and annual billing options.

Deal Validity: 11/22/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

SEOwind

SEOwind is an AI-powered article writer designed to create expert-level, SEO-optimized content that drives traffic and rankings.
Deal:

• 50% discount on the first 3 months for monthly plans.
• 50% one-time discount on annual plans.

This offer is for first-time users and cannot be combined with other promotions.

Deal Validity: 11/29/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Podcastle

Podcastle simplifies creating professional-quality audio and video content with tools for recording, editing, and hosting.

Deal: 15% off Essentials plans (monthly/annual) with code BF15PODCASTLE and 20% off Pro and Business plans (monthly/annual) with code BF20PODCASTLE.

Deal Validity: 11/26/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

OneStream Live

OneStream Live is a cloud-based live streaming platform for broadcasting pre-recorded and real-time content to over 45 social platforms and websites simultaneously.

Deal: 30% off on all monthly plans for 2 months, 10% off on all annual plans.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/5/2024

Get the deal

LiveReacting

LiveReacting transforms your streams into engaging experiences with real-time polls, quizzes, and games to captivate your audience.

Deal:

• Save 40% on monthly subscriptions for one year.
• Get 50% off yearly plans for two years.

Deal Validity: 11/15/2024 – 11/30/2024

Instructions: Use the code “BLACK-FRIDAY-2024-P” at checkout to apply the discount.

Get the deal

Decktopus AI

Decktopus AI simplifies presentation creation for professionals with its AI-powered tools, making it quick and effective.

Deal: 40% off on all plans.

Deal Validity: 11/15/2024 – 12/15/2024

Get the deal

Venngage

An intuitive online design platform that enables users to create a wide range of visual content—including infographics, reports, presentations, brochures, posters, and diagrams—using customizable templates and a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor.

Deal: $24 off the Yearly Business Plan (one-time discount).

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Communication and Call Center Tools

Enhance customer communication and support with these advanced tools.

CloudTalk

CloudTalk is a cloud-based, AI-powered call center solution designed to help businesses create exceptional customer experiences.

Deal: Get 50% Off Your First Month!

Deal Validity: 11/11/2024 – 12/20/2024

Get the deal

ControlHippo

ControlHippo is an all-in-one omnichannel shared inbox designed to streamline customer communication. It consolidates interactions from email, social media, and chat into a single platform, simplifying management and enhancing collaboration.

Deal: 20% off on all Individual Plans.

Deal Validity: 10/25/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

Botsify

Botsify offers an easy-to-use platform for building AI chatbots tailored to websites and messaging platforms. With its drag-and-drop functionality, creating chatbots has never been simpler.

Deal: Lifetime Deal at $499.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Desk365

Desk365 simplifies customer support with its cloud-based ticketing system, making ticket management efficient and improving team workflows.

Deal: 10% off on the Pro plan.

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Finance and Billing Automation

Simplify your financial operations with automation tools that save time and reduce errors.

Mesha AI

Mesha is a powerful AI product that streamlines billing and communication processes, automating invoicing, client follow-ups, and bank account reconciliation.

Deal: 20% off on Annual Plan

Deal Validity: 11/15/2024 – 12/31/2024

Get the deal

Security and Device Management

Protect your network and manage devices efficiently with these security solutions.

PureVPN

PureVPN offers a secure and private internet connection with advanced cybersecurity features, ensuring robust protection.

Deal: 85% OFF on 5 Year Plan

Deal Validity: 11/1/2024 – 12/10/2024

Get the deal

Creative Resources and Marketplaces

Access a vast library of creative assets and templates to elevate your projects.

Envato

Envato offers unlimited downloads of millions of artist-designed assets and templates with a subscription, all covered by a lifetime commercial license.

Deal: 30% off all plans (excludes Enterprise solutions)

Deal Validity: 11/27/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Envato Market

Envato Market provides assets for various website projects, including WordPress themes, WooCommerce stores, plugins, and custom scripts.

Deal: Up to 50% Off WordPress themes, web templates, code and more

Deal Validity: 11/19/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Customer Engagement, Feedback and Loyalty

Strengthen customer relationships and boost loyalty with these effective tools.

WPLoyalty

WPLoyalty helps build customer loyalty for WooCommerce stores by awarding points, discounts, free shipping, and more for various customer actions. Perfect for increasing engagement and boosting repeat purchases—ideal for BFCM campaigns!

Deal: Discount: 30% OFF Coupon: BFCM2024 [Auto applied]

Deal Validity: 11/20/2024 – 12/20/2024

Get the deal

Trustmary

Trustmary allows you to collect feedback and reviews from your customers, showcasing social proof on your website to build trust.

Deal: 50% off any Starter or Business level subscription for the first billing period (month or year). Coupon: BLACKWEEK24

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/2/2024

Get the deal

Zonka Feedback

Zonka Feedback helps you collect and act on customer feedback with its AI-driven survey platform.

Deal: Flat 30% OFF on all plans.

Deal Validity: 11/20/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

zenloop

An integrated experience management platform that enables companies to collect, cluster, and analyze customer feedback along their customer journeys.

Deal: 20% off the first year of the Grow plan.

Deal Validity: 11/19/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Freshreview

Freshreview is an all-in-one solution for managing customer reviews and reputation across multiple platforms like Google, Facebook, and 20+ review sites. It simplifies review collection, enhances engagement, and boosts Local SEO with features like QR codes, AI responses, and centralized review microsites.

Deal: Lifetime access starting at $49 (no monthly fees).

Deal Validity: Limited time (while codes last).

Get the deal

myCred

myCred helps you gamify your WordPress site with points, badges, and leaderboards to keep users interested.

Deal: 24% OFF on the Lifetime Plan.

Deal Validity: 11/20/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

Daito

Daito is a web-based authenticator that allows teams to securely share 2FA access, organize accounts, and track usage with a searchable audit log.

Deal: 50% off annual plans.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

Reporting

These tools help you create actionable reports and monitor your all of your channels.

UptimeRobot

UptimeRobot is the world’s leading uptime monitoring service, trusted by businesses to ensure their websites and services remain accessible.

Deal: 30% off all paid plans + 30% off extra seats.

Deal Validity: 11/21/2024 – 11/28/2024

Get the deal

Cloud Hosting and Infrastructure

Upgrade your hosting solutions with these high-performance cloud services.

Cloudways Managed Hosting

Cloudways offers managed cloud hosting with lightning-fast speeds and a choice between providers like DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, Google Cloud Platform, and AWS.

Deal: 40% off for 4 months and 40 free migrations

Deal Validity: 11/7/2024 – 12/6/2024

Get the deal

Internxt

Internxt is a privacy-first cloud storage platform offering secure file storage with end-to-end encryption and zero-knowledge technology. It empowers users to store, share, and protect their digital assets confidently.

Deal: 85% off on ALL premium plans, including subscriptions, lifetime, B2B, and family plans.

Deal Validity: 11/11/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

WordPress Plugins and Analytics

You can use these plugins to improve your WordPress sites and processes.

Trafft

Trafft streamlines bookings and calendar management for businesses, handling appointments, services, and customers efficiently.

Deal: Up to 60% OFF, Trafft Agency Plans 50% off.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/15/2024

Get the deal

Amelia

Amelia simplifies scheduling for WordPress websites, tailored for businesses like fitness centers and salons.

Deal: 70% OFF.

Deal Validity: 11/25/2024 – 12/15/2024

Get the deal

wpDataTables

wpDataTables transforms your data into engaging tables and charts, with front-end editing and filtering options.

Deal: 70% OFF.

Deal Validity: 11/22/2024 – 12/15/2024

Get the deal

NitroPack

NitroPack optimizes your website’s speed and Core Web Vitals with automated features like caching, image compression, and code minification.

Deal:

• 20% off on monthly plans.
• 37% off on yearly plans.

Deal Validity: 11/21/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Business Perks and Memberships

FounderPass

FounderPass is an exclusive membership for founders, offering over $3M in perks and discounts on software, tools, and business services. Members can save thousands with deals from 250+ companies, including AWS, Google, Slack, Notion, Webflow, LinkedIn, and HubSpot.

Deal: 25% off your first year with code “BF25”.

Deal Validity: 11/19/2024 – 12/3/2024

Get the deal

Frequently Asked Questions

What types of SaaS products typically offer Black Friday deals?
Common SaaS deals include discounts on project management tools, CRM software, marketing automation, SEO tools, and design platforms, though nearly all categories might offer sales.

How much can I expect to save on SaaS products during Black Friday?
Discounts can range from 20% to 70% off, with many companies offering significant first-year or lifetime deals.

Are Black Friday SaaS deals available for both new and existing customers?
Most deals target new customers, but some companies offer special discounts or add-ons for existing users upgrading their plans.

Do SaaS Black Friday deals include lifetime access options?
Some SaaS providers offer lifetime access at a one-time cost during Black Friday, but these are less common and tend to be limited.

When do Black Friday SaaS deals typically start and end?
Deals often begin a few days before Black Friday and can extend through Cyber Monday, with some lasting until the end of the week.

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In this article, we’ll talk about conflict management with customers—what it is, which tactics you can use, and how to get better at it.

What Is Conflict Management? (And Why Should You Care in Customer Service?)

Essentially, conflict management refers to the way you handle a dispute between different people. Proper conflict management aims at handling the dispute as quickly and effectively as possible by getting all parties to a place where they feel comfortable.

Knowing how to manage conflict is a vital part of any customer service training—because it’s not just frequent, but also time-consuming. According to a poll conducted by the CPP in 2008, retail employees in the United States spend approximately 2.8 hours each week involved in conflict management. This estimate translates to approximately 359 billion dollars in man-hours spent in conflict resolution, rather than on productivity.

But conflict management isn’t just costly due to the time spent between customers and employees. In the United States, a company faces almost a 12% chance of being the target of an employment lawsuit. The average cost for defense and settlement is $125,000, and it takes 275 days to get resolved.

As you can see, the lack of proper conflict management can be expensive and time-consuming.

So which conflict management styles are best?

The 5 Conflict Management Styles (backed by Science)

These are the five main conflict management styles…

Collaborating Style

This style is sometimes called a “win-win.” It aims at getting both parties satisfied with the result.

To achieve this goal, all parties must be actively working towards a solution through an open discussion that involves them laying out their issues and goals. By laying their cards on the table, all parties can work together to find a solution that fits best for everyone, not just one person.

In the acclaimed book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey defines this style as “agreements or solutions [that] are mutually beneficial, mutually satisfying. With a Win/Win solution, all parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan. Win/Win sees life as a cooperative, not a competitive arena.” (page 207)

This style requires all parties to be completely honest and willing to find a solution. To resolve the problem, they must think outside the box.

Best for:

Any environment where all parties are willing to collaborate to achieve a goal.

Pros:

• Everybody wins.
• Increases bonding through resolution
• Can achieve creative solutions to complex problems

Cons:

• Requires all parties to be willing to collaborate
• May be quite time-consuming
• May not get to a resolution, despite all efforts.

Competing Style

On the opposite side of the collaborating style, a competing style aims at completely ignoring all issues and goals of the other parties. Then one party wins, and the rest lose.

This style not only focuses on winning at all costs, but also on actively making the other lose—without giving any concessions or middle ground.

To properly use this style, one can pull rank, gaslight the opposite party, or argue until the other party gives up. 

This competing style is mostly seen in political races, where both parties are fully dedicated—not only to winning, but also to making the other party lose by running negative ads and bending the truth. Any concession is seen as a sign of weakness.

Best for:

Quick resolutions where any authority can be leveraged.

Pros:

Can achieve a resolution very quickly (if done properly)

Ensures your party wins at all costs

Cons:

Invites conflict

Can be extremely unproductive when both parties are using it

Damages relationships

Avoiding Style

The avoiding conflict management style essentially involves the lack of acknowledgment that the conflict exists. 

By avoiding confrontation or trying to resolve it at all costs, either no r party wins, or your party loses.

Ironically, this style can be quite beneficial in some cases. If the issue is small, ignoring it may be the best course of action. And if there isn’t a clear resolution to the problem (or if the problem will go away by itself), you may also ignore it. For example, one of these scenarios may exist when you encounter a problem in your workplace right before quitting.

However, this style is never good when there’s a pressing need to reach a resolution.

Best for:

Any conflict where doing something will achieve the same as doing nothing.

Pros:

• By definition, it takes no time.
• Allows for the diplomatic withdrawal of a conflict

Cons:

• Does not resolve anything
• Should not be applied to large or unavoidable problems
• May let you out of the conflict resolution process

Accommodating Style

The accommodating style involves being willing to do anything to make the other party satisfied. Whatever they ask for, you’ll give it to them if it will resolve the conflict. This style is obviously the preferred one for the opponent, especially if they’re using a competing style.

This style may be useful in matters of low importance, where any solution is good. Examples include where to eat or what movie to watch when you don’t really care about the answer.

It’s also a great way of solving a conflict when the relationship is too important to risk losing it. However, the overuse of this style can quickly overwhelm you, since your opinion will most likely not be heard.

Best for:

Any situation where any solution is better than no solution, or when you know you’ll lose the conflict anyway.

Pros:

• Preserves the relationship very well
• Quick and easy to implement

Cons:

• Only takes into account the needs of the other party
• May set a bad precedent
• Lends itself to being abused by the opposite party

Compromising Style

Lastly, the compromising style involves neither party getting what they want, but all parties being willing to cooperate, in order to get the next best thing for all involved. It’s similar to the collaborative style, but it involves more equal sacrifices from all parties.

This style is used when negotiating a price in a flea market or a salary in a job interview. Through mutual collaboration, both parties may achieve a result that wasn’t anyone’s first choice, but that ends up working for everyone.

Best for:

Conflict resolution among equally powerful parties aims at different or incompatible solutions.

Pros:

• Aims at a middle-ground that works for all parties
• Can help people bond and learn how to work together

Cons:

• May leave all parties equally dissatisfied
• May involve a lot of time in negotiations

3 Popular Conflict Management Examples

Here are three common conflict management scenarios and ways to deal with them…

1. Conflicts with an angry customer

Unfortunately, rude and angry customers aren’t hard to come by. Since most companies focus on exceptional customer service, employees may find it hard to deal with angry customers while complying with customer service rules. 

However, it’s important to deal with angry customers as quickly as possible. It takes time away from dealing with other customers. And the longer a resolution takes, the angrier the customer may get.

How to deal with them:

Usually, the two techniques that work best with angry customers are accommodating and compromising styles.

Through the accommodating style, you can simply listen to the customer’s complaint and solve the situation as quickly as possible—by giving the customer everything they want. This solution not only saves time, but can even save the customer. Often, even bending the rules a little bit for a customer will be more profitable than losing their business, wasting time, and getting a bad review.

This solution can include things like giving a refund without a receipt or accepting an expired coupon.

But if the angry customer is asking for something completely out of your reach, you’ll have to compromise. After acknowledging their complaint, you can tell them their request isn’t possible to fulfill. Then you can focus on what you can do for them instead. 

For example, an employee working for a hotel may encounter an angry guest who demands to be moved to the most expensive suite, due to a small inconvenience. After checking the hotel’s booking system, the employee can tell them those suites are currently unavailable. But to compensate for their inconvenience, they can either receive a free breakfast or massage. And the rep can focus on how great both options are. 

This solution forces the angry customer to focus on choosing. And it will often reduce their anger, since the employee is focusing on solving their issue.

But if the customer becomes violent or dangerous, the employee will have to shift to a competing style by refusing to give the customer anything. And they will have to get a security guard to escort them out of the building.

2. Conflicts with a calm customer

Sometimes, a customer may approach an issue in a calm manner. They know their issue isn’t the employee’s fault, and they’re in the best position to solve it. With these kinds of customers, you have a few options.

How to deal with them:

Since these customers are willing to work with you, you can use the collaborating style. With the help of the customer, you can both work together to find out how to solve their needs in a way that’s also allowed by the company.

For example, a customer may come in looking to exchange a purchase they aren’t satisfied with. In this scenario, you can process the exchange while asking what the customer wanted and how the product didn’t deliver. With this information, you can guide the client through the different options, and you may even be able to highlight the benefits of an up-sale. That way, the customer ends up with a product they like, and the company ends up with a slightly higher revenue.

You can also use these opportunities to increase customer loyalty through the accommodating style. By giving a calm customer everything they want in order to solve their issue, they’ll quickly become loyal customers and brand ambassadors.

3. Conflicts with a customer who’s wrong

Contrary to popular belief, the customer isn’t always right. Sometimes, the customer wants something they can’t have, or expects to receive something other than the item they purchased (even if there is a clear product description).

These issues are very common with technology. The customer may claim their product isn’t working when it is, or expects features the product simply doesn’t offer. 

How to deal with them:

In these cases, you can use a friendly version of the competing style. In this style, you put all your efforts into not giving the customer what they want (like a full refund, an exchange, or a free service) by educating them and convincing them that what they have is exactly what they need.

If the issue will go away by itself, you can also use the avoiding style. For example, a customer may call their internet provider to say their router is broken and demand a refund or full troubleshooting service. However, the employee can see that the issue is a simple glitch that should last less long than the quickest troubleshooting service. 

In this case, the employee can ask them to wait for a few minutes and call back if they keep experiencing issues. They can even check to see if their issue is already solved before they start. Through simple avoidance, the issue can be resolved, and the customer will end up satisfied.

How to Choose the Ideal Conflict Management Strategy

Don’t know which style to use? Here are a few questions to help you choose… 

How important is your relationship to the other party?

When managing a conflict, this question is probably the most important one you can ask yourself. The truth is that some relations are just not worth the hassle of collaborating.

As we’ve said before, you may not even want to solve an issue at your workplace if you’re planning on resigning anyway. You may also have multiple options, so solving an issue to maintain a relationship with a certain provider (such as renegotiating a contract) may be more complicated and time-consuming than simply going with another provider. In this case, you can simply use the avoiding or competing styles, since you’re ready to walk anyway.

However, if you have an important relationship (such as one with a big customer), you’ll probably be happy to use the accommodating style. You’ll even bend the rules to make sure the customer doesn’t look for a different option.

How much time do you have?

Some solutions take longer than others. And sometimes, the time spent negotiating may not be worth the resolution.

This solution will likely depend on your customer service philosophy. Some businesses are built in a high-paced environment, where any time spent negotiating with potential customers is time you could spend gaining customers. In this case, you may want to use a collaborating style. 

Other businesses are built in establishing a few long-lasting relationships with their customers. So a compromising (or even an accommodating) style would end up being a better option, even at the cost of longer negotiations.

What are the circumstances?

Finally, even if you don’t have the time (don’t need the relationship), you’ll need to consider the circumstances of each potential conflict management style in each interaction.

For example, your company may be focusing on reducing customer churn that month. So spending the time to keep a low-paying customer may end up being worth it.

Use these questions and think about the potential outcome of using each conflict management style, in order to figure out what’s best for you.

How to Improve Your Conflict Management Skills

Grow and improve your conflict management skills with these simple tips…

1. Listen

The first step to solving an issue is knowing what the issue is. So you need to practice your listening skills.

Often, people don’t say what they mean to say. A customer may be angry—not because of their expired coupon, but because of their inability to find a cheaper option. They may say they want to return the item. But what they really mean is that they couldn’t figure out how to access a feature on their item.

To practice, listen to your clients without any interruption. Then ask probing questions to ensure you know exactly what their pain points are. Look at their body language and find out what the issue is and how it makes them feel.

If you listen to your customer, they’ll most likely listen to you.

2. Remain calm

Remaining calm can be challenging, especially when you’re facing an irate customer. However, it’s vital if you want to solve the conflict. It’ll help you control the situation and stay on top of it, in order to solve it as quickly as possible.

So remember that anything the client says is rarely personal. They’re not angry at you. They’re angry at the company you happen to work at.

Focus on your tone and emotions, and keep them in check. And if you need to, take a breather after dealing with an angry customer, in order to collect yourself and prepare for the next interaction.

3. Be positive

It’s hard to stay mad at a person that just wants to fix things. In fact, remaining positive will both help an angry client calm down and help a client work with you to find a solution. This tactic can also help you clear up miscommunications without accepting blame or worsening the situation.

To achieve this goal, empathize with the customer. Put yourself in their shoes and acknowledge how the issue affects them. Let them know you’ll do everything in your power to take care of them, and reassure them with a smile.

If you can maintain a positive attitude during conflict resolution, you’re already halfway toward solving it.

Conclusion

Conflict is inevitable. So you need to know how to handle it. Through the main five conflict management styles, you’ll be able to easily find the right solution to the right problem, and maintain a cool head while solving it!

The post These Are the 5 Conflict Management Styles You Should Know appeared first on Messagely.

In-app messaging is vital for your customer engagement strategy. If you know how to use it, you’ll reach the right user at the right time to address their queries.

But, what is in-app messaging? How can you use it to reach your goals?

Let’s dive in.

What Is In-App Messaging?

In-app messages are any mobile or web messaging displayed as a notification. You find in-app messages in pop-ups, offers, and other mobile messaging with and without a CTA.

Although this messaging only reaches people who are engaged users or, at least, active users, it can improve customer relations and increase engagement and loyalty. You can achieve this through data and automations.

The data can show you where users are dropping off or where they need nurturing. In-app messaging allows you to program a way to reach the user with the right message. With it, you can engage users for information, rewards, and monetization. 

3 Great In-App Messaging Examples for Inspiration

Here are three great in-app messages examples, why they’re great, and how you can learn from them:

1. Duolingo

Source: Duolingo

One of the hardest things when learning a language by yourself is finding people to practice with. In 2016, Duolingo temporarily launched chatbots with one purpose: to help users practice a new language. Duolingo knew that it may be hard for people to practice a language when they’re unable to find another person who speaks that language. 

Chatbots were made as an advanced form of in-app messages to allow users to practice a language anywhere, anytime, free of judgment. Although Duolingo later removed the chatbots, users are still asking for Duolingo to bring them back.

Steal this idea:

Duolingo was able to develop chatbots due to, in part, its massive in-app customer experience data.

Similarly, you’ll have a faster and better success rate if you focus on starting small and building a better, smarter in-app messages program by using data-driven decisions.

2. Universal Studios

Source: Universal Studios’ Facebook Page

Universal Studios uses in-app messages to enhance the customer experience as much as possible. Users are engaged with in-app messages that welcome them to the app, perform a quick customer onboarding for new users, and even upsell services.

Users can interact with some messages as they need to, allowing immediate user response. And although their messaging is well made, they always let users know how to contact a live agent.

Steal this idea

All the in-app messages in the world can’t replace live customer agents. Let your users know that your live agents are always just a message or phone call away.

3. Caesars Las Vegas

The Caesars Entertainment Las Vegas resort started using advanced in-app messaging in 2016. This messaging was focused on increasing customer interaction around the clock.

With Ivy, guests can order room service, ask for extra towels, and get answers to most questions any concierge could help with. This increased customer satisfaction and ensured that guests would have what they needed when they needed it.

Steal this idea:

In-app messaging can help your customers day or night. To build a highly functional in-app strategy, look at your user’s data on common requests and try to fulfill them with your automated messaging. 

By doing this, you’ll easily provide excellent customer support. You can even generate sales when your live agents are not on the clock.

When to Use In-App Messaging: 6 Key Areas

Here are six areas where you should be using in-app messaging:

User Onboarding

User onboarding is the process of product adoption by a new buyer. Making sure the user adapts to the tool as seamlessly and quickly as possible is vital to ensuring long-term customer adoption.

In-app messaging can be key to ensure the customer fully adopts the customer. With it, you can aid users where they usually drop off, offering to contact live support to connect them to a live agent to fix their problem and keep them as a customer.  

Feedback

In-app messaging is great for enriching your customer feedback data. You can use it for simple things like a popup message that asks you to rate the app.

However, in-app messaging can also help you collect deeper, highly valuable feedback. For example, you can program a chatbot to engage with a user who seems to be taking far longer to finish a task to get insight into potential streamlining opportunities.

Product Adoption

Even after you’ve nailed your onboarding experience, you still need to ensure full product adoption to retain users.

In-app messages are a great way of keeping in touch with users, letting them know about new features or processes that the user may like. You can also target message users who haven’t taken full advantage of your app and offer assistance.

Updates

The most common use for in-app messaging is to tell users about new updates. But since they can get technical or repetitive, are you making sure your users are reading them?

Make sure that your messages offer broad appeal information about the updates, telling them how they’ll be directly affected by them. Leave a link to a page with the full technical information about the update so technical-minded people still get the information they need.

And, if you want to increase your chances of engaging your users, program your messages to be sent at the most convenient time for your user, instead of sending it all at once.

Upselling

In-app messages are also a great way to re-engage customers and try to sell them additional solutions.

You can, for example, program messages to remind users of the benefits of upgrading, especially when those messages reach the user at the right time.

Whereas upselling, when overdone, can be frustrating to the customer, a good upselling messaging campaign reaches the user just as they need to upgrade.

According to Amra Beganovich, founder influencer agency Amra & Elma, in-app messages are also a great way to re-engage customers and try to sell them additional solutions.

Status Notifications/Warnings

Finally, you can use messages in apps to let users know about essential updates or ask them to take action in the app.

These messages should be as concise as possible, letting the user know what they need to know at a glance.

In-App Messaging Best Practices You Should Follow 

Here are the best practices to keep in mind with your in-app messages:

1. Get the best tools from the start

Unless you’re planning to code your chatbots and messaging from scratch, you’ll likely use messaging tools to get the job done.

However, since smart messaging only grows with time, you need to make sure you’re getting the best solution from the start, instead of planning on upgrading later. This can save you a lot of time and money in the long run, so it’s vital you make sure you choose the right platform for you.

Platforms like Messagely, for example, offer to get you started at an affordable price, and seamlessly grow with your needs. 

With Messagely, you only pay for what you need.

2. Embrace personalization

You have complete power over who in-app messages are sent to and how and when they are sent. Use it.

Segment your users and build messaging strategies around each group. Use customer data to perfectly tailor messages for each user, like addressing them by name and greeting them according to their timezone.

The more targeted your messages are, the more users will read them.

3. Test, test, test

Sometimes, the only way to know you’re using data-driven decisions is by experimenting. That’s why you should be testing in-app messages through A/B testing, testing messages for bugs, testing audiences, and everything else.

The more data you collect through testing, the better you can make your in-app messages.

4. Always give a clear call to action

If your messaging requires a reply from the user, let them know what to do. Ending with a CTA will immediately tell your users what the next steps should be, why they should take them, and what they can expect to do.

5. Make your messages easy to close

Whatever the reason you are messaging your users, provide clear instructions for ignoring the messages if they wish to.

Although counterintuitive, making your messages easy to ignore in the user interface can result in better customer engagement. If your messages are easy to close or remove, your users will likely remain in the app, instead of closing it entirely. 

And by making your messages easy to remove and ignore, you’ll get to send more messages to more users, instead of having users who are muting your messages and notifications entirely.

Here’s How to Create Your First In-App Message

Ready to start creating in-app messages? 

Using a platform like Messagely can make the process extremely easy. All you need to do is sign in to the platform (click here if you don’t have a free account yet), and follow these steps:

Step 1: Set up your automations

Before creating your first in-app message, you need to set up the basic automations for your chat window. Messagely allows you to ask users to rate a conversation when it’s over and send messages automatically to users that responded negatively to a Knowledge Base article.

Step 2: Program your messages

Now that you’ve set up the basics, you can program your messages.

Start with the first message the user will receive. Then you can add automated ways for the user to interact with the message through reply buttons. With these buttons, you can always get the user to interact with you directly in the message, instead of asking them to go elsewhere.

For example, you can start with a welcome message, then ask if the user needs help with your products. If the user selects “need help,” you can then show them a few options for further interaction.

When you’re done with your in-app message programming, you can select where you want your users to see your message.

Messagely allows you to send the same message through multiple channels so you don’t have to repeat the process each time.

Next, you’ll have to define targeting to select when you’ll send your message and who you’ll send it to. 

You can do this effectively by segmenting your users through user behavior. This allows you to reach the right user at the right time with the right message.

Select what the user must do to receive your message based on your user data.

Step 3: Activate your message

Instead of releasing the message immediately, prepare for its release through testing. The more complex you’ve made your message, the more testing you’ll want to do before deploying it.

Once it’s been tested, you can activate it and start reaching users immediately.

FAQs on In-App Messaging

Here are the answers to commonly asked questions about in-app messages:

What is an in-app message?

An in-app message is a message sent to a user who’s already using the web or mobile app. Your users can get the message through a chatbox or simple in-app notifications.

What is the difference between push notifications and in-app messages?

A push notification is a message that the user sees without opening the app. Users can see push notifications on their lock screens or while using a different app. An in-app message is always received by the user when they’re using your platform and allows for more personalized messages.

How do you test in-app messaging?

You can ask teammates to receive and interact with the in-app message to ensure everything is working properly. You can also conduct A/B testing to collect user feedback and know exactly what the user prefers.

Conclusion

In-app messages are perfect for engaging with your users as often as they need. You can use in-app messages to talk about new features, encourage users to continue interacting with your app, and collect user data by letting users respond to them.

If you want to deliver messages, there’s no better option than Messagely. Get started for free, today.  

The post In-App Messaging Explained (With Examples and Best Practices) appeared first on Messagely.

Unfortunately, a customer service app will only be effective as long as it’s good for you, your company, and your customers.

Here are over 15 customer service apps your CS team will love, their pros and cons, and the platforms they’re available for.

Let’s get started.

How to Pick the Customer Service App That Suits Your Business

Don’t know how to choose between apps? Don’t worry. Just review the following aspects of each app to see which app is best for you.

Pricing

The best app should not only be one you can afford but one that will save you more time and money than it costs.

Some platforms have a forever-free tier, a limited tier they’ll never be charged for. They’re great for individuals, small businesses, and startups, since the tool can grow along with their needs.

We’ll use terms like “averagely priced” and “above the industry’s standards” to give you an idea of where they stand compared to the rest.

Features

Ask yourself two questions: “What are my current needs?” and “How can this tool solve them?”.

The best features aren’t the flashiest or most complex, they’re the ones that will make everyone’s job easier, regardless of their position. Make a list of “must-have features” and “nice-to-have features” to differentiate between the most pressing needs.

When you’ve chosen your tool, write down how you expect the tool to integrate into your process, and use the free trial to see how successful the app was in achieving those goals.

Integrations

Which tools are you already working with? How should your new tool interact with your current system?

For example, you may have a CRM already, so it would save you time if you could “sync” it with your email platform.

Measure how much time you’d save if you had that integration to figure out which ones make more sense to prioritize.

Best Customer Service Apps That Will Streamline Your CS Processes

Here are the best customer service apps that your customer service team will love:

All-in-One Customer Service Apps

All-in-one customer service apps can handle most or all of your messaging and customer needs. Using a tool that’s built to have its features work together can save you time and money.

Here are the best ones:

Messagely – Best all-in-one customer support tool

Messagely is a powerful, all-in-one customer support solution that combines all the features you need with a price you can afford. With Messagely, you can develop strategies and connect with your customers through automated messages, easy segmentation, and powerful integrations.

Messagely takes care of your customers at every step of the process, helping you onboard new customers, track customer engagement efforts, and consolidate all of your customer service channels.

Plus, it’s so easy to use, you’ll be training new customer service representatives in no time.

With Messagely, you get an easy-to-use live chat, ticketing system, shared inboxes, knowledge bases, and many other features. You can also integrate it with tools like Salesforce, Slack, Pipedrive, Shopify, Google Analytics, Zapier, and many more to streamline your customer happiness processes.

If you want a simple, powerful, all-in-one app, try Messagely.

Pros

• Very easy to use and install
• Works with the tools you’re already using
• Powerful tool at a lower price than separate tools
• Integral approach to customer service
• Priced below the industry’s standard

Cons

• No mobile apps (currently under development)

Apps:

Mobile app only

Start your free trial today.

Intercom

Defining itself as a Conversational Relationship Platform, Intercom is another popular customer service solution.

The app is easy to use, with an effective ticketing workflow and good automations, including assignment rules and chatbots. However, Intercom’s best features are locked behind the most expensive pricing plans. If you only want to use the basic plans, you may be spending more than average.

It’s a good tool for companies in need of advanced features and with a large enough budget to pay for them.

Pros:

• Good support system
• Simple automations
• Great UI
• Advanced features available

Cons:

• Best features only come with very expensive plans
• Basic plans priced above the industry’s standard
• Confusing pricing structure
• More expensive than other options

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

Help Scout

Help Scout is another all-in-one customer service suite, with features like live chat, help desk, knowledge bases, and more.

The platform has great reporting capabilities that can help managers stay involved with their teams, even if they’re not always together. Although the capabilities of this platform are great, its workflow functionality is lacking, so it’s probably not a good option for anyone looking for powerful automation capabilities.

Pros:

• Great customer support
• Very easy to use
• Fairly affordable
• Reliable features

Cons:

• No customizable interface
• Lacking workflow functionality
• Lacking reporting
• No automation rules and macros 

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

Help Desk Apps

Help Desk Apps help you with customer care to issue and manage customer requests and other issues.

Here are the best options:

Messagely

Messagely is a powerful solution for all your customer communications, including help desk.

With Messagely, you get an easy-to-use live chat to kickstart your ticketing system. Messagely also integrates with other Calendly, HubSpot, Outlook, Stripe, and Zapier.

Messagely does more than create tickets. In this platform, you can also find solutions like knowledge bases and integrated inboxes so you can offer the best customer service. 

If you want a full help desk software that seamlessly works with a live chat, powerful chatbots, and anything else you require to communicate with your customers, Messagely is the right tool for you.

Pros

• Works with the tools you’re already using
• Very easy to use and install
• Integral approach to customer service

Cons

• Best for users aiming to solve all their customer service needs, not those simply looking for help desk features

Apps:

Mobile app

JIRA

Jira Service Desk is another help desk app with a fair amount of functionality. The platform is catered toward users managing and solving incidents, issues, changes, requests, and assets in one platform.

The platform offers many useful features, like custom automation, self-service features, asset tracking, problem management reporting, and SLA policies, to help users provide their customers with a quality help desk experience.

Pros:

• Free version available
• Numerous integrations
• Good dashboard customization
• Self-service features

Cons:

• Slightly harder to master than most other tools
• Doesn’t integrate with social media

Apps:

Web app only

Vision Helpdesk

Vision Helpdesk is an award-winning all-in-one help desk app. With this easy-to-use platform, users can access useful advanced functionalities.

Its comprehensive help desk features are great for companies of all sizes looking for a solid help desk software with advanced features and capabilities, although it may be too expensive for a user requiring a simpler experience.

Pros:

• Very advanced features
• Multiple ticketing options
• Good for self-help capabilities
• Integrates to social media

Cons:

• Probably too expensive for users needing a simpler option
• Somewhat steep learning curve for advanced features

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

HIVER

Hiver lets you manage customer queries arriving in shared inboxes such as support@ and help@. With Hiver, you can assign customer queries as tasks, track them in real-time, and also collaborate on them internally, without Ccs and forwards. 

Hiver allows you to automate repetitive tasks and auto-assign customer emails to team members based on predefined rules. It also helps measure team performance and track key metrics such as first response time, average resolution time, and more.

And since Hiver fits intuitively within Gmail’s native UI, support agents hardly require any training to get started. 

Pros:

• Works within Gmail. You don’t need to switch to an external helpdesk.
• Auto-assign email queries based on pre-defined rules.
• Track team performance in a detailed manner.
• Collaborate with your team without using Ccs and forwards.

Cons:

• Only compatible for teams that use Google WorkSpace

Live Chat Apps

Live chat apps allow you and your agents to have a real-time written conversation with your customers and users.

Here are the best options:

Messagely

Messagely’s all-in-one solution gives you access to a live chat that’s easy to use and install on your website and comes with a lot of helpful features.

If you don’t have people working around the clock, or if you have too many customers for your team to handle, Messagely will easily create powerful chatbots in just minutes. Messagely also solves the rest of your messaging needs, so you don’t need to pay more for multiple customer service tools.

Pros

• Very easy to use
• Easy to install on your website
• Powerful automations and chatbots
• More than just live chat
• Integral approach to customer service

Cons

• Best for users looking for a solution to all their customer service needs, not just a live chat

Apps:

Web app

Start your free trial today.

LiveChat

LiveChat is another all-in-one customer service platform with live chat capabilities.

The platform allows users to consolidate all chats and questions in a single inbox to improve teamwork. Its AI routes conversations to the right customer service member of your team and can also be used for advanced lead generation and segmentation.

Pros:

• Very simple UI
• Provides many features to its customers
• Supported on mobile devices

Cons:

• Automations are expensive and limited 
• Expensive for larger teams

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

Olark

Olark is a very simple app. and although it’s not great for users with advanced needs, it’s very popular for small websites and startups that are new to using live chat.

With Olark, users get an easy-to-use live chat function to connect with customers. All of the chats are recorded in live chat transcripts, which are very easy to browse. However, the lack of more basic functionality, like chatbots or advanced customer service tools, makes it a more basic tool than Messagely.

Olark also integrates with Groove, MailChimp, WordPress, Salesforce, Google Analytics, HubSpot and Active Campaign.

Pros:

• Simple platform
• Friendly UI
• Quite affordable

Cons:

• No advanced automation
• No chatbots
• Limited integrations

Apps:

Website and mobile apps

Knowledge Base Apps

Knowledge base apps are programs and online solutions that can be used to create, file, and populate a knowledge base. 

Here are the best options:

Messagely

Messagely has a powerful and easy-to-use knowledge base software to let you empower customers actively looking for solutions.

With Messagely, you can build a documentation-rich knowledge base that’s easy to make and browse, so your customers can solve their own questions 24/7.

Messagely’s knowledge base software seamlessly integrates with the rest of the Messagely platform, including the live chat option.

Receiving feedback on articles is easy. Your customers can rate your articles and let you know if they were useful. With this feedback, you can keep improving your knowledge base on actual data, instead of writing and hoping for the best. 

Pros

• Very easy to use
• Easy to install on your website
• Gathers customer satisfaction levels
• Gives you access to more customer service options

Cons

• Best when used along with all its other customer service capabilities, not just as a knowledge base

Apps:

Web app

Start your free trial today.

HappyFox

HappyFox is an award-winning help desk software with good ticket management capabilities.

The platform allows users to manage their rockets through automated SLA management, canned actions, and round-robin assignment. Managers can also get real-time reporting, and self-service options to keep users engaged.

Pros:

• Very functional ticketing system
• Easy to use
• Real-time reporting
• Supports self-service

Cons:

• Doesn’t integrate with many tools
• Very limited lower pricing tiers

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is an award-winning platform with good IT support and knowledge base capabilities.

Besides knowledge bases, Zoho Desk can also handle some advanced features, like voice over IP (VoIP) and social media integration. The platform also offers good customer service interaction data to managers and integrates with the rest of the Zoho platform and many other tools.

Pros:

• Good for small businesses
• Integrates with the rest of the Zoho platform
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Not great for larger companies
• Limited integrations

Apps:

Web and mobile

Social Customer Satisfaction Apps

Social customer service allows you to consolidate all messages from your social media pages.

Here are the best social customer service apps:

SproutSocial

SproutSocial is a cloud-based platform that focuses on helping users stay in touch with their social media following. 

It allows users to schedule posts to plan their marketing strategy deployment and assign messages to the right team members.

SproutSocial works with most social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, and it integrates with Shopify, Salesforce, UserVoice, and many other tools to easily connect your social media data to the tools you’re already using.

Pros:

• Feature-rich platform
• Social listening
• Pre-scheduled posting
• Good reporting capabilities

Cons:

• Pricey tiers
• Very limited advanced features

Buffer

Buffer is another social customer service tool that’s affordable for practically anyone. Its pricing packages ensure you’re only paying for what you need. 

For example, the “Reply” packages are perfect for anyone looking to consolidate their social media channels into a single place to easily reply to every customer.

This allows users to get a bundle of all the features they need on the platforms they’re using, instead of getting into a tier, paying for features they will never use.

Pros:

• Affordable pricing
• Personalized pricing tiers
• Scheduled postings
• Great calendar views

Cons:

• Not affordable for teams with multiple team members
• Not great for companies looking to handle a large number of messages

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

Mention

Mention is a great tool for any user looking for powerful social media monitoring. With Mention, users can easily generate leads, improve reputation, and enhance customer relations in social media.

The tool actively monitors the internet to identify who’s mentioning your brand online. This allows you to get a better sense of how your tool is perceived and proactively answer customer queries.

Pros:

• Powerful social media listening capabilities
• Beginner-optimized UI
• Added social media management

Cons:

• Can’t handle advanced social media management needs

Apps:

Web and mobile

Customer Feedback Apps

Customer feedback apps allow you to survey your customers to learn more about their experience and needs.

Here are the best customer feedback apps:

SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey has positioned itself as one of the key players when it comes to online surveys. The platform allows users to create bright and easy-to-fill surveys through multiple templates. Plus, its UI makes it more likely for users to fill out surveys all the way to the end.

The platform also integrates with over 100 tools, so you can easily consolidate your needs, share data, and expand your processing capabilities.

Pros

• Award-winning platform
• Very easy to make surveys
• Multiple integrations
• Engaging surveys for better user interaction rates

Cons:

• Can only be paid for annually
• Very limited free tier

Apps: 

Web and mobile apps

Hotjar

Hotjar is a company designed to give users a better understanding of their brand image and to collect customer feedback from user mentions. It achieves this through behavior analytics that translate into powerful yet easy-to-use capabilities, like session recordings, heatmaps, and customer surveys.

The platform makes it easy to understand user feedback collected from multiple data points, and finds ways of applying that feedback into your processes.

Pros:

• Very easy to use
• Integral approach to customer feedback collection
• Easy to understand insights
• Great data visualizations

Cons:

• Not great for specialized needs
• Not for specialized data analyzers

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

Podium

With Podium, users can increase their customer base by managing local listings and reviews online.

The platform has multiple integrations with other apps and POS, allowing customers to easily leave a Google review. Plus, its mobile app helps you manage your platform from anywhere.

Although Podium is fairly expensive (reportedly starting at $399 per month for one location), it’s a good platform for any business that’s desperately looking to improve its Google ratings and drive more customers through automated suggestions.

Pros

Good at improving Google’s ratings

Very easy to use

Easy, effective way of controlling online conversations

Cons

Fairly expensive

Limited reach

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

Phone Support Apps

Here are some of the best apps to aid your phone support and sales teams:

Aircall

Aircall is a simple and powerful cloud-based phone system. The platform is extremely easy to scale up, growing with users as they need it.

The platform is also great at providing flexibility in a cloud-based phone system. It easily integrates with multiple CRMs to immediately populate the app so users can start calling numbers from over 100 countries. 

Plus, its pricing is extremely flexible. Users can easily scale the plan up or down to adapt to each season’s traffic. Aircall is also optimized for all remote users someone can hire as well, allowing businesses to easily manage their remote teams.

Pros:

• Flexible pricing
• Powerful cloud-based phone system
• Good for remote user management
• Great integrations

Cons:

• Not for SMS communication
• Pricing is slightly above the industry’s average
• Lacking customer support

Apps:

Mobile and web apps

JustCall

JustCall is an award-winning cloud phone system with support for phone numbers from 70 countries.

Used by companies like Jaguar, Domino’s, and Pipedrive, JustCall gives users the ability to set up a cloud phone system that easily adapts to their needs. The platform seamlessly integrates with multiple CRMs and can be used from any device.

Pros

• Very easy to use
• Many powerful CRM integrations
• Good customer support
• Affordable for small to medium companies

Cons

• No free trial
• Somewhat rigid pricing

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

RingCentral

RingCentral is another cloud-based phone solution that’s popular with multiple companies. 

RingCentral also integrates chat and video call capabilities, allowing users to connect to customers as they feel comfortable doing so. Its remote-managing capabilities and compatibility with multiple devices make RingCentral a very popular and flexible option.

Pros

• Multiple communicaiton channels
• Great VoIP features
• AI integrations
• Good for remote worker management

Cons

• Not very intuitive UI
• Expensive for larger companies

Apps:

Web and mobile apps

All FAQs About Customer Service Apps You Need to Know 

Here are the answers to popular questions about customer satisfaction tools:

What are the most relevant communication channels you want to cover with your customer service apps?

It will depend on your audience. However, a good customer service app will adapt to most customer service teams by focusing on live chat, social media communication, and email communication.

What is the best customer service app?

The best customer service app is the one that adapts to your company and allows you to offer a better customer experience.

If you want to go with a great, all-in-one customer service app, you can’t go wrong with Messagely.

What customer service apps do you need to use?

Ideally, you should use a customer service app that allows you to provide better customer service among all your communication channels. Choose customer service solutions that cover all your channels, such as live chat, social media, and self-help services.

What is the best kind of customer service?

The best kind of customer service is the one that gives the client what they didn’t know they needed and fulfills all their needs.

Conclusion

Customer service software allows you to improve your customer experience for both big and small businesses alike, It makes your customer service representatives’ job far easier.

Get started now with an all-in-one customer service tool like Messagely to take your customer service needs to the next level.

Get started for free here.

The post Best Customer Service Apps Your Customer Service Team Will Love appeared first on Messagely.

We’ll compare them based on the following:

• Ease of use
• Pricing
• Features
• Value
• Customer Reviews
• Security

By the end of the article, you’ll know all of the main differences between Drift and Intercom, and you’ll know which is the right customer service tool for you.

Let’s get started.

Intercom and Drift

Let’s start by taking a look at Intercom and Drift:

What Is Intercom?

Intercom is a self-defined Conversational Relationship Platform. The platform has a clear user-based approach that allows users to see who’s using their product or interacting with their website. That way, users can learn how to better communicate with them.

With a very flexible approach, you can easily engage with customers, answer queries, give product tours, and generate self-service materials for your customers and users.

Since Intercom is fully focused on customer relations, it provides users with many options beyond its online customer capabilities, like behavior-driven messages, automated targeted content, and predictive responses, to name a few.

Intercom has over 30,000 clients around the world, with offices in San Francisco, Dublin, Sydney, London, and Chicago.

Intercom works with any website or web-based product and aims to be your one-way stop for all of your customer communication needs.

Pros:

• Intuitive design
• Multiple integrations
• Fairly easy to create chatbots

Cons

• Reportedly deficient customer support
• Inflexible pricing model with expensive add-ons
• Not available for apps, social media, or other channels besides your website

What Is Drift?

A newer option, Drift was founded in 2015 as a conversational marketing tool. It has added conversational sales tools as well as tools exclusively made to accelerate revenue.

With Drift, users can take care of all of their messaging needs in mobile and web apps. Users can also use AI chatbot technology to help streamline the customer experience and boost sales through prioritized messages, user engagement information, and a few deep integrations.

Used by companies like Marketi, Grubhub, GitHub, and Acentri, Drift’s messaging platform is useful for companies looking for a sales-first platform. It also works well for more than just real-time chat, offering companies options such as email, video, and voice communications, all in a single platform.

Pros:

• Good dashboards and reporting capabilities
• Multiple productivity and lead generation tools
• Great native integrations
• Simple and easy-to-use UI

Cons:

• Can get very expensive, very fast
• Reportedly buggy platform
• Low-quality chatbot builder

Intercom vs Drift: What’s better?

Here’s how Intercom compares to Drift in all major areas:

1. Ease of Setup

Like with any other platform, getting started with Drift is somewhat time-consuming due to all the small, bothersome details you have to get right. 

To get started, you need to set up your preferences and personal information first. Then, you need to install Drift’s widget on your website and personalize it. You’ll also need to set up bots’ abilities (or Skills) if you’re paying for a higher tier. 

Although one could argue that those setup steps are common, Drift’s UI isn’t as fast and responsive as Intercom’s. And multiple users have reported small bugs that may make the process slightly harder.

Intercom’s setup process is somewhat similar. After signing up and creating your account, you can start filling in your information, such as your company name and branding and your agents’ profiles and information.

Depending on your needs, you can set up Intercom on your website or mobile app and add your automations. However, setting up Intercom help centers is also very easy and intuitive, with no previous knowledge required. 

Intercom also has high-quality guides that show you the whole process step by step.

Winner: Intercom

2. Ease of Use

Drift is fairly easy to use, but its interface doesn’t always provide a smooth experience. Since the tool is still fairly new, it’s still missing some features that would provide a more seamless experience. Users report having to work around some issues. 

Customization is also bothersome. It’s so limited that users have to adapt to it, instead of the tool adapting to them. Users also report bugs with the conversations, chat widget, and other aspects that, although small, can make for a bumpy ride.

Intercom, however, provides the opposite experience. With a very streamlined design, Intercom’s interface is far better than many alternatives, including Drift. The design is comparatively intuitive in all aspects of the platform, including its articles, product guides, and even its illustrations.

Intercom users often report being surprisingly pleased with the platform’s ease of use and their ability to quickly create useful tasks and set up automations. Even reviewers who hadn’t used the platform highlight how beautifully designed it is and how simple it is to interact with both users and clients alike.

Since the Intercom UI is so streamlined and easy to use, the time you and your teammates will need to spend training new users on how to interact with the platform is greatly reduced.

Winner: Intercom

3. Integrations 

Both Intercom and Drift have multiple integrations available for users. Drift integrates with platforms like Salesforce, Marketo, Google Calendar, Slack, Zendesk, Hubspot, Google Analytics, and Zoom, for a total of 38 integrations.

Users report some bugs with some integrations, but in general, all integrations seem to be working fine, with more integrations being progressively added to the platform. 

However, the Intercom integration game is at a different level. Intercom showcases its integrations in an “app store” that’s extremely comprehensive, intuitive, and easy to navigate. It not only shows you all the apps you can use, but it also divides these into topics and categories. 

This helps you navigate among their vast number of integrations, which clearly surpass Drift’s integrations by a large margin. You can also use the app store to discover new marketing tools to meet your needs.

Winner: Intercom

4. Customer Support 

Both Drift and Intercom have knowledge bases with self-service features to help answer customer queries.

However, Intercom’s knowledge base is surprisingly lacking. The knowledge base is divided into about 20 topics with dozens of articles each, so navigating it can be complicated.

Drift offers a much better knowledge base. Although less visually appealing, navigating it is fairly intuitive through streamlined sections and previews of many of the articles under each section. 

Aside from the ever-present chat widget, finding options for live support can be quite difficult. This can be a big frustration for some users.

On the other hand, Drift’s customer support is reported to be excellent, with clients having nothing but good things to say about it. 

With certain tiers, you’re assigned a customer support team that’s reportedly even willing to join your team for weekly meetings. Users also report customer support reps are very helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable. 

You can contact Drift’s customer support team by email, live chat, and even by tweeting at their profile. 

By being a smaller company, and by charging comparatively more than Intercom, Drift manages to provide conclusively better customer service than Intercom.

Winner: Drift

5. Pricing & Scalability

Drift has its pricing divided into three tiers: Premium, Advanced, and Enterprise. The Premium package includes custom chatbots, lead routing, custom success manager, revenue acceleration strategy, and onboarding. 

The Advanced tier also includes features like Workspaces, Segmented audiences, and role-based access controls. Finally, the Enterprise tier includes multilingual, multi-labeled support, as well as conversation analysis, and custom roles and permissions.

There’s also a fairly generous free plan with basic reporting, live chat software, unlimited contacts, and help docs.

Although Drift doesn’t list its prices, reports state that the pricing varies as much as from $0 to $1,500 per month. This pricing places Drift above the industry average, especially for businesses that want to scale up. However, you’ll need to speak to a live rep to accurately find out the cost.

Figuring out Intercom’s pricing is comparatively simpler. 

Since Intercom doesn’t offer a CRM, its pricing is divided into basic in-app messaging and messaging with automations.

For chat and messaging, Intercom charges a flat fee of $39 per month for its basic plan that allows for one user and $99 per month for its team plan that allows for up to 5 users. If you want automated options, Intercom starts at either $499 or $999 per month for up to ten users, depending on the level of automation you’re looking for.

All plans can be improved with custom add-ons. These add-ons keep the price low by only requiring you to pay for the features you’ll be using, such as:

• Product Tours: Interactive and video product tours that are easy to create and targeted to your most valuable customers. Price: From $199.00 per month.
• Advanced lead generation: Advanced account-based marketing tools and sales integrations to grow your pipeline. Price: From $499.00 per month.
• Advanced customer engagement: Advanced targeting features, such as notifications, A/B testing, multi-channel campaigns, and Clearbit and Marketo integrations. Price: From $499.00 per month.
• Advanced support automation: Access to Resolution Bot to provide automated answers and detailed reporting. Price: From $249.00 per month.

Winner: If you’re looking for the best messaging option or an option that allows for a lot of pricing customization, Intercom is the best choice. If you’re looking for a sales-first platform, or if you only require a free chat service, Drift is the best choice.

6. Unique Features 

Drift doesn’t look like most customer support platforms because it isn’t one, at least, not really. Fully focused on sales teams, Drift helps businesses close sales first. That’s why, the Drift app has unique features for pipelines, sales, and potential customers.

Another one of Drift’s unique features is Drift Video. This feature allows customers to record and share sales and online webinar documentation videos. With Drift Video, you can set up customer onboarding or record explanations of your product’s features in-app.

Drift also offers a unique feature, called “Account-based marketing.” With this feature, you can identify specific businesses and target them with account-based marketing campaigns. Account-based marketing helps you quickly set up conversations with potential clients as soon as they visit your website.

You can also set up various automations with Drift for chatbots and email bots, and even use AI-powered bots to help you convert your previous conversations into workflows and playbooks.

Although they’re not on the front line, Drift also offers its users all the standard features like email automation, knowledge base, and basic live chat functionality. They all seem to have at least a little bit of a sales spin to them.

Intercom offers users all of the basic features too, but these features aren’t specifically developed for sales and are not generally focused on sales.

Intercom’s chat widget, for example, looks vastly different.

Intercom’s Business Messenger is designed to combine multiple apps in one place to give you a few choices about how you want to interact with a user. With it, your teammates can read your company news, look up something in the knowledgebase, and decide to start a conversation, all in one window.

Unlike Drift, Intercom also offers product tours for customer onboarding. Although Drift Video may be used for similar purposes, Intercom makes it far easier to onboard new customers with its unique features.

Intercom also allows you to keep track of your users and how they interact with your website in real-time. That way, you can chat with your website visitors and fix their issues, knowing what they’ve tried in the past and allowing you to quickly provide useful information.

Winner: Intercom for general messaging, Drift for sales.

7. User Reviews 

Drift and Intercom are rated quite similarly. G2 users give 4.4 out of 5 stars to Drift, with 439 user reviews. Intercom gets 4.3 stars based on 885 user reviews.

Intercom users usually praise Intercom’s flexible functionality that allows it to be used for multiple purposes. They also like all the integration options and the UI.

Users mostly complain about its pricing. Intercom’s pricing is fairly complex, although they’ve been trying to simplify it lately.

On the other hand, Drift’s users seem to love the playbooks and easy automations. They also like Drift’s account-based marketing and calendar integration. However, they complain about Drift’s sometimes-buggy platform, especially when it’s being used through the app. There are also complaints about Drift’s high prices.

Winner: Tie

8. Security 

Intercom is as secure as any other similar platform. It complies with multiple security formats from Europe and the United States, uses third-party tools to find and fix bugs and security issues, and has Single Sign-On and 2FA to help users keep their private information private.

Drift, like Intercom, also complies with the GDPR. It is also SOC II Type 2 compliant, registers with the Cloud Security Alliance, and adheres to the Privacy Shield Certified principles.

Overall, both platforms have fairly adequate security that will likely be enough for most users.

Winner: Tie

Intercom or Drift – What’s the better choice for your business?

Both Drift and Intercom are good all-in-one messaging platforms with interesting advanced features. However, it’s quite clear that they’re not made equal.

Drift covers its bases with simple live chat software and help desk features, but it is clearly focused on sales. With the Drift platform, users can quickly set up meetings, showcase products, and create conversational landing pages. Drift also offers an account-based marketing feature to further help users close sales.

On the other hand, Intercom is a messaging platform that can do anything fairly well. It also offers product tour features to help you onboard new clients.

So, how should you choose?

Drift for sales

Drift has developed all of its tools with sales in mind. With it, users can generate and engage with new leads, ask qualifying questions, and book meetings. It also offers great sales-based automations and covers all basic features expected from a messaging platform.

Drift basically gives you a dedicated customer success manager for revenue acceleration, along with in-app messaging, live chat software, and all of the standard basic features.

Intercom for flexible companies

Whereas Drift is great for sales, Intercom is good with practically everything. Smaller companies looking for a simple and flexible customer service platform will find it mostly sufficient for all their needs.

Intercom also features a user-based ticketing system, allowing all kinds of customer requests, managing outbound messages, and easily processing their tickets through a great UI. Plus, unlike Drift, Intercom allows you to keep track of website visitors, letting you provide better customer service, and reacting immediately to potential customers through live chat.

However, both Intercom and Drift are expensive, especially when compared to other similar messaging tools. If you want to use the advanced features that are so attractive, you may need to spend thousands of dollars every month.

So, what can you do if you want a simple, affordable, and powerful tool?

Messagely as an Alternative to Intercom and Drift

If you’re looking for a streamlined, all-in-one messaging platform, there is no better option than Messagely.

Great live chat software

Unlike Drift’s busy live chat feature, Messagely’s live chat platform is smooth, effective, and easy to set up. With Messagely, you can increase your customer satisfaction and solve customers’ issues while they’re still visiting your site.

You can also follow up with customers after they have left the chat and qualify them based on your answers.

Powerful chatbots

Messagely’s chatbots are powerful tools for qualifying and converting leads while your team is otherwise occupied or away. With custom bots, you can generate more leads to hand over to your sales team and solve common customer queries without the need for a live rep behind a keyboard.

And while many other chatbots take forever to set up, you can set up your first chatbot in under five minutes.

Plus, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars. Chatbots are included in the Pro plan, which costs as little as $79 per month.

Team-orientated

Messagely pulls together all of the information about the customer contacting you and gives your representatives information on each interaction they’ve had with them — all within a streamlined platform. If you’re using Messagely, your clients will never have to repeat themselves or get frustrated because their new representative doesn’t have their background information.

Messagely also provides you with a shared inbox so anyone from your team can follow up with your users, regardless of who the first point of contact was.

An affordable, all-in-one customer communication platform

Messagely’s pricing starts at just $29 per month, which includes live chat for real-time support, targeted messages, a shared inbox, mobile apps, and over 750 powerful integrations. Its pricing is simple and easy to understand, making it far more affordable and streamlined than either Drift or Intercom.

Start your free trial today.

Conclusion

As expected, the right choice between Intercom and Drift will depend on your budget, your company, and your needs.

While both Intercom and Drift are great and robust platforms, none of them can provide you with the same value Messagely gives you at such an affordable price.

Before you make your choice, check out Messagely’s features and compare them to discover which platform is best for you.

The post Intercom vs Drift, which one is the right for you? appeared first on Messagely.

By the end of the article, you’ll know exactly which tools you should be using.

Let’s get started.

Marketing and Customer Communication Tools (External)

Here are the best marketing and customer communication tools for all your external communication needs:

Messagely

Messagely is a powerful all-in-one customer support platform that can handle all your messaging needs. That includes knowledge bases, live chats, targeted messages, and chatbots. You’ll receive a complete package that will not only fit within your budget but also seamlessly connect with the rest of your communication tools.

Messagely’s chatbots allow you to easily handle common customer queries, generate leads, and they even qualify leads for you around the clock.

You’ll also receive an easy-to-use live chat to kickstart your ticketing system and a shared inbox for easy customer interactions. You can integrate it with tools such as Salesforce, Slack, Pipedrive, Shopify, Google Analytics, Zapier, and many more to streamline your customer satisfaction processes.

And since Messagely is an all-in-one solution, you can save money with an integral, multichannel platform to handle your customer interactions. 

Start a free trial with Messagely today.

Userlike

Userlike is a live chat platform with multiple personalization options for customer support.

External users can pick which department they want to talk to and the skills they’re looking for in a rep. Companies can segment the users contacting them, making sure they’re receiving the attention they need from experts in their field. However, since Userlike hasn’t automated this feature, users will still need to manually forward conversations, making the whole process much slower.

Users can also integrate Userlike with various CRMs and customer service tools.

Userlike’s pricing starts with a free limited option for one widget and one seat. Its Team tier starts at €90 per month billed annually and includes four seats and one extra channel, with additional tiers being increasingly more expensive.

Lobster by EBI.AI

EBI.AI’s Lobster platform is a business-commerce platform focused on helping companies  create very advanced chatbots.

The platform has a strong focus on conversational chatbots. Although they are not as easy to build, the process gives the user a more involved experience, Whereas platforms like Messagely help you create chatbots in just a few minutes with no previous experience required, Lobster’s advanced chatbots usually require at least four to six weeks of building before deployment.

That’s why their chatbots are better for larger companies looking for advanced solutions, companies that have sales and customer service teams large enough to allow for weeks spent developing intricate chatbots.

LiveChat

LiveChat is a popular, all-in-one customer service platform that, as the name implies, focuses mostly on its live chat capabilities. 

The platform includes many common chat tools, like canned responses, chat transfers, file sharing, and targeted messages. Users also get a fair amount of customization options as well as sufficient reports and analytics to make data-driven decisions around their customer service strategies.

The platform also has its own ticketing system and features that are focused around sales and ecommerce like e-commerce logistics, fulfillment, and product tracking to help sales teams.

LiveChat also has great integrations with multiple platforms, including Shopify, WordPress, Salesforce, and HubSpot, which lets you integrate the tools you already use.

Chatra

Chatra is another external communication tool for businesses. It’s one of the few platforms that offer a free subscription with one agent, unlimited chats, and chat history. This makes it a good free option for small websites that don’t need to handle a lot of customer interaction.

The platform can also grow with a business, offering users more basic features once they upgrade to a paid tier, like group chats, customer data, targeted chat messages, additional support agents, detailed customer data, and operating hours, among other things.

However, since the platform lacks advanced features, users may want to upgrade to a more complete platform as soon as they outgrow Chatra.

Tidio

Tidio is a customer service platform that aims to be a 3-in-1 service, covering live chat, email marketing, and chatbots. 

The platform also has AI-powered chatbots that allow businesses to send messages about abandoned carts, order status, shipping updates, and much more. This makes it better for B2C selling platforms. Tidio also offers users multiple templates and a simple drag-and-drop chatbot builder to simplify the bot or software product development.

Tidio only integrates with MailChimp and Zapier, so you have to use Zapier to integrate it with other platforms. It offers a free limited account for up to three operators, with premium accounts starting at $18.

Intercom

A self-defined Conversational Relationship Platform, Intercom helps users connect with clients as they use your product or website, and improve your communication with them.

This customer-relations-focused platform gives you access to many common customer service features, like behavior-driven messages, predictive responses, and automated targeted content, to name a few.

Although somewhat conventional, its UI and long track record make it attractive to users looking for a simple communication solution for their website or web-based product, and those who don’t mind paying more than average for it.

Zendesk

Zendesk is another popular customer service suite with a long list of customers and a good track record.

Businesses can use the Zendesk Support platform to handle live chats, manage business phone services, create powerful knowledge bases, and deal with many more customer service needs. It also has a functional ticketing system that includes social media tickets. The platform also integrates with the rest of Zendesk’s suite, making it a good option for anyone already using it.

Although it’s a proven tool, it does have a potentially high price tag, especially if you want access to the best features.

Hubspot ServiceHub

HubSpot’s new customer service platform is another versatile option for businesses looking to manage their customer interaction and learn from the data.

With this platform, users can engage with customers in multiple ways and integrate the customer service suite into their marketing campaigns.

The platform also allows service teams to work together and collaborate in one space. It can also handle customer interactions, ticketing, and knowledge base for internal and external purposes. All of the data is consolidated into powerful reporting to help you with your data-driven decisions.

However, at least at the time of writing this article, the platform limits the number of users that can be active on the platform, and the web interface can be slow at times, undoubtedly due to it being a new, unproven tool.

Saleshandy

Saleshandy is a sales engagement platform that helps businesses increase sales through automating and tracking outreach campaigns. You can also send bulk emails, email sequences, and automated follow-ups with SalesHandy.Saleshandy provides the following features: Email Personalization, Real-time email tracking, Email automated sequencing, Autofollowups, Email scheduling, Email templates, Cold emailing.It is best for Customer success, Outbound Sales, Recruitment, Marketers.
Pricing: Plus plan starts at $22/user/month (billed annually).

Team Communication Tools (Internal)

Good communication is the basis of any team. Here are the best tools to handle your company’s internal communication needs:

Slack

Slack will likely need no introduction. It’s one of the most famous and most used internal communication tools, especially when it comes to remote teams and startups. With clients like Airbnb and IBM, it’s no surprise to see more and more companies adopting it for their internal communication needs. 

One of the main features of Slack is its compartmentalization capabilities. Slack allows users to create groups called “channels” to contextualize information and reach the right users. These channels help keep the communication clear and simple and allows for fun interactions in the appropriate channels. It also integrates with other business apps like G-Suite, Zapier, Fyle, Reclaim, Zoom, etc., making it easy for users to organize and manage all their work from within Slack.

The onboarding experience is seamless and intuitive, making the tool accessible for any new user.

Pricing is also affordable, with a functional free version for smaller companies.

Zoom

After 2020, Zoom became one of the most popular and widely used video meeting apps, and for good reason.

Zoom’s powerful platform allows users to communicate through video calls with clear video and audio. All the user needs is one link, which makes it very convenient to use and easy to manage. The platform is also flexible enough to be handled by larger companies, with features like breakout rooms to segment a large audience. (Btw; If you are planning a team-building activity, Zoom’s robust video conferencing features ensure seamless communication.)

Zoom comes with a generous free version, making it very accessible for freelancers and smaller companies that want to access features like a whiteboard, screen sharing, and more. And since it’s available for Mac, PC, iOS, and Android, virtually anyone can access it through any device.

Digital Samba

Digital Samba, a reliable and secure video conferencing platform, provides GDPR-compliant video conferencing API and SDK, which ensures robust data protection and enhances the efficiency of your digital communication.

Digital Samba’s platforms are hosted in the EU, a crucial aspect for businesses operating under strict data privacy laws. The solution takes data security a step further with end-to-end encryption, making sure your communications are safe from potential security breaches.

What sets Digital Samba apart is its capacity for integration. Developers can seamlessly embed Digital Samba’s video conferencing functionality into their own software products or websites. This flexibility eliminates dependency on third-party applications and fosters direct, efficient communication within your digital ecosystem.

With its strong emphasis on compliance, security, and flexibility, Digital Samba stands out as a robust solution in the landscape of communication tools. By providing an intuitive, customisable, and secure platform, it facilitates streamlined communication that meets the needs of modern businesses.

ARITIC SWARM

An Instant Messaging Tool for internal company collaborations. Aritic Swarm takes team collaboration to the next level with an encrypted secure messaging option.

The rich UI, along with group messaging features, among others, make Aritic Swarm a go-to-platform for teams that rely on the ‘work together’ motto.

It brings all your teams together on Aritic Swarm to coordinate and drive business growth. 

You can create message rooms or groups as well as engage in one-on-one messaging. Upload videos, images, documents, and any other type of files to their cloud storage, use emojis in messages, write HTML coded messages. Format messages with bold, italics, or strikethrough to emphasise on important aspects of your message.

Fleep

Fleep is a messaging app focused on internal company messaging that aims to compete with Slack by combining task management with internal communication and file sharing. This allows companies to handle projects and communication on a single platform.

With Fleep, users can search, assign, create, and track tasks, all while communicating with each other in context about their projects and teams.

What’s more, Fleep has a unique “pinboard” feature. Through the pinboard, users can highlight plans and pin them to a conversation to further contextualize communication. With this feature, all users can see what’s happening and be informed about new advancements.

Fleep can be used for free with limited users and its pricing is fairly affordable for larger companies.

GoToMeeting

Although not as popular as it once was, GoToMeeting is still a useful mobile video conferencing tool. The platform features a streamlined and user-friendly UI, with features like polling and “raise a hand” that allow users to easily manage larger groups of people.

The platform also includes HD video, screen sharing for all devices, unlimited meetings, and high security. GoToMeeting also offers very powerful Android and iOS mobile apps that give users the same desktop experience on the go. 

Users can set up unlimited free online meetings as long as they sign up and can operate meetings for up to 3 participants for as long as 40 minutes.

Yammer

If you and your teammates already use Microsoft products for your work, Yammer will be an obvious choice for your internal communication needs.

Created by Microsoft as a Slack competitor, Yammer aims to be a complete enterprise social network, not just an inner company chat program. While it does have powerful communication features, what sets Yammer apart is the ability to create and join groups that are relevant to their jobs, projects, and interests.

Yammer also allows users to send files, plan meetings, and communicate. It seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft company-focused products like SharePoint and Microsoft Teams and has a generous free plan, which will likely be enough for smaller companies.

Google Meet

Formerly known as “Hangouts Meet”, Google Meet is part of the G Suite office productivity platform. 

Like the rest of the Google Suite, Google Meet works flawlessly on all devices, improving the experience of the standard Google Hangouts by fully focusing on business needs. It also has cheaper premium tiers when compared to Zoom, and while it can’t handle up to 1000 participants like Zoom, it can still handle a decent 250 users.

Additionally, anyone can access your conference through its dial-in number without needing to install any app beforehand. It also integrates seamlessly with other Google-based platforms, and Google has been adding more useful features to slowly regain the userbase they have lost to Zoom.

Troop Messenger

Another platform aiming to be a suitable Slack alternative is Troop Messenger. This platform can not only streamline internal communication but also make it more secure than before. The platform is great for open and live communication, especially for companies with remote workers.

With Troop Messenger, you can communicate through text, audio, and video with groups or individuals, and have access to useful unique features, like live tracking, burnout, flagging, splashboard, and much more. You can also use it for simple troubleshooting by taking advantage of its remote desktop control and screen sharing features.

Troop Messenger has a generous free plan, with the premium plan starting at just $1 per user per month, and it works in Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.

Project Management Communication Tools (Internal)

Project management tools allow you to supervise and keep track of your projects and strategies, assigning tasks to teammates, and helping you meet your deadlines.

Here are the best project management communication tools for you and your company.

Asana

Asana is a popular and versatile task management software. With it, you can manage your teams and projects, assign tasks and project visibility to specific teammates, and keep track of everything with several views. These views allow you, your teammates, and your clients to Ganttvisualize your progress through a variety of lenses to truly reflect how your project is doing.

Asana can also replace all email and online chat communication with announcements sent to the right people instead of printing memos. You can even get online signatures for documents within the app.

This tool integrates with many other tools you may already be using to share information and automate tasks. With its generous free plan, users and startups can easily manage their projects, although prices do go up with premium plans, especially if you’re planning on having multiple users access the platform.

ClickUp

ClickUp is another project management tool with great communication features, With ClickUp, you can easily customize the view of your workflow, ensuring you can always stay on top of the situation, even after the project is done.

With a user-focused design, ClickUp provides its users with a lot of functionality accessed through a clean, sleek, user-friendly interface.

ClickUp’s platform and capabilities are also very flexible, adapting to the team’s methods instead of forcing the team to adapt to the tool. This is achieved with a highly customizable platform, that can adapt with ease to scrum, spring, and other project management methodologies.

The platform has a free forever plan with unlimited members and tasks, and a Premium plan for $5 per user per month with unlimited storage, integrations, views, and dashboards.

monday.com

Formerly known as dapulse, monday.com is another online collaboration tool that differentiates itself from its competitors with its focus on visibility and transparency.

The platform is highly customizable and versatile, with great communication features allowing you and your teammates to communicate and share views with other teams to put communication in context. It also features powerful integrations with platforms like Slack, Dropbox, and multiple CRMs.

Its very friendly user interface and powerful capabilities have earned it some serious clients, such as Hulu, Coca-Cola, Universal, and Adobe.

Although the platform is attractive and powerful, it unfortunately, has no free option, with its pricing starting at $160 per seat per month for a minimum of 3 seats. This makes it better for larger companies with higher budgets to spend on a powerful project management tool, instead of a smaller, limited free option.

Trello

Trello is a simplified and streamlined way of keeping your tasks and projects organized and on track. The onboarding experience is almost automatic due to the UI being so intuitive and easy to understand.

Through cards, boards, and lists, Trello is a visual way to streamline your communication and your projects’ development. Adding members is as easy as typing their email to send them access to their profile filled with all their tasks.

The Trello app is also highly popular and has all the functionality of the web app, making it a great choice for people who are always on the go.

Its generous free version with up to 10 team boards and automation capabilities is perfect for small teams and businesses.

Wrike

Wrike is another great project management tool for small and large businesses alike. With Wrike, you get full control and visibility of your projects while in progress and after your projects have been completed, so you can document them as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Documentation is simplified further with Wrike’s file sharing, document management, and expense tracking.

You also receive comprehensive project management capabilities, making this tool particularly useful for large or complex projects. However, it’s these same capabilities that can make it more complex and not as user-friendly as some of the other options.

It has a fairly limited free option, with the best features locked behind paid tiers.

ProcessMaker

ProcessMaker is an open-source software that’s perfect for larger companies and teams looking for easy workflow automations. The platform is a low-code business process management platform that allows users to quickly design and automate any workflows they need.

You can use ProcessMaker to visually design workflows and approve workflow screens, monitor your workflows through visual dashboards, and easily handle process management through its drag-and-drop interface.

Although somewhat expensive, ProcessMaker is perfect for users who are looking for a platform to automate their workflows without any coding experience.

WorkflowMax

WorkflowMAX is a large and comprehensive project management tool aimed to give you everything you need to manage your projects, your teams, and even your finances. This makes it a great option for anyone looking to consolidate multiple tools into one platform.

With this platform, you can manage remote teams, working on remote projects easily and tracking the time spent working and managing their jobs. You can also manage and generate leads, send proposals and quotes, and even collect online signatures on documents.

Although it lacks a free tier, its pricing starts at an affordable $15 per month for a single user,  with other options for larger teams and companies.

Rooftop

Rooftop is a project and email management software tool, made to primarily handle email projects, whether they come in low or high volumes.

With it, you can handle all your email management needs, provide better customer support, and manage your tasks, projects, workflows, and documents. You can even use it to build a custom CRM with simple automation features.

Rooftop also supports internal and external communication needs, allowing you to do it all with just one platform. 

TeamGantt

TeamGantt is an award-winning online project management solution built around Gantt charts.

With TeamGantt, you can manage projects easily, making all project updates and documents visible at a glance on a single page. These can be shared internally or externally by inviting clients, teammates, and managers to the project.

The platform isn’t limited to Gantt charts either. TeamGantt allows you to switch between Gantt chart, kanban board, or calendar views. Handling projects and creating new ones is easy with its intuitive UI based on dragging and dropping.

The platform integrates with other tools like Slack, Trello, Basecamp, Outlook, Google Calendar, and iCal. You can use it for free for up to 3 users, with paid plans starting at $24.95 per month.

Statusbrew

Statusbrew is a leading social media project management tool that elevates management and team collaboration to unparalleled heights. Its Plans feature effortlessly facilitates the creation and management of social campaigns. Also, its Reporting allows for a thorough analysis of campaign performance and provides valuable insights for informed decision-making.

With Statusbrew’s smooth team coordination and collaborative workflows, you can efficiently manage social content, engagement, marketing, and reporting as a team. The approval workflows feature also guarantees that all content is regulated, minimizing repetitive work and reducing the chance of errors.

A free trial and platform demo are also available.

Frequently Asked Questions about Communication Tools

Here are the answers to commonly asked questions about communication tools:

What are communication tools?

Communication tools are virtual tools used to communicate remotely through audio, video, or text. In the world of business, communication tools are mainly used to communicate externally with customers and users to provide answers to their queries. They are also used internally with teammates and employees to manage projects and streamline communication.

What are the kinds of business communication tools?

Business communication tools are divided into internal communication tools and external communication tools.

Internal communication tools are tools that allow teams to collaborate internally, share insights, and develop strong business relationships. They’re also important when it comes to remote work, allowing users to interact with each other by video calling other teammates and helping them stay on top of their duties. But internal communication tools can be also used to share information in an easy way such as QR code generators or instant messaging apps.

External communication tools are used by a company to communicate with users and clients, answering their queries and increasing the likelihood of a sale. They help companies provide better customer service and automate communications to ensure the right users get the right live reps.

What are the benefits of using communication tools when managing remote teams?

The right communication tools are vital when managing remote teams because they allow you to keep track of your teammates, their progress, and their work.

Communication tools can also be used to establish a rapport between teammates, facilitate collaboration between all parties, develop, organize, supervise, and deploy new strategies, while keeping everyone informed about their tasks and responsibilities.

What’s the best team communication tool?

The best team communication tool is the one that your team members can use to fulfill all of their communication needs. It should be a collaboration software that allows for them to work as a team with enough context to streamline communication.

For remote teams, the best team communication tool will likely have a video chat, allow them to share files with cloud storage, feature document collaboration, and have a low learning curve to avoid the need for extensive training.

For local teams, the best team communication tool should be built around collaboration tools that allow all team members to communicate with each other through instant messaging, contextualizing their communication through the proper channels.

What’s the best external communication tool?

The best external communication tool will depend on your needs, particularly if you need it for customer service, sales, or both.

For customer service, it should make it easy for your users to contact you and your team members in real time, with enough automations to guarantee your customer service reps only spend their time with users who need them.

For sales, the communication tool should be able to handle all leads, qualifying them before they reach out to your sales reps.

In all cases, your communication software should have enough collaboration features to ensure your reps and teammates can easily communicate with each other.

What are the things to consider when selecting the best communication tool for your business? 

You should consider multiple things, like:

• Needs: What do you want to get out of your communication tool? How should it help you and your team work closely together? Who will be using it? How will it be used?
• Integrations: Which tools does this communication tool integrate with? Does it integrate with the tools you’re already using? Will it be tied to a smaller set of tools if you choose a particular option?
• Ease of use: How easy will it be for your employees to learn how to use it? How long will future employees need to be trained to fully master this tool? How user-friendly will it be for external users?
• Cost: How much money can you spend per month on a tool? If you’re using a free version, how expensive will it be to upgrade if your company keeps growing? Which features will you get if/when you decide to expand to the next tier?

Conclusion 

As we’ve seen, communication tools are extremely important when it comes to internal and external communication. With the right communication tools, you and your team will not only be able to communicate better but will spend less time communicating more effectively.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution to external communication that includes chatbots, shared inboxes, and many more useful features, there’s no better choice than Messagely.

Try Messagely for free, today.

The post Best Business Communication Tools for Your Team to Become More Productive appeared first on Messagely.

Tracking too few KPIs will give you an incomplete view of your customer service. But tracking too many KPIs will quickly overwhelm you and make you lose sight of what matters.

That’s why we’ve created this list of over 100 customer service KPIs and metrics, so you can get a good idea of what exists and choose the most important customer service KPIs. 

Let’s get started.

List of 50+ KPIs & Metrics for Customer Service

Here are all the key performance indicators you can use to measure customer support:

Abandoned call rates

How many calls are cropped or abandoned by the caller before reaching a live agent.

How to calculate abandoned call rates

Calculated by dividing the abandoned calls by the total number of inbound calls.

Active Issues

The number of issues your company is experiencing that affect your customers in real-time. 

How to calculate Active Issues

Your agents should have access to the issues currently affecting your customers, recollected by the appropriate team and condensed and counted by the customer care manager.

Agent’s Tone and Language

The general attitude that a customer service agent has toward the customers and users interacting with them.

How to calculate Agent’s Tone and Language

This can be measured by breaking down customer service tone and language skills into actions and counting how many of those actions the agent performs during the customer interaction.

Agents’ Problem-Solving Skills

The skill of the agent to solve the user’s query or problem quickly, effectively, and if possible, permanently.

How to calculate Agents’ Problem-Solving Skills

Although harder to calculate than other customer support KPIs, you can track this by measuring the time it takes the agent from the moment the query or problem is identified to the moment it’s resolved. You can also deduct points if the agent pursued futile efforts.

Analysis of channel performance

How well your current customer service efforts are working, measuring how profitable they are, and how effective they are.

How to calculate analysis of channel performance

A more general key performance indicator, this analysis will likely depend on the channel’s efforts and its own KPIs, adding them together to get a final score.

Average age of a problem, per business impact

How long it takes from when a problem appears until the problem gets resolved.

How to calculate Analysis of channel performance

If you cannot automatically measure when the problem appeared, make sure your reps ask about it and define when the problem got resolved, either during the customer service contact or at a later date.

Average Complaints per Day

The number of calls, chats, emails, or other approaches from users to criticize the company, the employees, the service/product, or any other aspect of the company.

How to calculate Average Complaints per Day

Have your customer service reps create separate tickets and label them properly to file the number of complaints, then average them by week or month.

Average Handle Time

The average length of time the rep spends with users from the moment the rep answers the call until the moment the user hangs up.

How to calculate Average Handle Time

The average handle time may be calculated per team or per service rep, and it can be averaged by day, week, month, or lifetime.

Average Hold Time

The length of time the average user spends on hold during a call.

How to calculate Average Hold Time

Make sure to measure whether or not the rep places the user on hold during a call, how often this happens, and for how long the user is on hold.

Average Resolution Time (ART)

How long it takes your reps to solve their open tickets on average. This is calculated by agent or team. Choosing to do this by team will likely show you how long it takes your company to resolve tickets, whereas breaking it down by agent will let you know who the best performers are and will shine a light on agents that may need more help or training.

How to calculate Average Resolution Time (ART)

Measure how long the agents take to solve each ticket and average these times based on how long they take to resolve them. 

Average Speed of Answer (ASA)

The length of time a user spends waiting for someone to answer their attempt of communication.

How to calculate Average Speed of Answer (ASA)

Your messaging app or phone system will usually be able to calculate how long it takes for each interaction to start and will average this according to your needs. If it can’t, you can think about setting up a VoIP number and system for your business. Those tools offer great reporting features. The average response time is usually around 30 seconds.

Average Time Between Customer Interactions

How long the agent takes from finishing a customer interaction to starting the next one.

How to calculate Average Time Between Customer Interactions

Your messaging app or phone system should be able to calculate the time between interactions, which can help you balance the workload for your agents, especially during busier times.

Average time to diagnose

How long it takes the agent to move from starting an interaction with a user to determining the purpose of the interaction.

How to calculate Average time to diagnose

This is a customer service KPI you’ll likely need to calculate by observing random customer interactions, averaging the time taken by the agent to realize why a user is contacting the company. 

Agent Utilization Rates

How many of the agents are occupied with user interactions at any given time.

How to calculate Agent Utilization Rates

Your messaging app or phone system should be able to calculate the average agent utilization rate automatically to give you a better idea of the workload of the agents.

Calls Answered Over Time

How many customer interactions reps are handling during a specific period of time.

How to calculate Calls Answered Over Time

Your messaging or phone software will usually track the number of customer interactions handled by your team, breaking it down by agent.

Calls per Product

How many calls your team is receiving about each of your individual products.

How to calculate Calls per Product

You can set up your ticketing software to reflect the product the ticketing is about and feed that information into your analytics software to compute it.

Cancellation Rate

How many of your customers are contacting your agents to cancel their services or return their products.

How to calculate Cancellation Rate

Set up your ticketing software to not only reflect how many cancellations are happening but why they’re happening, allowing your agent to select common reasons to further break down this KPI.

Consistent Resolutions

How consistent individual agents are at resolving tickets when different users contact them with the same problem.

How to calculate Consistent Resolutions

Although you may want to start by listening to calls or reading live chat logs, you can use AI to automatically evaluate each query and ensure the resolutions stay consistent.

Cost per Call

How much it costs the company to sustain the team on a call-by-call basis. 

How to calculate Cost per Call

Calculate how much agents are paid and how much it costs to run the facilities they’re in. Divide that by the number of calls your team handled during that time.

Cost per Incident

How much it costs the company to handle each incident on average, regardless of whether it’s resolved or not.

How to calculate Cost per Incident

Calculate how much the agents are paid and how much it costs to run the facilities they’re in. Divide that by the number of incidents your team handled during that time.

Cost Per Resolution

Calculate how much the agents are paid and how much it costs to run the facilities they’re in. Divide that by the number of tickets your team closed during that time.

How to calculate Cost Per Resolution

(*) Note: please use either “calculate” or “measure”, depending on the KPI

Cross-Selling Opportunities

How many chances the agents have to make a sale during a customer integration, regardless of whether the agent takes it or not. 

How to calculate Cross-Selling Opportunities

Although you may want to start by listening to calls or reading live chat logs, you can use AI to automatically review each query and count how many chances the agent had to make a sale relevant to the query they were handling.

Customer Churn Rate

How many customers have stopped doing business with your company.

How to calculate Customer Churn Rate

Calculate how many cancellations you’ve had that have transitioned a customer into a non-paying user.

Customer Complaints During Call

How many times a customer makes a complaint during a single call.

How to calculate Customer Complaints During Call

Use AI in the form of speech analytics software to analyze how many complaints your agents get during one call, and break down the reasons behind them.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

How easy or hard it is for your customer to interact with your team and resolve their queries, measured on a numeric scale.

How to calculate Customer Effort Score (CES)

It’s usually measured through a one-question form after the customer has stopped communication with the agent, rating the difficulty of resolving their query from 1 to 10.

Customer Engagement Levels

How many customers are interacting with your brand and for how long.

How to calculate Customer Engagement Levels

Calculate how many of your customers are in each of the five or six levels of engagement set by your company.

Customer Handover Rates

How many times an agent is unable to resolve a problem and hands the customer interaction to a different agent.

How to calculate Customer Handover Rates

Although this is usually directly reflected in transfer rates, make sure the handover rates only reflect the times where the agent was not able to resolve a query and not when the call was transferred for any other reason.

Customer Retention Rate (CRR)

How many customers remain loyal to the company in a specific period of time.

How to calculate Customer Retention Rate (CRR)

Calculate how many customers have not fully canceled their interactions with the company per month, trimester, quarter, year, or longer to define your customer retention rate.

Customer Satisfaction By End of Call

How satisfied and happy the customer is after the call has ended.

How to calculate Customer Satisfaction By End of Call

Ask your customers to fill out a quick survey after their call to rate their satisfaction.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

How satisfied customers are in general with the attention of the customer service team. This usually measures how happy they are with the resolution of their queries, how well the client feels they were treated, and how easy or hard it was to resolve their queries.

How to calculate Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

The way the CSAT will be calculated will likely differ from company to company, ranging from small surveys after a call to longer follow-up surveys a few days after the interaction.

Daily Customer Returns

How many product returns are processed per day in total.

How to calculate Daily Customer Returns

This customer service KPI should easily be calculated within your ticketing system where each return is flagged.

Demo-to-registration conversion rate

How many users have used the product or service in the form of a free trial and end up converting to paying customers after the trial period has expired. 

How to calculate Demo-to-registration conversion rate

Count how many users have continued to use your solution after the free trial has expired, and calculate this number against the number of users that haven’t converted.

Employee Satisfaction Score (ESAT)

A mathematical expression of how satisfied your reps are with their jobs, which can tell you potential areas of opportunity and help you decrease turnover rates.

How to calculate Employee Satisfaction Score (ESAT)

This KPI will likely depend on a few customer service metrics. You can get employees to fill out a quick survey at the end of the month in which they can rate their job satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10.

Employee Turnover Rate (ETR)

How many of your employees stop working for you during a specific amount of time.

How to calculate Employee Turnover Rate (ETR)

HR will usually have a record of the number of employees that have stopped working at your company, broken down by the reasons they left.

Enrollment Conversion Rate

How often a user becomes a paying customer during or after an interaction with one of your agents. 

How to calculate Enrollment Conversion Rate

To calculate this conversion rate, you’ll have to track user behavior throughout an interaction and after it has ended to determine how many users each agent has been able to convert into paying customers.

Escalation Rate

How many users ask to talk to the agent’s manager or supervisor to resolve a query or file a complaint.

How to calculate Escalation Rate

Escalations should be considered in ticketing software, making sure to record each time your agents transfer a call to a superior and why they did so.

First Contact Resolution (FCR)

How often agents can permanently resolve an issue within a single interaction. 

How to calculate First Contact Resolution (FCR)

You can use your ticketing software and CRM to track how often a customer has to call to resolve an issue, and how often a problem is permanently fixed after one interaction.

First Response Time (FRT)

How long it takes between a customer raising a ticket and an agent responding to it, regardless of whether the ticket gets resolved or not. 

How to calculate First Response Time (FRT)

This is usually measured in business hours unless the customer reaches a 24/7 service line.

Immediate Responses Versus Queued Calls

How often users are getting through to an agent immediately compared to the number of calls the agents are receiving at the moment.

How to calculate Immediate Responses Versus Queued Calls

Calculate the percentage of users reaching an agent without having to wait in line. This percentage should be as high as possible for better customer satisfaction.

Incidents per Account

How many incidents each user has had with their product or service.

How to calculate Incidents per Account

Your CRM should help you log the number of incidents each customer has and how many users are yet to contact your team about an incident.

Incidents related to problems in relation to all incidents in a particular time period

How many incidents were reported when a known issue was affecting your company.

How to calculate incidents related to problems in relation to all incidents in a particular time period

Narrow your search to the timeframe your company experienced an issue, and count how many users noticed it and contacted your team about it.

Invalid Claims

How many tickets are created only to be discarded due to the lack of a reason for them to exist.

How to calculate Invalid Claims

File the tickets created by invalid claims separately in your ticketing system, allowing your agents to specify that they’re closing them due to a mistake and not because there’s an actual issue to resolve.

Knowledge Sharing Function

How often your users share a piece of content created by your company.

How to calculate Knowledge Sharing Function

Keep track of all your “share” buttons through analytics to figure out how often each piece of content is shared, and identify the kinds of content more likely to be shared by your users.

Minutes Spent on Call

The average time it takes for agents to resolve users’ queries.

How to calculate Minutes Spent on Call

Your phone system will likely be able to keep track of the length of each call and average them this per agent or for the whole team.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) 

How much revenue your company can expect to make consistently.

How to calculate Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) 

Calculate it by multiplying the total number of paying users by their average revenue.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

How many clients are recommending your company to other people.

How to calculate Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is usually calculated through a survey that allows you to break down your responders into detractors, passives, and promoters. Once you’ve identified them, simply subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters to get your NPS score.

New problems

The number of problems your users report for the first time.

How to calculate New problems

Your ticketing system should show why each ticket was created. You can break down the reasons to identify new ones.

New Ticket 

How many tickets are created in a period of time.

How to calculate New Ticket 

Any ticketing system should keep you informed of how many tickets are created during any given period.

Pages per visit

How many of your website pages are opened by a single user between landing on your website and leaving it.

How to calculate Pages per visit

Google Analytics and other analytics platforms (such as this Google Data Studio alternative) automatically keep track of this customer service KPI for you.

Problems registered

How many tickets were created due to an issue a customer had with your company.

How to calculate Problems registered

Your ticketing system should reflect which tickets were created due to a user experiencing issues and not due to them wanting to resolve a simple query.

Problems solved

How many issues are raised by customers in any given period.

How to calculate Problems solved

Your ticketing system should be set up to accurately reflect which tickets are exclusively about issues related to customer experience and how many of them get solved.

Product adoption

The percentage of new paying customers in a specific period of time.

How to calculate Product adoption

You can calculate your product adoption rate by dividing the number of new users by the total number of users to get the right percentage.

Product Return Rate

How to calculate Product Return Rate

(*) Note: please use either “calculate” or “measure”, depending on the KPI

Product stickiness

The propensity or likelihood of customers to return to using your product or service or to use it more often.

How to calculate Product stickiness

Count the active users in any given time, dividing that number by the number of users logged during the previous 30 days to get a percentage of product stickiness.

Product/Service Knowledge

How familiar your agents are with the products or services your company offers and how your customers interact with them.

How to calculate Product/Service Knowledge

Test your agents regularly and average their scores to get a full view of your team’s knowledge.

Qualitative customer feedback

Detailed customer service performance indicators as to why your customer left positive or negative feedback.

How to calculate Qualitative customer feedback

Ask your customers to fill out a survey rating multiple areas of your customer service to get detailed qualitative customer feedback to learn how well your team is doing in various areas.

Quality of Written Communication

How well your customer service team is doing when communicating through email or live chats.

How to calculate Quality of Written Communication

You can review chat logs or use an AI to measure the quality of written communication automatically.

Rate of Resolution

The rate at which your customer service team and individual agents fulfill service requests.

How to calculate Rate of Resolution

Take the number of solved tickets and divide them by the tickets received during any given time. Then multiply this number by 100 to get a percentage rate of resolution.

Repeat Purchase Rate

The rate of customers that have made more than one purchase during any given period.

How to calculate Repeat Purchase Rate

Count the number of customers that have made more than one purchase and divide this by all purchases made on a given date range to get a percentage.

Replies per resolution

The number of replies it takes for an issue to get resolved.

How to calculate Replies per resolution

take the total number of replies on resolved support tickets and divide them by the number of resolved conversations with one or more replies within the specified date range.

Response to Training

How your agents are impacted by coaching and training, and whether they implement new learnings into their customer interactions.

How to calculate Response to Training

There are multiple ways of measuring your agent’s response. One of them is keeping track of the KPIs you want to affect with training to see whether or not they improve after training, averaging them to get one solid number.

Returned Product Transportation Cost

How much it costs to process the return of a product measured by an average per product or by a total number.

How to calculate Returned Product Transportation Cost

Calculate the logistics of handling returns in both material cost and work hours, then divide this by the number of products that were returned during that period.

Revenue Growth

How much your income has increased compared to the last period.

How to calculate Revenue Growth

Subtract the last period’s revenue from your current period’s revenue. Divide that number by the previous period’s revenue to get a percentage.

Rewards Breakage Rate

The percent of reward points your customers don’t end up redeeming. 

How to calculate Rewards Breakage Rate

Divide the number of points that did not get spent by the total number of points issued during a period.

Self-service rate

The percentage of users solving their queries by their own means, without contacting customer support.

How to calculate Self-service rate

Compare the number of sessions in your knowledge base against the number of support ticket issues within the same period.

SERVQUAL

The measurement of quality of customer service given by your team over your users’ expectations.

How to calculate SERVQUAL

You’ll have to measure five different elements: Reliability (customer service consistency), Assurance (how agents build trust and confidence throughout their interaction), Tangibles (how the company appears to the customer), Empathy (how the agents engage with the customer’s needs), and Responsiveness (how willing the agent is to solve users’ queries).

Success Rate of Calls (CSSR)

The percentage of customer interactions that end up resolving the customer’s query or queries. 

How to calculate Success Rate of Calls

Divide the successful interactions by the total interactions. The ideal value should be 1.

Ticket backlog

The number of support tickets that end up not being resolved or addressed within a certain timeframe and get carried onto the next period.

How to calculate Ticket backlog

Take the total number of tickets generated during a certain period and subtract the number of tickets that did get resolved during that time.

Ticket Volume by Support Channel

The number of support tickets generated through each channel of communication during a specific period.

How to calculate Ticket Volume by Support Channel

Your ticketing system should track your ticket volume divided by each channel your customers have to contact you.

Time Between Purchases

How long the customer goes on average between making purchases.

How to calculate Time Between Purchases

Divide the optimal order size by the actual demand during that period.

Time on site

How long each user spends browsing your website.

How to calculate Time on site

You can easily find the average time on site in your Google Analytics or any other embedded analytics tool.

Top 10 Customers by Active Tickets

The 10 customers your team needs to prioritize at any given time.

How to calculate Top 10 Customers by Active Tickets

Calculate this based on customer loyalty, paid prioritized customer support, or any other customer support metrics that help you prioritize which client needs attention the fastest.

Top Performing Agents

The agents that have excelled at their jobs the most, achieving all the goals you’ve set for them.

How to calculate Top Performing Agents

Determining your top-performing agents will likely depend on what you value in a customer support representative, like the number of tickets resolved or how fast your agents resolve tickets on average.

Top Topics

The topics that are the most valued by your users.

How to calculate Top Topics

Your top topics will usually be the ones that get visited the most, which you’ll be able to see in Google Analytics or any other website analytics tool.

Training Hours per Year

How many hours you spend on training.

How to calculate Training Hours per Year

Count the hours your agents spend on training and divide them into the kind of training they’re getting to further contextualize them.

Warranty Claims as a Percentage of COGS

How much of your cost of sold goods is spent on warranty claims.

How to calculate Warranty Claims as a Percentage of COGS

Divide your warranty claims by your COGS (cost of goods sold) to get a percentage.

How to Set KPIs for Customer Service

With so many customer service KPIs available, you’ll have to choose which ones you’ll keep track of for your customer support. Here’s how to do it.

1. Set goals

It’s a good practice to set up SMART goals. These goals should be reasonable and should aim to fix or improve your customer service in a tangible way.

Instead of trying to revolutionize your whole customer service approach, stick to goals that are realistic, and make sure your support agents get enough input not only to see how realistic they are but to get their commitment to achieving them.

2. Define how you’ll measure those goals

All goals must have a definition of success. If, for example, you’d like to improve your customer service by diminishing the time of the call, you must review everything that goes into that to make it come to reality. 

Instead of defining that you’d like to lower your call duration, you may decide to aim for a decrease of time customers spend on hold and an increase of customer agent problem-solving skills to help your reps understand and solve the query as fast as possible.

3. Include other KPIs that are relevant to your goals

Measuring and improving KPIs for customer service is usually a matter of balance. If you aim to improve a specific KPI, you may end up affecting a different customer service KPI in your efforts.

For example, by trying to decrease the time of calls, you may end up decreasing your First Contact Resolution because your support agents are too focused on finishing the call quickly instead of resolving the customer’s query because that may take longer than patching the issue.

4. Communicate your customer service KPIs to your customer service team

Once you’ve decided which KPIs to focus on for customer service, your customer support team must not only learn which ones they are but also how those should inform how they perform their work.

5. Track your KPIs through reliable data

The better the quality of your data, the better you’ll be able to measure your results. To make sure you’re properly keeping track of your KPIs, use solid customer service tools to measure them, like analytics, reports, and AI. If you need to track data from multiple sources, consider using a dashboard that merges those different data streams.

6. Re-evaluate your KPIs periodically

You should make sure you keep making data-driven decisions to decide which KPIs you’ll keep track of by measuring customer service agents’ and users’ satisfaction levels.

Conclusion

KPIs are the most basic and valuable data to keep in mind. If you can choose the right ones, you’ll be able to fully understand not only how well your customer service is doing, but how you can help your agents improve their work and be happier and more loyal to your company. 

The post 50+ Customer Service KPIs & Metrics (Massive List) appeared first on Messagely.

Proactive customer service is key to making your users and clients feel cared for. With proactive customer service, you can prevent and deal with crises, and it plays a vital role in forming loyal customers and brand advocates.

But what’s the secret behind truly mastering proactive customer service? How can your company switch from reactive to proactive customer service?

Let’s find out.

What is Proactive Customer Service?

Proactive customer service is the process by which a company tries to prevent issues from happening instead of reacting to them as they happen.

Through proactive customer support, the company makes an effort to anticipate potential issues the user may have. The company takes steps to try to prevent those issues from happening in the first place through improved customer service.

This is the opposite of reactive customer support, which is what happens when a company simply waits for an issue to happen or for a user to request customer support.

For example, an internet provider may know that it might not be able to provide the agreed internet speed to the customers of certain regions due to scheduled maintenance.

With reactive customer service, the company may simply take the risk of inconveniencing some of its customers, instruct the customer service reps about the issue, and proceed to give a partial refund to customers who complain.

With proactive customer service, the company may reach out to the customers that could potentially be affected, let them know that there may be an issue and how long it may take, and send them a partial discount or an offer as preemptive compensation.

Whereas both customer service techniques address the issue, proactive customer service requires more resources but tends to be more effective when creating brand loyalty.

7 Tips to Master Proactive Customer Service

Here are the top 10 tips to help you master proactive customer service:

1. Use your live chat

Your live chat is one of the most important aspects of your customer service efforts. It can help customers contact you as soon as they have an issue, but it can also be used to provide excellent proactive customer support.

Live chats give you customer behavioral information that can help you decide when to contact your customers. Using this behavioral information can help your team anticipate customer interactions and contact users before they reach out to your team.

How to get started

Use behavioral information to develop triggers as soon as your customer needs help. For example, you can develop triggers for when a user has gone through three or more knowledge base articles in a row or when a user has spent a lengthy amount of time in your knowledge base.

Once you’ve developed the triggers, train your customer service reps to make sure they know how to solve the most common customer queries as efficiently as possible.

2. Develop customer service strategies with survey data

If you want to master proactive customer service, you need customer input. Instead of assuming you know what your customers need or want and acting based on that assumption, customer input will give you the best chance at truly knowing your customers’ main pain points and help you act on them.

The easiest way to achieve this is by asking customers directly through surveys. These surveys will let you know more about your customers and can give you much insight into where to improve your customer service proactively.

How to get started

There are two main issues when it comes to using customer surveys: companies often don’t know how to create engaging customer surveys or they don’t know how to use the data they collect.

To prevent these issues, create customer surveys based upon the issues you have. Use the right questions to probe your customers’ pain points and learn how they’d like you to solve them.

Lastly, give your customers an incentive to fill out your surveys, either by keeping them very short (e.g., requesting that customers click on the number of stars to evaluate their experience) or by giving them an incentive to fill out a longer survey.

If you create surveys specifically based upon an issue, you’ll know exactly how to apply the data you receive.

3. Keep track of customer conversations

If you want to proactively solve issues, you’ll need to listen to your customers. There are times when a customer talks about your company on social media to complain or air their grievances. The best way to react is by giving them the support they need.

By keeping tabs on what conversations are about when your company is mentioned, you can get ahead of any issues. You can not only solve the issue for the customer but solve the issue in front of their contacts, so they know your company takes customer care very seriously. So, make sure to use client management software to track all of your client activities and communication, allowing you to tailor your services and communication to meet their needs effectively.

Also, keeping track of customer conversations lets you know how your customers are engaging with your brand, letting you develop better customer service and better strategies with your insight.

How to get started

The best way to start listening to your mentions is by automating this process. Use  software like BuzzBundle or Social Mention to keep track of your customers’ comments. You can pair it with Google mention alerts to make sure you’re keeping track of all of them.

Train your customer service reps to engage with people experiencing issues with your brand. Equip them with a sufficient budget and tools to help your customers and even compensate them with special discounts or billing-altering authority.

4. Help your customer service team develop the skills they need

Your customer support team is the most important piece in any customer support strategy and approach, and proactive customer support is no different.

You need to select the right customer support team—people with problem-solving skills and people skills—and they need ongoing training to keep their skills updated and to allow them to flourish.

If your customer service team is lacking, your proactive customer service will also be lacking.

How to get started

Start by making sure you’re hiring the right people. Take control of your hiring process through AI Recruitment Software such as iSmartRecruit, specifying the kind of skills you’re looking for. Make sure you have an ideal customer service rep profile, and ensure that the profile is used accordingly.

Once you have the right customer service reps in place, you need to make sure their skills are up to your standards. To do this, ensure they have enough training. Develop a training calendar that prioritizes the skills your company needs the most, and make sure you’re spending enough time training and re-training your live reps.

5. Create and update your knowledge base

The first thing most people do when trying to find an answer is to look it up online. If they can’t find an answer online, they’ll likely grow frustrated. By this time, it’s too late to provide proactive customer service.

Having a knowledge base prevents this from happening. With a knowledge base, you can inform your users about how to solve their issues themselves, so they won’t have to contact customer support.

You can also use your knowledge base to provide extra proactive customer service by automating your live chat to ask if a user needs help based on their activity.

Knowledge bases are a vital tool for mastering proactive customer service without breaking the bank.

How to get started

If you want to create a knowledge base, you need to ensure it’s easy to keep updated, it tracks the right KPIs, and it connects with your messaging system to make it easy to connect with users.

Instead of trying to develop this all by yourself, you can use a simple tool like Messagely. 

Messagely handles all your user messaging needs including knowledge bases. With Messagely, you can easily develop a knowledge base your clients will love to interact with. Your knowledge bases will not only tell your users how to fix their issues, but they’ll also tell you how to become better at proactive customer service by saving the right behavioral data to help you improve.

And since your knowledge base and your messaging system is connected, you can easily automate chatbots to offer your users help when they can’t seem to find it.

Get started with Messagely today.

6. Get ahead of any issues

Mistakes happen. It doesn’t matter how much you try to avoid them, mistakes will occur sooner or later. Instead of focusing only on trying to avoid them, you need to know what to do when they happen.

Knowing how to handle mistakes can not only mitigate their effect, it can improve your relationship with your customers altogether. By employing a series of smart steps, you can not only respond to mistakes as soon as they happen but use them to strengthen your relationship with your customers.

How to get started

If you want to be proactive, you can’t wait until a mistake happens to figure out what to do. Instead, make sure you have enough guides in place so you’ll know what to do in case of a crisis.

When something goes wrong, you need to act quickly to correct it. Start by fully learning about the issue. If, for example, there was a quality issue, make sure you understand who’s affected, how they’re affected, for how long, and any other information you need to fully understand the issue.

Then get ahead of the issue by notifying your customers. If you know exactly who was affected, you can approach these customers privately. If you don’t know exactly who was affected, or if the issue is already widely known, you’ll have to do it publicly.

Make sure your apologies are sincere and accompanied by actions to fix the problem. If you cannot fix the problem, you can try to compensate your users for the inconvenience by offering a discount or a refund. Whatever you decide to do, make sure it’s comparable in magnitude to your mistake.

Finally, inform your customer of what you’re doing to prevent the same mistakes from happening again. This will show customers you take these mistakes seriously, giving you a better chance of winning back their trust.

7. Upgrade your upselling skills

Proactive customer service isn’t just about getting ahead of issues and answering customer queries in advance. It can also mean solving your customers’ issues through upselling.

When done correctly, upselling is beneficial for both your customers and your company. By upselling, you’re giving your customers an extra benefit that makes their lives easier, without requiring them to spend more than what they can afford.

How to get started

Start by making sure your customer service reps have enough training to upsell. You shouldn’t leave selling just to your sales reps, so ensure your customer service reps know how and when to upsell to your clients.

Review your customer data. Find the customers that could be getting more out of their product or service through upselling. If you’re selling a service, find users that are currently using all of the capabilities of your service, since they may benefit from expanding their packages. If you sell a product, learn which customers use your product the most to figure out which other products can help them.

If you find people who are more likely to improve their lives through an upsell, this can be a great way of strengthening your customer relations.

4 Examples of Companies That Have Successfully Implemented Proactive Support

Here are a few examples of companies successfully providing proactive customer support and the lessons you can learn from them:

1. JetBlue

JetBlue is admired for its proactive customer service through social media. The company scours social media to respond to people’s inquiries, offers insight on their flights, or in one case, provided a user with a Starbucks coffee.

When Paul Brown discovered he wouldn’t be able to purchase a Starbucks coffee before boarding a JetBlue flight because he was flying out of a small terminal, he tweeted about it to JetBlue.

This tweet could have been lost in the sea of tweets about JetBlue, but the company decided to take action. Within 15 minutes, JetBlue replied to Paul, letting them know they had unlimited coffee on board, and they even delivered a Starbucks venti mocha to his seat on the plane.

Through a simple action, and at the cost of a cup of coffee, JetBlue gave one customer an experience he will not forget and one he will share with people for years to come.

Learn from it:

• Scour social media for mentions of your company: Listen to what your customers are saying about your company by ensuring you have enough systems in place to listen to as many of your mentions as possible.
• Train your customer service reps to go above and beyond: Instead of giving your customer service reps strict rules about how to aid customers, give them guidelines and encourage them to think out of the box.
• Prioritize excellent experiences above all else: Memorable experiences are unique experiences. If you focus on trying to make each customer interaction unique, they’ll be likely to remember it.

2. Slack

Slack is a popular communication platform for internal company communication. That’s why they need to make sure that all users know how to use the platform quickly and intuitively. 

Although a lot of it is resolved through its intuitive UI, Slack uses an extra tool to help users get to know the platform. Slackbot is a simple chatbot that users can chat with through its own Slack channel. It uses behavioral analytics to make sure it knows how the user is interacting with the platform. Because of this, it can know what the user is doing, what they’ve tried to do, and what they have yet to try.

Through this simple but powerful chatbot, Slack ensures the onboarding experience is as streamlined and smooth as possible, providing proactive customer support without wasting live reps’ time.

Learn from it:

• Master the onboarding experience: The best way to provide proactive customer support is by educating your customers enough so they don’t need customer support to begin with. Do everything in your power to make sure your clients’ onboarding experience is smooth and effective.
• Take advantage of chatbots: Although Slackbot is highly effective, it’s also a very basic chatbot. You don’t always need the most revolutionary chatbot in the world to provide excellent customer service. Instead, develop simple and effective chatbots through easy platforms, like Messagely.

3. Virgin Media

Virgin Media is a large company that employs over two and a half thousand engineers in the UK to provide free installation to its broadband customers. When employing such a large number of people, cancellations can quickly pile up, costing the company a lot of money and time. This is especially true when approximately 10% of their customers end up canceling appointments, mainly because they forgot they had one to begin with.

The solution? Proactive customer service. Through proactive customer service, Virgin Media keeps their customers engaged through multiple channels to ensure the customer remembers their appointment.

Through simple automated calls and reminders, Virgin Media was able to dramatically and permanently reduce the level of dropped appointments they have to deal with.

Learn from it:

• Automate as much as possible: Proactive customer service involves spending more time with your customers than if you were simply reacting to them. Luckily, that doesn’t mean your live reps have to spend more time with your customers. Through simple automated messages using chatbots, app notifications, and automated calls, you can also keep customers informed and on the loop without breaking the bank.
• Use data-driven decisions to drive results: Virgin Media didn’t just develop their plan because they felt it was a good idea. Instead, they analyzed the problem mathematically, got to the root of the problem, and deployed the solution that best fit the problem. Like Virgin Media, if you want to succeed, have a clear understanding of the issue, and deploy the right customer service tools to fix it.

4. KFC

During 2018, a number of unlucky events culminated in KFC running out of chicken. This made the company the butt of a joke. After all, the company is built around cooking and selling chicken. Running out of the only thing they’re supposed to sell was definitely a big hit for the company. 

The solution? Getting ahead of the problem through proactive customer support. 

Through a series of clever and humorous posts, KFC was not only able to inform all of its clients effectively, but it also used a marketing strategy that went viral, with people sharing posts and talking about the brand. Instead of remembering KFC as an incompetent company that didn’t have any product, KFC used proactive customer support to get ahead of the problem, take control of the narrative, and find a way to use the crisis as an advantage.

Learn from it:

• Get ahead of the problem: There are only so many things you can do to react to a problem in the moment. And if you’re caught reacting to it, it may be too late to form a plan to get ahead of it. Instead, get ahead of the problem from the start so you can fully control the narrative.
• Use the crisis to your advantage: It may feel impossible, but with every crisis comes an opportunity to prove the value of your company. When there’s a crisis, you have a level of attention that can often be expensive and hard to achieve by other means. Instead of simply apologizing, figure out how to use that extra attention to your advantage to prove just how important customer support is to you.

Frequently Asked Questions about Proactive Customer Service

Here are the answers to frequently asked questions about proactive customer service:

What are the benefits of using a proactive customer service approach?

Proactive customer service allows you to provide a way of improved customer service and increases customer loyalty by getting ahead of a potential issue and addressing it, instead of waiting for your users to notice it.

Should a business always aim to shift from reactive to proactive customer support?

Not always. In some cases, like in small crises, it’s often better to react to the problem, rather than shining more light on it. And while proactive customer support can be extremely effective, no company can go without reactive customer support to help users with the problems they’re already experiencing.

How would you approach customer service in a proactive rather than reactive way?

Proactive customer service revolves around getting ahead of an issue instead of reacting to it. Instead of waiting for a customer to notice something’s wrong with their product or service and offering to compensate them for it, proactive customer service lets them know what’s wrong, explains how to fix it, and offers compensation in advance.

By using proactive customer service, your company can prevent issues from happening altogether.

Conclusion

Proactive customer service is vital for excellent customer service, customer loyalty, brand advocates, and good customer relations. The best way to provide proactive customer service is by using a tool that can help you communicate with your customers in the right way at the right time.

Find out everything Messagely has to offer, and start using it for free today.

The post How to Master Proactive Customer Service appeared first on Messagely.

We’ll show you the ins and outs so you can design chatbots that provide excellent customer service, convert more leads, and engage with your audience. We’ll also go through:

• The steps you should follow when designing a chatbot
• The psychology of designing a chatbot
• Amazing examples you can learn from
• Great tools to help you design the best chatbot

By the end of the article, you will have everything you need to design not just any chatbot, but the right chatbot for you.

Let’s get started.

What is Chatbot Design?

Chatbot design includes more than just the coding required for a bot to answer certain questions. Chatbot design focuses more on humanizing the chatbot and its interactions to make it more appealing and successful with your users and customers.

Great chatbot design takes your customer persona and designs your chatbot around it, making sure that it fully engages and understand your user, their needs, correct speech (which means correct spelling and the right use of grammar, such as transition words, etc.), and the reasons people will use the chatbot.

This creates a chatbot that will engage with your customer better than any knowledge base could, diminishing the volume of customer calls you will receive, and even qualifying and sending important leads your way. The chatbot can also nurture leads and even capture leads according to their behavior, as long as you design it correctly.

How to Design a Chatbot (the easy way)

In this section, we’re going to assume you’re using a simple chatbot developer tool like the one provided by Messagely. Instead of focusing on coding, we’ll be focusing more on what makes a chatbot effective.

Here’s how:

Step 1: Define the purpose of your chatbot

You can’t start designing a chatbot before deciding what the chatbot will be used for. Begin by choosing the main goal your chatbot should work to achieve.

There are multiple goals you can choose from, like assisting with customer service, reducing calls, nurturing leads, or even generating leads. If you’re just starting, we suggest you choose a simple goal, like answering your three most asked questions, and expand on that as you go along.

To do this, you should use data-based decisions. Study your data to discover trends that can help you choose the purpose of your chatbot. Then talk to your sales team or your customer service reps to figure out where they need more help.

The best place to start is usually with simple tasks, the tasks your reps spend the most time on but don’t necessarily lead to a successful result. Maybe your reps spend too much time letting people know your company’s working hours or fixing a simple issue.

Remember: the more targeted your chatbot is, the better it’ll work. Don’t try to create a comprehensive chatbot from day one. Instead, pick one specific goal, and establish your measurement of success to get started.

Step 2: Define your chatbot’s personality

Now that you know what your chatbot will be doing, you need to define how it will be doing it.

Should your chatbot be a simple and straightforward tool or can you add some quirks and personality? Will it be faceless or have a custom avatar? How human should it be?

To answer these questions, you’ll need to look at two main areas: your customer persona and your company persona.

When looking into your customer persona, look specifically at ages and demographics. If you’re working with people who aren’t very tech-savvy, you may want to make the chatbot as simple and streamlined as possible so they can easily interact with it. You may even want to let your users know that they’re interacting with a chatbot immediately, so they can have the option of speaking with a human if desired. If your users are younger or more internet-savvy, you can design a more playful robot with a fun personality. 

You also need to consider your company persona to make sure that your chatbot’s personality fits within your company’s visuals and messages.

To do this, you should review your company’s vision, mission, and values, so you can start designing a personality that lives up to them. You should also review your live reps’ manuals to find out how they’re encouraged to interact with customers.

Finally, find ways to merge both your company persona and your user expectations into a single personality. Your ideal chatbot should be a representation of the best your company has to offer, with a personality to match.

Step 3: Design the conversational flow

Now that you know what your chatbot will be doing and how it will be doing it, you can start designing the conversational flow.

Use the data you’ve collected in the previous steps to get you started and guide you along the way. Usually, chatbots will be designed to answer questions as quickly and with as few words as possible, so users can gain the information they need immediately. This tends to help your users trust your chatbot over live agents since they will know they can find answers faster.

Start with one aspect of the flow, like a simple question, and design the flow until its natural end. Make sure you’re using the least number of words possible, avoiding long explanations or tangents.

Once you’ve finished developing the conversational flow itself, you may want to add targeted information so the chatbot can reach out to your users when they need it the most. You can anticipate when your users will need your chatbot by using data. 

Learn which pages your users usually visit taking into account the order they visit them in before contacting a rep to ask the questions your chatbot will be answering. Once you have that information, you can simply use that behavioral data to generate a simple automated chatbot message.

Step 4: Add images and visuals

Chatbots aren’t just text. An image is worth a thousand words, and your chatbots can use them to help explain things or even to lighten the mood and help with the overall tone.

For example, your chatbot can show pictures of how to fix a common issue with your product or visually explain how to get to your stores. You can even use a cute GIF at the end of the process to thank the user for their preference.

The right visuals will definitely help your chatbot connect with your user in a human-like way, leading to a better overall user experience.

Step 5: Test your chatbot

Once you’ve designed and reviewed your chatbot, it’s time to get a fresh pair of eyes to help you.

Start with the reps the chatbot will be assisting. They will have valuable insight into what to fix and how to better connect with your user. They can help you polish the wording and even find new ways to fulfill customer expectations faster.

Once you’ve implemented that feedback, try going to a different department to ask for help. This will help you get users who aren’t as familiar with your goals or purposes and can therefore act as stand-in users.

Collect all feedback and incorporate it into your chatbot’s design until the feedback on your chatbot is mostly positive.

Step 6: Deploy and keep testing

Once your chatbot has been polished and reviewed, it’s time to deploy your chatbot. You’ll want to keep a close eye on it the first few days to find potential issues or flaws that may have escaped your previous testing.

Once you know the chatbot can work by itself, let it work for a few weeks, then analyze the data. Compare the measurement of success you designed for the chatbot to get a good idea of how your chatbot is doing. If it’s not meeting your goals, use the data you’ve received to determine how to improve your chatbot.

If your chatbot is successful, it’s time to expand its capabilities. Use data from users to determine where and how to improve your chatbot, figuring out other potential goals it can reach and adding those to its design. 

Developing the perfect chatbot is an ongoing process. Make sure you’re taking short steps and evaluating all the ways you can improve and build upon your chatbot. By doing this, you’ll ensure your chatbot is as functional and efficient as you can make it.

Principles and Best Practices of a Great Chatbot Design

Here are the principles and best practices that will help you design a great chatbot:

1. Keep it simple

A common mistake when designing a chatbot is to want it to solve all your customer service and sales needs in one go. And, while your chatbot can definitely help you reach that goal, you’ll usually get better results if you take it one step at a time, allowing for time to test and evaluate before the next step.

Start each step with a narrow scope. This can be answering a few questions, booking an appointment, or helping users solve a simple problem. Then design conversational flows that engage the user and solve their queries as quickly as possible.

Once your chatbot is deployed, focus on perfecting it to make sure it’s working as well as it can be. Once it’s perfected, use the data on how your users interact with your chatbot to choose a new goal and start the process again.

Keeping it simple will make it easy to develop a larger chatbot, knowing your users are interacting with it and getting what they need from it.

2. Make it easy to switch to live agents

One of the most common reasons to deploy a chatbot is to diminish the volume of customer service calls your live reps have to answer. However, that’s also where most frustrations with chatbots exist.

Your chatbot will not be able to solve every possible user inquiry. Many users will be glad to interact with a chatbot, but users with very specific queries may prefer speaking with a human.

Instead of designing a chatbot to try and solve all customer queries, make it easy for your users to switch to a live agent so your users won’t see a chatbot as an obstacle they need to surpass to get to a human.

The easiest way to do this is to make your chatbot a part of your live chat software, so your live reps can take over conversations immediately and seamlessly. 

3. Give users bot cheats

Since a chatbot needs its users to take certain steps to get to certain answers, it can be frustrating for users to have to go through the process to get where they want to go, especially if they need to go through it many times.

Instead, empower your users with bot “cheats.” You can give them simple codes to achieve a specific result, like getting directions to your stores, so they don’t have to engage in a conversation with your bot.

This will make the whole process faster for your users and will equip them with the right tools to get the answer to their queries as quickly as possible.

Examples of Great Chatbot Design

Here are a few examples of great chatbot designs to inspire you:

1. Casper

Casper is a mattress company that created a chatbot with the simple goal of engaging insomniacs. With the creation of Insomnobot3000, users could chat with the chatbot when they couldn’t sleep.

This fun idea wasn’t just to create brand awareness. It also helped Casper gather customer data to better understand their users and design more effective marketing campaigns.

Learn from it:

Chatbots can help you solve customer queries they didn’t even know they had. If you develop a fun and engaging chatbot, you will not only help your customers and provide excellent customer service, but you will also gather the data you need to perfect user personas and design better campaigns for them.

2. Universal Studios

Universal Studios has a powerful Facebook chatbot that users want to interact with. The chatbot doesn’t just let people switch to a live agent whenever they want, it also lets people solve queries that would be too cumbersome if it involved live agents.

With the chatbot, users can buy tickets and book stays. Once the user is in the park, they can use the chatbot to find restaurants and bathrooms close to them and even figure out live wait times for rides and attractions.

Learn from it

Fully embrace your chatbot’s nature by allowing it to thrive where your live reps can’t. Your chatbot can provide instant messaging to any amount of users 24/7. Instead of finding a way for your chatbot to replace your live agents, find things your chatbot can do that your live agents can’t to complement your customer service.

3. Sephora

Sephora has one of the best sales chatbots out there, and for good reason. Its popular Facebook chatbot is extremely powerful while making everything as simple for the user as possible.

With this chatbot, users can quickly interact with the brand while browsing Facebook, booking appointments, exploring new products, and even trying on makeup with its AR capabilities. The chatbot in itself is a selling point, attracting new users to the brand simply because they want to interact with it.

Learn from it:

Your chatbot may not start out like the amazing, all-in-one chatbot it can be, but neither did Sephora’s. Like them, build your chatbot slowly, using customer data to create memorable interactions and expand its capabilities to where users want it the most.

4. NatGeo Genius

Source: TheDrum

National Geographic launched a Messenger chatbot to promote its new Genius series. Its purpose? To give users the chance to talk to Albert Einstein himself. 

Through a fun and powerful AI, Nat Geo claimed they had been able to program a bot to answer questions just like Albert Einstein himself would’ve, giving users facts, jokes, and, most importantly, reminding them of the premiere of the series.

This created a fun and memorable piece of marketing that people were drawn to and couldn’t wait to interact with.

Learn from this:

Your chatbot’s personality is extremely important and may even become a selling point on its own. However, finding the balance between bot and human can be hard. It’s easy to create a chatbot that is either too boring and serious or to try so hard to be fun it becomes annoying.

To avoid this, spend enough time crafting a personality that fully embodies the best your company can offer, and never forget that the main purpose of the chatbot is to provide expedited and excellent customer service.

Conclusion

Regardless of how long you spend working on chatbots, you can’t create a perfect chatbot, but you can definitely get as close as possible.

The last thing you want is for your chatbot platform to slow you down. Instead, design chatbots in minutes with Messagely, and integrate them with the rest of your customer messaging tools to make it easy for your team and your users to use.

Get started for free today.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Great Chatbot Design appeared first on Messagely.

Don’t have coding skills? No problem! There are tools like the Messagely chatbot software that will allow you to create chatbots easily and in minutes with no required coding skills.

In this article, we’ll go through the basics, like:

• How to create a chatbot for your website
• How to create a chatbot for social media
• The best software to create chatbots without coding

By the end of the article, you’ll know exactly how to create the chatbots you need, to make sure your customer service team is as productive as it can be.

Let’s get started.

How to Quickly Create a Chatbot for Your Website

Most users want answers to their questions as soon as they engage with your website. Here’s how to create a chatbot that will guarantee an immediate answer to your website users:

Step 1. Decide the chatbot’s purpose

It may seem obvious, but a common reason for a chatbot to fail is that it was created with a purpose too broad or too undefined to be effective.

If you want your chatbot to thrive, it should be developed to fix a specific problem or aid in a specific task.

Once you’ve decided the chatbot’s purpose, meet with the team the chatbot will be aiding. If, for example, your chatbot’s purpose is to answer common customer queries, you can meet with your customer service team to show them your idea for a chatbot.

Ask them how they’d improve the language the chatbot will use and decide on the right tone to engage your users. Sketch the chatbot’s workflow so you can use it later on.

Once you know exactly what the chatbot will be doing, you can move to the next step.

Step 2. Sign up for your software of choice

The first step of building your chatbot is signing up with the chatbot platform you’ll be using.

Luckily, most chatbot platforms offer you a free trial so you can test them out before you start paying.

Once you create your account, you’ll likely be onboarded with a simple presentation, letting you know where to find each feature and how to use the platform.

Step 3. Add JavaScript to the site

Now it’s time to make sure your website can host your chatbot. To do this, most chatbot platforms will require you to know how to add JavaScript to your website.

Doing this is very simple. Start by creating a new JavaScript file with some console.log() test code. Then, load that file using a script tag in your HTML with some basic HTML codes. Finally, save your changes and use your Developer Tools to ensure you’ve loaded your JavaScript file correctly.

You can find an in-depth explanation of how to add JavaScript to your website here.

Step 4. Get familiar with your chatbot’s platform

The next step is getting to know your chatbot builder. Most platforms make it very easy to understand how to create a chatbot, so novice users can get started quickly.

Start by locating the chatbot creator. Once you’ve located it, go through the steps. Most follow the same structure of creating a workflow, choosing the channel, defining the targeting, and programming when the chatbot will launch.

Although some steps may change their order or name, it’s all based on the same principle: workflows.

Explore the platform so you’re familiar with it before you get started.

Step 5: Set up your automations

Before creating your chatbot, you should set up the basic automations for how your live chat will behave and create simple triggers. This is especially important with your website chatbot because it automatically tells your users valuable information before they even engage with your chatbot.

With Messagely, you can set up your live chat to show the average reply time, ask users to rate a conversation when it’s over, and provide more assistance to users that responded negatively to a Knowledge Base article.

This is optional and not required in every platform, but it helps both your live rep teams and your chatbots act as soon as your user needs them.

Step 6: Create your chatbot

Now that you’ve set up the basics, it’s time to get to work and start creating your chatbot.

Define your chatbot behavior

The next step is the process of creating your chatbot’s workflow. Start with a simple welcome message and add a few reply buttons so your audience can interact with your chatbot. These reply buttons should follow your common user questions, like “I want more info about X” or “I need help with X.” Think of the buttons as paths. Once the user has selected a direction, keep developing the path until a response has been reached.

For example, you can start with a welcome message then ask if the user needs help with your products or if they want to learn more. If the user clicks on “need help,” you can then show them a few options for selecting the topic they’re interested in, and once you know what they need help with, you can connect their query to an article with your Knowledge Base.

Remember to always keep your chatbot as friendly and useful as possible while giving your users the option to contact a live rep immediately. This will prevent your users from getting frustrated with your chatbot. Instead, they will use it as an optional tool.

Decide on chatbot’s channels

When you’re satisfied with the number of paths you’ve created within your workflow, you can select where you’ll want your chatbot to appear.

Although you’re currently building a chatbot for your website, a good chatbot platform will allow you to use the same chatbot for multiple channels. That way, you don’t have to repeat the process of creating the same chatbot for multiple platforms.

Define targeting

Next, you’ll have to define targeting to figure out when your chatbot will engage with your audience and on which pages.

This allows you to create separate chatbot behaviors based on customer behavior. For example, if your users typically go to your home page, then to your features page, then to your pricing page, and then make a purchase, you can establish rules that can allow your chatbot to nurture your leads by engaging with them as they go to the pricing page. With this process, you can engage with them at the most critical point of their customer journey, solving their issues and increasing conversion rates.

Make sure to always set up these targeting options through data-driven decisions. That way, you can ensure you’re acting on actual user behavior.

Set activity time

The next step is to set up the times your chatbot will be active. Although most people will want a chatbot that works around the clock, there are some chatbots that you’ll want to operate within working hours and others outside working hours.

For example, if you’re developing a chatbot for meetings, you’ll likely want that chatbot to work any day, any time so users can schedule meetings 24/7 with your sales teams.

If you’re developing a sales chatbot that qualifies leads and routes them to the best sales rep, you’ll want that chatbot to work only within office hours, so the lead can be routed to a live agent.

Finally, if you’re developing a comprehensive customer service chatbot to help users when your live agents are away, you’ll want that chatbot to work outside office hours.

You can even set up a custom time for limited promotions and specific temporary user needs, like crisis management or special events.

Step 7: Activate Chatbot

You may want to get your chatbot working right away. However, the more complex the chatbot, the more tests you’ll want to do before deploying it.

A simple chatbot that answers the three main questions your users ask can usually be developed and deployed within minutes. More complex bots used to qualify and route leads will need testing and approval from all stakeholders.

To make sure your chatbot is ready to be deployed, go through each path in the workflow as a user would, and make sure each step perfectly leads to the next one. Then, get it reviewed by your coworkers, especially if they work in the area the chatbot will be deployed. They’ll likely have valuable ideas and suggestions for the chatbot.

Once it’s been reviewed and approved, you can deploy it and set your bot live.

Step 8: Test, test, test!

Remember: your job isn’t done just because your chatbot is live. If you want to make sure your chatbot will thrive, you need to keep an eye on it, especially in the first few weeks.

Look through your analytics to see where people drop off and when people are more likely to engage with your chatbot. Compare your current state to before the chatbot was deployed. Are users still asking the same questions? How often are they connecting with live agents? Which user queries is the chatbot failing to properly answer?

There’s no such thing as a perfect chatbot, but with enough testing and improvement, you can get as close as possible to it.

Creating WhatsApp & Facebook Messenger Chatbots 

Some companies may want to develop chatbots for WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger due to their presence on those platforms. This usually happens when the Facebook page of a company is more active than their website, or when they need to properly manage WhatsApp messages from multiple users.

Here’s how to make a bot for those platforms:

How to Make a Whatsapp Bot

WhatsApp bots are great for handling a large number of conversations in a company’s WhatsApp number. Here’s how to create a WhatsApp bot in-app:

Step 1. Apply for the WhatsApp Business API

If you want to create a WhatsApp bot in-app, you’ll have to apply for the WhatsApp Business API. The API allows multiple programmers and developers to set up a bot for medium and large companies through basic coding.

To apply, you’ll need to give WhatsApp your company name and URL as well as some of the information of the company representative that’s asking for access to the API.

Step 2. Design your chatbot’s flow

Once you get access to the WhatsApp Business API, you’ll need to design the flow of your WhatsApp chatbot.

To do this, think about the purpose of the chatbot and how the conversation would typically go with a live rep. You can use the help of your rep teams to get input on common customer behaviors as well as the answers that work best.

Keep in mind that you’ll also need to tell your chatbot how to react to questions it can’t answer, like linking to a knowledge base or connecting to a live rep.

Step 3. Choose a chatbot platform and a database to host your chatbot

Once you have an idea of how your chatbot will work and what it will be used for, you’ll want to use a chatbot maker to help you create the chatbot.

Although you can create chatbots for WhatsApp from scratch, chatbot platforms allow you to create chatbots without coding and even give you templates to use for free.

They also host your chatbot, guaranteeing your chatbot will be up and running for as long as you pay.

Step 4. Test and improve

Once you’ve created your chatbot, you’ll want to keep a close eye on how it behaves and how well it works.

Make sure whatever chatbot platform you’re using allows you to access analytics to track your chatbot’s health, and use customer feedback to improve your chatbot’s performance and behavior.

How to Make a Facebook Messenger Bot 

Facebook Messenger bots help users and marketers engage with their social media audience, and they’re a great way to automate responses to multiple users.

Here’s how to make a Facebook Messenger chatbot:

Step 1. Decide how you want to create your Facebook Messenger chatbot

You can create your Messenger chatbot through a chatbot platform or through Facebook itself. Although a chatbot platform may make things easier for you with free templates and simple editors, lately, Facebook has been improving its API to make it friendlier and simpler to use.

Given that Facebook’s API is free to use, it may pay off to learn enough to use the API instead of paying a company month to month for the use of a Messenger chatbot.

Step 2. Design your chatbot’s flow

Once you’ve decided how you’ll create your chatbot, you’ll need to design its flow. Start by establishing the chatbot’s purpose. Then sketch how the conversation would typically go with a live rep. 

This is a perfect time to include the team of live reps that the chatbot will be aiding since their input will be extremely valuable to establish customer behaviors and common effective answers. 

Keep in mind that you’ll also need to tell your chatbot how to react to questions it can’t answer, like linking to a knowledge base or connecting to a live rep.

Step 3. Develop your chatbot

Once you have an idea of how your chatbot will work and what it’ll be used for, you’ll want to start developing it.

If you’ve chosen to develop it through a chatbot platform, you’ll usually get access to free templates and drag-and-drop editors to make it easy to develop the chatbot. These platforms also host your chatbots and save backups in case of any accidents, so you don’t need to worry about losing your chatbot.

When you’re done developing the chatbot, make sure you go through each path as a user before deploying it, and bring in other coworkers to get feedback on where and how to improve your chatbot.

Once you’ve collected and implemented as much feedback as you can, it’s time to deploy your chatbot.

Step 4. Test and improve

Once you’ve created your Messenger chatbot, you’ll want to keep a close eye on how it behaves and how well it works.

Make sure whatever chatbot platform you’re using allows you to access analytics to track your chatbot’s health, and use customer feedback to improve your chatbot’s performance and behavior.

Conclusion

In this world of automations and immediate responses, chatbots aren’t a luxury, they’re a necessity. If you want to create a chatbot the easy way, head to our chatbot software and get started right now!

The post How to Make a Chatbot (in Little to No Time) appeared first on Messagely.