21 Min
87% of customers expect proactive customer support services from their brands. Traditional call center systems like ticketing platforms are no longer effective in meeting the demands of today’s customer base.
Traditional ticketing systems face limitations such as manual data entry, outdated interfaces, and insufficient integration capabilities, leading to delays and errors. Plus, they often lack automation, which makes it a challenge to manage and prioritize incoming tickets.
These systems also struggle with scalability, overwhelmed by the growing volume of customer inquiries. These limitations make traditional ticketing systems inefficient and less suited to meet the dynamic demands of modern businesses.
The time calls for sophisticated tools that enhance customer support experiences by empowering agents to deliver timely and effective solutions.
Help center software offers structured and smart tools integrated with automation, knowledge bases, and analytics for organizations to manage, prioritize, and resolve customer queries. These modern solutions not only expedite issue resolution but also contribute to proactive customer engagement, ultimately fostering stronger relationships between businesses and their clientele.
In this blog post, we delve into the top 1o help center software options for 2024, exploring their features, benefits, and unique value propositions that set them apart.
Table of contents
List Of 10 Best Help Center Software
There are hundreds of help desk call center software programs in the market, each claiming to be the best. Finding the right helpdesk software in such cases is confusing and hectic.
Below is a list of the top 10 help center softwares
- Knowmax
- Help Scout
- Zendesk
- Zoho Desk
- Hiver
- Spiceworks
- Jira Service Desk
- Salesforce Service Cloud
- Gorgias
- Freshservcie
1. Knowmax
Knowmax is a CX-first knowledge management software that equips you with advanced KM features to improve your customer service experience. With Knowmax, you can build a rich knowledge base for customers (self-service portals) and agents, enabling them to easily and quickly find the right solution.
Knowmax consolidates all business-relevant information into a single source of truth, integrated with decision trees, powerful search features, and smart content modules.
With an AI-powered DIY content creation feature, you can upload your SOP and create different content modules within a few minutes. For example, you can upload your SOPs to the Knowmax decision tree creator and generate next best action workflows in seconds. Quizzes and FAQs can be auto-generated from published articles.
The winning feature is the “Ask AI” search, where the agents get quick and precise answers to their questions.
These features enable the agents to deliver mistake-proof, consistent, and faster solutions. Therefore improving first-call resolution (FCR) and customer satisfaction rates.
Further, with the Chrome extension, you can integrate it within your browser. This saves agents from toggling between different screens, eventually reducing the average handle time (AHT).
Another key feature is concurrent chat, which allows customer service agents to handle multiple chat conversations simultaneously. With Knowmax’s concurrent chat function, agents can handle multiple conversations at the same time, improving their productivity and efficiency.
Features:
- Omnichannel support
- Decision tree-based knowledge base
- AI-powered DIY content creation
- “Ask AI” feature for agents
- Concurrent chat function
- Detailed analytics
- Rich self-service content with visual guides, articles, and FAQs
- Seamless integrations with your everyday CX tools
Price: Contact sales@knowmax.ai for pricing.
2. Help Scout
Help Scout is an all-in-one help center software that encompasses all the tools you need to deliver quality customer service. From a knowledge base to shared inboxes, customer profiles, live chat, and reporting, you get a plethora of tools to efficiently manage your customer queries.
The best thing about Help Scout is that it has iOS and Android apps. This lets agents promptly address customer queries while they are away from their desktops.
It’s ideal for businesses offering customer support services through chat and email.
Features:
- Shared inbox
- Knowledge base
- Reporting
- Live chat and proactive support
- Workflows
- Integrations
- Ticketing system
- Self-service options
Price: Help Scout has two plans, the Standard plan at $20 and the Plus plan at $35. It also offers a 14-day free trial to test the features before subscribing. For large companies, you have custom pricing plans. You can request the quote anytime from their website.
3. Zendesk
If you are in the customer service industry, it’s unbelievable to miss the name – Zendesk. It offers you multi-channel customer support with the flexibility to personalize customer interactions.
From Facebook Messenger to email, calls, chat, WhatsApp, and more, the platform has enabled you to effortlessly manage and resolve customer queries.
Zendesk stands out from others because of its AI solutions for chatbots and autoresponders. Plus, you can access 1000+ integrations to boost your productivity and enable automation.
Other smart features include smart routing, which sends users to the relevant agent or self-service portal for faster query resolution. The in-built analytics and knowledge management system are a bonus for call centers.
Features:
- Asset management
- Ticketing
- Omnichannel support
- SLA management
- Mobile apps
- AI chatbots
- Smart automation features
- Workflow customizations
- APIs and native integrations
Price: Zendesk offers services via four monthly plans at $69 per agent.
4. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk is one of the most user-friendly help center softwares. The intuitive interface lets you conveniently and quickly view customer tickets and respond.
Whether you are a startup or a large corporation, the platform is easily scalable to meet your business needs.
Zoho Desk has a bundle of features that simplify customer support operations and automate mundane tasks. For example, intelligent automation helps in seamless conversation tagging and sorting.
The star features include in-built AI tools like a chatbot, instant reply assistant, and sentiment analysis that equips the agents to deliver the best possible help.
Features:
- Automatic ticket management
- Customizable helpdesk workspaces
- Supports integrations with other Zoho tools, Google Workspace, and Shopify
- AI functionalities
- Quickly scalable platform
Price: Zoho Desk has three plans with an annual billing cycle. They are Standard at $14/user/month, Professional at $23/user/month, and Enterprise at $40/user/month.
5. Hiver
If you are a small business operating customer support through emails, Hiver is the best helpdesk software for you.
The best thing is that it operates directly from your Gmail account. Think of it as a Gmail extension where you can seamlessly manage your team and track support emails.
You can delegate tasks to agents, leave internal notes, prioritize customer emails, and more without ever leaving the Gmail interface. Plus, you can easily integrate it with Slack, Trello, and Google Workspace to efficiently manage your team.
Similar to other help center softwares, Hiver also offers knowledge base software, automation tools, and customer satisfaction analytics features.
Features:
- Email delegation
- Email tasks
- Notes
- Collision detection
- Templates
- Automation
- Analytics
- SLAs
Price: The Hiver platform is available through three monthly plans. They are Lite at $15/month, Pro at $39/month, and Elite at $59/month. Also, you get a free trial period of 7 days.
6. Spiceworks
Spiceworks is specially designed cloud helpdesk software for IT teams. It enables you to set up an effective IT helpdesk ticketing system where you can smoothly manage customer tickets. You can also set up a self-service portal for customers to easily find the right solution.
What’s impressive is that you can build individual sites and user portals for your clients. Therefore, managing multiple IT clients is no more a hassle.
The platform is easy to customize, maintain, and configure with alerts, ticket routing, and custom ticket fields.
Features:
- Ticket management
- Custom reports
- User portals
- Custom ticket attributes and rules
- Secure remote support
- Self-service options
Price: Spiceworks is free to use.
7. Jira Service Desk
Jira is a popular project management software ideal for engineering and technical teams. However, its cloud-based features and integration flexibility make it ideal for IT, HR, legal, internal, and customer support teams.
Its elite features are knowledge base integrations, self-service solutions, incident management, and conversational ticketing. From asset management to configurations, custom workflows, AI tools, and reporting, you get multiple intelligent solutions under one platform.
Jira is a one-stop solution for businesses aspiring simple and effective customer support process.
Features:
- Custom workflows
- Powerful search function
- Tracking and reporting
- Self-service portal
- Post-incident analysis
- SLA and asset management
Price: You can use the basic features in the Free plan. For premium features, you will have to subscribe to monthly plans, which start at $21/agent.
8. Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce is a renowned CRM software solution. Another remarkable software tool from the flagship is their Service Cloud for customer support service management.
Service Cloud also comes with built-in generative AI capabilities. The AI tools accelerate and simplify your query resolution process, increasing your overall productivity and improving your KPIs.
Other key features include an omni-channel ticketing system, intelligent automation, and incident management.
Features:
- Omnichannel support
- Self-service portals
- Asset management
- Incident management
- Generative AI tools
- Automation
- Forums
- Knowledge management
Price: Salesforce Service Cloud offers 4 pricing plans. The pricing plans are Starter, Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited at $25, $80, $165, and $330 monthly, respectively.
9. Gorgias
Gorgias is the best help center software for low-volume e-commerce support teams.
You get access to features such as a shared inbox tool, knowledge base tool, and live chat tool. What sets Gorgias apart from other options is its integrations with Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce.
With these integrations, you have the ability to view order details, modify orders, and process refunds directly from your help desk. This functionality can significantly save time and effort for your team.
However, Gorgias’ plans come with ticket limits. It means that your expenses may fluctuate each month based on your support volume.
Features:
- Automation
- Self-service
- Intent and sentiment detection
- Reporting
Price: You can try the platform’s features for free for 7 days and then upgrade to the Basic plan at $ 60 for 350 tickets per month or the Pro plan at $360 for 2000 monthly tickets. The customer support platform also has an Advanced plan with custom pricing for enterprises.
10. Freshservice
Freshservice is a sophisticated IT helpdesk software that helps you streamline and manage internal support requests.
Freshservice eliminates time-consuming repetitive tasks through robust automation. It integrates services into a unified dashboard, and its no-code platform, coupled with expert onboarding services, improves time-to-value for your team.
Features:
- IT ticketing
- ITSM
- Asset management
- Automation
- Reporting
Price: Freshservice offers 4 pricing plans: Starter, Growth, Pro, and Enterprise, starting at $19 per user monthly.
How To Select The Right Help Center Software?
The help center software you choose will help your team deliver an outstanding customer experience only if you utilize it smartly.
That is why, it is very crucial to empower your support team with intelligent and user-friendly tools that will aid them in consistently delivering quality customer service. Here are a few questions that will help you choose the right helpdesk software.
- What defines great customer service for your business?
- What are your customers’ expectations from your support services?
- What are your main concerns while resolving customer queries?
- Which tools or features can support your team to offer quick solutions?
- What are the necessary features and nice-to-have features?
- Which (channels) are you utilizing to offer customer support?
These questions will help you clearly outline the experience you want to offer to your customers and the features you need to deliver it.
The most important factor in deciding the right help center software is knowing your existing challenges in delivering customer support. Only then can you find the right software solution to tackle those challenges and create opportunities for top-notch customer service.
