Best CRM Software for Customer Service

Insightly CRM is a dynamic customer relationship management solution designed to cater to the evolving needs of modern businesses. With its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features, Insightly provides a robust platform for managing customer interactions, sales, and projects in one integrated suite. 

There’s a range of tools that streamline processes, enhance customer engagement, and improve team collaboration. Insightly’s customizable dashboard allows for a quick overview of business operations, while its advanced reporting capabilities enable data-driven decision-making. Additionally, its mobile accessibility ensures that team members can stay connected and productive, even on the go. 

It’s best-suited for small to medium-sized enterprises and is an invaluable asset for those seeking to foster strong customer relationships and drive business growth in a competitive market.

Why We Like It

Insightly is one of the easiest systems to use compared to systems such as Salesforce and SugarCRM. It may not be as feature-rich, but the data-importing process is smooth. Teams enjoy working on Insightly despite their experience with other CRMs. It also has a straightforward user interface, making performing tasks extremely easy. Additionally, it’s an excellent tool for email marketing and help desk ability. These come as optional add-on products and are provided separately by the system.

Most Important Features for Customer Service

Public Portal Website

This is a multilingual best CRM for customer service website that Insightly creates when you create a brand. Here, you can customize the portal’s layout and colors to match your product’s identity. With the public portal website, customers can also educate themselves through knowledge articles in the community. If their question isn’t answered, they can always create a ticket that will go to a support agent via the portal.

Tickets

Tickets capture all information from the initial request to the conversation. Customers on the Insightly platform are added as contacts so any members of the team can view previous interactions to understand the customer. The customer raising a ticket instantly begins the conversation.

SLAs

An SLA can be defined as a deadline that’s given for a response or a ticket to be resolved by the support team. This ensures you can provide timely responses and support to your customers with consistent quality of customer service. With this system, it’s easy for service administrators to track tickets.

Macros

Macros are templates that agents can create which can later be applied to a ticket to provide a consistent and informative response to FAQs. Macros assist by eliminating human error and they save the agent’s time as they eliminate the process of writing a new response every time the same question is asked. This in turn results in a quicker turnaround for new tickets.

Inbox Automation

Messages received by the helpdesk Mailbox can be automatically converted into tickets.

Process Automation

Automation eliminates the need to carry out repetitive tasks. The system will do any specific tasks automatically, especially if they’re performed on a regular basis. You can use automation to manage workflows, improving performance and customer satisfaction.

Knowledge Articles

You can share support articles through tickets or links in your public portal. They help co-workers or customers to clearly understand the company’s services and products.

Queues

Queues are used to assign tickets to users. This means a team member can take ownership of a record and start working on it.

HubSpot is a tool that combines all help desk capabilities with marketing. I noticed that HubSpot is a great pick, especially if you’re looking for an integrated approach. This is a great concept as it means teams won’t have to switch between multiple tools. It comes as one of the best customer service CRMs as it can provide customers with a 24/7 response. Customers expect issues to be resolved in minutes if not seconds. 

Why We Like It

HubSpot is a great CRM system for teams and is easy to set up and start running. It can typically bear results within a couple of weeks. Another thing that makes HubSpot one of our favorites is its integration abilities. It allows seamless connectivity of your data,  customers, and team through an AI-powered customer platform that can grow with your business. 

Most Important Features For Customer Service

Customer Portal

A customer portal minimizes repetitive tasks and assists customers by ensuring they get the help they need. 

Omni-Channel Customer Service

The Omni-Channel best CRM for Customer Service option gives a 360-degree view of the data on a unified customer platform and allows for seamless switching between channels. 

Knowledge Base Software

This enables customers to find the information they require by creating a library of support articles for them to help themselves. You can organize your articles into topics for easy access. It also comes with SEO recommendations that optimize the articles for search engines. 

Call Tracking Software

Call tracking software means prioritizing is extremely easy as you can prioritize your day’s sales calls. This software also allows you to make calls directly from your browser and automatically track all your calls on the software. 

Free Live Chat Software

It lets you connect with website visitors in real-time, convert new leads, provide support, and close more deals. With this system, you can also route leads and customers to the right person on your team. It also provides chat automation for fast responses to common questions. 

VoIP Software

With HubSpot, you can make VoIP calls which can be recorded and automatically logged into the contact record for future reference. 

Salesforce is the elder-statesman of CRMs and has managed to maintain its lead despite the presence of newer competitors. The pricing is perfectly tiered, making it accessible to even the smallest businesses without sacrificing the most essential tools.  

Why We Like It

We love Salesforce because it’s a solid all-rounder. It’s unlikely to lack any CRM feature that you’re looking for. Salesforce is one of the products that all organizations can use regardless of their size. It’s certainly the best CRM for high-volume customers. 

Most Important Features For Customer Service

Customer Service AI 

This allows an enterprise to use conversation, and generative and predictive AI to create personalized services and faster conflict resolution. 

Data-Driven Service

This assists in maximizing customer satisfaction and service team productivity with real-time data and insights. 

Customer Service Incident Management

Resolves any problems faster and delivers an excellent customer experience with workflows as proof. 

Field Service

Aims to ensure that customers are happy by streamlining operations.

Self-Service

Helps customers find the answers they need quickly. The system generates the needed answers based on historical results already stored in the CRM system. 

Digital Engagement

Helps with delivering a seamless and personalized experience across all channels for customers. 

Visual Remote Assistant

Gives customers access to expert assistance any time the customers require it. 

Customer Service Automation & Process

A service that assists with boosting customer satisfaction through personalized, data-driven, and smart automation. The service uses AI-powered automation that comes built into the CRM system, allowing you to automate any process. This can be extended to your agents, customers, back office, and mobile workers, all on a single platform. 

Einstein Bots

This can assist with resolving any customer service cases and can assist 24/7. It provides personalized service using AI-powered chatbots built into the software. These speed up issue resolution by allowing your teams to use AI-generated answers automated with the help of multilingual bots. All this is also integrated with Salesforce data.  

Service Cloud for Slack

Allows teams to collaborate in resolving incidents, and service requests. Your teams can also close more deals with automation and data. This also ensures the right data reaches the correct target market improving pipeline accuracy and decision-making. 

Less Annoying CRM is an excellent system for sole traders and small businesses. It has the most essential features for a startup. It’s also an excellent system if you’re budget conscious.

Why We Like It

We like it because it’s a simple system that can be used by companies that are inexperienced in using CRM software. It also has a simple interface with a responsive web UI. It can be used on mobile devices and works just as well as its desktop counterpart. Setting up Less Annoying is simple, and the configuration is quite quick. However, remember that its simplicity means it may lack some features. For example, we noticed that the reporting system for Less Annoying is relatively weak compared to other CRMs. 

Most Important Features For Customer Service

Calendar

Less Annoying keeps sales teams on top of the game by sorting out upcoming events. It is the best CRM for customer follow up reminders. 

Contacts and companies

The contact management system is the reason for any company’s existence. Less Annoying will ensure all your contact information remains intact. There is also a section where you can add contacts to the CRM account. 

Custom fields

Here, you can enter all information on every contact or company that you add to your CRM account. It also has customer fields for your contacts and pipelines. It comes with a basic default field that allows you to enter and change all this information. 

Tasks

Tasks assists by setting up reminders to communicate with important clients and leads. This feature concentrates on building strong relationships with prospects, leads, and customers. Here, you will also find some help articles that help with organizing and managing your tasks. There will also be some tips on how to use the task setup. 

Groups

Groups allows you to tag, categorize, and customize your contacts as you please. They are a flexible way to find a certain group of contacts. Here, you’ll also find help articles that will assist you with setting up your groups. 

Pipelines

Pipelines on Less Annoying CRM are the most customizable. These systems enable the visualization and structuring of your operational procedures and workflows, facilitating the progression of contacts through each phase. You have the flexibility to tailor your workflows, incorporating various fields as required, based on the specific data you wish to monitor throughout the process. This customization ensures that you can keep track of the most relevant information at every stage, optimizing the efficiency and effectiveness of your operations.

Files

It allows for the centralization of all the information related to contacts that you build relationships with. The main hub also acts as your main file storage space for record keeping. Here, you can upload any file to your contacts lists and include a profile picture to help remember their faces. 

Relationships

There are articles on the system that guide you through managing relationships. Here, you can liaise with your contacts and link them to each other using the relationship tool. You can also find some help articles that will guide you through managing relationships within the system. This will also include some tips on navigating the system. 

First Sales is an entry-level CRM system that’s very suitable for small to medium-sized businesses. 

Why We Like It

It integrates well with other business software, such as email marketing software and tools like calendars and DocuSign. We love it because it’s an excellent option that doesn’t overwhelm the sales team with endless features. It’s a fairly simple software option that can get any sales team at work faster due to its lightweight approach.

Most Important Features For Customer Service

Contact & lead management

Freshsales has a comprehensive system for managing your leads and contacts. This can be done by segmenting contacts, tracking interactions, and creating detailed profiles. 

Email tracking & engagement 

Comes with real-time tracking of all email communications. 

Sales automation

Repetitive tasks can be automated. Tasks such as email follow-ups, appointment scheduling, and lead assignments can be automated to give the sales team more time to take care of other business.

Reports & analytics

The reporting and analytics tool offered by Freshsales is an excellent tool for data-driven decision-making.  

Deal management

Allows for easy tracking of deals through the different sales stages. You can set reminders and collaborate with all team members as the feature provides complete visibility into your sales pipeline. 

Workflow automation

This feature allows for the tailoring of workflows specifically for your needs. Fresh sales also allows you to carry out actions such as sending notifications and lead assignments. 

AI-powered Insights

This feature allows you to prioritize leads and focus more effort on prospects. Artificial intelligence(AI) assists in assisting and predicting conversion probabilities.

Creatio is a system that has been around for years. It has also undergone multiple changes and we consider it a top CRM software system. It’s an excellent tool for large organizations and the best CRM for 100,000 customers. It provides marketing automation and offers a wide range of tools for business process management (BPM). It’s also among the best CRM for personalizing customer interactions.

Why We Like It

Creatio is a great tool for customers to address multiple business objectives. It’s also an excellent tool especially if you’re looking at scaling up your sales team, and works well with a sales team of any size. It also comes with unlimited customization making it easy to use and integrate with all of your processes.

Most Important Features For Customer Service

360° customer view

This feature allows you to maintain all accounts and contacts in a single database. It also gives a view of the customer’s details and any historical activities that could assist in creating a personalized experience. 

Multi-channel service

Creatio allows you to call and message your customers using the built-in multiple channels service.

Case management

Creation has an automated and manual case registration with this feature.

Knowledge base

The knowledge base assists with quick case resolution. It does this by bringing up any cases that could assist with resolving the current case. 

AI tools

AI tools can speed up repetitive tasks. The system comes with a text similarity prediction model that allows you to search similar cases to find Solutions for a current case.

Unified service center

With this feature, you can set up parameters to manage your workflow. With this feature, you can easily open and close queues, making service requests easy to manage.

Zendesk initially just had help desk software. It recently branched out into CRM, but its roots are still in help desks, which is why we see more features for that aspect.

Why We Like It

We like it because it’s a simple system that can serve any purpose within an organization. We also think it’s an excellent option if you’re an existing Zendesk customer. If your main purpose for setting up a CRM system is a help desk function then Zendesk is the best option.

Most Important Features For Customer Service

Ticketing System

This feature works by tracking each customer query and issue as a ticket. The ticketing system creates records with unique IDs. The ticketing system is also what makes Zen Desk stand out in chat base and email customer support.

Multi-channel Zendesk Support

The multi-channel system helps track all customer interactions by integrating social media forms, web widgets, coding, and emails.

Chat, Messaging & Phone Support

The Zendesk chat board offers real-time chat support. Integration with messaging apps and phone call support is also made simple.

Self-service Knowledge Base

A knowledge base assists with providing customers with self-service options. Zendesk allows you to add as many guides, manuals, articles, and FAQs as needed.

Customization & Integrations

Zendesk supports multiple third-party apps, allowing you to add more features to your help desk.

Analytics & Dashboards

Zendesk has some of the best-performing analytics and desktop board features for help desk solutions.

Automation, Workflows, and Macros

With Zendesk, workflows and customer support operations are more efficient and error-free. This is all made possible through Zendesk’s various automation facilities. For example, the system can automatically create a ticket for a query.

Collaboration & CRM in Zendesk

Zendesk makes collaboration for large teams of more than 500 very simple. 

SugarCRM was initially an open-source Project, and it’s one of the oldest CRM systems. This is  the most developer-oriented CRM system I’ve ever seen: SugarCRM portals, reports, and modules are all editable.

Why We Like It

We like Sugar CRM because its editable features simplify customization. It’s also an excellent option for large organizations that want to customize their systems. The system isn’t rigid, so small organizations and startups can also enjoy the benefits. 

Most Important Features For Customer Service

Comprehensive CRM Flexibility

SugarCRM has great flexibility when compared with other CRM systems as it integrates more than just sales and a contact center. The platform is customizable with modules, codes, layout and third party plugins. 

Generative AI

The system has generative AI for marketing, sales, and customer service. It also has a selection of CX dashboards and reports where you can easily monitor metrics in real-time across the best CRM customer service marketing and sales departments.

Omnichannel Routing and Self-Service

Omnichannel routing ensures that you can provide a personalized service for each customer. The software has features that monitor customer journeys on multiple channels to give details on the customer’s preferences.

Marketing automation

It comes with tools for creating comprehensive campaigns. This means that with SugarCRM, you can easily create personalized experiences.

SugarBPM 

SugarBPM automates approvals and call triaging. The system comes with advanced BPM capabilities and allows a business to create workflows based on specific needs. 

Sales Automation

This section allows the sales team to retain customers, sell more, and increase customer loyalty. It offers an overview of cases, customer records, and activities on one screen.

Team Management

SugarCRM makes project management easy. It comes complete with customizable automation rules, which means management can track customer profiles and team performance in a single location. It’s also an excellent tool and among the best CRM for high volume customers. It comes with a feature allowing users to view an entire list of activities performed on records, so users can track the most recent updates across their organization.

On-Premises CRM Solutions

Security and compliance are valuable tools on the SugarCRM platform, which is why it’s highly recommended for companies that have strict regulatory guidelines to follow. It has a Sugar Enterprise version built for maximum customization and control. All APIs available on the Sugar Sea or M platform have no hidden licensing courses or limitations.

Integrations & extensibility

SugarCRM is a flexible platform that provides a range of module deployment options and customization tools. It’s also integrated with other apps, such as Google Workplace, DocuSign, and Slack. The marketplace offers a wide range of popular integrations to explore.

Act! was previously known for its in-contact management software. They have since evolved into a cloud-based CRM.

Why We Like It

The integrated marketing automation features allow users to customize workflow, and users can connect to their Outlook or Gmail. It’s especially good for small teams.

Most Important Features For Customer Service

Rich customer management

This allows the system to keep and maintain customer details such as documents, emails, history, activities, notes and so much more. These can be easily found on the system records and they give a complete view of your customer relationships. You can also seamlessly find customer information from your current solution.

Marketing automation

This allows for easy communication with customers and prospects. The marketing automation tool drives business growth by allowing you to engage prospects and customers with a response-driven marketing campaign. These are sent to target lists and automatically use criteria that define them. The automation tool turns real-time responses into sales actions. It helps you keep track of prospects and follow-ups by delivering a view of customer engagement in one solution. 

Dynamic sales pipeline management

You can manage opportunities through a personalized sales process. It allows you to track services or products’ probability, closing status, and associated documents. You get a complete view into the sales while projecting revenue and adjusting your strategy to quickly focus your efforts.

Apptivo is considered a one-stop solution for all business software needs. This is all thanks to its affordable and highly customizable platform.

Why We Like It

The one thing that makes Apptivo stand out is its ability to perform tasks such as invoicing, accounting, and project management, along with its CRM functionality. It’s also optimized for Android and iOS mobile devices. We also love this app because it provides an enterprise with the convenience of running aspects of their entire business in a single app.

Most Important Features For Customer Service

Leads, contacts and customers 

Manage all your contacts and customer data on a centralized platform.

Tasks and appointments

With a click of a button, you can easily create reminders, schedule meetings, create an event, and set up appointments.

Project management

Apptivo allows you to create collaborative workspaces to track, plan, and deliver projects on time. This includes easily monitoring project performance through Gantt charts and milestones.

Data migration

Data migration allows you to seamlessly transfer all your customer and contact information from another CRM system into Apptivo.

Cases

Apptivo allows you to manage SLAs by assigning and resolving cases. With this system, you can also track all open and closed customer tickets.

Marketing Campaign 

With Apptivo you can easily track and measure how effective your campaign is, and the system allows you to launch a targeted campaign. 

Email 

This system allows you to send bulk emails with a customizable template as well as  receive emails directly within the app.