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10 Best Alternatives To HelpScout

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Updated on
Jan 5, 20246 min read
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    Table of content

  • 10 Best Alternatives To HelpScout
  • HelpScout: What is it?
  • Why do you need a Help Scout alternative?
  • arrow
  • Top 10 HelpScout alternatives & competitors.
  • The Bottom line.

10 Best Alternatives To HelpScout

HelpScouts' founders have built an awesome customer support tool. It's efficient for eCommerce, DTC brands, and teams that can't handle a lot of conversations and want to get rid of repetitive questions. 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience, but only 1% of customers feel that vendors consistently meet their expectations. 

HelpScout has made customer messaging far less boring because they're promoting knowledge articles first, making customers more autonomous. 

You may want to try out different eCommerce tools or perhaps look for one that integrates with several numbers of apps to run your business—or possibly look for a tool that is easy to use and provides great features.

 If you're looking for an alternative to HelpScout, you don't need to look any further because, with all the required research, this blog has provided you with the ten best eCommerce customer support tools and their costs.

HelpScout: What is it?

HelpScout is a powerful app, highly famous among small businesses and freelancers. This system helps you to communicate with your customers easily and quickly, providing them with professional and reliable service.

It connects seamlessly with many business systems and applications such as PipelineDeals, Pipedrive, OnePageCRM, Olark Live Chat, NiceReply.com, Campaign Monitor, MixPanel, MailChimp, Magento, Userlike Live Chat, KISSmetrics, Kato, and more.

Help Desk, Reports, Docs Knowledge Base, Email Integration, Security, and Reliability are the features offered by HelpScout.

Why do you need a Help Scout alternative?

  • Though HelpScout integrates with over 90 applications, it still lacks some crucial integrations. It needs to be more receptive to integrations to meet customer-centric business demand.
  • Helpscout provides limited customization and features.
  • One of the other most important cons of HelpScout is its high-priced messaging feature. It is pretty unacceptable to many companies and also difficult to afford.

Top 10 HelpScout alternatives & competitors.

1. BotPenguin

If you are looking for a HelpScout alternative, then BotPenguin can be considered one of the top rivals. BotPenguin outperforms HelpScout in terms of functionality, usability, and many other features. BotPenguin reaches out to visitors and existing customers in a proactive manner by utilizing chat history, chats, greetings, and triggers. 

BotPengin offers helpful features such as a configurable notification system, chatbot, intelligent routing, and interaction with native programs such as a knowledge base and help desk.

BotPenguin Costs

Baby – Free

  • 1 Bot
  • 2,000 Messages Per Month
  • 1 Team Member
  • 1 Facebook Page
  • Live Chat

King – $5/month ($4.17/month if billed annually)

  • Unlimited Bots
  • 10 Facebook Pages
  • Live Chat
  • Conditional Flow
  • Book Appointments
  • CSV Export 
  • Reports & Analytics
  • Email and Call Support

Emperor – By quote

  • Unlimited Bots
  • Live Chat
  • Conditional Flow
  • Book Appointments
  • CSV Export
  • Customer Success Officer

2. Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a very popular and effective alternative. It is a help desk solution that offers a flexible pricing plan with a wide range of features and is chosen by many international companies and small businesses. 

Freshdesk Costs

Sprout: free for unlimited agents

  • Email support
  • Phone support
  • Knowledge base
  • Basic Social Channel
  • Basic Chat Channel

Blossom: $19 per agent

Sprout features

  • Advanced Social Channel
  • Team Huddle
  • Satisfaction Surveys
  • Custom Domain Mapping
  • Time Tracking

Garden: $35 per agent 

Blossom features

  • Multilingual Helpdesk
  • Ticket Templates
  • Community Forums
  • Scheduled Reports
  • CSS Customization

Estate: $49 per agent

Garden features

  • Multiple Products
  • Agent Collision
  • Shared Ownership
  • Enterprise Reports
  • Custom Agent Roles

Forest: $89 per agent

Estate features

  • IP Whitelisting
  • Custom Email Servers
  • EU Data Center
  • Skill-based ticket assignment

3. Front

Front is a service that helps to collaborate, comment, assign and reply to those annoying emails you receive on your support@, jobs@, or contact@ email addresses.

Front integrates with salesforce, slack, Pipedrive, HubSpot, Airtable, etc. User & Team Management, Onboarding & Solution Design, Change Management, Security & Compliance, Integrations with 3rd-Party Tools, and many others.

Front Costs

Starter

$19 USD*

  • Multi-channel messaging
  • Live chat
  • Team collaboration on customer messages
  • Calendar and one-click meeting scheduling
  • Basic automation
  • Integrations with 3rd-party tools

Growth

$49 USD*

  • CRM integration
  • Analytics
  • Advanced workflows
  • Basic automation
  • Integrations with 3rd-party tools

Scale

$99 USD*

  • Smart Rules
  • User and team management
  • Onboarding and solution design
  • Change management
  • Security and Compliance

4. Kayako

Kayako is cloud-hosted help desk software that supports ticketing with email integration. It offers fully featured live chat for your customer service portal and website, Real-time visitor tracking, Real-time messaging for the help center and website, SLAs to keep on top of customer conversations, Phone call tracking and recording, Enhanced self-service portal, Advanced ticket workflows, rules, and automation.

Kayako Costs

Growth

$30 /User/Month

Features

  • Live chat, Facebook, Twitter, and email
  • Help Center
  • Basic performance reports
  • SingleView
  • Agents log in with Google
  • Multiple brands, multiple languages
  • Time-saving macro-powered responses

Scale

$60 /User/Month

Features

  • Includes features of the Growth Plan, plus
  • Advanced workflow customization
  • Internal help center and knowledge base
  • Custom forms for help center
  • Custom roles and permissions

Classic On-Prem

$59 /User/Month

Features

  1. VOIP Phone / Click to call
  2. Advanced Reporting with Kayako Query Language (KQL)
  3. Automation (SLAs, Macros, Workflows)
  4. Multiple brands, multiple languages
  5. REST APIs

5. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a support desk platform that gathers employees from other departments and empowers them to provide a unified customer experience.

Zoho Desk offers a ticketing System, Call Center Software, Social Support Software, Agent Productivity, Knowledge Base and Forums, Company-wide Collaboration, Reporting, Insights, etc.

Zoho Desk Costs

Free

₹0

3 Free Agents

  • Email Ticketing
  • Customer Management
  • Multi-language Help Desk
  • Mobile Apps
  • 24x5 Email Support

Standard

₹800 /agent/month billed annually

  • Features from FREE +
  • Social & Community Channels
  • Reports & Dashboards
  • Work Modes for Tickets

Professional

₹1,400 /agent/month billed annually

  1. Features from STANDARD +
  2. Multi-Department Ticketing
  3. Team Management
  4. Telephony
  5. Multilingual Knowledge Base

6. TeamSupport

TeamSupport provides an intuitive online help desk interface, a customizable dashboard, a Powerful search, Integrated screen recordings, Mobile agent tools, Ticket automation, SLA management, etc. It supports email integration, integrated live chat, Facebook integration, integrated customer database, Product database, and more.

It collaborates with Groups, Internal chat, Wiki, and Community.

TeamSupport Costs.

Support Desk (Customer Support)

Features

  • Customer Management
  • Ticket Management
  • Customer Self-Service
  • Integrations
  • Customer Distress Management
  • Customer Support
  • API
  • Sandbox
  • SLA Management

Enterprise (Customer Support)

Features

  • Customer Management
  • Ticket Management
  • Customer Self-Service
  • Integrations
  • Customer Distress Management
  • Customer Support
  • API

Private Help Desk Software Cloud Option

Features

  • Exclusive to TeamSupport
  • Customized Set-Up
  • Your Own Private Cloud
  • Global Hosting Options

7. LiveAgent

LiveAgent is a popular help desk software application. A small support team of LiveAgent can handle large volumes of queries. The main features of LiveAgent are  its Universal Inbox, Rules, Chat Routing, Live Chat Widget, and Knowledge Base.

LiveAgent costs. 

Free

Features

  • 7 days ticket history
  • Basic reports
  • Customer portal + forum
  • Customer Service

Ticket

$15 /User/Month

Features

  • Unlimited ticket history
  • Unlimited email addresses
  • Advanced reporting
  • Customer portal + forum
  • API + integrations

Ticket+Chat

$29 /User/Month

Features

  • Includes features of Ticket plan, plus
  • Unlimited chat buttons
  • Feedback management
  • Real-time visitors monitor
  • Proactive chat invitations

All-inclusive

$49 /User/Month

Features

  • Includes features of Ticket+Chat plan, plus
  • Call center support
  • Video call
  • IVR
  • Call routing and transfers

8. Hiver

Hiver is a Gmail-based customer service solution that provides Email tags, Collision alerts, Shared drafts, Activity timelines, Email templates, Email notes, Workload distribution, and more.

It connects with various third-party systems and with business communication platforms like slack.

Hiver Costs.

Lite

INR 800 /user/month

  • Unlimited Shared Inboxes
  • Chat
  • Add up to 10 Users
  • Unlimited Tags
  • Unlimited Email Templates

Pro

INR 2200 /user/month

  • Everything in Lite and
  • SLA & Business Hours
  • CSAT
  • Unlimited Automation
  • Harvey - The AI Bot

Elite

INR 3300 /user/month

  • Everything in Pro and
  • Round Robin Assignment
  • Custom Access Control
  • Custom Reports
  • Priority Support

9. Groove 

Groove is a sales productivity platform that enables a meeting scheduler, Auto-call logging, Activity log, Custom data collection, Sales automation, Team collaboration, Email sync, Built-in analytics, Email tracking, etc.

It seamlessly connects with Gmail, salesforce, Google Calendar, and Linkedin sales navigator.

Groove Costs.

Custom

Features

  • Email, Calendar & Activity Tracking
  • Multi-Channel Campaign Automation
  • Streamline Workflows, Prioritize Tasks
  • Access Salesforce and LinkedIn from your Inbox
  • Auto-Dial and Log Calls to Salesforce
  • Book More Meetings with Online Scheduler
  • Real-Time, Accurate Revenue Intelligence
  • Native Salesforce Integration

10. Crisp 

Crisp provides multi-channel support software to interact online through messaging or email. It supports small and medium businesses. 

Crisp offers Geotargeting, Group Messaging, Help Desk Management, Human Handover, Interaction Tracking, Knowledge Base Management, Live Chat, Macros/Templated Responses, Product Recommendations, etc.

Crisp Costs.

Basic

Free

Forever

  • Two seats included
  • Live chat
  • Team inbox
  • Mobile apps
  • Contact form. 

Pro

$25

  • Month / Per Workspace
  • Four seats included
  • Triggers
  • Unlimited history
  • Canned responses
  • Unlimited history
  • Customization
  • Audio messages
  • Telegram

Unlimited

$95

  • Month / Per Workspace
  • 20 seats included
  • Knowledge base
  • Status page
  • Chat reminders
  • Live translate
  • Video chat
  • Magicbrowse. 

The Bottom line.

92% of companies adopt a CRM to serve their customers. HelpScout provides reasonable pricing, ease of use, and superior customer support but has limited features and other shortcomings.

Finding a needle in a haystack of trash is challenging, therefore this site has narrowed the field down to the top ten options. As a business owner, you must now pick which one would best fit with your company so that it can run smoothly. This research should hopefully assist you in making a quick decision and selecting one of the options.

Visit BotPenguin to interact with fantastic AI-powered chatbots.

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