Help Scout

Great for Basic Customer Support

Commentaires : I have nothing to say about Help Scout's services, it does an excellent job, hands down. Though it's lacking some features and the pricing is a little bit high based on what features they offer. If you want just a basic customer service software for handling emails then Help Scout is a good choice.

Avantages :

Help Scout does what it's supposed to do and it's very good at it. No doubt about that. It's the very main reason why many companies trust Help Scout for their customer support management. You can create automations, saved replies, a knowledgebase, and a chat widget (they call it Beacon). Everything works as it's supposed to and we never had any issues so far. It's really easy to set up automations and saved replies, no need to look into their help docs. You just need to use your common sense to navigate through the dashboard. I am using it daily for my client's e-commerce business for the past 6 years and I can say that it's a really solid product. I also like their mobile app because it works really well. This is very important so you can attend to your customers even when you're not at your desk. Most customers want very quick responses and so the mobile app will be very handy when you don't have access to a computer. There's no issue with deliverability as all our emails and replies went straight to customers' inboxes, which is very critical for this kind of app.

Inconvénients :

I found another software that has more features than this app and the pricing is also good. I wish Help Scout will have a feature where you can snooze or schedule an email or reply, and the ability to create embeddable forms. Also, I wish you can connect your social media accounts so you will be able to easily monitor your social media audiences when they message you or when they comment on your posts. These are available on the other software I found and it is a great alternative to this software.

Great customer focused company to work with!

Commentaires : Excellent. While there is some admittedly cool functionality that other CRMs offer at higher prices, they don't make sense for our current business needs and you really can't beat Helpscout when it comes to their customer service and help resources. It's excellent working with a team who really care what their customers and their customers' customers think.

Avantages :

Their entire philosophy is centered around customer satisfaction and success. This mirrors our own approach and it's great seeing that in action. They are also great at handling questions and service requests, and I love all the support and information resources they offer.

Inconvénients :

I wish the reporting functions were better and more detailed. Sometimes when something wasn't functioning in a way that worked for it, their response was suggesting a work around that would require a service plan upgrade when I figured out a work around that could work at our current level, but that is a very minor gripe.

Works well but lack of innovations caused us to move away

Commentaires : We used Helpscout to manage customer support. The system was competent but uninspiring. Rising expenses and other issues mentioned above caused us to break up with it.

Avantages :

Tracked tickets extremely well. Also the canned responses worked well.

Inconvénients :

The beacon on our website didn't work that well. There were often conflict issues so we just turned it off, which is a shame because it's a major feature we had relied on. After marketing en email as a spammer, we would continue to get emails in the future from that same email address.

This was a great beginner software for a growing startup

Avantages :

This software is incredibly easy to use! The macro search function was amazing. It allowed our team to search both the title and the body for relevant content. Very simple solution for our start up company.

Inconvénients :

We needed more features, more integrations and more robust reporting as we began to grow as a company and support team.

Expensive, but good. There are alternatives if you're willing to sacrifice plug and play.

Commentaires : The alternatives to Help Scout are far and wide, but my recommendation for an option would be Free Scout. It is an open-source alternative to Help Scout that acts almost the same way. You need to know how to deploy the self-hosted service, or you can find companies willing to manage it for you. The downside is the setup takes a while, but the positive is that the cost is a small fraction of the amount we were paying to Help Scout.

Avantages :

HelpScout was the first shared emailing system we implemented that worked flawlessly with our setup. It rivals all other methods that focus on a ticket number approach but makes the communication process simple for users to grasp and professional yet informal. The best part of Help Scout for us was the shared inbox aspect and the ability to collaborate with others easily.

Inconvénients :

Help Scout is expensive. In my opinion, it is overpriced. They started at a great introductory rate and grandfathered those rates for early-stage users. I heard from many users when they increased their rates, all of whom got a personalized message from the [SENSITIVE CONTENT], promising our rates would stay the same. Months later, they recanted on their promise and hiked our rates. It was not a great feeling being lied to, and my love for the company quickly disappeared. Other shared email services can replace Help Scout, but this is your best bet if you're looking for a simple approach and are not worried about the price tag.