{"id":1743,"date":"2024-12-12T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web-stil.info\/?p=1743"},"modified":"2025-05-02T22:19:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T22:19:56","slug":"i-dove-deep-into-the-10-best-customer-engagement-platforms-and-found-out-how-to-choose-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web-stil.info\/index.php\/2024\/12\/12\/i-dove-deep-into-the-10-best-customer-engagement-platforms-and-found-out-how-to-choose-one\/","title":{"rendered":"I Dove Deep Into the 10 Best Customer Engagement Platforms (and Found Out How to Choose One)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Businesses live and die on their customer relationships, but engaging customers effectively is a heavy lift. Customers expect personalized help, immediate responses, and an all-knowing understanding of past conversations. If you\u2019re asking yourself, \u201cHow do companies do it?!\u201d <\/em>I have a simple answer for you.<\/p>\n They use a customer engagement platform<\/strong> \u2014 it changes everything about the customer (and internal team) experience. But before you can engage customers better, you have to sort through dozens of platforms and choose one for your business.<\/p>\n Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n A customer engagement platform<\/strong> is software that helps businesses manage customer interactions successfully. Basic features include messaging channels and help ticket resolution. Advanced platforms combine customer service tools with artificial intelligence (AI) and customer data analysis to improve customer engagement<\/a>. With a customer engagement platform, it\u2019s possible to manage complex customer relationships en masse.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Like all SaaS tools, customer engagement platforms come in different shapes and sizes. After hours of research, review, and testing, here are the criteria that I used to evaluate the most popular customer engagement platforms:<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n The number of platforms on the market is overwhelming. You don\u2019t have to drown in the endless lists of features, customer reviews, and statistics \u2014 board my life raft, and I\u2019ll give you the overview you need to see where each platform shines.<\/p>\n HubSpot Service Hub is a platform that handles everything<\/strong> from basic customer support requests to complex customer interactions. You can easily switch between messaging channels, like email and live chat, in the simple in-app messaging platform. Your resource center, meetings, and other customer support resources are all integrated, and you prioritize enhancing customer satisfaction with built-in service level agreements<\/a>.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Free plan, then $20 per month.<\/p>\n Key <\/strong>Features<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Integration<\/strong>: Built-in AI automatically tracks and updates customer ticket status based on your interactions. You can leverage AI in other helpful ways, like writing a message to a customer and then asking AI to change the tone (for example, making your message more professional).<\/p>\n Reviews<\/strong>: Customers love the engaged support that they receive from the HubSpot support team when they call or have a support ticket. This has been my experience as a HubSpot customer as well \u2014 even when using free products, you get an immediate response from a human. Customers also love the ease of use, while some wish it had more features.<\/p>\n What I like<\/strong>: I test a lot (a LOT) of SaaS tools and the ease of the HubSpot Service Hub is above and beyond. The focus on rapid onboarding makes it the most user-friendly customer engagement software.<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n While this platform is technically a CRM, Salesforce itself says that a CRM can serve as a customer engagement platform when it integrates customer engagement tools. The integration between email, social media messaging, WhatsApp, chatbots, and more provides a really complete picture<\/strong> of customer communication touchpoints. All of these engagements are funneled into the Service Cloud, where you can quickly manage customer interactions.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Try it for free, then pay $25 per user\/month.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Integration<\/strong>: Salesforce\u2019s generative AI bot, called Einstein, has a wide range of functions, including text messaging response. AI is also used to help customer service reps navigate internal knowledge bases faster, shortening response times.<\/p>\n Reviews<\/strong>: Customers rave about the diverse applications but some say it\u2019s easy to get lost in the endless features and settings of the platform. That\u2019s been my experience as well.<\/p>\n What I like<\/strong>: The platform is undoubtedly powerful, but I echo some of the customer reviews that the interface feels clunky.<\/p>\n Zendesk Support Suite is an AI-driven customer engagement platform that integrates diverse communication channels<\/strong> into one dashboard. While all customer engagement platforms manage help tickets and calls, Zendesk Support Suite also manages comments on community forums. When customers reach out on multiple channels, all communication is condensed into one help ticket to save your customer service team\u2019s time.<\/p>\n Something I like is the onboarding process. New customers answer a few questions about their company and then are onboarded based on their needs. Then, you\u2019re given an account setup checklist and a guided walk-through.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Free trial, then $19 per month when billed annually.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Integration<\/strong>: AI is deeply embedded in the Zendesk Support Suite, both on the front-facing customer side and the internal agent side. Customers\u2019 tickets are resolved more quickly with AI support that takes previous interactions into account while processing queries. The copilot AI feature proactively gathers customer information to brief agents before they even begin their customer interaction.<\/p>\n Reviews<\/strong>: Users love how customizable this platform is but wish that it had more features.<\/p>\n What I like<\/strong>: I like how customizable and modern the platform is. Zendesk really prioritizes the user experience and that speeds up onboarding and personalizing the platform to your business.<\/p>\n Freshdesk by Freshworks is a customer engagement platform that boasts fast onboarding<\/strong> and minimal training required to help your team hit the ground running. This intention comes through right away when you sign up \u2014 you start with a guided setup, and then you\u2019re invited to a live hands-on training with staff that helps new users set up their accounts.<\/p>\n I think Freshdesk is great because it integrates with more than 1,000 other tools, scales as your business grows, and has a detailed ticketing system.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Free plan, then $15 per month billed annually.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Integration<\/strong>: Freshdesk AI aims to reduce agents\u2019 time spent on email, using generative AI to help respond to tickets, assess tone, and edit. Emails can be generated with just a few keywords. Customers also benefit from AI via chatbots and automated routing to get assigned to an agent more quickly.<\/p>\n Reviews<\/strong>: Customers enjoy that Freshdesk is simple and easy to use, with many features available, with some complaints of the platform being slower than others and having less control over platform customization.<\/p>\n What I like<\/strong>: Freshdesk checks the technical boxes like similar tools, but I really like the addition of Freshdesk Arcade<\/em>. This is a gamification system that awards points to agents as a way to encourage and energize repetitive tasks. I think it\u2019s a brilliant approach to making a customer engagement platform enjoyable for the internal team.<\/p>\n Tidio is a user-friendly customer engagement platform that was designed for ease of use; they even say that you can get it up and running within five minutes! I think they follow through on that promise \u2014 the interface is intuitive and guides you through creating your first chatbot.<\/p>\n The more advanced features naturally take longer to implement. The customer tracking feature <\/strong>generates insights into where each customer is at in the customer journey and what they need to engage and convert. Tidio integrates with 125+ tools, which is more restrictive than competitors (for comparison, Freshdesk integrates with 1,000+).<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Custom pricing for each company.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Integration<\/strong>: Standard AI features are included, like AI chatbot and sentiment analysis. The chatbot feature is more robust and ecommerce-oriented than many other tools.<\/p>\n Reviews<\/strong>: Online reviewers love the onboarding ease but some say the platform is on the slower side, with some saying it slowed down their entire website.<\/p>\n What I like<\/strong>: I really like the \u201cflows\u201d feature. Flows are organized in your dashboard according to goals (upsell, re-engage<\/a>, etc.), and you can see how many times certain flows have been used by other Tidio customers.<\/p>\n This makes me feel like I can easily follow in the footsteps of other big brands while I\u2019m getting oriented, which is a really cool feature for small business owners who are wearing a lot of different hats and trying to make quick decisions.<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Kustomer is a customer engagement platform acquired by Meta in 2023, which should make it no surprise that it has a heavy data focus<\/strong>. The data and functionality of the platform dive deep into the customer experience. I think it\u2019s interesting that they actually built their platform around customer profiles instead of open tickets.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Prices are customized to each company.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Integration<\/strong>: Kustomer uses AI to enable fast, personalized interactions. Some customer support issues are handled completely by AI, such as simple inquiries, while customer service reps also get AI agents to assist them.<\/p>\n Reviews<\/strong>: Kustomer has fewer online reviews than other platforms, but the reviews are glowing. Reviewers love how easy it is to use and frequently say that they have no product complaints.<\/p>\n What I like<\/strong>: Customer data can be overwhelming, and I like that Kustomer focuses on making the data actionable. The interface is also simpler and more intuitive than some of the more expansive platforms.<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Khoros is a customer engagement platform that also serves as a social media management software<\/strong> that brings social listening<\/a> into your reach. I like how this platform uses task prioritization, tagging, and routing to improve efficiency for communication across all digital channels and voice calls.<\/p>\n Based on the lack of free trial and a very underwhelming product tour, I was not sold on the value of Khoros until I saw the impressive roster of tech companies that use it, including Microsoft, Airbnb, and Zoom. These tech giants made me do a double take and look at what makes Khoros special.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Pricing is customized to each company, but online reviewers mention that it\u2019s pricey.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Integration<\/strong>: Chatbots, internal AI assistants, and all standard features are present in Khoros. This platform also offers AI to moderate your community forums, which is a unique feature (and very timely).<\/p>\n Reviews<\/strong>: Online reviewers like the powerful features of Khoros, but comment on the steep learning curve and the price. Likewise, I didn\u2019t get the sense that this was a tool you jump into quickly without a time-heavy setup.<\/p>\n What I like<\/strong>: Community forums have had a resurgence in popularity (have you noticed all of the Reddit and Quora results on Google?), so I really like the advanced communities feature; it feels very forward-thinking. I think the gamification aspect for members, where they earn points for being active, is brilliant and has huge returns for companies that have chatty online communities.<\/p>\n Image Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Zoho has dozens of applications, two of which merge to create a powerful customer engagement system: Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk. Zoho CRM<\/a> focuses on attracting, tracking, and closing leads, and it integrates with Zoho Desk<\/a> to fulfill customer support needs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You can get both of these (and much more) with Zoho One, an umbrella subscription that encompasses all of Zoho\u2019s applications in one massive customer engagement tool. Zoho\u2019s logo includes building blocks, which I find is very representative of how the platform works.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Zoho One pricing starts at $37 per month and scales with the number of employees.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Integration<\/strong>: AI is integrated throughout the entire customer journey and user experience \u2014 generative AI, chatbots, anomaly detection in data, and more.<\/p>\n Reviews<\/strong>: Reviewers are happy with the advanced functionality and tool integration, while complaints include the learning curve and customer support.<\/p>\n What I like<\/strong>: The onboarding process is undoubtedly intimidating, thanks to all of the applications and options, but those with the patience to set it up are rewarded with advanced functionality. My experience has taught me that more isn\u2019t always better with software, so I don\u2019t think this is the right fit for simple needs.<\/p>\n Intercom is a customer engagement platform with a focus on ease of use<\/strong> and robust communication. Users can easily switch between communication channels, going from chatting to voice calls to video calls to customer screen-sharing within the application. This is a unique feature that\u2019s ideal for SaaS companies.<\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Free trial, then $29 per month.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Integration<\/strong>: Intercom describes itself as an \u201cAI-first\u201d customer service platform, and has an AI agent for customers, an AI copilot for customer reps, plus an AI analyst generating recommendations for leaders.<\/p>\n Reviews<\/strong>: Intercom gets raving reviews. In G2\u2019s 2024 customer satisfaction survey, Intercom had the highest scores in the help desk category.<\/p>\n What I like<\/strong>: Most tools focus on two user groups: customers and representatives. I like that Intercom also brings leaders into the conversation and makes it easy for them to understand the data and take action. They don\u2019t assume you have an entire data department briefing you, which I appreciate as a small business owner.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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What Is a Customer Engagement Platform?<\/h2>\n
How I Tested the Best Customer Engagement Platforms<\/h2>\n
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10 Best Customer Engagement Platforms<\/h2>\n
1. HubSpot Service Hub<\/a><\/h3>\n
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2. Salesforce Service Cloud<\/a><\/h3>\n
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3. Zendesk Support Suite<\/a><\/h3>\n
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4. Freshdesk<\/a><\/h3>\n
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5. Tidio<\/a><\/h3>\n
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6. Kustomer<\/a><\/h3>\n
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7. Khoros<\/a><\/h3>\n
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8. Zoho<\/a><\/h3>\n
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9. Intercom<\/a><\/h3>\n
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10. Sprinklr Service<\/a><\/h3>\n
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