Guide: Selecting the Best Ecommerce Helpdesk for Your Store

‍What is an ecommerce helpdesk?

An ecommerce helpdesk is software that helps you streamline your customer service by allowing you to:

• manage customer queries from across channels.
• view all your customer information in one place.
• edit and modify orders directly from your dashboard.
• collaborate internally with your team on queries.
• gain insights on how your team is performing. 

Benefits of an Ecommerce Customer Service Tool

Using the right support solution ultimately helps you deliver the best service possible to your customers.

Let’s take a closer look at how it does that.

Centralize support tickets from multiple channels

Your customers are present on several channels. Be it email, phone, live chat, text, social media, or any other.  

Providing the best customer experience possible means meeting them on their terms. 

And doing so without dedicated software means constantly switching between tabs. From your store dashboard and your different support channels. 

Which results in manual errors, queries being responded to late, or missed completely. 

But with an ecommerce helpdesk, you can view and reply to queries from all your channels on one single screen. And deep integration with your ecommerce platform takes manual errors out of the equation completely. 

Helping you save countless hours. And giving you peace of mind.

Engage your customers with more context

Have you ever had this experience:

You’re on a call with customer support trying to get something resolved. You explain your problem to the minutest detail. When you finish, you’re put on hold and passed on to another agent. 

And have to repeat the same thing from the start. All over again. 

Pretty annoying right? 

The same goes for online shopping. Customers don’t want to be constantly asked the same questions. 

And with a helpdesk that integrates with your ecommerce platform, you won’t have to. You’ll have all their order information readily available. Allowing you to have conversations with more context. 

Collaborate internally seamlessly

Customer support is a team sport. 

Different members of your team handle different areas of your operations. And you’ll want to rope in the relevant team member, best equipped to deal with a certain problem, whenever you need to. 

An ecommerce customer service software allows you to collaborate with your team in real-time. Allowing you to assign tickets, leave private notes, and tag conversations. 

This let your agents cut unnecessary back & forth conversations they'd usually have. Resulting in improved agent efficiency and faster response times. All while boosting customer satisfaction. 

Respond to customer queries faster

A lot of the queries your store deals with are repetitive in nature. 

Ones related to price, returns, and order status. 

And having to manually respond to each of these queries is extremely time-consuming and tedious. 

But most ecommerce helpdesks will allow you to handle such queries more efficiently. 

How exactly varies. But it’s usually some combination of: 

Fast replies (AKA canned responses): A feature that allows you to customize pre-made templates and respond with two clicks. 

Self-serve widget: This allows your customers to search and resolve their own queries without any external support. 

Automation rules: Sends automatic responses to customers when queries match certain pre-made conditions that you’ve set. 

Manage multiple stores from one dashboard

We’ve spoken about several problems arising from managing ecommerce support without a tool.

Now imagine all of them compounded to multiple stores? What a disaster! 

But luckily most ecommerce helpdesks allow you to manage multiple stores from one single account. So you can enjoy all the benefits listed above for all the brands you manage! 

When do you need an ecommerce helpdesk?

So, if you’re managing support manually, you’re probably wondering when is the right time to look for an ecommerce customer service software. 

Well, here are some questions you can ask yourself to figure out if you need a dedicated tool: 

• Do you receive a low volume (<300/month) of support tickets? 
• Are you providing support on just one or two channels? 
• Do you have a small team where you always know who’s responding to a customer?
• Can you respond quickly and effectively to all customer queries?
• Is all your customer information organized and accessible? 
• Can you create meaningful reports to gain insights into the quality of your service? 
• Is this setup scalable as your operations grow? 
  

Did you answer yes to all of the questions above? 

Then you’re probably good for now! 

On the flip side if you answered no to most, then you definitely should consider looking for a dedicated support solution.

So keep on reading friend. 

What are the criteria you need to consider while selecting an ecommerce helpdesk?

Channels you use

One of the main reasons to switch from managing support to a dedicated tool is to handle queries from all the channels your customers are active on. 

The most common channels include:

• Email
• Live Chat
• SMS
• Phone
• Social Media channels like Facebook, Instagram etc. 
• Instant Messaging Platforms like Whatsapp, Telegram, etc. 

So you’ll want to make sure the helpdesk you choose integrates with the different communication channels you use. As well as those you plan to use in the future. 

Number of support agents

If you currently have just one or two people managing all your ecommerce support, you may not need a dedicated tool. 

But if you have multiple agents handling support, you should be using a helpdesk software. 

This will ensure your team can collaborate on tickets using features like ticket assignment, private notes, and tags. 

Plus you’ll be able to view all the tickets your team is handling in an organized manner with a shared inbox. 

📎 Many tools charge based on the number of agents using the product. So if you want multiple members using a helpdesk, go for one which charges based on ticket volume. 

Volume of support tickets

If your ticket volume is extremely low (<10 tickets/day), you might be alright managing support manually. 

However, even in this case, a helpdesk will allow you to easily keep track of different tickets and the status of each. 

As the number of support queries grows, you’ll realize it’s near impossible to keep track of everything and manage efficiently. Which will ultimately lead to a poor customer experience. 

📎 If you have just one or two people managing a very large volume of tickets, you might be better off going for software that charges on a per-agent basis. 

Existing tech stack you use

You want to make sure that the helpdesk you select has integrations with the software you use on a day-to-day basis. 

Some common integrations used by ecommerce companies include:

• Ecommerce platforms: Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce
• Email marketing: Gmail, Klaviyo
• Social media: Facebook, Instagram
• Instant messaging: Whatsapp, Slack
• SMS marketing: Postscript, SMSBump 
• Phone: Aircall, cloudtalk
  

And a host of others for shipping & fulfillment, payment management, returns, customer loyalty, and automation, etc.

Go through the integrations page or check with the provider to see if they already have integrations with whatever software your team uses regularly. 

Ease of use

Your agents are going to be using your helpdesk on a daily basis. 

So you’ll want to make sure that they enjoy operating on the platform. 

The best way to find out if a helpdesk is easy to use is by requesting a free trial. And checking it out firsthand.

 After your trial ask yourself:

• If the tool was easy to figure out while getting started
• If it Is fast and intuitive
• How much training your team will need to get up to speed with the tool 
• What are the training and onboarding resources available
  

If a tool is too slow or difficult to operate, your team will not be able to make the most out of it. Which will ultimately reflect in the quality of support they provide. 

📎 Take a free trial and personally go through the helpdesk to learn firsthand if it’s fast, easy to understand and simple to use. 

Amount of automation available

Your store, like most, probably receives a ton of repetitive queries.

Tickets related to prices, order status, and returns policy, etc. For example, messages you receive like “How much does this cost” or “Where is my order”. 

Manually responding to each of these is time-consuming and inefficient. 

Therefore you’ll want to automate such tickets so that your agents can focus on other important tasks. 

A feature like canned responses allows your agents to customize pre-made templates to common queries and respond with just a few clicks. 

And others like automation rules ensure anytime a query contains certain variables or meets certain conditions, an automatic response is sent. 

Consider how much automation you’d want available in your helpdesk to narrow down your list to the ones which have such features available.  

👉 You may also wan to to check out our guide on 10 easy ways to automate customer service for ecommerce businesses.

Amount of self-service available

Another way to tackle repetitive queries is by allowing your customers to find solutions to their problems themselves. 

This could be something as simple as a knowledge base where customers can search for articles that answer FAQs. 

Or taken a step further with a self-serve widget. Where in addition to the above, they can also track the live status of their order directly, without having to speak to an agent. 

Analytics and reports

It’s hard to improve your ecommerce support if you don’t know how you’re performing. 

Therefore you’ll want your helpdesk to provide you with analytics on: 

• Total ticket volume
• Response times
• Resolution times
• Resolution rates 
• Replies/resolution 
• CSAT
  

A breakdown of how your team is performing individually as well as collectively will help you take the necessary steps to deliver the best ecommerce customer experience possible. 

Budget

There are ecommerce helpdesks to suit every budget. 

From free to ones which can cost over $1000/month. 

For context, let’s take a look at the pricing of two popular ecommerce helpdesks: DelightChat and Gorgias. 

DelightChat has a free plan and the most expensive plan starts at $249/month. On the other hand, Gorgias plans start at $60/month going up to $750/month for their most expensive offering. 

Eliminating the ones which don’t match your budget is a quick way to narrow down your list. 

Security and compliance

Have the makers of the product taken the necessary steps to ensure that your data is safe? 

Are they compliant with regulations like GDPR? 

Find out how they use and collect data, the infrastructure they use, their incident response plan, etc. to better understand the security measures they have in place. 

Reliability and Support 

You’re looking for a tool to try and deliver excellent customer service. 

So the least you’d expect from such a tool is prompt and reliable support. 

You’ll want to find out: 

• The different avenues they provide support on
• How long they usually take to respond
• And how open they are to customer feedback and suggestions 

Scalability

Every store is looking to scale its operations eventually. And I’m guessing yours is no different. 

So you’ll want to make sure the ecommerce helpdesk you select not only fits your needs currently but can do so as your store grows. 

Go through their different case studies to see how it’s helped brands in your position as well as the position you hope to be in. 

Reputation

Finally, you’ll want to look at the experience of prospective, past and loyal customers of the helpdesk. To understand the main pros and cons of using such software. And their overall impression of interacting with their team. 

Go through their reviews on their website, their store listing, and review sites like G2, Capterra, etc. 

🎁 Here’s a checklist of questions to ask yourself while selecting an ecommerce helpdesk. 

Looking for a tool that kills it on all these parameters?

Then your search ends here.

Try DelightChat for free! 

What are the main features you want your tool to have?

Shared Inbox and Omnichannel support

A shared inbox is one where multiple users can use simultaneously to read and send messages.

It allows you to respond to your customers across channels and seamlessly collaborate with your customer support team. 

Deep integration with your ecommerce platform

Deep integration allows you to view and edit orders on your ecommerce platform (whether that’s Shopify, Magento, or any other) directly from your dashboard. 

This means you always have access to customer information as soon as they message you. So you won’t have to ask customers repetitive questions and can instead have conversations with more context. 

Plus it leaves no room for manual errors that might normally arise when you copy-paste order details, tracking information, and other data while managing support manually. 

Internal collaboration

Internal collaboration features allow you to cut the back & forth from conversations you would normally have with your customer service team. Allowing you to manage support in an organized manner. 

Here are the main collaboration features you’d want your ecommerce support software to have: 

Ticket assignment

Assign tickets to the agent best equipped to handle a particular query. Every time. 

Each agent will be able to view all the tickets assigned to them at a glance on the dashboard. 

Private comments

Many tickets will require back and forth communication between multiple team members. 

With private comments, this conversation can take place as a thread on the relevant ticket which can only be viewed by your team. 

Tags

Tags allow you to keep track of important conversations without a hitch by labeling them as “refund”, “VIP”, “exchange”, or whatever the situation demands.

Collision detection

You don’t want multiple agents responding to the same ticket. 

And that’s where collision detection comes in. 

You are always aware of who’s viewing or replying to a particular ticket thereby preventing duplicate replies.

Follow-up reminders

This feature lets you schedule a date & time to follow up with customers.

You can use the snooze and follow up feature:

• while waiting on a customer response and don’t hear back.
• to proactively check in with new customers after a purchase.
• as you dig for details to investigate a customer issue. 

Automation

Automation features help your agents save time while ensuring responses to tickets are extremely fast. It includes: 

Fast reply (Canned response)

One of the best ways to delight online shoppers is to respond to their support queries with lightning speed. 

Fast replies help you achieve this by responding to a customer in two clicks.

You can create pre-made templates for your most frequently asked questions. When your agents receive a query of this nature, they can simply select the template, customize it and respond in seconds. 

This not only results in faster response times but also saves your agents’ time and mental bandwidth, all while taking typos out of the equation completely. 

Automation rules

Another way to manage repetitive queries is by using automation rules. 

So anytime you receive a ticket that matches certain parameters, an automatic response is sent. 

For example, if you receive a message asking for their order status, you can send an instant automated response with all the order details and tracking information synced directly from your ecommerce platform. 

Self-serve

A self-serve widget will allow your customers to get the tracking URL and information of their last order or find solutions from your help center without any external support.

Manual ticket creation

You may sometimes receive queries outside of your support channels. And this feature will allow you to manually create tickets which you can then track and manage on your helpdesk.

Mobile app 

You may not always be on your computer or laptop to respond to queries. 

But a mobile app will allow you to manage your ecommerce store’s customer support while on the go. 

🎁 Here’s a checklist of the main features you want your ecommerce helpdesk to have. Make a copy and use as you please! 

Which are the best ecommerce customer service tools?

Alright, great! 

Time to jump into the best ecommerce support software out there in the market today.

We’ve broken down 15 of the best with:

• A brief description
• A highlight of key features
• Notable pros and cons
  

Let’s take a look!

15 Best Helpdesks built for Ecommerce

The software listed below are helpdesks specifically built for ecommerce. 

This means they take into account the specific needs of an online store with regards to features, integrations, workflows, etc. 

DelightChat

DelightChat is an ecommerce customer support tool built for SME brands that enables them to deliver out-of-the-box customer service. It’s designed with a conversation-first approach that enables you to manage your store’s support & painlessly resolve customer queries - all from a single screen. 

Pros:

• Omnichannel inbox that helps you manage WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Emails & Live Chat.
• DelightChat enables you to respond to customer queries & collaborate with your team, all from a single screen.
• DelightChat offers great value for money being significantly cheaper than the other options on this list. 
• DelightChat doesn’t penalize you when you add more users to scale up your customer support operations. 
• Most importantly, you can collaborate with your team right within the app itself. There is no need to toggle between tabs, which leads to a loss in productivity & loss of work hours. 

Cons:

• For now, DelightChat only integrates with Shopify that allows it to access your Shopify admin dashboard data. However, it will soon be available for other ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce, WooCommerce & Magento. 
  

👉 Check out how DelightChat’s pricing plans or check out what customers have to say about their experience.  

Gorgias

Gorgias is a customer service tool designed for ecommerce stores. They integrate with Shopify, BigCommerce & WooCommerce. They have a great integration with Shopify that helps support agents to deliver great customer support seamlessly. 

Pros:

• Gorgias integrates with Shopify which enables you to pull customer data right into the dashboard. Additionally, it also helps in modifying an order, initiating refunds, and a range of things that you otherwise need to visit the Shopify admin dashboard for.
• You can use custom tags and use them to tag conversations for future reference in Gorgias. 
• Gorgias integrates with most of the channels where you can receive a support query like email, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
• You can create highly customized Macros to automate replies to frequently asked questions. 
• Finally, they have intent-detection, which enables you to detect customer intents like shipping, refund, exchange, and many others. You can then set up automatic replies or route the tickets with tags.

Cons:

• Gorgias isn’t exactly simple to use. There’s a steep learning curve to draw value out of the product properly.
• It’s extremely expensive. The plan with all the features costs $750/month with a cap of 6000 tickets/month.
• Collaboration is not particularly easy on Gorgias. It’s difficult to hand over a conversation to a different support rep or ask someone for help when you need it. You might end up using another internal chat tool to collaborate within your team. 
• While this is more down to personal preference, a lot of customers say that Gorgias is more of a ticketing system than a conversation tool. In 2021, store owners love to converse with their customers as opposed to treating them like lifeless tickets. 
  

👉 You may want to check out how Gorgias compares with DelightChat or a detailed breakdown of all Gorgias pricing plans. 

Reamaze

Reamaze is another brilliant helpdesk software for ecommerce brands. It’s said to be the closest competitor to players like DelightChat, Gorgias, and Richpanel. It helps your team resolve customer queries seamlessly. The live chat from Reamaze is one of its main features.

Pros:

• Reamaze is known for its live chat feature owing to its customizable chat experience and instant ‘check order status’ bot. It also boasts other functionalities like FAQ-search, status page (you’ll know if your order’s delayed), pre-built bots, and more. 
• Their chatbot feature, Cues, can help you trigger messages based on URL/UTM, time on site, Shopify activities, etc. This equips you to personalize your customer’s experience at a deeper level. 
• You can see the users that are currently interacting with your site through their live dashboard. Armed with this, you can try and send a personalized message to generate a sale or simply help them better. 
• It’s also one of those tools that integrate with most ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WordPress, Magento, and the likes. It’s also good with GDPR compliance that gives you peace of mind while selling in the European market. 

Cons:

• The collaboration functionality within Reamaze isn’t exactly user-friendly. To manage customer service seamlessly, you might need to collaborate on a completely different tool like Slack or WhatsApp by sharing screenshots from Reamaze.
• Reamaze charges on a “per user, per month” model. This can turn out to be expensive when your support tickets grow, and you’d need to add more reps to the team.
• It’s more geared towards resolving tickets than having a conversation with a customer and building a relationship. 
  

👉 You may want to check out how Reamaze compares with DelightChat or a detailed breakdown of all Reamaze pricing plans. 

Richpanel

Richpanel helps ecommerce businesses to manage their customer support seamlessly. With Richpanel, you can easily track, manage & resolve queries in no time. You can manage all your support channels, viz., live chat, email, WhatsApp, Facebook & Instagram. This saves a lot of time & helps the support reps be more productive. 

Pros:

• Richpanel saves you countless hours by bringing the most used support channels onto one dashboard. This includes live chat, email, Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp. 
• You can eliminate up to 30% of repetitive support requests with its self-service feature. It offers a personalized experience where customers can view/track orders, peruse FAQs, and start a new conversation too.
• It integrates with top ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento & WooCommerce.
• In Richpanel, you can create self-service workflows to resolve the most commonly occurring scenarios for your support.

Cons:

• According to a lot of customers, Richpanel can be quite difficult to navigate. 
• Their pricing for 6000 customer conversations costs $750/month and can work out to be quite pricey.
• Richpanel isn’t built for seamless collaboration with your team. You might still have to use an additional tool to collaborate with your teammates for day-to-day activities. 
  

👉 You may want to check out how Richpanel compares with DelightChat or a detailed breakdown of all Richpanel pricing plans. 

UVdesk

UVdesk offers a cloud-based and open source helpdesk solution that helps businesses in the ecommerce industry to manage customer interaction. They provide multi-channel support and third-party integrations, support ticket management, task and email management, and customer follow-up tracking.

Pros:

• UVdesk is a customer support tool built for ecommerce and takes into account the specific set of requirements of ecommerce merchants. 
• You can automate your processes by creating a set of rules and presets for tickets coming from different channels to respond faster.
• With UVdesk, you can search for and manage customer conversations more effectively with the help of tags, priority, status, and labels. 
• Your team can also collaborate seamlessly with features like assigning agents, private notes, forwarding replies, etc.
• Besides paid pricing plans, UVdesk also has an open-source helpdesk that is completely free to use. 

Cons:

• The layout can be quite intimidating and confusing for first-time users. You’ll need to go through a steep learning curve to generate value from the product. 
• Sometimes the error messages shown are not clear. This means you won’t know what’s causing the problem and will need to contact their support team for clarification. 
• There have been reports of issues with canned responses being delayed and customer service representatives forced to instead send these messages manually. 
• UVdesk has a “per person per month” pricing model. This can turn out to be extremely expensive as your team grows. 
  

👉 You may want to check out how UVdesk compares with DelightChat or a detailed breakdown of UVdesk pricing plans. 

Other customer service software which can be used for ecommerce

The following helpdesks aren’t built for ecommerce. So you may find that the features, integrations, workflows, etc. don’t take into account the specific needs of an ecommerce store.

However, many online businesses still use them to manage their customer service. 

Zendesk

Zendesk is a multi-billion dollar SaaS company that helps organizations with customer support software. Zendesk comes with a long list of features, integrates with almost all the apps in your stack, and caters to industries from every sector. If you think of customer service software as an industry, Zendesk would be somewhere at the top. 

Pros:

• Zendesk is said to have one of the best live chat tools available in the market. This chat tool comes with an extensive set of features like behavioral triggers, live visitor tracking, chat ratings, file sending, etc.
• It comes with a powerful FAQ building feature where you can store your visitor’s most asked questions and relevant information about your ecommerce store. 
• Besides that, it has a unified communications interface where you can answer your customer queries natively. Zendesk supports platforms such as WhatsApp, WeChat & Facebook.

Cons:

• Zendesk is heavy, boring, and not intuitive. It can be near impossible to navigate without a demo from a sales rep. 
• Zendesk is quite a generic tool. It’s NOT built for ecommerce brands. Ecommerce brands have very specific needs & their customer support requirements are very distinct and different from other industries. 
• It is really expensive. Their support suite Professional plan costs $89/month/user. 
• You just can’t collaborate with your teammates on Zendesk easily. They have basic collaboration features but that doesn’t facilitate having a seamless conversation.
  

👉 You may want to check out how Zendesk compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to Zendesk. 

Freshdesk 

Freshdesk (from Freshworks) is a popular name in the customer service industry. Freshworks was named a “visionary” on the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center. It comes with an exhaustive set of features that make it an all-inclusive customer service tool for companies across most industries. 

Pros:

• Freshdesk flaunts omnichannel customer service. They integrate with pretty much all the channels through which a customer may contact you. This includes live chat, Apple Business Chat, WhatsApp, email, Facebook, and the likes. 
• Freshdesk integrates with over 600 apps besides the ones already in the Freshworks ecosystem. This makes it easier for someone to opt for Freshdesk if they’re already using their product. 
• Their chatbot called Freddy AI lets you deploy intent & behavior-based bots that trigger when it meets the requirements. 
• Freshdesk comes with several in-app collaboration features that make it easy for team members to work together and resolve tickets. 

Cons:

• Freshdesk is not a tool you can set up and start using in minutes. You need a demo and a few hours to understand how everything works. 
• It is NOT built for ecommerce brands. Ecommerce brands have specific needs such as deep platform integrations, customer information, modifying order data, and more. 
• They're not exactly affordable, especially if you want to unlock the main features. Their omnichannel helpdesk costs $77/user/month. It’s not a good fit for small businesses that need an extensive set of features. 
• Although Freshdesk comes with in-app collaboration features, it’s not very helpful to have a seamless conversation with your teammates. 
• It’s designed more as a ticketing system that treats a customer as a lifeless ticket number. This triggers a mentality of “resolving tickets” and not “having a conversation.” 
  

👉 You may want to check out how Freshdesk compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to Freshdesk. 

HelpScout

Help Scout is a clutter-free customer support software that helps companies have meaningful conversations with customers. It’s another easy one-size-fits-all solution that matches your expectations when it comes to managing customer service. It has all the features you need to greatly enhance your productivity and save you countless business hours.

Pros:

• Help Scout offers a shared inbox. This feature allows you to group email inboxes by teams, functions, etc. For example, you can have the customer support inbox shared across five team members and the Operations inbox with two team members accessing it. 
• They also come with a knowledge-base feature and a doc site that hosts all the FAQs which can be referred to by your audience.
• You can send intent & behavior-driven messages with its in-app messaging feature whenever someone’s on the website and meet the conditions.
• It integrates with a host of tools, including Shopify. 
• Lastly, Help Scout’s reporting feature is top-notch. Track SLAs, number of conversations, happiness score, and the whole shebang. 

Cons:

• While Help Scout is an awesome software, it’s not built for ecommerce. It lacks the features and the design that’s meant for ecommerce stores. Plus, its Shopify integration doesn’t really cut it. 
• It’s much easier to manage all your customer queries across different channels on one single screen. But that’s not the case with Help Scout. You need to navigate around to find stuff to make it work. 
• Help Scout’s basic plan starts at $25/user/month, which can quickly become expensive if you have a large support team of 10+ agents.
• You can’t add more than one store to the same account if you run multiple ecommerce stores. It’s far from ideal to constantly be logging in and out of different accounts. 
  

👉 You may want to check out how HelpScout compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to HelpScout. 

Front

Front is a customer communication software built to help teams easily communicate with their customers while combining emails, apps, and team members into a single view. It’s more of a horizontal tool that can be used for a multitude of purposes, one of which happens to be ecommerce customer support. With Front, you can serve your customers across multiple platforms, viz. email, calls, SMS, Live Chat Facebook & WhatsApp. 

Pros:

• Front is a shared inbox that enables you & your team to get better visibility into all the customer email accounts from one screen.
• You can seamlessly collaborate within the app - tag team members to certain tickets, assign tickets, snooze/close tickets, etc.
• Front integrates with pretty much all the top business software that you’ll use in your daily workflow. 

Cons:

• Front is neither a full-fledged customer support tool, nor is it built for ecommerce. This is a big disadvantage since ecommerce store owners have a specific set of requirements that can’t be met using this tool.
• A lot of times, emails that are being archived, sent, or deleted aren’t being synced correctly with Gmail. 
• The notifications system on Front isn’t the best. It is very easy for emails to get lost between emails from technical support and emails from the company.
• It takes a lot of time to set up as the settings aren’t intuitive enough. 
• The plan with the bare minimum features is $24/user/month, but since you need to sign-up with at least two users (licenses), it’s $48/month. This can quickly get costly as you scale up your support team.
  

👉 You may want to check out how Front compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to Front. 

Tidio 

Tidio is a great customer service tool to help ecommerce companies have better interactions with their customers. You can use Tidio to connect with your customers and solve their queries in a timely and efficient manner. It’s equipped with the features to help your customer service representatives manage support better.

Pros:

• Tidio enables you & your team to monitor conversations from live chat, messenger, and emails from one screen.
• Tidio’s live chat allows you to connect with visitors in real-time through customizable widgets.
• You can also automate the most frequently asked questions by your customers helping your agents save time.
• Tidio has integrations with most top business software that you’ll be using in your daily workflow. 

Cons:

• Tidio is not a tool keeping ONLY ecommerce store owners in mind. This means your specific set of requirements can’t be met by using this tool.
• You can’t manage customer conversations from Whatsapp, Instagram, and Twitter using Tidio. 
• You can’t view messages from multiple properties on one Tidio tab, this could be extremely inconvenient if you’re managing multiple ecommerce stores. 
• Tidio’s ‘Communicator plan’ starts from $18/month but with an additional fee required for every additional user, this could work out to be quite expensive.
  

👉 You may want to check out how Tidio compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to Tidio. 

Intercom 

Intercom is a Conversational Relationship Platform (CRP). You can use it to build better customer relationships through personalized, messenger-based experiences across the customer journey. Some of the world's most successful companies, like Atlassian, Shopify, and New Relic use Intercom to deliver conversational customer experiences through chat, bots, and personalized messaging.

Pros:

• With Intercom, you can build custom chatbots that connect to your tech stack, automate workflows behind the scenes, and act as extensions of your sales and support teams.
• You can create multilingual articles for your global customers for faster self-serve answers.
• Their chatbot 'Resolution Bot' automatically recognizes similar questions from past conversations to serve up the best answers. This means the chatbot will respond to repetitive queries allowing your customer service agents to focus on tasks that need more attention. 
• They have over 250 integrations so you can connect most tools you use on a day-to-day basis to Intercom. 

Cons:

• Intercom is not exactly intuitive. It can be difficult to navigate and find the things you need. You need a demo and a few hours to understand how everything works. It isn’t a tool you can set up and start using in minutes.
• It is NOT built for ecommerce brands. Ecommerce brands have specific needs such as deep platform integrations, customer information, modifying order data, and more. 
• They're not exactly affordable, especially if you want to unlock the main features. Their cheapest plan costs $39/month for a single seat. Moreover, their pricing structure is extremely complicated and near-impossible to understand. 
• Many Intercom users have reported that support takes a lot of time. So if you’re looking for prompt, personalized customer service, you may be out of luck. 
  

👉 You may want to check out how Intercom compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to Intercom. 

Kustomer

Kustomer is a great customer service software that helps online businesses manage conversations with their customers. This customer service CRM platform is ideal for managing high volumes of support.  It comes with a wide range of features making it a handy customer service tool for companies across industries. 

Pros:

• Kustomer enables you & your team to monitor conversations from live chat, messenger, emails, and social media channels from one screen.
• It allows you to use notes and mentions to invite other agents to a conversation so that your team can work collaboratively. 
• Moreover, you can use their AI, Kustomer IQ, to automate rules, route conversations, and send automated responses to your most asked questions. 
• Kustomer has integrations with pretty much all the top business software that you’ll be using from day to day. 

Cons:

• Kustomer is not a tool built specifically for ecommerce. This means the specific set of requirements for an ecommerce store owner will likely not be met by using this tool.
• The layout can be quite intimidating and confusing for first-time users. You’ll need to go through a steep learning curve to generate value from the product. 
• Kustomer’s standard plan starts from $39/per user/month. Moreover, their pricing plans are set for a minimum of 8 seats which means the cost can be extremely prohibitive. 
  

👉 You may want to check out how Kustomer compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to Kustomer. 

Freshchat 

Freshchat is a messaging software built for sales and customer engagement teams to talk to customers across platforms throughout the customer journey. Additionally, you can assist them with precise answers, engage them with proactive campaigns, and send targeted outbound messages to users. It comes with a host of features that allows you to better manage your ecommerce support. 

Pros:

• Freshchat helps you manage customer service across platforms. They integrate with pretty much all the channels through which a customer may contact you. This includes live chat, Apple Business Chat, WhatsApp, email, Facebook, and the likes. 
• It integrates with over 600 apps besides the ones already on the Freshworks ecosystem. This makes it easier for someone to opt for Freshchat if they’re already familiar with products from Freshworks.  
• Their chatbot called Freddy AI lets you deploy intent & behavior-based bots that trigger when it meets the requirements. 
• In-messenger FAQs not only empower customers to find solutions to their problems themselves but allows your customer service agents to focus on tasks that require more time and attention. 

Cons:

• Freshchat is not built for ecommerce and hence doesn’t have direct integrations. You need to constantly switch between tools to fetch the necessary information to solve a ticket.
• It isn’t a tool you can set up and start using in minutes. You’d need a demo and a few hours to understand how everything works. 
• Freshchat charges on a “per user, per month” model. This can turn out to be expensive when support tickets grow and you’d need to add more reps to the team.
• It doesn’t gear you to have a conversation with a customer and build a relationship. Multiple users have claimed the quality of conversation went down as they were very transactional & people were dropping off live chat.
  

👉 You may want to check out how Freshchat compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to Freshchat. 

Dixa

Dixa is customer service software that empowers brands to create great experiences for customers and support teams alike in a conversational, friendly, and engaging way. Dixa unifies voice, email, chat, and messaging apps in one single platform. With Dixa, your agents have all the context they need to provide fast, efficient, and effective customer service. 

Pros:

• Dixa helps you provide omnichannel customer service and helps you manage conversations across phone, email, chat, and messaging apps from a unified dashboard. 
• Dixa provides your agents with a threaded conversation history which allows them to track conversations across channels and respond to customers swiftly and accurately. 
• You can set up context-based routing and customizable workflows to respond to your most important inquiries first based on your specific business needs.
• It has a ton of integrations available so you can link Dixa to your other systems to make the most of your data and deliver personalized experiences to your customers. 

Cons:

• There’s a steep learning curve to get up to speed and figure out how everything works on Dixa. 
• It is NOT built for ecommerce brands. Ecommerce brands have specific needs such as deep platform integrations, customer information, modifying order data, and more. 
• It is really expensive. Dixa’s plans start at $99/agent/month. This means that even with a relatively small team you’ll need to spend a lot of money on your ecommerce customer support software. 
  

👉 You may want to check out how Dixa compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to Dixa. 

Tawk.to 

Tawk.to is a free live chat app that lets you monitor and chat with visitors on your website or from a free customizable page. It is an ecommerce support tool that lets you monitor and chat with the visitors on your website, respond to support tickets, and create a help center to empower customers to help themselves. 

Pros:

• With tools like Live Chat, Ticketing, a Knowledge Base, and video & voice add-ons, you have what you need to be there for customers when and where they need you most.
• You can tag and assign conversations to members of your team and ensure the right person is responding at the right time. This means your agents can not only collaborate but also respond to queries with more context.
• You can create knowledge bases for both your team as well as customers. This empowers your agents to perform better and allows customers to resolve their queries independently without talking to an agent. 
• The price is probably the most attractive part of Tawk.to. You have all the basic features that this customer support tool offers for free. 
  

Cons:

• Tawk.to isn’t built for ecommerce. This is a big disadvantage since ecommerce store owners have a specific set of requirements that can’t be met using this tool.
• Their interface isn’t exactly attractive nor straightforward to use. 
• There have been many reports of issues with notifications not showing up. This could result in messages getting missed and responses delayed, which is the last thing your customers want.  
• While the tool may be free, the features you get are quite limited and you'll need to purchase add-ons for multiple features including removing their company branding. 
  

👉 You may want to check out how Tawk.to compares with DelightChat or the top alternatives to Tawk.to. 

🎁 Here’s a template you can use to compare the different helpdesks you’ve shortlisted. 

Conclusion

So there you have it!

Choosing the right support solution can help you boost customer satisfaction and create loyal customers for your ecommerce store. 

And hopefully, we’ve made the process of picking an ecommerce helpdesk a little easier for you. 

If you’re still on the fence, you might want to check out DelightChat. We’ve helped companies like:

• Nestasia achieve a 200% increase in support efficiency
• The Nestery streamline their support operations while growing at 22X
  

We come with all the features you need to delight your customers at a price you can’t beat. 

Sign up for a free trial or book a demo here!