Customer service representatives face a constant barrage of inquiries across many channels. A Forbes report reveals that 86% of consumers would pay more for a great customer experience. Hence, businesses are turning to customer interaction management platforms to streamline processes and boost customer satisfaction as the need for seamless interactions rises. 

Gartner even predicts that 80% of interactions will involve AI by 2025 to improve agent efficiency and enhance the customer experience.

To help you get started with customer interaction management tools, this guide covers the following concerns:

• What customer interaction management is and its benefits for customer service
• Key features to consider when choosing customer interaction management software
• Top customer interaction management solutions compared to find your perfect fit

We also discuss why PlivoCX stands out as a cloud-based omnichannel contact center solution.

Let’s begin!

What is Customer Interaction Management?

Customer interaction management refers to the process and technology used by businesses to manage and analyze customer interactions across various channels.

Customer interaction management systems typically integrate multiple communication channels, such as phone, email, chat, social media, and in-person interactions, into a single platform.

The primary goals are to enhance customer satisfaction, improve customer service efficiency, and increase customer loyalty and retention rates.

How to Choose the Right Customer Interaction Management Software to Improve the Customer Experience

Selecting the perfect customer interaction management software is like finding your customer service dream team. Consider the following aspects to find the appropriate customer interaction management platform:

• Omnichannel integration: Choose a solution that ensures seamless communication across all channels your customers use, such as email, phone calls, social media platforms, and live chat.
  
• Customer data management: Look for software that gathers and stores all customer interactions and data, such as past purchases, support tickets, etc., in one place. This will help your agents personalize interactions and close help tickets faster.
  
• Interaction tracking and analytics: Analyzing response times for different channels or tracking customer satisfaction scores over time will give you data-driven insights, which will, in turn, guide your strategic decision-making for your customer service operations.
  
• Workflow automation: Having software that automates routine tasks like ticket routing, sending follow-up emails, or generating canned responses to FAQs will allow your agents to focus on more complex issues and provide hyper-personalized service.
  
• Chatbots and AI assistants: Consider customer interaction management software that offers OpenAI-powered chatbot functionality. These bots can handle everything from simple inquiries to providing self-service options and deflecting basic questions, thus reducing the load on your agents and offering 24/7 customer support.
  
• Customer segmentation: By segmenting your customer base based on demographics, purchase history, and support needs, you can target them with relevant communication.
  
• Integrations with CRMs and other tools: Choose customer interaction management software that provides the benefits of CRM integrations with widely used tools such as Salesforce and HubSpot and other customer support tools like Zendesk. This will facilitate your agents’ work, allowing them to focus on more complex tasks while automating repetitive ones.
  

• Real-time transcriptions: Real-time transcriptions enhance agent training and development and can improve the customer experience by providing real-time assistance, ensuring customers’ needs are met promptly and efficiently. Accurate transcriptions of conversations enable agents to identify areas for improvement and strengthen their communication skills.

Top Customer Interaction Management Software: Quick Comparison

Let’s look at each software in detail: 

1. Plivo CX (Service module)

Key features: 

• Allows you to view every conversation on a single screen and eliminate tool switching with a fully integrated unified agent desktop
• Helps you gain real-time insights into customer emotions during interactions with conversation analytics scores
• Workflow builder creates personalized experiences for customers by crafting unique user journeys that seamlessly connect across all your channels
• All communication channels are presented in a straightforward interface, allowing agents to view the customer’s conversation timeline and interaction history easily
• Integrates with various systems, including home-grown systems and popular CRM, ERP, and helpdesk systems, such as Salesforce, Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, etc., to provide businesses with a unified view of customer interactions
• Enhances agent productivity and enables real-time coaching opportunities
• Enables you to build automated workflows with just a click using the drag-and-drop feature

Pros: 

• Integrating all business systems with the unified agent desktop reduces handling time and agent errors
• Real-time live dashboards display current metrics and allow users to drill down into specific data
• The reporting dashboard shows detailed historical data and is ideal for analyzing trends and performance over time

Limitations: 

• Plivo CX lacks features for workforce management and quality assurance
• Does not have a mobile version for the support agent
• It may not be the ideal tool for transactional ticket-based customer support interactions

Pricing: 

• Offers a free trial 
• Chat only: $228/user
• Growth: $348/user
• Business: $828/user
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Best suited for: 

Businesses seeking a fully customized omnichannel contact center platform with a user-friendly interface. It is ideal for mid-market e-commerce, fintech, healthcare, and B2C brands.

Ratings: 

• G2: 4.5/5 (700+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (85 reviews)

2. Zendesk 

Key features: 

• Track, organize, and route tickets and use CSAT ratings, time tracking, and service-level agreements (SLAs) for quick resolution
• Prioritize urgent tickets using the ticket handling feature and ensure prompt resolution of critical issues
• Use AI-led insights to optimize operations with personalized intent

Pros: 

• You can access professional CX guidance and a supportive community through the Zendesk platform
• The platform seamlessly integrates with a wide range of existing tools

Limitations: 

• The calling functionality is limited
• Customizable workflows are not supported 
• The support platform is incapable of providing businesses with the ability to offer a conversational support experience at present
• All tasks require the creation of tickets, leading to a transactional experience

Pricing:

• Suite Team: $55/agent/month
• Suite Growth: $89/agent/month
• Suite Professional: $115/agent/month
• Suite Enterprise: Custom pricing
• Suite Enterprise Plus: Custom pricing

Best suited for: 

Mid-sized and enterprise-level telecommunications, FinTech, retail, software businesses, etc.

Ratings: 

• G2: 4.3/5 (5800+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (3800+ reviews)

3. Gladly

Key features: 

• Ensure prompt resolution of customer inquiries by the appropriate agent through advanced routing and queuing features
• Match customers with your best agent for optimal support using People Match
• Gain insights into agent productivity in real time, thanks to SLAs and response times used by Gladly

Pros:

• Simplifies data migration, reducing downtime and disruptions
• Offers 360^o real-time customer view across all communication platforms

Limitations: 

• Users have expressed frustration with Gladly as it times out every hour when you are in long meetings or training sessions. (Source)
• You may require adapters for accessing data as it lacks native storage solutions, thereby slowing down the process (Source)

Pricing: 

• No self-service free trial
• Hero package: Starts at $180 per user/month 
• Superhero package: Starts at $210 per user/month 

Best suited for: 

Small to medium-sized businesses with customer-centric teams

Ratings: 

• G2: 4.7/5 (900+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.8/5 (100+ reviews)

4. Kustomer 

Key features: 

• Optimize productivity with Kustomer's omnichannel approach that facilitates real-time communication between agents and customers and eliminates duplication of tickets by providing a consolidated panel for each customer
• Automate everyday tasks and provide round-the-clock customer support using AI. This helps reduce response time and streamline operations
• Create personalized IVR journeys before reaching an agent
• Track customer sentiment to guide agent interaction and measure their effectiveness
• Unify agent workspace for seamless access to all customer information

Pros: 

• Kustomer offers customizable workflows, insight cards, and business rules
• It supports seamless social messaging channels and allows internal notes for Q/A purposes

Limitations: 

• The self-service option lacks crucial features like knowledge management publishing and approval workflows, resulting in higher support costs (source)
• Does not offer native voice and SMS functionality
• Has limited reporting customization features

Pricing: 

• No free trial
• Enterprise: $89/user per month
• Ultimate: $139/user per month 

Best suited for: 

Medium-sized and enterprise-level businesses, especially retail, restaurant, and healthcare industries 

Ratings: 

• G2: 4.4/5 (400+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (50+ reviews)

5. Aircall 

Key features: 

• Visually map call flows, auto-routing customers to the right agents
• Hold your call and seamlessly launch a separate one to do parallel calling
• Design a smart IVR that guides callers to the correct team on the first try

Pros: 

• Aircall offers an intuitive and user-friendly product experience
• It ensures consistent call quality through dynamic carrier switching
• In-house support and a knowledge base simplify onboarding

Limitations: 

• Aircall lacks a helpdesk and knowledge base support capabilities
• Workflow designer lacks the flexibility to design custom journeys
• You get limited omnichannel support as it provides only calling functionality

Pricing: 

• Offers a free trial
• Two tiers: Essentials starts at $30 per license, with three licenses for $1080, and Professional starts at $50 per license, with three licenses for $1800
• Minimum three licenses
• Provides add-on packs

Best suited for: 

FinTech, retail, e-commerce, and healthcare industries. It is ideal for sales and customer support teams managing high call volume with calling as the primary communication channel.

Ratings: 

• G2: 4.3/5 (1000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (400+ reviews)

Benefits of Using Customer Interaction Management Software

Customer interaction management software goes beyond managing interactions; it transforms customer connections in the following ways:

• Enhanced customer relationships: Agents aware of their customers’ histories can better personalize their interactions and form lasting relationships with them.
  
• Improved customer satisfaction: Streamlined communication produces faster responses and ensures more effective problem-solving, increasing customer satisfaction.
  
• Increased customer retention: Using automatic alerts to identify at-risk users and taking proactive steps enables agents to resolve issues before they lead to their churn.
  
• Data-driven insights: Evaluating your interaction data to learn more about your customers’ preferences, behavior, and problems will furnish insights to develop your product and marketing strategies and accelerate growth.

Why Plivo CX is Your Ideal Customer Interaction Management Software

Built on a proven, scalable platform, Plivo CX offers a unique blend of features designed for today’s mobile-first world.

• Effortless omnichannel management: Manage all your customer interactions—voice calls, live chats, social media messages, emails, and SMS/Text—within a unified agent desktop.
• IVR and AI chatbots: With its fully customizable IVR, you can self-select options that will route you to the right department and resolve your issue quickly. Say goodbye to long wait times and hello to faster solutions. Personalize workflows and automate tasks, ensuring a seamless experience for your team with no-code AI chatbots.
• Seamless integrations: Plivo CX boasts pre-built integrations with popular CRMs, helpdesks, and business tools, such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Shopify, Kustomer, and more.
• Drag-and-drop workflows: The Workflow builder helps build custom user journeys across channels through which the business interacts with customers.

Book a demo to explore how Plivo CX can transform your customer interactions.