According to Salesforce, 88% of customers expect brands to offer effective online support channels. This high level of customer expectation is a major driving force behind the adoption of automation.

An IBM study also notes that businesses leveraging AI and chatbots in their customer service processes have seen operational costs reduced by up to 30%​.

This is why businesses across industries are considering customer service automation to reduce costs and free up their representatives’ time for more value-added activities, such as improving the quality of customer service rather than answering repetitive queries. 

In this post, we’ll share detailed reviews of the five best customer service automation software in 2024 to help you stay ahead of the game. We’ll also discuss each tool's best features, pros, cons, and customer reviews. Let’s get started!

What is Automated Customer Service?

Automated customer service relies on technologies like chatbots, virtual assistants, and automated phone systems to assist customers with their queries. 

Automated customer service systems are usually programmed to handle common and repetitive tasks. They provide instant responses and can operate 24/7, which improves efficiency and reduces labor costs and response times.

Top 5 Customer Service Automation Tools in 2024

So, how do you start automating your customer service? Here are five tools to consider, each with a unique use case. 

1. Plivo CX—best for omnichannel automation

Plivo CX is an omnichannel customer support platform that allows you to reach out to customers on their preferred channels, whether it’s SMS/MMS messaging, live chat, voice calls, WhatsApp, or email. 

Plivo CX's intuitive drag-and-drop workflow builder empowers businesses to create custom customer journeys across all communication channels (SMS, chat, voice, email) for efficient issue resolution and tailored support.

This cloud-based tool integrates home-grown systems and multiple popular tools, including Zendesk, Zoho, HubSpot, Shopify, and Salesforce. It also excels in compatibility with home-grown systems, enabling personalized customer service without the need for major changes to your existing tech stack. 

Moreover, you can record calls for training your agents and analyze live metrics like customers in the queue, average wait time, average handle time, and average wrap-up time.

Plivo CX best features 

• Access global coverage in 190 countries
• Create drag-and-drop workflows that are triggered remotely, allow for skill-based call routing
• Helps quickly escalate more complex issues to human agents on all channels
• Answer common customer questions using OpenAI-powered chatbots that rely on your custom-made knowledge base
• Personalize customer journeys to your businesses needs on all service channels.
• Switch seamlessly between different communication channels via a unified agent desktop

Plivo CX pros

• Powered by Plivo’s enterprise-grade communications platform with a premium carrier network, it offers reliable calling and messaging capabilities
• Global courage in 190 countries 
• Highly responsive customer support 
• Plivo CX empowers agents with efficiency tools and real-time coaching, resulting in faster resolutions and a better overall customer experience

Plivo CX limitations

• Plivo CX doesn't currently offer a mobile version for support agents
• The tool lacks quality assurance and workforce management features
• Businesses with high-volume, transactional, ticket-based customer support interactions may need a dedicated ticketing system alongside Plivo CX 

Plivo CX pricing

• Chat-only: Starts at $228/year
• Growth: $348/user/year with 2000 monthly agent minutes, 100 bot sessions per agent, and 2000 chat sessions per agent
• Business: $828/user/year with 3000 monthly agent minutes, 500 bot sessions per agent, and 3000 chat sessions per agent

Plivo CX rating and reviews

• G2: 4.5/5 (724 reviews)
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (85 reviews)

2. HelpDocs—best for knowledge bases

The knowledge-based software solution HelpDocs simplifies creating and managing knowledge-based articles and FAQs.It is the solution of choice if you want to create self-serving content that customers can use to solve their queries quickly. 

HelpDocs best features 

• Serve a diverse customer base with multilingual documentation
• Customize the appearance of your knowledge base to match your brand identity
• Get insights into user engagement and content effectiveness via the analytics dashboard

 HelpDocs pros (Capterra)

• HelpDocs enables quick setup—customers have set up a knowledge base within ten days
• Supports CHM, HTML, PDF, and Word documents
• Offers a responsive and helpful customer support team

HelpDocs limitations (Website)

• HelpDoc does not help with any custom code  

 HelpDocs pricing

• Start: $828 per year with five team accounts and 30-day analytics
• Build: $1668 per year with 15 team accounts and 90-day analytics
• Grow: $3348 per year with 50 team accounts and 180-day analytics

HelpDocs rating and reviews

• G2: Not enough reviews
• Capterra: Not enough reviews

3. Olark—best for live chat automation

Olark allows for the personalization of chatbots with a few clicks. Plus, based on visitor behavior, you can send custom messages and boost the speed of your workflows. Like Plivo CX, Olark offers intelligent routing to direct chat-based queries to the right department.

Moreover, Olark’s live chat analytics monitors customer satisfaction, chat volume, and agent performance. 

Olark best features 

• Personalize chat widgets to match branding
• Initiate real-time conversations with website visitors
• Organize and respond to multiple chat conversations effectively
• Integrate the tool with 30 popular apps, including WordPress, HubSpot, and Salesforce

Olark pros (GetApp)

• Uncluttered UI
• Low-code implementation
• Agents can set and customize their availability

Olark limitations (GetApp)

• It offers only per-seat pricing
• You can’t send files to web visitors

Olark pricing

• $348 per year per seat

Olark rating and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (223 reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6 (471 reviews)

4. Buffer—best for social media automation 

Buffer is a social media automation tool that automates social listening and communicating with customers on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.

If a large number of your customer queries are coming through social media, Buffer is your customer service solution of choice. 

From a customer service perspective, Buffer compiles and highlights the most important unanswered comments on your posts in one place, helping you respond to customers quickly. It uses machine learning to identify whether a comment has negative sentiment or comments about a purchase, helping you prioritize the right conversations.

Buffer best features

• Gain insights into post engagement and audience behavior
• Coordinate social media efforts with team members efficiently
• Set up automated schedules to streamline content distribution
• Integrate with other marketing and analytics tools for enhanced workflows

Buffer pros (GetApp) 

• User-friendly and reliable mobile application
• Share the same post on different platforms with appropriate variations

Buffer limitations (GetApp)

• Glitchy—Buffer sometimes fails to post content, and you wouldn’t know unless you checked
• The free version doesn’t allow conversations with users

Buffer pricing

• Essentials: $72 per year for one channel 
• Team: $144 per year for one channel
• Agency: $1440 per year for ten channels

Buffer rating and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (1004 reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5 (1467 reviews)

5. Hiver—best for Gmail support automation

Hiver converts your Gmail account into an omnichannel customer service dashboard that integrates voice, live chat, and WhatsApp. 

Start by installing Hiver on a common Gmail account that your team uses to handle customer queries (such as support@yourcompany.com). The tool then lets you assign incoming emails to team members, categorize them based on the query type, resolution status, and priority, and collaborate on them to resolve customer issues.

Hiver best features

• Call customers and respond to live chats directly from Gmail
• Analyze performance metrics like first-response and average-resolution times
• Automatically assign similar queries to the same team member via rule-based assignments

Hiver pros 

• Shared inboxes, which allow the entire team to access an email account (such as info@, help@, or hr@)  (TrustRadius)
• Easy set up (TrustRadius)

Hiver limitations

• You have to manually enable and disable auto-responders (G2)
• Emails may filter into the wrong folders (G2)

Hiver pricing

• Lite: $180/user/year 
• Pro: $588/user/year 
• Elite: $948/user/year 

Hiver rating and reviews

• G2: 4.6/5 (1026 reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7 (117 reviews)

Why is Customer Service Automation Important?

Customer service automation is important because of the following reasons:

• Faster Problem Resolution: 72% of consumers claim they’ll stay loyal to the companies that provide the fastest customer service. Service automation provides instant responses to customer inquiries, preventing frustration and dissatisfaction due to long wait times for support
• Reliable and Consistent Support: Automation ensures consistency in customer service quality, as it is unaffected by the time of day or the agent handling the query. 
• 24/7 Availability Builds Customer Confidence: It enables businesses to offer round-the-clock, 1:1 support to customers, making customers feel prioritized and valued
• Improved Agent Productivity: 88% of customers expect brands to provide online channels that effectively and quickly resolve their queries and concerns. Automation frees customer service agents from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on complex issues and faster resolutions.
• Data-Driven Insights: a suitable automation tool collects valuable data and analytics about customer interactions, leading to better decision-making and improved customer experience strategies.
• Multi-Language Support for Global Reach: 60% of consumers wish to receive support in their native language. With AI and NLP, customer service automation breaks down language barriers, allowing businesses to cater to a wider range of customers from different regions and backgrounds.

Benefits of Automated Customer Service Tools

Automated customer service tools offer a range of benefits for your business. These include:

1. Reduced cost of customer service 

Process automation helps save up to 46% of business costs. Customer service automation is a type of process automation that enables you to save (and make) money in two ways:

• Robotic process automation (RPA)—RPA automates manual, repetitive, and rule-based tasks, such as responding to frequently asked questions or routing queries to the appropriate department. The result is reduced human involvement and labor costs
• Intelligent automation (IA)—IA uses artificial intelligence to mimic human behavior and communicate with customers in natural language. It improves customer experiences and lead-generation activities that ultimately increase revenue

An example of this comes from The Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB). They successfully implemented a chatbot, which resolved 80% of customer queries without human intervention. This led to a 20% reduction in call center volume, translating into $2.7 million in annual cost savings.

2. Improved omnichannel performance

Automated customer service software integrates various communication channels, such as phone, email, chat, and social media, to ensure consistent support experiences regardless of customers' preferred channel.

For example, a customer may start an inquiry via email but later prefer to continue the conversation through a live chat on the company's website. An omnichannel customer service tool will make the interaction history and context available to the agent, enabling them to provide uninterrupted personalized support.

3. Data for personalization

Customer service automation tools (such as chatbots and email responders) collect customer data, such as:

• Customer preferences
• Purchase history
• Browsing behavior
• Demographics
• Frequently asked questions

Analyze this data to create detailed customer profiles and better understand their needs and preferences. This lets you tailor product recommendations, offer personalized promotions, conduct sentiment analysis, and provide targeted assistance based on individual preferences.

Which is the Best Customer Service Automation Tool?

The best customer service automation tool depends on your needs. For example, Buffer is an excellent choice for social media automation, while Hiver is great for Gmail automation.

However, we believe customer service automation is the most powerful across all channels—voice, live chat, WhatsApp, and SMS. That’s where Plivo CX comes in, an omnichannel automation solution with unique features such as:

• AI-powered automation: Plivo CX provides automation to answer queries, triage requests and resolve service tickets instantly.
• Omnichannel Customer Journeys: The no-code workflow builder provides the flexibility to customise customer journeys to the business needs. This is available on all channels that the platform supports.
• 360° Customer Context: It lets you access the entire customer data and interactions in one place, right from the initial contact through ongoing support to customer data in all business systems.‍
• Automated outbound messaging: Additionally, the platform automates outbound messaging for appointment reminders, order confirmations, and proactive customer support notifications with templates and scheduling features to deliver the right message at the right time automatically

Want to experience how businesses use Plivo’s customer service automation to boost their customer support team’s productivity?

Book a demo today!