The customer support landscape is undergoing a significant transformation. Gone are the days of limited support hours and long wait times. Today's customers expect instant, 24/7 access to information and assistance. This is where a customer support chatbot comes in. These chatbots have revolutionized the way businesses interact with their customers.
Customer support chatbots are virtual assistants powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that can answer customer queries, resolve simple issues, and even personalize the customer experience. They offer a multitude of benefits, including round-the-clock availability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and improved customer satisfaction. Data from Intercom found that chatbots increased customer support satisfaction scores by 24%. However, no two chatbots are created equally, and each offers unique functionalities and benefits based on your company’s needs. In this article, we round up the 35 best customer support chatbots available today.
Why Chatbots Matter in Customer Support
The evolution of customer support has been marked by a shift towards more efficient and personalized solutions, and chatbots have emerged as key players in this transformation. Traditionally, customer service relied on phone calls and emails, which often resulted in long wait times and impersonal interactions.
By leveraging artificial intelligence and natural language processing capabilities, chatbots can handle a wide range of customer inquiries and issues, reducing response times and improving efficiency. Additionally, chatbots offer round-the-clock availability, ensuring that customers receive assistance whenever they need it, regardless of time zones or holidays.
Statistics indicate that businesses leveraging chatbots witness significant improvements in key performance metrics. Moreover, chatbots have been shown to reduce customer service costs by up to 30%, according to IBM, demonstrating their cost-effectiveness and scalability.
The Top 20 Customer Support Chatbots
Choosing the right customer support chatbot for your business needs can be a tedious process. To simplify your search, we've compiled a list of the top 35 customer support chatbots, categorized based on their functionalities and optimal use cases.
AI-Powered Customer Support Chatbots
These AI-powered customer support chatbots are some of the most popular software applications that utilize artificial intelligence to automate tasks, answer customer inquiries, and provide support across various channels.
Zendesk Chat
Zendesk Chat is a leading customer support chatbot known for its robust features and seamless integration with the Zendesk ecosystem. Its AI-powered chatbots handle common queries, personalize interactions, and divert tickets, which helps enhance customer satisfaction. With omnichannel support, chat routing, and proactive chat features, businesses can efficiently manage customer interactions. Additionally, its reporting and analytics provide valuable insights for performance improvement. Positive user reviews emphasize its ease of use and scalability, solidifying its role in enhancing customer support and operations.
Freshdesk Freddy
Freshdesk Freddy is an AI-powered chatbot tailored to integrate with the Freshdesk customer support platform, making it an ideal choice for businesses seeking to enhance their customer support within the Freshdesk ecosystem. Businesses already utilizing Freshdesk can implement Freddy to automate tasks and boost agent efficiency. It automates repetitive tasks within Freshdesk, converts inquiries into tickets, and offers self-service options like knowledge base integration. It also analyzes interactions to gauge sentiment and prioritize urgent issues, optimizing customer support operations and improving efficiency.
HubSpot Conversations
HubSpot Conversations is part of the HubSpot CRM platform, offering versatile functionalities that extend beyond customer support. Businesses utilize HubSpot Conversations for sales qualification, lead nurturing, and marketing automation, streamlining workflows across the customer journey. Chatbot interactions automatically populate the HubSpot CRM, providing valuable insights for sales and marketing teams. With a user-friendly interface, businesses can easily build and manage chatbots without extensive technical expertise. Combining live chat with automated chatbots in one platform, HubSpot Conversations is ideal for businesses already invested in the HubSpot CRM.
Zoho Desk Assistant
Zoho Desk Assistant is a valuable asset tailored for businesses already utilizing the Zoho Desk customer support platform. The focus of Zoho Desk Assistant lies in leveraging AI to enhance workflows and support agents effectively. By automating responses to common queries, integrating a knowledge base for self-service options, and assisting in lead qualification, Zoho Desk Assistant optimizes customer support operations for Zoho Desk users.
Sales-Focused AI Chatbots
These AI chatbots offer tailored functionalities for businesses seeking sales-focused AI chatbots.
Intercom
Intercom is a popular customer support chatbot platform known for its user-friendly interface and emphasis on conversational relationships with customers. Its chatbots qualify leads, deliver targeted messaging, and offer in-app guidance, enhancing personalized interactions and customer satisfaction. Seamless integration with other Intercom products creates a unified platform for managing communication across channels. While not the most advanced in AI capabilities, its sales features complement its customer support functionalities, making it a comprehensive solution for businesses looking to engage leads, nurture relationships, and drive sales conversions through conversational interactions.
Drift
Drift offers a chatbot that focuses both on customer service and sales. Their chatbots excel at engaging website visitors, qualifying leads, and driving conversions through conversation starters and targeted messaging. While Drift provides solid customer support features like automated ticket routing, its primary strength lies in lead generation and sales qualification. Positive user reviews highlight Drift's effectiveness in converting visitors into leads, making it a popular choice for sales-oriented teams.
Open-source and Customizable Chatbots
Beyond pre-built options, these open-source and customizable chatbots offer businesses greater control over functionality and the ability to tailor them to specific needs.
ChatGPT by OpenAI
ChatGPT by OpenAI is a large language model that excels in customization, allowing businesses to train it on specific data and craft chatbots tailored to their exact customer support requirements. Its impressive natural language processing capabilities enable it to understand complex questions, generate human-quality responses, and hold natural conversations. While adaptable for customer support, ChatGPT's strengths extend to content creation, marketing copywriting, and even product development. However, it requires technical expertise for customization and integration, as well as development efforts to create and train effectively. For businesses with the resources to invest in chatbot development and seeking a solution that can grow alongside their needs, ChatGPT by OpenAI offers a powerful and versatile solution.
Rasa
Rasa takes a different approach to customer support chatbots, offering an open-source platform for developers to build custom solutions. This allows businesses to tailor chatbots to their exact needs and integrate them with existing tools. Rasa boasts flexibility, supports various communication channels, and caters to developers with its user-friendly environment. However, building and maintaining Rasa chatbots requires programming knowledge and dedicated development time. This makes Rasa ideal for businesses with in-house development resources or those willing to invest in creating a custom chatbot solution offering high control and customization.
Enterprise-Grade Chatbot Solutions
These enterprise-grade chatbot solutions are designed for scalability, security, and advanced functionalities, making them ideal for high-volume customer interactions and complex needs.
LivePerson
LivePerson is a powerful AI platform for engaging customers across channels (web chat, messaging apps, etc.). The AI chatbots answer questions, personalize interactions, and seamlessly connect to human agents for trickier issues. Analytics help improve performance. LivePerson caters to larger businesses needing a scalable omnichannel engagement platform with both AI-powered chatbots and human interaction.
Sales Cloud Einstein
Sales Cloud Einstein is an AI add-on for enterprises that use Salesforce. It offers advanced features like smart chatbots, case routing, sentiment analysis, and it can even predict customer needs. This translates to streamlined workflows, happier agents, and impressed customers, ideal for existing Salesforce customers seeking an AI boost.
IBM Watson Assistant
IBM Watson Assistant is an AI chatbot platform that can be customized for various use cases, including customer support. It offers advanced natural language processing capabilities and integrates seamlessly with other IBM Cloud services. It also offers customization, multilingual support, pre-built features, and works across channels. Think of it as a powerful toolkit for those seeking custom chatbots beyond basic customer support, and it’s great for businesses that already have a level of technical know-how.
Amazon Lex
Amazon Lex is a conversational AI service from Amazon Web Services (AWS) that allows businesses to build chatbots for customer support and other applications. It offers features like slot filling, dialog management, and integration with other AWS services. Its user-friendly interface means less coding is required, and it integrates well with Amazon Connect for easy deployment. Lex even handles converting speech to text and understanding user intent, further reducing development complexity. Amazon Lex is ideal for large businesses, particularly AWS users, seeking a user-friendly and cost-effective way to build basic customer support chatbots.
Customer Engagement Chatbot Platforms
Moving beyond basic support, this section explores customer engagement chatbot platforms designed to not only answer inquiries but also proactively interact with customers and personalize their experience.
Whisbi
Whisbi provides conversational commerce solutions with chatbots for customer support. Their chatbots can handle customer inquiries, process orders, and personalize shopping experiences. However, the platform also takes it a step further with conversational commerce using live video and voice chat, creating a more engaging shopping experience for customers. Whisbi's chatbots can even qualify leads, streamlining the sales process. It offers omnichannel support across various platforms. Whisbi empowers businesses to leverage chatbots, live chat, and video functionalities to enhance online sales and create a more interactive customer experience.
Boost.ai
Boost.ai offers AI chatbots designed to automate customer support tasks and personalize interactions. It is known for its scalability and ability to handle complex inquiries, targeting large businesses with more complex customer needs. Built to address customer engagement challenges associated with high traffic, their chatbots are self-learning powerhouses. "Automator" technology automatically trains them, reducing the need for extensive manual training.
Kustomer
Kustomer elevates customer service by focusing on conversations across channels (email, chat, social media, phone calls, etc.) in one platform. AI aids agents, self-service options redirect inquiries, and data fuels better service. Additionally, Kustomer provides analytics and reporting tools to help businesses gain insights into customer interactions and improve their overall customer service experience. Praised for ease of use and impact, Kustomer shines in e-commerce, SaaS, and high-growth businesses.
Cloud-based Chatbots
Offering flexibility and scalability, these cloud-based chatbots eliminate the need for on-premise infrastructure and allowing for deployment across various channels.
Google Dialogflow
Google Dialogflow is a popular cloud-based chatbot development platform that allows businesses to create chatbots for various use cases, including customer support. It offers a user-friendly interface, pre-built integrations, and advanced natural language processing capabilities. Dialogflow is a powerful tool for businesses seeking to build custom chatbots or voice assistants, particularly already invested in the Google Cloud ecosystem, and it's a great option for companies of all sizes.
Microsoft Bot Framework
Microsoft Bot Framework is another leading cloud-based platform for building conversational AI applications, including customer support chatbots. Businesses can design chatbots that work across channels like Teams, Facebook Messenger, and more. And, it's open-source and customizable, allowing you to tailor chatbots to your specific needs. It even integrates with Microsoft's Azure services for advanced features. Microsoft Bot Framework empowers developers with a technical background to build versatile, custom chatbots for various channels, making it a strong choice for those seeking a powerful and customizable solution.
Additional Top Customer Support Chatbots
Here are a few more of the top customer support chatbots available, offering a full range of features and functionalities.
Tidio
Tidio simplifies live chat and support. Engage customers directly on your website, answer questions in real time, and leverage AI-powered chatbots to deflect common issues. It offers email ticketing, tracks website visitors, and provides valuable analytics. This leads to satisfied customers, more sales, lower costs, and data-driven decisions. Praised for ease of use, Tidio shines for businesses of all sizes.
Ada Support
Ada Support is an AI-powered solution that integrates seamlessly within your existing Zendesk customer support platform. It goes beyond basic chatbots by automating responses to FAQs, offering self-service options through a knowledge base integration, and even aiding in lead qualification. This means a lighter workload for agents, customers who can find answers themselves, and potentially more qualified leads for your sales team. Since Ada integrates with Zendesk, it's ideal for businesses already invested in that platform and seeking an AI boost for their customer support operations.
Aivo
Aivo offers AI-powered virtual assistants designed to enhance customer experiences. Their chatbots can answer questions, resolve issues, and personalize interactions for a more engaging customer experience. Reach customers anywhere (website chat, WhatsApp, etc.) with AI-powered chatbots that understand natural language and personalize interactions. Aivo even helps agents with knowledge base suggestions and task automation, seamlessly escalating trickier issues.
15 Honorable Mentions
While they didn’t make the top of our list, we still want to recognize some additional noteworthy customer support chatbots that may be a good fit for specific needs.
Great for Overall Customer Service Automation
- Inbenta: Offers businesses a scalable AI platform with natural language processing to automate customer interactions across various channels.
- Pypestream: Offers AI-powered chatbots specifically focused on customer service automation. Its patented messaging carrier enables businesses to connect multiple applications via APIs.
- Helpshift: Helpshift provides an in-app mobile helpdesk, allowing users to get customer support directly within your app without needing to switch platforms.
- Olark: Olark offers affordable live chat software with AI-powered features, allowing businesses to connect with customers on their website in real time for improved customer service.
- Netomi: Netomi is an AI-powered customer service platform that leverages natural language understanding to automate support interactions and enhance customer experiences.
Great User Interface for Customization
- LiveChat: A popular customer support software known for its user-friendly interface, offering real-time chat functionalities, canned responses, and reporting tools.
- Botsify: Botsify caters to businesses of all sizes by offering a fully automated chatbot platform with features like AI-powered chatbots, sentiment analysis, and case routing, all designed to streamline customer support workflows.
- Chatra: Provides businesses with a range of tools to enhance customer interactions, including real-time chat, proactive messaging, automated chatbots, and comprehensive reporting capabilities.
- ChatBot.com: A user-friendly platform for building customer support chatbots, with drag-and-drop functionality and pre-built templates for faster development.
- Cognigy.AI: Empowers businesses to build custom conversational AI solutions with features like chatbots and voice assistants, leveraging generative AI for a more natural user experience.
Great Integrations with Other Tools
- SnapEngage: A dedicated live chat solution built specifically for support professionals, offering features like agent collaboration tools, advanced routing options, and integrations with popular CRMs.
- Nextiva Chat: While it doesn’t offer a built-in customer support chatbot Nextiva Chat integrates with other AI chatbot platforms enabling users to use them within the Nextiva Chat interface for a more streamlined customer support experience.
- Zoho SalesIQ: Integrated with Zoho CRM, Zoho SalesIQ blends live chat functionalities with website visitor tracking, analytics, and even mobile app chat functionalities.
- Gorgias: Gorgias simplifies customer service for e-commerce businesses by combining all support channels (chat, email, etc.) into a single platform with features like AI-powered automation and integrations with popular e-commerce tools.
- Tars: Offers chatbots for both lead generation and customer support, allowing businesses to capture inbound leads, qualify them, and answer customer questions in a single platform.
Best Practices for Implementing Chatbots in Customer Support
Integrating chatbots into your customer support strategy can significantly enhance efficiency and customer satisfaction. However, to ensure success, it's crucial to follow best practices.
Firstly, define your goals. Clearly define what you want your chatbot to achieve. Are you aiming to answer basic questions, deflect tickets, or qualify leads? Having clear goals will guide your chatbot selection and implementation process. With numerous chatbots available, carefully evaluate your needs and select a solution that aligns with your budget, technical expertise, and desired functionalities.
Then, design a user-friendly chatbot experience. Ensure clear and concise interactions, provide escalation paths to human agents for complex issues, and gather user feedback for continuous improvement. Train your chatbot with relevant data to ensure accurate and helpful responses. This may involve feeding it with customer queries, FAQs, and product knowledge.
Lastly, continuously monitor your chatbot's performance and user feedback. Identify areas for improvement, update training data, and refine conversation flows to optimize effectiveness.
Conclusion
Customer support chatbots are transforming the way businesses interact with their customers. By offering 24/7 availability, streamlining workflows, and personalizing interactions, chatbots can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect even more sophisticated and intelligent chatbots to emerge. Businesses that leverage chatbot technology effectively will be well-positioned to thrive in the competitive landscape.
While AI-powered chatbots offer a powerful solution for streamlining customer support, even the most advanced bots can't replace the human touch. For complex inquiries, building trust, and fostering long-term customer relationships, consider supplementing your chatbot strategy with qualified customer service representatives.
Wing Assistant provides dedicated professionals to handle live chat, email and ticket support, phone support, customer onboarding, order processing, and more – all starting at just $999 per month. Explore the benefits of a combined approach to ensure a seamless and positive customer experience across all touchpoints.
Kandice is a content writer & strategist with over 5 years of experience in digital marketing. She specializes in SEO-optimized content for the SaaS and tech industry. She’s a digital nomad, currently based in Mexico, and is passionate about helping other business owners and freelancers increase their productivity when working remotely. When she’s not behind her computer you’ll find her at the beach snorkeling, playing volleyball, doing yoga, or cooking up a delicious vegan meal.
