Imagine opening your inbox to a flood of emails, texts, and social media messages, all from customers urgently needing your attention. I’ve been there!
It feels like a constant balancing act, with each message demanding attention. Despite my best efforts, some messages inevitably slip through the cracks, leading to frustrated customers and a persistent worry about letting my team down.Â
I realized I needed a more effective way to connect with my customers, so I switched to using Customer Communication Management (CCM) software for my organization. Â
Communication management tools have helped me improve communications with customers across different channels, centralize data management, create a customer journey map, track customer interactions, and achieve on-time, perfect delivery.
If you, too, are looking to improve and optimize your approach to customer communication management, you’re in the right place. In this blog, I’ve listed the 10 best CCM software to drive customer satisfaction.
10 Best Customer Communication Management Software 2024
- What Should You Look for in Customer Communication Management Software?
- The 10 Best Customer Communication Management Software to Use
- 1. ClickUp (Best for communication management and collaboration)
- 2. Front (Best for managing customer conversations in one place)
- 3. Intercom (Best for automating customer communication with AI)
- 4. Respond.io (Best for converting leads through chats)
- 5. Help Scout (Best for providing proactive messaging and self-service support)
- 6. Zoho Desk (Best for guided customer conversations)
- 7. Adobe Experience Manager (Best for creating responsive forms)
- 8. Podium (Best for simplifying the process of responding to reviews)
- 9. Quadient Inspire (Best for delivering in-brand personalized messages)
- 10. LiveAgent (Best for resolving customer tickets)
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Should You Look for in Customer Communication Management Software?
When choosing customer communication management software, it’s essential to find a solution that seamlessly integrates efficiency, personalization, and scalability into your communication strategy. Here are some key factors that you should consider:
- Multi-channel support: Look for a customer communications management solution that helps streamline communication across different channels, such as social media, emails, texts, and customer service tickets
- Team collaboration: Select a platform that enables you to collaborate easily. This helps manage workloads and resolve customer issues faster
- Customer journey mapping: Go for a solution that tracks and analyzes customer interactions and experiences across all touchpoints. With this, you can identify areas to improve customer communication
- Automation: Choose CCM software that has AI integration features to automate inbound and outbound interactions with your customers and provide quick customer responses
- Personalization: Pick a tool that lets you personalize communication. The best customer communication management software should be able to conduct a detailed analysis of customer behavior, query, profile, and interaction history to draft tailored messages
Summarize this article for me pleaseThe 10 Best Customer Communication Management Software to Use
Now let’s see the best customer communication platforms based on their key features, pricing, limitations, and customer reviews.
1. ClickUp (Best for communication management and collaboration)
The first step to enhancing customer experience is efficient customer data management. I’ve learned this the hard way. Back in the day, my team relied on inaccurate and incomplete customer data, and we were left wondering why our customers weren’t as delighted or responsive as expected.Â
I finally overcame the client management challenge with ClickUp. The CRM Solution by ClickUp simplifies customer data management by creating a central database where I can view all customer interactions and queries.
It helps me visualize client relationships, send project updates for client reporting, and onboard customers—through a single platform.
Another useful feature for efficient customer communication and achieving customer expectations is ClickUp Email Integration. It helps me send and receive customer emails directly within ClickUp, so I can get everything done in one location rather than switching tabs.
I can create tasks and tag my team members, attach emails to tasks for better context, reply to notifications, send project updates to customers, and automate tasks.
The ClickUp Customer Service Solution helps my team manage their workflow better by adding custom fields. They can now categorize information based on the client, tickets, or issues to track and enhance customer experience and interactions.Â
Plus, tags help identify common issues so we can prioritize them. Task delegation has also become much easier as I can add multiple assignees to a task.Â
ClickUp Brain, ClickUp’s AI assistant, is another reason I prefer ClickUp as a customer communication platform. I use it to generate customer emails, draft customer responses, create customer surveys, and summarize customer calls.
The approach that has helped me improve client communication is defining stakeholder profiles, setting clear communication guidelines, and setting communication objectives with communication plan templates.
You can try ClickUp’s Communication Plan Template to create an actionable communication plan. It helps set communication goals, build a communication strategy, create compelling messages for customers, identify appropriate communication channels, and measure the impact of communication efforts.
ClickUp best features
- Data visualizations: Visualize customer data and monitor their lifetime value with ClickUp Dashboards to personalize communications
- Workflow automation: Create automated customer communication tasks for each stage of your pipeline and take prompt action with ClickUp Automations
- Account management: Create separate folders and lists for different accounts and share them with the relevant team to streamline communication
- Customer feedback management: Collect customer feedback using ClickUp Forms to find improvement areas and convert customer responses into trackable tasks
Integrations with various channels: Use ClickUp’s Integration with Intercom to create automatic tasks when a lead converts. This helps your team send swift responses to customers
ClickUp limitations
- New users might experience a learning curve due to ClickUp’s extensive features
ClickUp pricing
- Free Forever
- Unlimited: $7/user/month
- Business: $12/user/month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
- ClickUp Brain: Add to any paid plan for $7 per Workspace member per month.
ClickUp ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (9,500+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,100+ reviews)
2. Front (Best for managing customer conversations in one place)
Front centralizes all customer communication in one place through its Omnichannel Inbox feature. You don’t have to worry about missing customer messages as you can view and manage all conversations from different communication channels, including emails, SMS, Instagram, Slack, and WhatsApp on Front.Â
Front automatically prioritizes customer conversations so that you can focus on urgent messages across multiple channels. Its client reporting feature provides a quick overview of active and new conversations, which helps you track team efficiency and allocate resources better.
Front also works great for workflow management and automation. It automatically routes and assigns messages to different team members to improve resolution time.
Front best features
- Set reminders to revisit chats so that no message goes unattended
- Filter customer conversations to focus on critical action items
- Use built-in analytics tools to monitor team performance and automatically track numerous KPIs and metrics, such as hourly message handling, time to reply, etc
- Create AI chatbots for outbound communications, resolve customer queries, and enhance customer experience instantly
Front limitations
- The search feature lags sometimes, and you have to find messages manually
Front pricing
- Free: 7-day trial
- Starter: $29/month per user
- Growth: $79/month per user
- Scale: $99/month per user, billed annually
- Premier: $229/month per user, billed annually
Front ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (2,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (200+ reviews)
3. Intercom (Best for automating customer communication with AI)
Intercom is an AI-first customer service platform that helps implement real-time customer communication strategy. Its intuitive interface combines an AI helpdesk, an AI bot, and proactive support to deliver the best customer experience. The platform also has a shared inbox that allows teams to collaboratively manage emails and messages on a single platform.
I frequently use its Business Messenger, the live chat feature, to send personalized messages for customer conversion and onboarding. The best part about using Intercom is that my team gets all customer calls in their inbox, so they have all the context and can resolve customer queries promptly.
Intercom best features
- Create single tickets for issues impacting multiple users
- Troubleshoot customer issues with chat, phone calls, video calls, and screen sharing based on customer experience and preferences
- Resolve customer queries instantly with its AI chatbot
- Send ticket forms through a bot or directly in your product to improve communication and reduce back-and-forth emails
Intercom limitations
- The routing and automation processes for support tickets in Intercom can be complex and need additional effort to configure
- It has limited email customization features
Intercom pricing
- Free: 14-day trial
- Essential: $39/month per user
- Advanced: $99/month per user
- Expert: $139/month per user
Intercom ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (2,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (1,000+ reviews)
4. Respond.io (Best for converting leads through chats)
Respond.io is a customer communications management software that helps capture new leads, convert leads into customers, and retain customers. I can send bulk update emails, promotional content, and newsletters for interactive communications with existing customers.
I liked Respond.io’s click-to-chat ads that allow potential customers to reach out to us directly through ads. Instead of redirecting them to our websites, I can connect with potential customers and convert leads instantly.
I found its live chat AI and natural language processing impressive. Its AI assist feature sends automatic customer replies by finding information from our support content.
Respond.io best features
- Use Respond AI to provide automatic and instant responses to customer queries
- Prompt the AI agent to provide specific answers to customers
- Get conversation summaries to identify common customer feedback points and enhance customer interactions
- Track customer agents’ conversations, performance, and workload in real time
Respond.io limitations
- It can only connect customers to the WhatsApp Business API via third-party providers
- It does not support voice messages to the Respond.io inbox
Respond.io pricing
- Free: 7-day trial
- Starter: $99/month per user
- Growth: $199/month per user
- Advanced: $349/month
Respond.io ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.8/5 (100+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.2/5 (10+ reviews)
5. Help Scout (Best for providing proactive messaging and self-service support)
Building robust customer management strategies becomes easy with Help Scout. It helps manage communications across various channels, such as email and live chat, while offering tools for proactive messaging and self-service support.
It also manages support tickets, funnels them into organized mailboxes, and ensures every support request is accounted for and handled proficiently. It improves user experience by offering various metrics, templates, and private notes.
Help Scout best features
- Offer personalized messaging and customer support after analyzing customer profiles and conversation histories
- Engage with customers in real-time through chat, ensuring immediate responses to pressing queries
- Access built-in reports to track message volume, customer happiness, response times, and more
Help Scout limitations
- It doesn’t natively support a comprehensive range of communication channels like social media or SMS
- Businesses may have to spend time and resources to set up the integrations according to their workflows
Help Scout pricing
- Free: Trial available
- Standard: $25/month per user
- Plus: $50/month per user
- Pro: $65/month per user, billed annually
Help Scout ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4/5 (400+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (200+ reviews)
6. Zoho Desk (Best for guided customer conversations)
Zoho Desk streamlines communication with prospects by transforming emails into organized tickets. Its context-rich interfaces provide details on customer experience, histories, past interactions, and other important data from other Zoho applications, helping agents provide personalized and informed customer responses.
It also offers a sandbox environment feature that facilitates testing and working on customer service improvements and enhancements without interfering with real-time operations.
Zoho Desk best features
- Enhance customer self-service experience through guided conversations
- Route tickets to their appropriate departments plus facilitate tracking agent performance, response, and resolution times for each department
- Use its Blueprint Builder to customize each step for a ticket, from creation to closure
Zoho Desk limitations
- It does not have a desktop application
- Its ticketing system does not give the option to add sales tax and other charges
Zoho Desk pricing
- Free Forever
- Standard: $15.55/month per user
- Professional: $25.12/month per user
- Enterprise: $38.29/month per user
Zoho Desk ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4/5 (5,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (2,000+ reviews)
7. Adobe Experience Manager (Best for creating responsive forms)
Adobe Experience Manager is a digital document creation solution that allows you to design complex forms easily without coding knowledge.Â
It helps me interact with my customers on diverse digital channels by integrating forms into any app, website, chat application, and more with headless adaptive forms.
The platform’s automated ‘Forms Conversion’ feature can swiftly translate batches of legacy PDF forms into mobile-responsive forms.
Adobe Experience Manager best features
- Optimize and generate new forms based on the user input with Adobe Sensei GenAI
- Generate and deliver personalized documents triggered by business rules for batch communications
- Use its visual drag-and-drop approach and codeless data mapping to unify critical backend systems and data sources in a few clicks
Adobe Experience Manager limitations
- Platform instability issues like downtime, outages, bugs, or performance degradation may arise
- Regional availability of resources, language support, and service hours can be a challenge
Adobe Experience Manager pricing
- Custom pricing based on business size and industry
Adobe Experience Manager ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4/5 (4+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.3/5 (100+ reviews)
8. Podium (Best for simplifying the process of responding to reviews)
Podium is another top customer communications management software that helps businesses engage with customers over calls, texts, emails, social media channels, and websites.
Using its AI Employee feature, you can instantly reply to customers to ensure conversations continue over text, even after they’ve left the site. The best part about this tool is that it replies to leads within 30 seconds.
Whenever someone fills out the ‘Contact Us’ form on the company’s website, it sends them an automated text to start the communication process.
Podium best features
- Manage and respond to reviews from platforms like Google and Facebook directly within Podium
- Deliver personalized customer experience by drafting tailored messages from templates
- Send automated text messages to callers to re-engage them and ensure all leads are captured
Podium limitations
- Transferring leads to CRM systems can be slow
- Its search feature only allows users to look up old conversations by remembering the person’s name they were chatting with, which can be inconvenient
Podium pricing
- Core: $399/month per user
- Pro: $599/month per user
- Signature: Contact sales
Podium ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (1,500+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.3/5 (500+ reviews)
9. Quadient Inspire (Best for delivering in-brand personalized messages)
Quadient Inspire is a tool to personalize customer communication management strategies across multiple channels.
Inspire Evolve, Quadient’s SaaS customer communications management platform, has four components to simplify client engagement:
- Content Author: Use it to create and manage templates for bulk communication
- Front Office: Once the templates for common customer communications are approved, customer service reps use customer data to personalize the content and deliver it via email or PDF
- Generate: This component helps deliver customer emails and messages in batches
- Archive: It helps store and manage old templates
I also liked using Quadient Inspire iForms to collect customer data and personalize customer communications. Plus, Quadient Inspire Journey helps me map the customer journey and provides detailed customer insights so I can prioritize the right projects to deliver top-quality support.
Quadient Inspire best features
- Connect customer data using intelligent forms to design a comprehensive customer journey map and ensure consistent communications with customers
- Easily design and deliver secure, tailored, and compliant communications that align with individual customer requirements using Quadient Inspire Evolve feature
- Use its on-demand service to ensure your customers receive a personalized message any time, with speed and reliability
Quadient Inspire limitations
- The software can crash when working with large data
- It struggles to run smoothly on Mac devices
Quadient Inspire pricing
- Custom pricing based on business size and industry
Quadient Inspire ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.8/5 (90+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (10+ reviews)
10. LiveAgent (Best for resolving customer tickets)
Want to track all incoming communication from customers and transform it into tickets for easier management? Try LiveAgent. It provides a robust ticketing system with a live chat application that helps a team respond to customer messages and website visitors in real time.
You can also track message analytics to see common requests or feedback from customers, response time, and other data. Its multilingual software helps customize chat windows in 40 languages.
LiveAgent provides a website monitoring feature that helps you see how visitors browse your site so you can send personalized chat invitations.
LiveAgent best features
- Engage with customers face-to-face, using its integrated video call feature
- Use its ticket management system to convert requests into tickets and distribute them to team members for faster customer communication management
- Handle customer requests from various support channels, including email, live chat, social messaging, phone calls, video calls, forum messaging, and contact forms in one place
LiveAgent limitations
- It has limited integrations with business systems
- It does not offer AI chatbots for automatic responses to customers’ messages
LiveAgent pricing
- Free Forever
- Small: $9/month per user
- Medium: $29/month per user
- Large: $49/month per user
- Enterprise: $69/month per user
LiveAgent ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (1,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (1,500+ reviews)
Summarize this article for me pleaseImprove Customer Communication with ClickUp
Using a CCM solution is the best way to enhance customer relationships, reduce customer service costs, and empower your employees to focus on core functionalities.
If you are looking to optimize communication management with your customers and teams on a single platform, look no further than ClickUp. It is designed to manage any type of work, from improving cross-team collaboration and automating communications to boosting productivity and increasing operational efficiency.
Sign up for free on ClickUp to develop a coherent or instant messaging system for your customers and build deeper relations with them across all channels.
Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.