Help Scout doesn’t cut it for you?

While it is an industry-leading customer support solution for some small businesses and startups in 2024, you might find it falling short because of limited integration capabilities, as well as budget friendly pricing.

Which might actually make you want to consider an alternative.

Actually, according to Datanyze, there are around 271,290 companies in the help desk software segment, with 75 companies creating help desk technologies, indicating the wide variety of options you have to pick from.

Help Scout offers an incredible shared inbox, help center, and messaging tools great for sharpening your customer service game.

However, there are cases where it won’t be the exact right fit for your business, especially if you are keen on an affordable and customizable help desk solution.

If you are dissatisfied with the Zendesk help desk and are looking for a better solution, check out my review of the best Zendesk alternatives for small businesse, in order to discover some amazing AI powered customer support solutions for your startup.

In this blog post, we will discuss the best Help Scout alternatives for small businesses and startups with their unique features and prices, to help you make an informed decision, and build better customer relationships.

Let's get started.

Quick Summary

1. Glassix - Best conversational support software

2. Zoho Desk - Best affordable support solution

3. LiveAgent - Best alternative for ticket management

4. Messagebird - Best alternative for marketing

5. Landbot -Best alternative for building chatbots

3 Reasons to Move Away from Help Scout in 2024

a) Limited integration capabilities

Software integrations eliminate the need for juggling multiple systems which can cause inefficiencies. Small businesses and starups often demand powerful integration capabilities that allow them to link their multiple technology stacks, yet Help Scout can do better in this aspect.

While it provides a few essential integrations with WhatsApp, Shopify, and Instagram, they are not as comprehensive. This hinders your workflow coordination and your ability to provide a cohesive customer experience across various platforms.

Which might make you want to consider a Help Scout alternative.

b) Highly priced plans

Help Scouts' starting plan may be affordable for most businesses offering essential but limited features such as 2 shared inboxes and 1 Docs knowledge base that may not meet the customer support demands if you are running a small business or a startup that owns multiple products and or brands.

Even though its pro plan has more advanced features including Light Users and more shared inboxes, which is ideal for small business or a startup that owns multiple products and or brands, it attracts a high initial investment because it is billed annually - something you might find off putting.

c) Limited customization features

While Help Scout provides some basic customization options to help you tweak the software and provide a branded and enhanced customer experience, in my experience, they could be better.

If you are looking for a very flexible customer support solution with a ton of customization features, you want to consider other alternatives to Help Scout. Even their WYSIWYG editor which worked well before seems to be lacking in a few aspects.

1. Glassix

Want to transform customer conversations?

Glassix provides a one-of-a-kind unified inbox that consolidates all your customer conversations into one platform, ensuring that no issues are overlooked.

Boasting collaboration tools, your team can establish effective triage through routing rules that automatically assign conversations to qualified agents.

Besides that, your agents can share different media, have a complete view of customer information including conversation history, and maintain conversation continuity across channels.

These features are backed by a powerful conversational AI platform, coupled with GPT-4 to sharpen your competitive edge and deliver great experiences. 

The good thing is that you don’t need a budget for developers, thanks to our easy-to-use, no-code chatbot builder that empowers anyone to design and deploy beautiful chatbots.

Key features:

• Our platform is powered by a conversation AI that trains your chatbots to deliver personalized responses that enhance customer experiences. The AI tool also leverages your chatbot to improve your customer service.
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• We provide a visual chatbot builder that enables you to design and quickly deploy AI chatbots. The chatbots allow you to be available to your customers even during off-business hours. 
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• We provide a comprehensive shared inbox that delivers omni channel communication services. This enables you to communicate with your customers in their preferred channels without leaving our platform.
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Pricing:

• Offers a 30-day free trial
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• Starting plan: $49 per user/month 
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Verdict:

Glassix offers a more comprehensive alternative to Help Scout for small business or a startup with a robust inbox that consolidates all communication and empowers your team to work together towards achieving company goals. While our software may be pricier compared to Help Scout, we provide simple pricing plans with no hidden tricks.

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2. Zoho Desk

Struggling to handle customer conversations?

Zoho Desk stands out as the best alternative for Help Scout users looking for an omnichannel ticketing system that enables them to organize tickets for speedy resolution.

All your tickets from multiple channels are collected and organized in a single interface for complete visibility. 

Zia, Zoho Desk’s proprietary AI, enhances your agents’ productivity and improves the quality of your customer service. 

It analyzes the content of tickets to auto-tag them, identifies customers’ sentiments, and surfaces answers from your knowledge base to help your agents provide accurate responses.

It is also worth noting that Zoho Desk has rich self-service features that empower your customers to independently find answers. 

Key features:

• Zoho provides actionable insights on your team's performance and strategies to help you know what's working and what's not to facilitate data-driven decisions. You can also use the provided data to improve agent training.
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• It has built-in integration with Zoho CRM, providing you with relevant customer information inside the ticket screen to enhance customer service. Integrations also enable you to have all your systems in one platform for efficiency.
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• This software offers a powerful AI tool that powers chatbots. Consequently, your chatbots can easily identify context and sentiments enabling your agents to deliver better services.
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Pricing:

• Offers a 15-day free trial 
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• Starting plan: €20 per user/month
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Verdict:

Zoho Desk has one of the best ticketing systems with powerful AI capabilities that simplify customer support while enhancing customer experience. It also offers customization options to help your software grow as your small business or startup grows. However, advanced features are only available in higher tiers that are more costly.

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3. LiveAgent

LiveAgent boasts a great live chat feature.

Its state-of-the-art live chat is one of the easiest to implement, coming with premium features, such as smart chat routing, visitor tracking, and proactive chat invitations.

In addition, it supports multiple languages, enabling you to communicate with customers all over the world, further making customer interactions a breeze.

You can increase your resolution rate and provide more personal interactions with your customers through LiveAgent’s cloud-based call center. 

Say goodbye to your inefficient and dinosaur ticketing system because LiveAgents ticketing tools ensure that all your customer communications land in one inbox where they are converted into tickets and distributed among your customer support team.

Key features: 

• Offers a universal inbox eliminating the need for monitoring each communication channel separately. Basically, it gathers all your conversations in one place and converts them to tickets.
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• Allows you to create a customer portal with multi-knowledge base support, allowing your customers to independently and instantly find answers to their queries without contacting support.
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• Increase your satisfaction rate with LiveAgent’s comprehensive social media integrations that enable you to consolidate all your social media communications into one place.
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Pricing:

• Offers a 30-day free trial
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• Starting plan: $15 per agent/month
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Verdict:

Unlike Glassix, LiveAgent does not offer conversational AI capabilities that can improve customer service. However, If you are looking for an efficient ticketing solution with an omnichannel experience, this is the best Help Scout alternative to consider. It offers great social media integrations, allowing you to manage all conversations in one place. 

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4. MessageBird

Messagebird is a great marketing tool.

It empowers your marketing team to create data-driven campaigns that reach your customers at the right time.

This software has comprehensive tools to increase revenue, including email marketing, WhatsApp marketing, and SMS marketing tools.

All your channels are consolidated into one platform, so it is easy to create omni-channel campaigns in minutes and achieve unparalleled results.

Additionally, thanks to its powerful analytics features, you can monitor all your campaigns and track key metrics like click rate and open rate to refine your e-commerce strategy with real-time data.

It doesn't stop there. You can also deploy omnichannel chatbots to work hand in hand with your agents, saving them time and delivering instant answers to common queries.

Key features:

• MessageBird has powerful chatbots that can answer FAQs accurately and enable customers to checkout without leaving the conversation, enhancing conversions and ROI.
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• You can increase conversion through sign-up forms that collect important customer details. Additionally, you can customize them with logos and colors to ensure they match your brand guidelines.
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• It integrates seamlessly with your eCommerce stack, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce. This facilitates smooth bi-directional data equalization to enhance efficiency.
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Pricing:

• No free trial
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• Starting plan: $27 per seat/month
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Verdict:

With a focus on marketing and sales, MessageBird is a popular customer support software for eCommerce and an alternative for Help Scout users. It offers tools such as integrations, email marketing, and campaigns that guarantee to increase conversions. However, unlike Glassix, it does not provide a clear pricing plan.

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5. Landbot 

Landbot is a no-code chatbot builder.

If the name doesn’t already give it away, this software provides the building blocks that make it easy for anyone—even those with no prior knowledge—to build appealing bots and deploy them to automate lead generation and customer interactions.

Landbot’s no-code chatbot builder secures its place as an industry-leading competitor to Help Scout. You can customize everything to ensure your chatbots reflect your brand. 

Additionally, the chatbots are powered by AI to work alone and deliver human-like responses. Besides, they can seamlessly hand over to human agents when necessary to enhance customer experience.

Key features:

• Landbot’s visual chatbot builder helps you save on development costs as it enables anyone from your team to create automated flows with conditional logic that saves agents’ time.
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• You can connect any data source to your chatbots to provide dynamically generated options. Consequently, your chatbots can deliver accurate and personalized responses that improve customer satisfaction.
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• Landbot offers analytics tools that enable you to track the performance of your chatbots and identify areas of improvement to elevate customer support. It also provides actionable insights that help you make key decisions.
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Pricing:

• Offers a 14-day free trial
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• Starting plan: €40/month
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Verdict:

Landbot’s visual chatbot builder is among the best, and just like Glassix, empowers your team with easy-to-use tools to create beautiful chatbots that can handle a big chunk of your customer support requests. It offers a free plan and is relatively affordable but its plans have limited features.

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6. Freshdesk

Freshdesk streamlines customer interactions.

As a small business owner in 2024, you must have challenges handling multiple customer support requests from different channels.

Thanks to Freshdesk’s intuitive and AI-powered platform, you can consolidate all communications into one place and provide stellar customer support.

Its omnichannel services enable you to convert all chats, emails, and calls into indicates giving you a 360-degree view of your customers’ requests while enabling you to provide self-service.

The shared inbox boasts excellent collaboration tools and built-in automation capabilities that enable you to assign tickets, prioritize them, and monitor them.

Additionally, just like Glassix, you can integrate Freshdesk with your favorite tools to further enhance collaborations.

Key features:

• You’ll be able to measure your key metrics and agents' performances with Freshdesk’s reporting and analytics tool to identify areas of improvement and know where your support stands. 
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• Its ticket-linking features enable you to link similar tickets to a master ticket. This consequently allows you to streamline emergency responses and deliver accurate assistance at scale.
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• Help Scout can deflect most of your customer requests to Freshbots powered by AI and self-service, enabling you to save time and resources while delivering enhanced customer support.
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Pricing:

• Offers a 14-day free trial
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• Starting plan: $18 per agent/month
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Verdict:

Freshdesk is one of Help Scout's top competitors in 2024 owing to its self-service tools and customer communication services for small businesses. It also offers a free plan with limited features but lacks robust customization options making it challenging to tailor the software to meet the specific needs of your small biz.

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7. Kayako

Kayako is an on-premise software.

For small businesses and startups with high security needs, an on-premise alternative to Help Scout is the best option. Kayako is easy to install into your own server, which gives you full control over access.

It comes with typical customer service tools including a knowledge base, live chat, and integrations, designed to simplify customer interactions and upscale your business.

Kayako also has a live chat feature that comes in handy when your customers want real-time interactions with a human agent. You can customize your live chat and easily integrate unified communication into your website and application.

To enhance collaborations, as your agents may not always have the answers required, the collaboration features allow team members to work together behind the scenes through private notes.

Key features:

• It has Slack and Salesforce integrations ready out-of-the-box and can connect to Zapier, opening up integration with hundreds of popular apps and platforms, and enabling you to work more efficiently.
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• Kayako provides a self-service portal that empowers customers with a repository of self-help articles, videos, and FAQs, and a friendly self-service community, to help them find answers independently.
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• This software has a powerful live chat tool that allows customers to start conversations at any time, and even when they leave, Kayako will send a follow-up email.
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Pricing:

• Offers a 14-day free trial
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• Contact Kayako for pricing
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Verdict:

Providing an on-premise solution is great for enterprises in 2024 that prioritize security but also for some startups and small businesses in the field of finance and fintech. Kayako has all essential features from live chat, collaboration tools, and shared inbox. However, it is good to remember that an on-premise system has additional maintenance and implementation costs which may require a high initial investment.

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8. Gorgias

Do you run an e-commerce store?

Then you might want to consider Gorgias for its out-of-the-box ecommerce tools that will help you generate more revenue and grow your store.

It helps you simplify and enhance the entire customer journey through a shared inbox where your team can reach resolutions faster than ever.

Besides that, your agents have all the context they need such as previous orders and subscriptions, enabling them to tailor each experience for your customers. 

Similarly, you can save time through canned responses and automated workflows, enabling you to focus on what's important to you—your customers.

In addition to standard support features, Gorgias has omnichannel customer services that allow you to meet your customers anywhere to enhance the quality of customer support.

Key features:

• Offers integrations with several e-commerce platforms such as Shopify and Magento, enabling you to access all your systems in one platform to improve efficiency and increase productivity.
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• Its AI capability enables your representatives to achieve more, and do so faster, by scanning incoming communication to identify intent and auto-respond to them, helping you do more within a short time.
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• Offers a one-of-a-kind shared inbox that integrates all communication channels into one place, enabling you to meet your customers in their preferred platforms without leaving Gorgias.
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Pricing:

• Offers a 14-day free trial
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• Starting plan: $10 per month
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Verdict:

This software is focused on eCommerce and therefore provides essential tools such as integrations and AI capabilities to help you boost your online store. However, unlike Glassix, it is not a complete customer support solution that can meet the demanding needs of a small business.

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9. HubSpot

HubSpot converts website visitors into customers.

It stands out as a popular alternative to Help Scout for its marketing and sales capabilities, guaranteed to unlock sales growth through conversations.

HubSpot offers a variety of products, but its customer support tools are offered under Service Hub. 

Usually, disjointed systems hinder your agents from leveraging your customer data.

That is why this software connects all your customer service data and channels on one customer platform, allowing you to easily support, retain, and grow your customer base.

Taking it a notch higher are its analytics tools that track and report on important insights about your customers, enabling you to provide a personalized experience that keeps them coming back.

And because sometimes customers want to independently help themselves, HubSpot’s shared inbox is connected to a customer portal that provides customers information about how their issues are being handled.

Other notable features include a knowledge base, live chat, and omni-channel messaging.

Key features:

• It empowers your agents to deliver the best customer support and close more deals even when they don't know what to say, through sales playbooks containing sales plays, scripts, and guides.
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• Through customer surveys, you can understand what your customers are feeling and identify opportunities to enhance customer satisfaction and improve the entire customer experience.
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• The shared inbox consolidates all communication into one platform, making it easier to streamline personalized conversations and saving time switching between systems.
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Pricing:

• Offers a 14-day free trial
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• Starting plan: $500/month
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Verdict:

HubSpot provides everything your team needs to close more deals and grow your customer base from playbooks, integrations, and a knowledge base. Its advanced features make it ideal for grwoing businesses and startups. However, its starting plan for professional teams is priced high. Still, I think it is worth the price tag.

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10. Drag

How can Drag improve collaborations?

For starters, it is one of the easiest to use and implement customer support software, especially because it is built to work in Gmail.

This ensures that your new agents are ready to go within no time and that you save on time and training costs.

Besides that, Drag is packed with a plethora of features, including automation, analytics, and shared inbox, to enhance collaborations, improve customer experience, and streamline all interactions.

While drag works in Gmail, it has additional features that allow you to organize your emails and have a clear view of all communications. 

Drag’s shared inbox supports collaborations with shared drafts, a feature that allows you to write a reply and have your colleague check it before sending, and collision detection to prevent agents from working on the same conversation.

Key features:

• Its collaboration tools such as private notes and @mentions enable your agents to provide context and call in for reinforcement when they need help, ensuring they deliver stellar assistance.
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• Save your agents time and allow them to focus on pressing issues by automating repetitive tasks such as moving emails from board to board and sending follow-ups.
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• Drag has powerful integrations with Google Workspace, Zapier, and API that allow you to create your custom automation and integrations of your own to help you manage everything from Gmail.
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Pricing:

• Offers a 7-day free trial
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• Starting plan: $10 per user/month
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Verdict:

Drag is not only an affordable alternative to Help Scout, but also offers an easy-to-use customer support software to help you manage customer communications. It also offers a 7-day free trial for you to try out its features. Still, the period may not be enough to explore all its automation and workspace features.

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Wrapping up

Help Scout remains to be a great tool.

However, considering the downfalls I have mentioned in this article, you may want to find an alternative that meets your business needs and fits your current budget.

Affordability aside, the right software that is in line with your business goals will increase revenue and recoup your initial investment costs.

In fact, HubSpot reports that 68% of consumers say they are willing to pay more for products and services from a brand known to offer good customer service experiences, highlighting just how important finding the best customer service system is.

However, finding the right one is easier said than done.

Research and take time to consider the options you have. I hope our list of the best Help Scout alternatives can help set you off on this journey.

While all the listed platforms offer essential support tools from shared inboxes and automation, our software tops the list for its conversational AI and user-friendly interfaces, making it easy for small businesses and startups to sharpen their competitive edge.

Start Glassix’s 30-day free trial today and explore its collaboration features to learn how we can help increase agent productivity and customer satisfaction.

3 Reasons to Consider Glassix for your Customer Support Software Needs

a) AI-driven unified inbox

Our software provides a unified inbox that consolidates all communications into a single platform, eliminating the need for switching between apps and making it easy for your agents to manage customer requests and deliver prompt assistance.

Our shared inbox enhances efficient collaborations thanks to tools such as a conversation routing engine, cross-channel continuity, and rich media sharing, that enhance productivity.

b) Omnichannel communication

Besides all communication platforms integrated into our unified inbox, Glassix enables your agents to engage your customers on their preferred channels fostering loyalty and creating a seamless and personalized experience for them.

You can instantly change channels without losing previous conversations, ensuring a seamless experience and improved customer satisfaction even in the case of an interruption and better.

c) Powerful visual chatbot builder 

Through our no-code chatbot builder, your customer support agents are empowered with the right tools to build and deploy beautiful AI-powered chatbots. The chatbots are customizable using logos and profile pictures to give them a human touch.

Unlike traditional chatbots, our chatbots are capable of generating accurate conversational responses based on your knowledge base and use Natural Language Processing to analyze customer requests.

Sign up for Glassix’s free trial and join forward-thinking small businesses and startups owners who trust our software to boost revenue and enhance customer service operations.