The best tools for sales & customer support teams

If you are wondering how to get new clients and provide the best service for customers you already have, we might have a real gem for you. Do not waste time on research. Check out the recommended tools for sales and customer support teams!

Globalization and developing of the new technologies caused that business is more available for everyone. At the same time, stiff competition can make it challenging for you. Fortunately, the market is filled with solutions that will boost your effectiveness in many different ways. We have prepared a list of the best tools that can help you acquire new clients and support them so that they will stay with you for longer.

The customer journey starts with the first touchpoint, that is the moment when your potential clients interact with your brand for the very first time. It can happen on social media, your website, during a call or in many other ways. You need to make sure that it will be love at first sight. Provide the most pleasant experience and win the hearts and minds of your customers.

How to choose the right solutions for your toolbox?

As already mentioned, nowadays, we have a lot of options when it comes to the selection of online tools for sales and customer support teams. Even though they might have similar features, you need to pay attention to details while making this decision.
Consider three aspects:

• Cost — Compare pricing. Does the tool meet your requirements fully? How many agents can use it at the same time?
• Intuitiveness — Is the software easy-to-implement and easy-to-use? Does the company provide 24/7 customer support so that they can fix issues right away? How much time does it take for a team to learn how to use the system to make the most of its features?
• Efficiency — How many problems can the software solve for your team? How much time your team can save on boosting effectiveness?

Focus on your team’s and customers’ needs. Talk to managers and find out what aspects could be improved.

The “lucky 7” tools for sales and customer support teams

Once you know what are you looking for and what kind of software is in demand, you can check out our top 7.

Pipedrive — is a sales CRM that is focused on facilitating the sales team everyday work. It is built around a proven sales pipeline management methodology, and its interface is clear so that salespeople can easily find every deal and statistics. It is fully customized so everyone can adjust the tool to their needs. One of the best Pipedrive’s feature is email integration — a system can even automatically personalized email templates. You can use the system via mobile app and create sales reports as well as forecasts that can help you choose the best deals to focus on in the future.

is a smart call center software. It can be a lifesaver for both sales and customer service teams. It is a cloud phone system so that you can access it from anywhere in the world, and you don’t need any infrastructure to set it up. CloudTalk is also available on mobile devices and can be integrated with many business tools, for example, CRM systems for faster and better support. Call recording and real-time analytics can help you improve your team’s effectiveness. It provides many advanced features, like smart call routing, IVR, automatic callback, call tagging, click-to-call, and much more.

Intercom — is a chatbot and live chat provider. Thanks to automation, you can respond to customers faster and help them even if you are offline. Live chat can be implemented on your website, in a product or mobile app. You can use this system for lead generation, customer support, and customer engagement. Intercom’s interesting feature is a collaborative and shared inbox so that your team can answer inquiries faster.

HelpScout — is a customer service software. It helps desk enables managing emails and communicating with customers with a personal touch at scale. Your team can have access to the whole conversation history, across different teams, email addresses, and brands. While responding to a customer, agents can see if anyone else is viewing or replying in real-time. One of the trends when it comes to customer support is self-service. HelpScout also offers a Knowledge Base Software so that you can create beautiful docs filled with useful information.

Salesforce — is one of the most popular CRM platforms in the world. When it comes to sales, it offers an AI-powered tool that automatically captures data. Additionally, it instantly generates insights and enables you to proactively coach reps to win with predictive forecasting. Salesforce Lightning Platform allows customizing Sales Cloud so that you can adjust the platform to your team’s needs. Salesforce also offers e-commerce and marketing solutions so that you can integrate data across channels and boost your efforts. You can improve customer support with Salesforce thanks to building a self-service platform for your community and smarter communication (automatically match cases to the agent with the best skill set to solve them).

Freshdesk — is an intuitive customer support software. You can manage support that you deliver across many channels (email, website, social media, chat, or phone). Thanks to automation, you can create scenarios and deal with repetitive actions in a click. Moreover, it enables seamless collaboration. Freshdesk ensures that multiple agents don’t wind up working on the same ticket by accident. Very helpful can be Team Huddle that lets team members discuss with experts and figure out the best solution for your customers. When you deal with complex issues, you can divide then and resolve faster.

LiveAgent — is a help desk and live chat software. It can be an excellent solution for small and medium-sized enterprises. In LiveAgent, all communication, including emails, is transformed into tickets for better convenience. You have an overview of all inquiries so that you can prioritize them and solve the most important ones. In the real-time live chat, you can set up an automatic invite so that your customers can be more willing to interact with your brand.

A good idea can be to test a few solutions, and after a free trial, decide which tool suits your needs and preferences the most. It takes some time to test a few propositions and its functions, but it is definitely worth it. Pay attention to integration options — while contacting with a future or existing client you need as many information as possible to personalize communication and meet his needs.

Originally published at https://www.cloudtalk.io on August 27, 2019.