How to Choose a Customer Engagement Platform for Your Small Business

Do you need help keeping your customers engaged and loyal to your brand? Do you want to take your customer engagement to the next level but need help figuring out where to start? Look no further than ustomer engagement platforms!

These powerful tools can help you connect with your audience, build lasting relationships, and grow your business. In this guide, we will show you how to choose the right platform for your needs and use it to engage your customers. Keep reading as we explore more!

What Are Customer Engagement Platforms?

Customer engagement platforms help businesses connect with their customers on a deeper level. These platforms provide a range of communication channels and engagement features.

They enable businesses to interact with customers in real time. And they allow companies to gather valuable feedback and build long-lasting relationships.

Customer engagement platforms typically offer a range of features, such as:

• Messaging and chatbots
• Email campaigns and newsletters
• Social media integration
• Feedback and survey tools
• Customer segmentation and targeting
• Data analytics and reporting

Businesses can create personalized customer experiences and build strong relationships. Doing this allows companies to increase loyalty and revenue. These platforms also benefit small businesses that may need more resources to manage customer engagement.

The Benefits of Using Customer Engagement Software and Tools

Using customer engagement software and tools can benefit businesses of all sizes. Here are some of the key advantages:

1. Improved Customer Satisfaction

By providing customers with personalized experiences, businesses create an overall positive customer experience. Doing this leads to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

Additionally, customer engagement platforms can help businesses gain valuable customer insights. And it allows them to make data-driven decisions to improve the customer experience.

Customer engagement platforms can also help with collecting customer feedback. Feedback provides valuable insights that you can use to improve products and services.

2. Enhanced Engagement

These platforms provide businesses with numerous ways to interact and engage with customers. For example, such engagement can happen through messaging or email campaigns.

As a result, companies can build better customer relationships. A better relationship helps generate more leads.

Businesses can also create automated campaigns and target specific customers with personalized messages. That allows companies to stay top-of-mind with their customers and increase engagement.

Additionally, you can use customer engagement platforms to launch loyalty programs. These programs reward customers for their repeat purchases or other interactions.

3. Increased Revenue

Businesses can increase customer loyalty and generate more revenue. That is done by providing customers with personalized experiences and better customer service.

Customer engagement platforms can also help companies identify customers likely to purchase more. And they can target customers with specific offers or discounts.

Additionally, companies can use customer engagement platforms to launch targeted campaigns to specific customer segments. Doing this can increase sales.

These strategies help companies increase their revenue and grow their business.

4. Increased Brand Awareness

Businesses can increase brand awareness by generating more word-of-mouth referrals. Achieve this by engaging customers on various channels.

Customer engagement platforms can help companies to create and manage effective campaigns. That allows companies to reach their target audience and increase their brand visibility.

Also, you can leverage customer trust and loyalty with customer engagement platforms. All of this increases brand recognition.

5. Increased Customer Retention

By engaging customers more, businesses can increase customer retention rates. Achieve that by creating loyalty and trust with customers.

Additionally, customer engagement platforms enable companies to target customers with relevant offers. Offers and incentives improve the chances of repeat sales.

6. Efficient Communication

With customer engagement platforms, businesses can communicate with customers in real-time.

As a result, they can provide immediate support and address concerns before they escalate. That also helps companies build trust and loyalty and ensure customer satisfaction. And it allows businesses to communicate with their customers without dedicating many resources to manual outreach.

7. Data-Driven Insights

Customer engagement platforms provide businesses with valuable data and insights. Such data include customer feedback and preferences. You can use this data to improve marketing and sales strategies.

Customer engagement platforms can also track customer behavior and identify trends. That helps businesses target customers more effectively.

This data-driven approach allows companies to optimize customer engagement strategies. With this, their efforts have more of a chance of succeeding.

8. Scalability

As businesses grow, customer engagement platforms can scale to meet their needs. This scalability provides a flexible solution that can adapt to changing business requirements.

You can integrate customer engagement platforms with existing systems. Doing this provides a seamless experience for customers. And it helps businesses ensure that their customer engagement strategies are effective.

Customer engagement software and tools can help businesses create better customer experiences and build lasting relationships. All of this help drive revenue and growth. So, if you're looking for a powerful platform to help you engage with customers, customer engagement platforms are the way to go.

Now let's compare the top customer engagement platforms and see which is best for you.

Top Customer Engagement Platforms Compared

Numerous customer engagement platforms are available on the market, each with unique features and benefits. Here are some of the top customer engagement platforms and how they compare:

Helpmonks

Helpmonks is an email management platform that allows businesses and teams to manage their emails efficiently. It provides an all-in-one solution for email management, enabling team members to share emails, delegate tasks, collaborate, and communicate internally to resolve customer inquiries faster. Let's explore the features that Helpmonks offers to help teams work better together.

Shared Inbox

Helpmonks offers a shared inbox that allows team members to access and work on emails collaboratively. With the shared inbox, team members can assign emails to specific team members, set deadlines, and leave notes for each other. Doing this ensures that everyone is on the same page.

These features can reduce response times and improve customer satisfaction.

Email Management

Helpmonks allows users to organize their emails into different categories, such as labels, tags, and folders. That makes it easier to manage and find specific emails, especially for businesses that receive high volumes of emails. In addition, email management lets users quickly filter through their inboxes and prioritize customer inquiries.

Collaboration

With Helpmonks, team members can discuss and collaborate on specific emails. They can assign tasks to each other, set deadlines, and leave comments, ensuring that customer inquiries are addressed promptly. The collaboration feature benefits teams that work in a fast-paced environment and need to respond to customer inquiries quickly.

Live Chat

Helpmonks includes a powerful live chat widget. Put on your website or online store enables you to chat in real-time with your customers or use targeted messaging to selectively reach out to customers. The integrated push notifications further help to convey your message to your online users.

Knowledge Base

With Helpmonks one can create private and public knowledge base sites that are powered by an AI driven search engine. There are some unique features includes, like a Roadmap (think Trello) and an Announcement section. Besides, one can use the Live Chat Widget to embed the help center and live chat onto any website.

Email Marketing & Email Sequences

Helpmonks also features a integrated email marketing platform. Customers can use it to send out email newsletters. It features an easy-to-use drag&drop editor to create beautiful marketing emails. Furthermore, email sequences are available for automated follow-ups, to create a series of emails, or abandoned shopping carts.

Workflow Management

Helpmonks offers a customizable workflow that enables team members to automate tasks. That includes sending automated replies, assigning tickets, and creating workflows based on specific criteria. The workflow management feature streamlines email management and ensures that emails are processed quickly and efficiently.

Reporting and Analytics

Helpmonks provides users with reports and analytics to track team performance, response times, and customer satisfaction rates. The reporting feature is essential for businesses that want to improve their customer service and track the effectiveness of their email management.

Pricing

Helpmonks offers several pricing plans.

Helpmonks is a powerful customer engagement software that enables teams to manage their emails. Its features include a shared inbox, email management, collaboration, workflow management, email marketing, email automation, live chat, knowledge base, and reporting and analytics.

The flexible pricing plan makes it affordable for businesses of all sizes. In addition, their free trial allows users to test its features before committing. With Helpmonks, teams can work together seamlessly to improve customer service, and grow their business.

Intercom

Intercom is a customer engagement platform that offers tools to help businesses communicate with their customers more effectively. Intercom's platform combines live chat, email marketing, and customer support features to create a seamless customer experience. Let's explore some of the features that make Intercom an excellent customer engagement platform for businesses of all sizes.

Live Chat

Intercom's live chat feature allows businesses to communicate with their customers in real time. You can customize the chat widget to match the website's branding and offers various features, such as canned responses, emoji reactions, and file uploads. The live chat feature is an excellent way to quickly engage with customers and answer their questions.

Email Marketing

Intercom's email marketing tools allow businesses to send targeted and personalized emails to their customers. The email editor is easy to use, and the platform offers a variety of templates to choose from.

Intercom's email marketing tools also allow businesses to segment their audience and automate email campaigns based on specific criteria, such as user behavior and engagement.

Customer Support

Intercom's customer support tools allow businesses to manage customer inquiries and support requests. The platform offers a shared inbox where team members can collaborate and assign tickets to specific team members. Intercom's customer support tools also include a knowledge base where businesses can create articles to help customers find answers to common questions.

Product Tours

Intercom's product tours feature allows businesses to create interactive guides to help customers navigate their products or services. The product tours can be customized to match the website's branding and offer various features, such as progress bars, tooltips, and animations. The product tours feature an excellent way to onboard new customers and improve customer engagement.

Reporting and Analytics

Intercom's reporting and analytics tools give businesses insights into customer behavior and engagement. The platform offers a variety of reports, such as conversation volume, response time, and user engagement. Intercom's reporting and analytics tools also allow businesses to track the effectiveness of their campaigns and improve their customer engagement strategies.

Pricing

Intercom offers pricing plans that vary based on different factors. The higher programs offer additional features and functions such as team inbox, product tours, and reporting and analytics.

No matter how you look at it, Intercom's prices are quite high and are based on users, usage, and volumes.

Intercom is a customer engagement platform that offers tools to help businesses communicate with their customers. Its features include live chat, email marketing, customer support, product tours, and reporting and analytics. And the flexible pricing plans make it affordable for businesses of all sizes.

In addition, the platform is easy to use and customize. With Intercom, companies can engage with their customers, improve customer service, and grow their business.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a leading all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer service software platform that enables businesses to attract, engage and delight their customers. With a range of powerful features and tools, HubSpot offers a comprehensive solution for businesses of all sizes. Let's explore the features that HubSpot offers to help companies to grow and succeed.

Marketing

HubSpot's marketing features include tools for content creation, lead generation, social media management, email marketing, and analytics. With these features, businesses can create and publish content, attract visitors to their website, convert visitors into leads, and track their marketing performance.

Sales

HubSpot's sales features include tools for prospecting, lead tracking, deal management, email tracking, and analytics. With these features, businesses can manage their sales pipeline, track their deals, and close more deals.

Service

HubSpot's service features include tools for customer support, ticket management, knowledge base creation, and customer feedback. With these features, businesses can provide excellent customer service and support, resolve customer issues quickly, and collect feedback to improve their service.

CRM

HubSpot's CRM is at the heart of its platform, providing businesses with a single view of customer interactions and data. CRM features include contact management, deal tracking, and task automation, enabling companies to manage customer relationships more effectively.

Integration

HubSpot integrates with various third-party apps and services, including Salesforce, Shopify, WordPress, and Slack. This integration enables businesses to streamline their workflows and processes. That saves time and improves productivity.

Pricing

Hubspot offers a plan at $30/month and the next tier starts at $800/month. It's quite a steep price increase for growing teams.

The higher plans offer additional features and functions like contact management, deal tracking, and task automation.

HubSpot is a comprehensive marketing, sales, and customer service software platform. Its features include marketing, sales, service, CRM, and integration, providing businesses with a complete solution for customer interactions and data management.

Zendesk

Zendesk is a customer service platform that provides businesses with tools to manage and improve customer interactions across multiple channels, including email, chat, phone, and social media. Let's explore the features that make Zendesk a popular choice for customer service management.

Ticket Management

Zendesk offers a ticketing system that enables businesses to manage customer inquiries. The system provides a centralized location for all customer interactions. That allows customer service representatives to track, prioritize, and resolve issues on time.

Multi-Channel Support

Zendesk supports multiple communication channels, including email, chat, phone, and social media, providing customers with various options to reach out for help. This feature ensures that customers can receive assistance through their preferred channel.

Self-Service Tools

Zendesk provides businesses with tools to create a knowledge base and community forums, allowing customers to find answers to common questions independently. This feature reduces the volume of support requests and helps customers find solutions quickly.

Collaboration

Zendesk enables customer service representatives to collaborate and share information to resolve customer inquiries more effectively. This feature is handy for businesses with complex issues requiring multiple departments' input.

Automation

Zendesk offers automation tools that enable businesses to create workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and set up triggers for specific events, such as customer replies or resolution times. This feature saves time and improves efficiency in managing customer inquiries.

Reporting and Analytics

Zendesk provides businesses with insights into their customer service performance through real-time reporting and analytics. This feature helps companies to understand how their customer service team is performing and identify areas for improvement.

Pricing

Zendesk offers several pricing plans to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes, starting at different price points depending on the features and services required. The pricing plans are designed to be competitively priced, making Zendesk an affordable solution for businesses.

The higher programs offer additional features and functions, such as multi-channel support, self-service tools, collaboration, automation, and reporting. In addition, the pricing plans are designed to be flexible. That makes Zendesk an excellent choice for businesses looking to improve their customer service and sales management.

Zendesk is a powerful customer service platform that provides businesses with tools to manage and improve customer interactions across multiple channels. Its features include ticket management, multi-channel support, self-service tools, collaboration, automation, and reporting and analytics. In addition, the pricing plans are designed to suit businesses of all sizes and needs, making Zendesk a popular choice for customer service management.

Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a cloud-based helpdesk software that provides businesses with an all-in-one solution to manage customer service operations. And Freshdesk offers various features that help companies to streamline their customer service processes, including:

Ticket Management

Freshdesk offers a centralized inbox that allows businesses to manage their customer inquiries from different channels, such as email, phone, chat, and social media. In addition, the ticket management system enables companies to track, prioritize, and assign tickets to team members. That ensures the timely resolution of customer inquiries.

Automation

Freshdesk provides businesses with automation tools to save time and improve efficiency. Automation features include ticket routing, canned responses, and service level agreements (SLAs), which help businesses provide consistent and timely customer responses.

Collaboration

Freshdesk allows team members to collaborate and work together on tickets, providing a unified view of customer interactions. The collaboration features include internal notes, team huddles, and collision detection, ensuring team members can work together seamlessly without duplicating efforts.

Knowledge Base

Freshdesk provides businesses with a knowledge base where they can create articles, FAQs, and self-help portals for their customers. The knowledge base helps companies to reduce the volume of incoming tickets. That enables customers to find answers to their questions quickly.

Reporting and Analytics

Freshdesk provides businesses with reports and analytics that help them track their team's performance, monitor customer satisfaction rates, and identify areas for improvement. The reporting features include SLA compliance, agent performance, and customer satisfaction surveys.

Pricing

Freshdesk's basic pricing plan starts at $0 per month, while the higher programs offer additional features and services. The pricing plans are designed to be affordable, making Freshdesk an attractive choice for businesses looking to manage their customer service operations. The higher programs offer additional features like multi-channel support, automation tools, collaboration, and reporting and analytics.

Freshdesk provides businesses with an all-in-one helpdesk solution enabling them to manage their customer service operations effectively. Its features include ticket management, automation, collaboration, knowledge base, reporting, and analytics.

In addition, the flexible pricing plans make it affordable for businesses of all sizes. And the free program enables firms to test its features before committing. With Freshdesk, companies can provide excellent customer service, improve customer satisfaction, and grow their business.

Salesforce

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that enables businesses to manage their sales, marketing, customer service, and analytics in one place. Let's explore the features that make Salesforce a popular choice for businesses of all sizes.

Sales Management

Salesforce allows businesses to manage their sales processes more efficiently. Users can track leads, opportunities, and deals in real-time, assign tasks to team members and automate workflows to streamline their sales processes. The platform also provides analytics and reporting tools to help businesses track their sales performance and identify areas for improvement.

Marketing Automation

Salesforce enables businesses to automate their marketing processes and engage with customers through multiple channels like email, social media, and mobile. Users can create personalized campaigns, track customer interactions, and analyze the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

Customer Service

Salesforce provides a comprehensive customer service platform that enables businesses to deliver personalized support across multiple channels. These channels include phone, email, chat, and social media.

In addition, the platform includes features such as case management, a knowledge base, and self-service portals to help businesses improve their customer service experience.

Analytics and Reporting

Salesforce offers robust analytics and reporting tools that enable businesses to track their performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions. Users can create custom reports and dashboards, analyze customer data, and gain insights into their business operations.

Mobile App

Salesforce offers a mobile app that allows users to access their CRM data on the go. And the app provides access to all the platform's features, including sales, marketing, and customer service, enabling users to stay productive away from their desks.

Pricing

Salesforce offers a scalable pricing plan tailored to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes. The higher plans offer additional features like analytics and reporting tools, custom development, and mobile app access.

Salesforce is a powerful CRM platform that enables businesses to manage their sales, marketing, customer service, and analytics in one place. Its features include sales management, marketing automation, customer service, analytics and reporting, and a mobile app.

The flexible pricing plans make it suitable for businesses of all sizes. Also, the platform's scalability means companies can quickly grow and adapt as their needs change.

Front

FrontApp is not a customer engagement solution but merely a shared inbox platform that allows teams to manage messages and social media channels in one place. It provides an all-in-one solution for communication management, enabling team members to work together, delegate tasks, collaborate, and communicate internally and externally to resolve customer inquiries faster. Let's explore the features that Front offers to help teams work better together.

Shared Inbox

Front offers a shared inbox that allows team members to access and work on emails, messages, and social media channels. With the shared inbox, team members can assign conversations to specific team members, set deadlines, and leave notes for each other. That ensures everyone is on the same page.

This feature can reduce response times and improve customer satisfaction.

Message Management

Front allows users to organize their messages into different categories, such as labels, tags, and folders. That makes managing and finding specific conversations easier, especially for businesses that receive high volumes of messages. And message management lets users quickly filter through their inboxes and prioritize customer inquiries.

Collaboration

With Front, team members can discuss and collaborate on specific conversations. They can assign tasks to each other, set deadlines, and leave comments, ensuring that customer inquiries are addressed promptly. The collaboration feature benefits teams that work in a fast-paced environment and need to respond to customer inquiries quickly.

Workflow Management

Front offers a customizable workflow that enables team members to automate tasks. That includes sending automated replies, assigning tickets, and creating workflows based on specific criteria. The workflow feature streamlines communication and ensures that conversations are processed quickly.

Reporting and Analytics

Front provides users with reports and analytics to track team performance, response times, and customer satisfaction rates. The reporting feature is essential for businesses that want to improve their customer service and track the effectiveness of their communication management.

Pricing

Front offers several pricing plans tailored to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes. The Basic program costs $38 per month (they impose a minimum of two user licenses) and includes access to the shared inbox, message management, and collaboration tools.

Their higher plans offer additional features like advanced analytics and reporting tools, custom development, and integration with other business applications. Front's pricing plans make it suitable for businesses of all sizes. And their scalability ensures businesses can grow and adapt as their needs change.

Front is a powerful collaborative inbox platform that enables teams to manage their communication efficiently. Its features include a shared inbox, message management, collaboration, workflow management, and reporting and analytics. The flexible pricing plan makes it affordable for businesses of all sizes.

In addition, their free trial allows users to test its features before committing. With Front, teams can work together seamlessly, improve customer service, and grow their business.

ServiceNow

ServiceNow is a cloud-based platform that offers enterprise-level software solutions for IT service management (ITSM), IT operations management (ITOM), and IT business management (ITBM). It provides a comprehensive suite of tools to help businesses streamline their IT services and operations, automate workflows, and improve customer service.

Let's explore the features that ServiceNow offers to help organizations work more efficiently.

IT Service Management (ITSM)

ServiceNow offers a powerful ITSM suite that enables organizations to manage their IT services efficiently. With its Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, and Service Request Management modules, organizations can automate their IT processes, track issues, and resolve problems quickly. ServiceNow's ITSM suite also provides a self-service portal, enabling users to request IT services and report incidents online.

IT Operations Management (ITOM)

ServiceNow's ITOM suite helps organizations manage their IT infrastructure and operations effectively. With its Discovery, Service Mapping, Event Management, and Orchestration modules, organizations can automate their IT operations, monitor and manage their IT assets, and respond to issues proactively. ServiceNow's ITOM suite also offers dashboards and analytics to help organizations gain insights into their IT operations.

IT Business Management (ITBM)

ServiceNow's ITBM suite provides tools to help organizations align their IT services with their business goals. For example, with its Project Portfolio Management, Agile Development, and Financial Management modules, organizations can prioritize IT projects, manage development cycles, and track IT costs. ServiceNow's ITBM suite also offers dashboards and analytics to help organizations monitor their IT investments and measure their performance.

Service Portal

ServiceNow's Service Portal provides a user-friendly interface for users to request IT services, report issues, and access knowledge articles. And organizations can customize the Service Portal to meet their specific needs and provide a personalized experience for their users.

Reporting and Analytics

ServiceNow provides users with reports and analytics to track their performance, response times, and customer satisfaction rates. The reporting feature is essential for businesses that want to improve their customer service and track the effectiveness of their IT operations.

Pricing

ServiceNow offers a flexible pricing plan based on the organization's specific needs. In addition, the pricing plan includes different modules that organizations can choose from based on their requirements.

ServiceNow is a comprehensive cloud-based platform that provides ITSM, ITOM, and ITBM solutions to help organizations manage their IT services and operations efficiently. Its features include ITSM, ITOM, ITBM suites, a Service Portal, and reporting and analytics. With ServiceNow, organizations can streamline their IT services and operations, improve customer service, and grow their business.

Schedule a Demo With Helpmonks and Experience Better Email Collaboration

Choosing the right customer engagement platform for your small business can be daunting, given the wide range of options available in the market. However, by considering factors such as your business goals, budget, and specific customer engagement needs, you can narrow down your options and select a platform that meets your requirements.

Compared to other customer engagement platforms, Helpmonks offers comprehensive features that make it the ideal choice for businesses looking to improve their email collaboration and customer service. With its shared inbox, email management, collaboration, workflow management, live chat tools, CRM, knowledge base, email marketing, email automation, and reporting and analytics features, Helpmonks provides a complete solution for managing emails efficiently and delivering exceptional customer service at an affordable price.

The platform also offers a free trial period to test its features before committing.

Schedule a demo with Helpmonks today and experience the difference that exceptional email management can make for your business.