The 10 Best Customer Service Apps of 2026

Customer service apps can help you add self-service options, like returns or customer inquiries, to your ecommerce website and give your customer support team the tools they need to deliver efficient, personalized customer interactions. Once they’re up and running, the customer service functions that these apps support can boost customer satisfaction with a seamless service experience. 

Learn the basics of customer support software, the best customer service apps for small businesses, and how you can pick the right customer service tool for your needs.

What are customer service apps?

Customer service apps are software applications that unify customer communications and services into a single platform. They enable your customer service team to quickly respond to inquiries with personalized support and help customers handle many service requests on their own. 

A customer support platform uses customer data, such as purchase history or past interactions with customer service, to better inform service representatives or provide an AI-powered chatbot with vital customer information. It often collects the customer name, purchase, contact information, and details from past interactions, whether through social media channels, phone calls, in-person purchases, or emails.

For example, if someone calls customer service because they received the wrong size sweatshirt, customer service software can surface the relevant information so the responding team member can quickly familiarize themselves with the customer and their order, and then issue a refund or exchange the item. This allows for fast case resolution on customer inquiries and support tickets and lets customer service teams avoid having to ask long strings of questions to gain pertinent information.

Types of customer service apps

While many customer support apps feature multiple capabilities, some specialize in different areas:

• Help desk software. This software unifies your support requests and customer conversations from all channels, simplifying ticket tracking and ticket management.

• Phone support. Customer service software specializing in phone support helps teams track, forward, log, and analyze calls, while capturing relevant customer information.

• AI chatbots. AI-powered chatbots can provide automated responses to simple queries on your website, such as store hours or product questions, and forward complex inquiries to human agents.

• Real-time chat platforms. With a real-time chat platform, your customer support team can reply to customer requests through a chat module on your website.

• Social media support tools. This software lets you reply to customer support inquiries made through channels such as Facebook Messenger or Instagram DMs, centralizing conversations from all your social platforms.

• Email support. These apps bring all email communications into one platform and can provide automated responses for fast service.

• Knowledge bases. A knowledge base platform helps you maintain a help center where customers can find answers to commonly asked questions. By providing this self-service option, you free up your support team to focus on more complex tickets.

10 best customer service apps

1. Shopify Inbox
2. Zendesk
3. Gorgias
4. Dialpad
5. Zoho Desk
6. Salesforce Service Cloud
7. HubSpot Service Hub
8. Shared Inbox
9. LiveAgent
10. Sprout Social

According to HubSpot, 67% of customers expect a resolution to their question in under three hours. Small businesses can meet that demand and improve customer satisfaction by using one or more customer service apps to quickly and effectively respond to inquiries. Across a multitude of industries, here are 10 apps helping to set the highest levels of service:

1. Shopify Inbox

Shopify Inbox is a real-time chat platform with social media and email capabilities, allowing you to reply to social media conversations or customer questions submitted through your website. Shopify Inbox simplifies this process by bringing all of these conversations into one platform with a user-friendly interface. It shows agents a customer’s history with past purchases, and it can suggest upgrades or discount codes.

Shopify Inbox also uses AI (via Shopify Sidekick) to enhance customer support by generating personalized responses and suggesting relevant FAQs and answers.

Pricing: Shopify Inbox is included with a Shopify account, which starts at $29 per month.

2. Zendesk

Zendesk is a help desk software that unifies customer conversations into one highly customizable interface and uses AI to automate replies to simple questions. Zendesk’s Shopify integration provides context to customer service representatives through detailed customer profiles, allowing them to see customer interaction history, such as past conversations and purchase history.

Zendesk’s key features include AI capabilities, and AI agents can draw from customer data to provide personalized replies. This software also fosters team collaboration via integration with communication platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams.

Pricing: Zendesk has a basic plan at $19 per user per month, featuring email and ticketing support, conversations from Facebook and X, and ticket routing. Plans with AI capabilities, messaging with live chat, and phone support start at $55 per user per month.

3. Gorgias

Gorgias offers ecommerce-focused help desk software, bringing customer communications from email, social media, chat, text messages, and phone calls into one platform. Gorgias integrates with Shopify, bringing rich information such as real-time product information and customer purchase history into the platform.

Similar to Zendesk, Gorgias uses AI to autonomously generate relevant, personalized replies to simple customer inquiries. Gorgias uses automation to handle routine tasks like responding to questions about order status, freeing up customer support teams to focus on issues that need human assistance.

Pricing: Gorgias has a starter plan at $10 per month, which includes a centralized help desk and support for up to 50 tickets per month. AI agent capabilities are available as an add-on or included in more premium plans. 

4. Dialpad

Dialpad is an AI-powered phone support platform, serving as a contact center for businesses to manage customer calls and voice messages. Dialpad’s AI transcribes phone calls in real time and generates call summaries, making life easier for customer support teams by letting them focus on a customer’s issue instead of taking notes. 

Dialpad also has integrations with client relationship management (CRM) platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot, and tools like Google Workspace.

Pricing: Dialpad starts at $15 per user per month, with real-time call transcriptions, analytics, and reporting features.

5. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is help desk software for companies that want the flexibility to scale their support capabilities up or down. This customer support app features automation to handle repetitive tasks within a typical customer service workflow. Zoho also includes a robust selection of more than 100 cloud-based tools as integrations, including Shopify. 

You can use Zoho Desk for help desk software, or Zoho Voice for a phone-based contact center. Zia, Zoho’s AI agent, can automate ticket management, lowering the ticket volume for your customer service agents, and help provide a personalized experience with relevant responses to customers.

Pricing: Zoho Desk has a free plan for very small teams, with a limit of three agents and limited ticket management capabilities. Paid plans start at $7 per user per month, with the ability to see the history of a ticket and add information from solved tickets to your knowledge base. Most AI capabilities are only included in premium or enterprise plans.

6. Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud is a CRM and help desk software that helps sales teams and customer support teams. Through Service Cloud, you can manage leads throughout the customer journey and collaborate with your teams via Slack. You can also build a self-service knowledge base with Service Cloud, allowing customers to find answers to common questions.

Salesforce also offers Agentforce Service for large enterprises. With Agentforce Service, AI agents quickly respond to customer questions with personalized answers and escalate complex cases to human agents.

Pricing: Salesforce Service Cloud has a basic free plan with account management, Slack, and email marketing. Paid plans, with more sales-focused features, start at $25 per user per month, with Agentforce Service starting at $175 per user per month.

7. HubSpot Service Hub 

HubSpot Service Hub is an ideal help desk solution if you’re already using HubSpot as your CRM. Like Salesforce Service Cloud, Service Hub connects to your sales data but has deeper customer service features. 

HubSpot uses AI for simple ticket resolution and ticket assignment, autonomously routing tickets to the proper agent. Service Hub also allows you to monitor customer service team performance with real-time data. You can get a better sense of customer satisfaction through customizable Net Promoter Score and customer feedback surveys, which HubSpot can help you prepare and distribute.

Pricing: HubSpot’s free plan features basic ticket management for up to two users and a live chat module for your website—but customer-facing assets will feature HubSpot branding. HubSpot’s starter plan removes branding and offers integration with your CRM at $9 per user per month, with automation available in plans starting at $90 per user per month.

8. Shared Inbox

Shared Inbox, by Canary, is an email customer service platform that uses AI to assign tickets to the right human agent and suggest quick replies to customers. This is a better fit for companies that get most of their customer communication via email. Shared Inbox brings all company inboxes together, fostering greater collaboration and letting you easily see which customer service representative is handling each ticket.

Pricing: Shared Inbox starts at $10 per user per month, which includes up to 100 AI chatbot responses and a built-in helpdesk. AI agents and customer satisfaction score reporting are available in plans starting at $20 per user per month.

9. LiveAgent

LiveAgent specializes in real-time chat but also features support for social media messages, email, phone, and customer self-service. Customer service representatives can chat in real time with customers who get in touch via your website’s chat portal. LiveAgent uses generative AI to suggest replies that customer service agents can adjust for tone before sending.

LiveAgent has a Shopify integration, which places a live chat button on your Shopify ecommerce site. You can respond to chats as they come in and track customer communications.

Pricing: LiveAgent has a small business plan for $15 per user per month, featuring ticket management, live chat, a knowledge base, automation rules, and an AI assistant.

10. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management platform used for scheduling and posting content and managing conversations. Its customer support features give you a combined view of your direct messages (DMs) and replies across all of your social channels. In premier plans, AI tools can help you craft a response, adjusted for tone. Sprout Social features Shopify integration, so your support reps have customer history readily available.

Pricing: Sprout Social starts at $199 per user per month, with management of up to five social profiles, customer care case management, and the ability to see 90 days of conversation history.

How to choose the right customer service app

Follow these tips when trying to choose the most effective customer service app for your company:

• Communicate in your customers’ preferred channels. Consider how your customers communicate with you. For example, if most of your customer conversations happen over email, you might choose an app that prioritizes email functionalities over a help desk solution that focuses on other channels.

• Look for automation features. Make life easier on your customer service reps by selecting a platform that automates routine tasks like ticket tagging and routing.

• Consider AI integration. An app with AI chatbot capabilities can help you quickly answer customer questions. According to Deloitte, 61% of companies use AI for customer service, with resolution time being the key factor.

• Explore customization options. Whether it’s customizable dashboards to monitor agent performance or the ability to make a chatbot appear native to your site (versus branded by a third party), explore each platform’s customization options to find the right fit.

• Try the demo. Take advantage of the free demo many customer service apps offer so you can test key features and determine for yourself whether the software is what you need to maintain or improve customer satisfaction.