The best Shopify customer service apps [2021]

As one of the premier eCommerce platforms, Shopify offers its fair share of native features and functionality that make it easy for merchants to get started selling online fast. Because of its speed, security, scalability, and more, Shopify has established itself as one of the most popular cloud solutions for eCommerce merchants.

But while getting up and running may be relatively simple, generating long-term business growth and profitably is not exactly a walk in the park for eCommerce brands. For merchants to be successful in the long run, it’s essential that they implement excellent customer experiences. Acquiring new customers can be extremely costly, so establishing long-term relationships with purchasers and enticing them to return is key.

One way for brands to foster these relationships is through excellent customer service. A good approach to customer service can help create loyal customers, encourage brand advocacy, and even generate revenue. ECommerce businesses need to adopt tools and technologies that enable them to easily engage with customers to solve their problems — and do it at scale.

Thankfully, the Shopify App Store offers a ton of third-party applications to make your customer service experience as seamless and consistent as possible. From chatbots, to help desk tools, to accessibility solutions, here are Codal’s picks for the best Shopify customer service apps.

Richpanel

Richpanel is a customer support and CRM platform that acts as an all-in-one solution for merchants looking to improve their customer experience. Richpanel boasts a pretty impressive live chat tool, which resolves 40 to 60% of customer queries without ever reaching an agent. The live chat function lets customers view their orders and track packages. It can be easily customized to resolve your most common queries, freeing up agents for more complex queries and better customer engagement. Its helpdesk platform enables customer communication through multiple channels, Additionally, Richpanel incorporates functionality that allows merchants to easily send surveys to customers, as well as track their customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores over time. Its impressive set of features makes it one of the most flexible and powerful apps on this list.

Returnly

A crucial component of a well-rounded approach to customer service is handling returns. Thankfully, Returnly makes dealing with customer returns easy by helping you set up your own self-service return center. It automates several key elements of the return process, including shipping label generation, meaning your support team can save valuable time and effort. The return center can be customized with your brand elements to ensure a seamless experience for customers, and Returnly even incorporates some intelligent reporting and analytics capabilities. It’s the perfect one-stop solution for processing returns for Shopify merchants.

Gorgias

Much like Zendesk, Gorgias strives to centralize all customer service channels into a single hub. This enables your support team to communicate with customers easily, without having to constantly switch between channels. As a full-scale help desk solution, Gorgias offers functionality to help you significantly cut down on customer support time. Using pre-made response templates and automation — and easy access to all relevant customer data and information-Gorgias helps relieve your support team of some of the heavy lifting, freeing them up to work on delivering superior customer experiences.

A key feature that Gorgias offers is deep integrations with your Shopify store. You can update, create, and cancel orders, as well as process refunds, issue invoices, and update shipping addresses, all directly through Gorgias. You can also use machine learning to detect the intent of your customers and segment them accordingly. You can also respond to customer tickets in one click with intelligent templates and customer data points that are automatically synced from your Shopify store.

“Using Shopify data to provide amazing customer experiences makes all the difference. With Gorgias, you can stop asking customers for information you already have, personalize messages at scale, and automate common tasks so your team can focus on building exceptional experiences,” says Nicole Baqai, partner manager at Gorgias.

Reamaze

Reamaze shines as one of the most powerful live chat and chatbot customer service apps available on Shopify. Drawing on customer data from Shopify, Reamaze lets you create automated workflows and templated responses, making your support employees’ lives a whole lot easier. Reamaze’s chat platform enables your team to “process requests, draft orders, and handle returns, refunds, and cancellations-all within its chat platform. It’s a solid choice for teams with limited customer support team resources, or who are looking to do more with less.

Zendesk

Zendesk bills itself as an “omnichannel customer service and engagement solution.” That’s a pretty apt descriptor, as the app enables merchants to connect and interact with customers across phone, chat, email, messaging, social media, and a variety of other channels. Zendesk acts as a central hub for all customer service-related tasks and communications, allowing you to easily access customer data, connect customers to your support team, and process refunds and cancellations. The app helps your support team deliver superior customer experiences, and resolutions are achieved in a more timely fashion through a variety of channels. Simply put, Zendesk is one of the most comprehensive customer service solutions available to Shopify merchants.

Gladly

Trusted by innovative eCommerce brands like Allbirds and Chubbies, Gladly is a “radically personal” customer service app available to Shopify merchants. Gladly creates a single conversion thread across all channels for customer service requests, making it easy for your support team to address customer concerns quickly and easily, with total visibility into all past communication. In addition to streamlining support team operations, Gladly can help you turn customer service into a revenue-generating discipline with personalized recommendations. The app enables your support team to draw on customer data like past purchases and buying habits to make recommendations and talk through features and benefits directly, turning simple support conversations into sales opportunities. If you’re looking to get more out of your customer service approach than just simply handling requests, Gladly is the way to go.

Get the most out of the Shopify App Store

With Shopify’s extensive set of apps, your store has access to numerous tools for improving its customer service capabilities. As a certified Shopify partner, Codal can help you learn more about its third-party tools and how they can help you craft an engaging approach to customer service.
Codal’s eCommerce designers and developers are masters of their craft and can help you select the best Shopify apps to help your business drive sales. Interested in learning more about Codal’s Shopify capabilities? Get in touch today.

Originally published at https://codal.com.