The Best Social Media Customer Service Tools

Providing good customer service via social media is a “must” for businesses in any industry. But juggling comments, messages and tweets across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter can be overwhelming and inefficient.

Ideally, your customer support team would funnel social media support through the same helpdesk software you use for email, live chat, and phone support. That way, you’d be able to not only respond in one streamlined place, but track metrics, monitor responses and otherwise manage social media along with the rest of your customer support.

Unfortunately, most off-the-shelf helpdesk software programs don’t have as many features for social media as they do for email, chat and phone service (yet). But some do have advantages over others. In this article, we’ll break down the pros, cons and features of six helpdesk platforms to help you make the right choice for your business.

Gorgias

What social media platforms does it integrate with?
Facebook and Instagram

What can you do with it on each platform?
For managing customer support via Facebook, Gorgias is probably the best and most comprehensive tool available to companies that aren’t ready for Salesforce. On Facebook, you can reply to DMs. You can also see and reply to comments on your page, or comments you are tagged in. Though you can’t delete comments through Gorgias, you can “hide” them from public view.

Gorgias also allows you to see and reply to comments on your Instagram posts, but does not catch messages sent via Instagram.

Price

Annual:

• Basic – $50/month ($60 if billed monthly)
  • Unlimited agents, maximum of 500 tickets
• Pro – $166/month ($200 if billed monthly)
  • Unlimited agents, maximum of 2,000 tickets
• Advanced – $416/month ($500 if billed monthly)
  • Unlimited agents, maximum of 6,000 tickets
• Enterprise – custom pricing

See more details on pricing at Gorgias.io.

Helpscout

What social media platforms does it integrate with?
Facebook and Twitter

What can you do with it on each platform?
You can see and reply to direct messages from Facebook and Twitter on Helpscout, but it you’ll need to install Smooch, a third-party app. Smooch also allows you to integrate messaging into your mobile app and respond to SMS messages using Twilio. (Read our full Helpscout review.)

Price

Annual:

• Basic – $12 per user per month
  • Up to 10 agents, unlimited messages
• Standard – $20 per user per month ($25 if billed monthly)
  • Unlimited agents, unlimited messages
• Plus – $32 per user per month ($40 if billed monthly)
  • Unlimited agents, unlimited messages
• Company – contact Helpscout for pricing

See more details on pricing at Helpscout.

Intercom

What social media platforms does it integrate with?
Facebook and Twitter

What can you do with it on each platform?
Intercom allows you to funnel direct messages from Facebook and Twitter to your customer service inbox, but does not send comments or mentions there.

Price

Support customers

• Essential – $87/month
  • 2 agents included, additional agents $19/month, unlimited messages
• Pro – from $127/month
  • 2 agents included, additional agents $39/month, unlimited messages
• Premium – contact for price

See more details on pricing at Intercom.

Kustomer

What social media platforms does it integrate with?
Facebook and Twitter

What can you do with it on each platform?
Kustomer allows you to see and reply to both direct messages and mentions on Twitter, as well as add Twitter activity to a customer’s profile. It also analyzes and tracks metrics via Twitter.
Kustomer also integrates with Facebook messenger, but does not allow you to see or reply to Facebook comments.

Price

• Enterprise – $99 per user per month
  • Unlimited agents, unlimited messages
• Ultimate – $169 per user per month
  • Unlimited agents, unlimited messages

See more details on pricing at Kustomer.

Salesforce

What social media platforms does it integrate with?
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube

What can you do with it on each platform?
Salesforce is the most comprehensive solution for managing customer support across all channels. Through Salesforce, you can reply to tweets and direct messages on Twitter, as well as like, retweet or comment on tweets you’re mentioned in. Similarly, on Facebook you can reply to comments and DMs, as well as like, share, or comment on others’ posts. Salesforce also allows you to open customer service cases for comments on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Price

Annual:

• Service Cloud Essentials – $25 per user per month
  • Up to 5 users, unlimited messages
• Service Cloud Professional Edition – $ 75 per user per month
  • Unlimited messages
• Service Cloud Enterprise Edition – $150 per user per month
  • Unlimited messages

See more details on pricing at Salesforce.

Zendesk

What social media platforms does it integrate with?
Facebook and Twitter

What can you do with it on each platform?
Zendesk does a great job of letting you manage direct messages. DMs from both Facebook and Twitter come in like emails and can be managed with the rest of your customer service tickets.
Zendesk does not show comments on your Facebook posts or paid ads, and does not enable you to manage Twitter mentions. If you want your customer support team to manage comments and tweets, you’ll either need to give them direct access to your social accounts or supplement with another platform. (Read our full Zendesk review.)

Price

Annual:

• Essential – $5 per agent per month ($9 if billed monthly)
  • Unlimited messages
• Team – $19 per agent per month ($25 if billed monthly)
  • Unlimited messages
• Professional – $49 per agent per month ($59 if billed monthly)
  • Unlimited messages
• Enterprise – $99 per agent per month ($125 if billed monthly)
  • Unlimited messages
• Elite – $199 per agent per month
  • Unlimited messages

See more details on pricing at Zendesk.

All in all, helpdesk software still has some catching up to do as social media evolves as a business tool. But some of these features will undoubtedly be helpful tools in responding to your customer service requests more efficiently.

If you want to learn more about scaling customer support, download our e-book “Scaling Customer Support for Your Growing Business”.

Illustration by Rhea Avanceña