Help Scout

Simple, Powerful, Personal Customer Support Platform

Freemium

Description

Help Scout provides a comprehensive customer communication platform tailored for businesses seeking to deliver exceptional support. It centralizes customer interactions from various channels like email, chat, and social media into a shared inbox, facilitating seamless team collaboration. The platform emphasizes ease of use and allows for unlimited user seats across all plans, focusing instead on a contact-based pricing model where businesses pay based on the number of customers they help each month.

Integrated AI features are included at no extra cost, even on the free plan, aiming to boost team productivity. These tools can summarize long conversations, draft replies, translate messages, and provide instant answers via the embeddable Beacon help widget which leverages the Docs knowledge base. Beyond the inbox and AI, Help Scout offers robust reporting to track team performance, self-service options through customizable knowledge bases (Docs), proactive messaging capabilities, and over 100 integrations with other business tools like Salesforce, Jira, and HubSpot.

Key Features

Shared Inbox: Manage customer conversations from email, chat, social media, and more in one place.
AI Features: Includes AI drafts, reply editing/translation, conversation summaries, and AI-powered answers in the help widget at no extra cost.
Docs Knowledge Base: Build customizable, SEO-optimized help centers for self-service support.
Beacon Help Widget: Embeddable widget offering AI answers, live chat/email access, and suggested articles.
Automation Workflows: Automate tasks like tagging, assigning, and replying to conversations.
Reporting & Analytics: Track support volume, team performance, response times, and customer satisfaction.
In-App Messaging & Surveys: Engage customers with targeted messages and collect feedback via NPS and CSAT surveys.
Unlimited Users: All plans include unlimited user seats, promoting team-wide access.
Integrations: Connect with 100+ tools including Salesforce, Jira, HubSpot, and Shopify.
Contact-Based Pricing: Billing is based on the number of unique contacts helped per month, not per user.

Use Cases

Centralizing multi-channel customer support communication.
Providing 24/7 self-service options via knowledge bases and AI.
Improving support team productivity with AI assistance and automation.
Collaborating effectively within support teams on customer inquiries.
Scaling customer service operations without per-user costs.
Gathering and analyzing customer feedback (NPS, CSAT).
Onboarding new users with targeted in-app messages.
Tracking and reporting on key customer support metrics.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Help Scout charge per contact instead of per user?

Help Scout charges per contact because it's more predictable month-to-month (34% less variable than per-seat), allows unlimited users for broader team access to customer feedback, and aligns pricing with the value provided – revenue is earned when the platform helps customers.

Who counts as a contact in Help Scout?

A contact is a unique individual who received a reply from your team or had their question resolved by the AI assistant within a given month. Multiple conversations with the same person during that month only count as one contact.

How can I estimate my monthly contact count before signing up?

You can estimate by multiplying your total monthly ticket/email count by 0.7 (based on averages), import historical data during a free trial for a precise count, or start with the Free plan to monitor your actual contact volume.