Vendor:
Founded:
Headquarters:
Help Scout
Boston, MA
2011
Customers:
Deployment Model:
Free Trial:
12,000+
Cloud
Yes
Help Scout At A Glance
Product Overview
Help Scout is a cloud-based software that helps companies improve their relationships with customers. Its unique Beacon feature provides instant self-service answers to customers and engages them by live chat if the issue escalates. This frees up agents to focus on critical issues. Agents can also respond to customers by email, live chat or in-app messaging.
Help Scout has numerous benefits including:
- Intuitive interface with minimal training
- Increased collaboration among teams
- Better organization of customer data
- Integration with customer relationship management (CRM) software and other third-party systems
The software has a mobile app for accessing features on the go, such as responding to customers, seeing and assigning conversations and inserting canned replies.
Features
We’ve listed some key features of Help Scout below.
Customer management – Companies can store important customer data in one place, and customer profiles can be automatically created by pulling data from Beacon tool or a third-party CRM. Users can sort, filter and edit the profiles.
Mailboxes (shared inboxes) – Users can track all phone, email and chat conversations with the shared inboxes. They can have separate mailboxes for different teams, brands or other criteria. Users can send private notes, use tags in conversations and add saved replies for common questions. The collision detection feature lets users see who else is replying to a customer in real time. Users can set up workflows to automate common tasks, such as assigning conversations and sending bulk replies. Additional features include notifications, advanced search functionality, satisfaction ratings and over 75 keyboard shortcuts.
Docs (knowledge base) – Users can develop a branded help center with built-in security and configurable SEO options. They can also add new articles that’s embedded on any web page. Additional Docs features are the ability to manage multiple help centers, multilanguage translation, HTML or text format and private documents.
Beacon (live chat) – Beacon gives customers instant answers to their questions, but also offers additional contact through live chat. Users can set up custom options that prioritize self service over live chat or vice versa. Beacon also won’t display the live chat window unless there’s an available agent.
Messages – Messages is a new feature that lets agents proactively reach out to new customers (e.g., product onboarding, announcing new features). The message can be sent from a website, a blog or an app, and users can set up conditional logic and triggers. Help Scout also mentions that additional messaging features, such as ratings or mobile SDK support, will be available in a future upgrade.
Reporting – Users can create reports on various metrics, such as response time, number of conversations and popular help articles. With the Views feature, they can sort data using advanced filters and then save them. Reports can also be exported to a CSV or an Excel file.
Target Market
Help Scout targets companies of all sizes in many industries. We’ve listed 10 of its clients below.
- AngelList
- Basecamp
- BlueBottle Coffee
- GrubHub
- Litmus
- Mixmax
- Threadless
- Tuft & Needle
Implementation/Integration
New clients can sign up for a 15-day free trial and can begin using the software in minutes. They can access how-to guides and videos to familiarize themselves on the software.
Help Scout integrates with over 50 third-party applications, such as CRM software, marketing automation systems and eCommerce solutions. Users on the Plus and Company pricing plans can integrate Help Scout with HubSpot, Jira or Salesforce.
Customer Service & Support
Users can browse articles and submit ticket requests within the help center and also contact the support team by chat and email.
Help Scout provides weekly training webinars on the software’s features and customer service best practices.
Pricing
Help Scout has three pricing plans (billed annually):
- Standard – The Standard plan costs $20 per user, per month and includes Beacon feature with live chat, a single Docs site, three mailboxes, the ability to message up to 2,000 customers, Customer Properties (enriching customer profiles with custom attributes), reporting, automated workflows and integration with up to 50 third-party systems.
- Plus – The Plus plan costs $35 per user, per month and includes all of the features of the Standard plan, plus 10 mailboxes, custom fields and teams, HIPAA compliance and integration with Salesforce, Jira and HubSpot. There’s an optional SSO/SAML authentication feature.
- Company – The Company plan includes all of the features of the Plus plan, plus unlimited mailboxes and Docs sites, enterprise security, concierge onboarding services and a dedicated account manager. Please contact Help Scout for a quote.
Shortcomings
Some users prefer additional customization, especially with reports or canned replies. Also, Help Scout integrates with Facebook but not with Twitter or Instagram.
Screenshots
About
Founded in 2011, Help Scout aims to help companies improve their customer service. It’s a Certified B Corporation that combines profits and positive impact on employees, the community and the environment. Help Scout offers discounts to nonprofits and other B corporations. It also plants a new tree with the Nature Conservancy for every new customer. The company holds additional core values, such as diversity and focus on the key details in building software.
Help Scout has over 12,000 clients in more than 140 countries and a fully remote team in 80 cities worldwide.
