When it comes to email, many people fall into one of two camps: those who spend part of their day deleting ads, unsubscribing from newsletters, and filtering their inboxes to important content, and those who avoid email altogether.
In fact, “ 40% of consumers say they have at least 50 unread emails in their inbox.
It’s not that customers don’t want to hear from the brands they buy from, but most of the communications seem pretty generic – like an entire inbox full of emails addressed to someone else.
According to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report, “88% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its product or service. This means your business’ customer communications need to be simplified and personalized to gain customer loyalty and build on their Get a place in your inbox.
Fortunately, there are many tools that can help your business create a more personalized experience for customers, such as customer communication management software.
What is Customer Communications Management?
Customer Communications Management (CCM) is the process of creating, managing and distributing customer communications. Businesses typically handle this through a CCM platform, which helps centralize communications efforts and analyze their effectiveness to improve customer satisfaction and engagement.
Businesses can use CCM to manage two-way communication channels, such as email, live chat, phone calls, and text messages, as well as outbound efforts, such as email or SMS marketing campaigns, printed materials, and digital documents such as invoices and contracts.
CCM vs. CRM Systems: Understanding the Differences
Customer communication management systems are often confused with their better-known counterparts: customer relationship management (CRM) platforms.
While both are customer-centric, CRM and CCM each focus on different things:
- CRM tools focus on collecting and integrating customer data (contact information, communication and purchase history, website viewing habits, product engagement behavior, etc.) across the organization.
- CCM tools focus on the customer interaction itself—creating content, speaking with customers, and using data to personalize communications.
Despite their differences, the two types of platforms often overlap—CRMs often come with content creation tools, while CCMs feature data and analytics to help teams better segment audiences.
What are the benefits of adopting a CCM platform?
While it’s true that you can manage your company’s communications without using a CCM, there are many benefits to moving them into a single system.
Better Customer Experience (CX)
First, customer communication software makes it easier to create and deliver customer-centric experiences.
CCM will help you:
- Minimizes confusion : When sales, marketing, and support teams have full visibility into all messages customers receive, it keeps everyone on the same page, helps create a cohesive communications strategy, and contributes to a unified brand sound.
- Encourage contextual dialogue : People don’t like being treated like numbers, yet more than half of consumers think companies treat them that way . CCM tools provide customer data to help your people-facing teams have more meaningful conversations with customers.
- Help personalize : CCM software can help you reach your customers on the channels they prefer, on the topics they want to hear about, ensuring your messages are always relevant.
better employee experience
CCM platforms also benefit employees. they can:
- Simplified content creation : Many platforms come with pre-made templates for emails, contracts, and invoices, making it easy for anyone to deliver professional messaging to clients. Additional client communication tools can optimize content for different devices, ensuring that the content you send to your clients is always formatted correctly.
- Centralize customer information : Instead of switching back and forth between things like email accounts, file sharing services, and digital document applications, CCM keeps everything related to a customer in one place.
- Reduced workload : Personalized messaging can be difficult to scale without increasing headcount. CCM helps automate certain tasks, increasing efficiency and reducing stress on teams.
better insight
CCM solutions also help companies gain insights into their customers, products and brands through analytics.
Reports based on CCM data can tell you more about your customers:
- Demographics: who your customers are and where they live.
- Preferences : Which devices your customers use to view your content, their favorite channels, and the topics they are most interested in.
- Behavior : Which communications get the most engagement and when your customers typically engage with them.
- Sentiment : Your customers’ overall perception of your product or service and your brand.
What should you look for in customer communication management software?
Depending on your business and the communication channels your customers prefer, the features you want from your CCM will vary. However, there are some core features that most CCMs should have:
- Shared workspaces : Look for software that facilitates collaboration and avoids silos of information in individual inboxes or personal accounts.
- Inbound and outbound channels : While some CCMs focus only on outbound communications, choosing a tool that also supports inbound requests will keep you organized by creating a centralized hub for all customer interactions.
- Accessible content creation tools: Choose a platform that simplifies content creation by offering templates, a drag-and-drop interface, and a WYSIWYG text editor.
- Automation capabilities: Make sure that any CCM you consider can create automated workflows for repetitive tasks.
- Audience Segmentation : Choose a CCM that helps keep customer communications personal, relevant, and timely by segmenting your customer list.
- Integrations : Choose a platform that can integrate with your company’s current software (CRM, e-commerce software, etc.).
- Reporting and analytics: Look for robust reporting capabilities to measure engagement and help you better understand the effectiveness of your messaging.
Our Top 7 Customer Communications Management Software Options
To help you find the CCM that best meets your business needs, we’ve compiled a list of seven tools that can help you manage everything from support requests to customer invoicing to proactive marketing campaigns.
- help scout
- honey book
- Zen platform
- Moxo
- Front
- walkie talkie
- podium
1. Help with scouting
The best customer communication management software for growing businesses .
shared inbox
Help Scout’s core product centers around a shared inbox, the hub for all incoming and outgoing customer communications for your team. Easily manage email as a team with collaboration features like conversation assignment and status, conflict detection, saved replies, and private notes.
The customer information sidebar helps you understand your customers better. View key information like contact details and conversation history, then integrate other systems into your technology stack to gain a complete view of the customer journey.
The platform also makes it easy to automate tasks using condition-based workflows to increase productivity. Assign conversations, add tags, and escalate cases to quickly get the information your customers need.
live chat
Add Beacons (Web Widgets to Help Scout) to any webpage, or embed them in your application to add live chat to your customer experience.
Live chat can also be managed within the platform’s universal inbox, allowing teams to quickly answer customer questions with useful features such as customer profiles and saved replies in chat format. If the conversation cannot be resolved in real time, the agent can transition to email for a seamless handling experience.
document
Docs is Help Scout’s knowledge management solution that lets you create customizable help centers for your customers, no coding required.
Author articles using a simple WYSIWYG editor, add media such as video and images, and organize documents using keywords and a simple hierarchy consisting of collections, categories, and articles.
You can publish documentation articles for internal or external audiences, and customers can access your content through the documentation website or Beacon. Additionally, agents can search and reference documentation within the conversation window, helping them find the information they need to provide great support.
Proactive Messaging and Micro-Surveys
In addition to delivering live chat and knowledge base articles, Beacons can proactively engage your customers. Helping Scout’s messaging feature can display targeted messages to users using standard, modal, or banner-style displays.
Inform customers about service changes, advertise an upcoming event, or showcase helpful Docs articles during tricky times.
The beacons that help Scout can also help gauge customer sentiment through micro-surveys—short customer touchpoints placed directly in the customer experience. Like regular messaging, micro-surveys are designed to reach the right customer at the right time. Choose from six survey types, including NPS, multiple choice, and simple thumbs up or thumbs up.
Report
The best decisions are based on data, so Help Scout provides reporting dashboards for all of its tools. Find out which channels your customers prefer, how many conversations your team has each day, which Docs articles are the most popular, and which proactive messaging campaigns get the most engagement.
integrated
Help Scout integrates with many popular applications such as ecommerce platforms, CRMs, analytics platforms, and marketing applications. You can also connect systems using online automation tools like Zapier or build your own using the Help Scout API.
Free resources to help you succeed
As part of our commitment to customers, we provide many free resources to help you get the most out of Help Scout. Here are just a few ways that Help Scout supports its customers:
- Free live and pre-recorded product sessions.
- Detailed help documentation.
- Support Toolkit — Free guides, templates, and articles designed to help your team deliver great customer service and resources to company leaders, including fundraising and managing remote teams .
- 24/6 support is available via email and live chat channels.
Affordable plans packed with valuable features
All Help Scout plans include access to the core features listed above. Additional features, such as teams , light users , Salesforce and HubSpot integration, and HIPAA compliance , are available in the Plus and Pro plans.
Price : Free trial available. Plans start at $20/user per month.
2. Honey Book
Best client communication management software for freelancers .
HoneyBook started as a platform where wedding photographers could share photos and digital media with clients. Today, the product has evolved into a full-service client management solution ideal for freelancers, creatives, and small businesses.
The software allows you to manage all your client communications from one tool. Here are some things you can do with HoneyBook:
- Integrate your business email account and calendar with HoneyBook to easily read and reply to emails and schedule appointments without switching between windows.
- Send professional invoices and accept secure payments.
- Create, send and sign contracts using your own pre-made templates or text.
- Automate tasks like feedback requests and email responses, or create reminders for your team.
The HoneyBook platform is very affordable. You can pay monthly or annually, and all plans come with unlimited clients and projects. If you’re a freelancer or small business looking for a better way to interact with your clients, HoneyBook is a great choice.
Price : Free trial available. Plans start at $16 per month (including one team member license).
3. Zen platform
Best Customer Communication Management Software for Integrations .
Zendesk is an omnichannel solution for customer communication management. No matter which channel your customers prefer (email, chat, social, text, voice, or self-service), you can manage them all with Zendesk.
The platform is well known in the world of customer support, and one of its welcome benefits is that many software companies have created custom applications for Zendesk’s marketplace. There are also developers who specialize in Zendesk integrations to help you build custom solutions. Integrating your CCM platform with other systems your business uses can give your team additional context as they handle customer support queues and interact with potential leads.
While Zendesk is a great choice for some teams, it does have drawbacks. The platform can be tricky to implement and maintain, and some integrations require additional development work. This means that Zendesk is best suited for those who have in-house development resources or the budget, and can rent if additional work is required.
Price : Free trial available. Plans start at $19/user per month.
4. Mosso
The best customer communication management software for those interested in delivering a mobile experience .
Moxo is a client communication software platform similar to products like HoneyBook in that it creates a centralized place for all client interactions. However, Moxo goes a step further by offering the ability to create customer portals for your customers that can be used standalone or integrated into your existing website or mobile app.
The Moxo platform allows you to communicate with your customers through secure messaging, video conferencing, and co-browsing. You can also schedule meetings, digitally annotate shared files, manage tasks, share important documents, and get digital signatures.
The best part about Moxo is that they offer private label apps. While pricey — Moxo offers them as an add-on to the Business plan, which is already $480 per month — it might be the right choice for businesses that don’t have the development resources needed to design, build, and maintain apps in-house.
Price : Plans start at $100 per month (includes ten users). Plans that accommodate the private label application add-on start at $480 per month.
5. front
Best customer communication management software for those looking to incorporate email marketing into their communication strategy .
Much like Help Scout and Zendesk, Front is a communications platform that funnels communications from multiple channels (email, live chat, SMS, and social media) into a shared inbox. From there, features like email assignments, message templates, shared drafts, message comments, and guest users help your team get through the communication queue quickly as one.
Front is also great for managing your personal email. While most shared inboxes and help desks focus on team email, Front also allows each user to bring their personal email address into the tool. Not only do employees save time by not having to switch back and forth between applications, but they can also use Front’s rules capabilities to automate actions in their personal inboxes.
Another interesting feature of the Front platform is its sequence of email campaign tools. Sequences allow you to schedule and send multi-stage email campaigns to a list of recipients. If your company isn’t quite ready for a standalone email marketing solution, Sequences might be a good stopgap.
Price : Free trial available. Plans start at $19/user per month (two users minimum).
6. Walkie talkie
The best customer communication management software for sales teams .
For teams looking for a sales-focused communications platform, Intercom might fit the bill. The company is known by sales and marketing professionals as a powerful tool for converting leads and proactively communicating with customers.
The core function of a walkie-talkie is its messenger tool. Like the beacons that help Scout, you can place the Messenger widget within any web page or application to facilitate real-time and asynchronous chat conversations, display proactive messaging, or display knowledge base articles.
Recently, Intercom changed its product and marketing strategy to cover other communication channels besides chat. The platform has a shared inbox where support teams can collaborate to manage emails and a ticketing system for tracking customer issues. Companies can also create product walkthroughs and to-do lists to help get started with the product.
Walkie-talkies are a very powerful customer communication tool, but smaller businesses interested in core features like proactive messaging may want to look for more affordable options given their higher price tags .
Price : Free trial available. Paid plans start at $74 per month (including two seats).
7. Podium
Best Customer Communication Management Software for Customer Reviews.
Podium is a customer communication management platform designed for local businesses. While some features may be similar to other tools on this list — shared inboxes, live chat, customer data collection, and payment processing — others are tailored to the specific needs of brick-and-mortar businesses.
It’s hard to overstate how important Google and Facebook business reviews are to local businesses. Podium does just that and provides comment management features that simplify the process of replying to comments. You can solicit and respond to reviews directly from the platform, and team members can leave internal notes to keep everyone in the loop when it comes to resolving customer issues.
Podium also offers several tools to facilitate sales and marketing efforts. You can launch a personalized SMS campaign in minutes, you can place a live chat widget on your website to help capture leads, and the software can automate simple tasks like requesting reviews or testimonials.
For small businesses, Podium’s pricing can be steep; however, for more established companies, Podium has a lot to offer.
Price : Free trial available. Plans start at $249 per month (includes 3 team members and 1,000 contacts).
