Consumers demand high-quality support at all times. This can be a huge challenge for your support team, which is already experiencing high workloads. The answer? AI customer service software.
AI made its entrance a few years ago, and it’s getting better. What software is the best for your online business? Stop searching; we’ve gathered a list of the best software tools available right now. Let’s dive right in.
What are AI customer service software tools, exactly?
AI customer service tools are platforms that use artificial intelligence to enhance customer service, support, and engagement. These tools use AI technologies like machine learning, natural language processing, and natural language understanding to improve customer support. They are part of a bigger category, customer service automation. But specifically use AI to improve customer support.
Research by Gartner shows 38% of executive leaders are investing in AI to improve the customer experience. This is great. However, with a large range of software solutions available, it’s not easy to decide which tool is the best for your business.
Let’s first look at the possibilities of AI customer service tools and the difference between working with AI and implementing conversational AI.
Key functions of AI customer service tools
There are different types of AI software available when it comes to customer service. Here’s a breakdown of the key functions of the tools.
- Automated chatbots
- Virtual assistants
- Automated tasks and workflows
- Conversational knowledge bases
- Data collection and sentiment analysis
- Automated ticket responses and routing
- Voice and speech recognition
Each software solution offers different functionalities. That’s why it’s important to understand what type of AI software you’re looking for in order to implement it successfully into your support operations.
AI automation versus conversational AI
AI automation refers to using artificial intelligence to automate repetitive and rule-based tasks. You can think of processing orders, data entry, email sorting, task automation, workflow optimization, and more.
Conversational AI refers to artificial intelligence that enables humanlike interactions between computers and customers. Examples include chatbots and virtual assistants that help your team work better and faster.
In e-commerce support teams, AI is used to streamline internal processes to help teams operate more efficiently, while conversational AI provides interactive and personalized support.
The 12 best AI customer service software for e-commerce
You can decide to ask AI for support in selecting software, but it will miss some context regarding your way of working and business processes. So we’re here to help. We’ve gathered the best solutions available for your e-commerce business right now.
1. Neople
We’re kicking off the list with Neople, yes, that’s us. We create AI co-workers for e-commerce support teams, allowing them to improve customer support.
A Neople is a unique AI co-worker that supports and assists in formulating answers and automating repetitive support tasks. It integrates with your entire toolstack, ensuring it is trained on company information. This helps to provide complete answer suggestions in the right tone, adding a human touch.
Neople becomes smarter with every interaction, thanks to an automated feedback system. With Neople Studio, you can even give senior team members the opportunity to train your own Neople, allowing it to provide the best answers possible in no time and deliver quality support around the clock.
Neople integrates with company data and workflows to deliver efficient, 24/7 support, improving first response times, increasing customer satisfaction, and reducing the time spent per ticket.
Website: Neople.io
Key features
- AI-powered answer suggestions
- Can summarize and retrieve order information
- Feedback systems to learn and improve with every interaction
- Customizable interactions as it gets trained on company information
- Multilingual support in the right tone of voice
- A wide range of integrations from support centers to WMS systems and Slack
- Can be trained to provide customer support autonomously with Neople Studio
- Proactive insights by simplifying complex data into actionable advice
- Multichannel support
Pricing: Hire a Neople from 1500/pm
Target audience: Primarily focused on customer support teams in e-commerce
2. Sprinklr AI
Sprinklr AI is an AI-driven platform designed for enterprises to boost productivity and decision-making across customer service and marketing teams. Sprinklr AI offers various solutions and features for different industries.
It provides a customer experience management (CXM) solution that uses AI to process extensive data sources and generate actionable insights. Specifically in customer support, its AI can give real-time suggestions for next best actions and provide contextual recommendations.
With Sprinklr AI, you can unify customer service teams across social, digital, and voice channels.
Website: Sprinklr.com
Key features (for customer service):
- AI powered agent assistance and suggestions
- Automated self-service with AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants
- Omnichannel routing for customer inquiries
- Sentiment analysis to prioritize customer issues
- Workflow automation to automate routine tasks
Pricing: From $249 per seat/month
Target audience: Support and marketing teams at enterprises at various industries
3. Ultimate.ai
Ultimate.ai, recently acquired by Zendesk, is a customer support automation platform powered by AI, designed to help businesses automate and enhance their customer service operations.
The software is designed for enterprises across different industries such as e-commerce, finance, travel, telecommunications, and healthtech.
It offers features like generative AI for FAQ handling, chat and ticket automation, and a no-code dialogue builder for customizing interactions. It integrates with CRMs and back-office systems to improve customer support.
Website: Ultimate.ai
Key features:
- UltimateGPT, a generative AI bot based on ChatGPT for FAQ handling and automation
- Automated chat interactions across digital channels
- Automated ticket creation and handling
- No-code dialogue builder for customizing interactions
- Analytics suite to give insights into interactions and bot performance
Pricing: Available on request
Target audience: Customer service teams in enterprises across various industries
4. Kustomer
Kustomer is an AI-powered customer service CRM platform designed to enhance customer support through data-driven insights and automation. It helps enterprise businesses deliver personalized and efficient customer service by integrating various communication channels and customer data into a single platform.
The software provides a 360-degree view of customer interactions via phone, email, chat, text, social, and messaging. It focuses on omnichannel conversations, smart automation, and no-code customization.
Website: Kustomer.com
Key features:
- Unified customer view across all channels
- AI agent copilot to assist support agent with real-time suggestions
- Automated interactions and omnichannel support
- Proactive support by using data to anticipate customer needs
- Automated self-service tools
- Integration with CRMs
- Advanced analytics into customer interactions and agent performance
Pricing: From $89 per month per user
Target audience: Customer service teams in enterprises
5. Freddy AI by Freshworks
Freddy AI by Freshworks is an AI-powered platform designed to improve customer and employee experiences through automation and advanced analytics. It integrates with Freshworks products to enhance efficiency across support, sales, and marketing functions.
Freddy AI offers three different services: 'Freddy Self Service' for intelligent chatbots, 'Freddy Copilot', an AI coach and collaborator, and 'Freddy Insights', which provides AI-driven insights to anticipate issues and spot opportunities.
Website: Freshworks.com
Key features:
- Natural Language Understanding
- Maintain context in conversations
- Multichannel support
- Automated generation and categorization of support tickets
- Knowledge base integration
- Proactive outreach to customers
- Sentiment analysis to understand emotions
- Workflow automation to automate routine tasks and workflows
- Detailed analytics and insights into customer interactions
Pricing: Freddy AI is available as separate add-ons on top of Freshdesk plans, starting from $100 for 1000 Freshbots sessions or $29 per agent/month.
Target audience: Customer support, sales and marketing, IT support and developers in small and mid-market organizations.
6. Ada CX
Ada is an AI-powered customer service automation platform designed to improve customer experiences and operational efficiency. It helps businesses automate customer interactions across various channels, providing instant, personalized support.
Ada functions as an AI agent, replacing hard-coded chatbots. This AI agent supports online shoppers throughout the customer journey.
Website: Ada.cx
Key features:
- Reasoning engine to deliver accurate, relevant and safe responses
- Multichannel support
- No-code interface to customize chatbots
- Proactive insights for continuous improvement
- Multilingual capabilities
- Agent assist with real-time suggestions and insights
- Integrates with existing tools and systems
- Continuous improvement thanks to AI coaching and feedback mechanisms
Pricing: Offers separate pricing for the chatbot and AI agent, available on request
Target audience: Enterprises in e-commerce, FinTech, SaaS, gaming, and other industries
7. Yuma
Yuma.ai is an AI-powered automation platform tailored for e-commerce businesses. It focuses on enhancing customer service by automating interactions, increasing productivity, and decreasing operational costs.
The platform integrates with multiple e-commerce systems to provide support agents with the right tools to become more productive.
Website: Yuma.ai
Key features:
- Automated customer order inquiries and modifications
- Handles subscription-related queries autonomously
- Customer review and feedback management
- Automated post-purchase technical support
- Social media moderation for interactions and negative comments
- Guides customers through the returns process
- Automated tags and escalated tickets
- Clean support inboxes by filtering spam
Pricing: From $239 per month for 2000 billable tickets
Target audience: Customer service teams in e-commerce
8. Lyro by Tidio
Tidio is a customer service platform that combines live chat, chatbots, and AI-driven automation to improve customer support and engagement for businesses of all sizes.
Lyro is Tidio’s AI chatbot that automatically answers common questions and performs recurring tasks. Lyro is a conversational AI that can talk to your customers and answer questions using support content.
Tidio integrates with websites and multiple platforms to offer a complete solution for managing customer interactions.
Website: Tidio.com
Key features (Lyro AI Chatbot):
- Automated responses to common customer inquiries
- Automation of recurring tasks like order status checks and ticket creation
- Multi-language support
- Performance monitoring to improve responses
- Hand-off from bot to support teams
- Analytics insights to understand the customer experience
- Answers based on support content
Pricing: From €39 per month for 50 Lyro conversations
Target audience: E-commerce businesses, small to medium-sized enterprises and online service providers
9. Jochem AI
Jochem.ai is an AI-powered platform designed to provide instant, accurate answers to customer and employee questions. It improves knowledge management and operational efficiency by connecting users to the right information or experts within the company.
Company information feeds Jochem, meaning you can connect your knowledge base, separate files, CRM data, product data, FAQs, and website data. Jochem integrates with most knowledge bases, communication suites, and contact centers.
Website: Jochem.ai
Key features:
- Provides responses from a knowledge base
- Connects users to company experts
- Continuous learning with new expert knowledge
- Multichannel support via chat, email and other communication tools
- Setup and customization without coding
- Automated updates and approval of knowledge base content
Pricing: Available on request
Target audience: Customer support and internal support teams at enterprise level
10. Trengo AI
Trengo is a customer communication platform that integrates AI and automation to streamline and optimize customer interactions. It allows businesses to manage multiple communication channels from a single interface, improving efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Trengo’s AI HelpMate is a digital teammate that handles repetitive tasks for support and sales teams. Thanks to AI, HelpMate is able to manage repetitive, manual, and high-volume conversations.
Website: Trengo.com
Key features:
- Automated responses to high-volume, repetitive queries
- Multichannel support across web, SMS, social media, voice and email
- No-code chatbots
- Includes knowledge base content
- Workload balancing to distribute tasks among team members
- Labels and rules to prioritize tasks
- Reporting and analytics for insights to improve customer service
Pricing: From €99 per month for 5 users per month and 1,200 conversations per year
Target audience: Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in various industries
11. Zendesk AI
Zendesk AI is part of Zendesk, a customer service and engagement platform that helps businesses manage customer interactions across multiple channels. It provides tools for support, sales, and customer engagement, enabling companies to improve customer satisfaction and streamline their operations.
Zendesk AI is an AI-powered solution designed to streamline and optimize customer interactions. Built on real customer service data, it provides personalized support, automates routine tasks, and offers real-time insights to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Website: Zendesk.com
Key features:
- Managed interactions across email, chat, phone and social media
- Response suggestions and actions to agents
- Generative AI replies that can be edited
- Gives full context behind every interaction
- AI suggestions can automate common responses
- Automated workflows and repetitive tasks
- Insights into customer interactions and support performance
- Integrates with many other tools and platforms
Pricing: Zendesk Suite from €149 per/month with advance AI add-on for €50 per agent/month
Target audience: Small- and medium sized businesses (SMEs) and enterprises in various industries
12. Sierra AI
Sierra is a conversational AI platform designed to enhance customer experiences by providing empathetic and effective support. It helps businesses automate customer interactions while maintaining brand consistency and improving operational efficiency.
Sierra AI offers an AI agent that mirrors the nuances of human communication to ensure organic interactions while improving customer satisfaction.
Website: Sierra.ai
Key features:
- AI agent for always-on support in line with the brand tone and voice
- Multichannel support across web, social media, email
- Offers insights to improve customer experiences
- Supervision to keep AI interactions on-topic and in line with company policies
- Actionable AI to enable AI agents to perform certain tasks
Pricing: Available on request
Target audience: Large enterprises in various industries such as consumer goods, technology, and services
How to select the best AI software for your e-commerce support team?
Now that you know which solutions are best in class, let’s look at how to select the right one for your business. Choosing the wrong solution can be a costly mistake.
Here’s what to consider when selecting the right solution:
- Integration capabilities: Examine the platforms you’re already using and ensure the software can be easily integrated into your existing tool stack to avoid additional costs or a time-consuming setup process.
- Business size and type: Consider the target audience of the software. AI solutions specifically designed for your type of business are often optimized for your internal processes.
- Customization and scalability: Choose a tool that can support growth. Regardless of the size of your support team now or in the future, it should provide endless possibilities and customization options.
- Training possibilities: Determine how the AI will be trained. It’s important to see if you can influence the AI's knowledge and performance to maximize its impact.
- Multichannel support: Customer service inquiries often extend beyond your website. Ensure the software can be enabled on multiple channels to optimize processes as much as possible.
- User experience: Select software that goes beyond standard automations and enhances the customer experience to achieve the greatest ROI possible.
- Analytics and reporting: Review the insights provided by the software to evaluate how your team and the tool are performing together and individually.
Last but not least, it’s definitely worth requesting demos for the solutions that seem best at first glance. A demo gives you valuable insights into the software’s capabilities, working methods, and allows you to ask the right questions, all of which help you make the right decision.
Upgrade your e-commerce support with a unique AI coworker
Many AI solutions are missing the right soft skills. To make a difference in the e-commerce customer experience, you need to provide the right answer, in the right tone of voice, and lightning fast at all times.
That’s why we’ve built Neople. We’re here to solve your customer support challenges. There’s no need to scale your team with more headcount or struggle with overworked employees due to a huge backlog of tickets.
A Neople helps your team automate repetitive tasks and provide the right answer, in the right language and tone in no time. This allows you to increase the quality of your support team and positively surprise your customers with the best and fastest support possible. Both your team and your internal datasets train a Neople, so it always becomes the best version of itself.
Ready to upgrade your e-commerce support? Hire a Neople and increase customer satisfaction while making your support team’s jobs more enjoyable at the same time. Book a free demo and discover how Bob, Emily, or Max can help you scale support.