Efficient customer support can set your business apart from the competition, and in today’s tight market, you need every advantage you can get. Helpshift’s motto is “Ridding the world of bad customer service,” and it stands out as a customer support tool with its specialized solutions for in-app mobile service.
To help you decide if Helpshift is the best tool to upgrade your customer support, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to show you what Helpshift offers, where it excels, its potential drawbacks, and its overall costs.
Helpshift: The Good and the Bad
Customer service is Helpshift’s bread and butter. It offers easy ways for you to provide support to your customers right in your app, meaning customers don’t have to swipe away to make a phone call or send an email to get the answers they’re looking for. From help articles, in-app chats, help bot software, and more, you can provide users with a top-notch customer service experience.
Below, we’ll highlight the platform’s strengths, such as its advanced in-app support, and address any potential drawbacks you should consider when deciding whether it’s the right customer service tool for your business.
What Helpshift Is Good At
In-App Customer Support: This is where the platform really shines. Helpshift makes it easy to get customer support right inside mobile apps. It lets users chat when they want, without needing to stay in the chat, and keeps conversations smooth across both websites and apps.
And for those really easy customer issues? You can utilize the platform’s help bots to resolve problems that come up time and time again. This means your agents can spend their time focusing on the more complex issues that need closer attention.
For customers that prefer to find their own answers, you’re also able to offer an in-app help center. Here, you can offer answers to frequently asked questions, saving time for both your agents and customers.
Personalized Service: The platform uses messages, automated tools, smart bots, and AI to give you the help you need, whether you’re on your phone, a website, social media, or making a call. It also includes conversational help for platforms like Discord, enabling natural support in places where users already chat and interact.
Help Bot Automation: We’ve already mentioned the help bots as being an awesome feature Helpshift offers, but let’s dig a little deeper. The company makes it super easy to create bots with its visual bot builder tool. You don’t need to hire a developer or bring in an IT department to create help bots that can be used instantly. With its visual bot builder tool, you can quickly create bots, see what works, and make updates based on initial testing
And even better—you can use pre-built bot templates so you don’t have to start from scratch.
Helpshift also offers support for over 180 languages, which means you can provide more comprehensive help to a wider subset of customers.
User-Friendly Interface: Sometimes, the hardest part of starting out with a new software platform is learning how to use it. That isn’t the case with Helpshift. Helpshift is known for being easy to set up and use, with a dashboard that you can understand and use effectively, no matter your technical skill level. Again, no special developer or IT department needed here.
Review Analytics: Helpshift improves app ratings with a unique feature that does a detailed analysis of app ratings and reviews, looking at both numbers and the content of the reviews.
The platform also uses advanced machine learning to analyze app reviews thoroughly. It identifies what users enjoy and their pain points, providing clear directions for app improvements and customer support strategies.
Diverse Filtering Options: Helpshift provides a wide range of options to filter reviews, helping businesses focus on specific details like star ratings, app versions, or user feedback from various regions.
Proactive Customer Engagement: Helpshift suggests using features like “Request Review” and automated rating requests to get more positive feedback and improve app store ratings.
Efficiency and Integration: The service streamlines regular support tasks and works well with major platforms like Zendesk, Salesforce, and Slack, making things more efficient and connected.
Helpshift’s Potential Drawbacks
SDK Integration Challenges: In exploring user feedback, we found that some users find it tough to work with Helpshift’s SDK (a set of tools for building apps), especially when integrating it into their systems. This is particularly true for iOS apps, where users face more hurdles.
Cost Considerations: Helpshift offers a free starter plan, but it’s quite basic. For more advanced features, like Review Analytics, prices start at $150, which might be expensive if you’re a smaller business or are on a tight budget.
Takes Time to Set Up: It’s hard to really call this a drawback, but it’s important to keep in mind: those really great features like help bots and in-app help centers come with a time investment, and they can be a bit complex to set up on the first try. With the help bots especially, you may need to continually fine tune data to make sure users are really getting the assistance they’re looking for.
Reporting System Complexity: Using Microsoft PowerBI with Helpshift to create reports can be tricky if you’re not experienced with either tool. Definitely take the time to walk through the company’s Power Bi Reports Overview to make sure you get the most out of the platform’s reporting features.
Helpshift Plans and Pricing
In this section, we’ll explore what Helpshift‘s various plans include and how much they cost.
Feedback+ Plan
This risk-free plan costs $0 per month and allows you to build a foundation for effective user feedback. It includes:
- Real-time in-app feedback
- Mobile bug and crashing reporting
- Unlimited FAQs
- Mobile help center (Help Center 2.0)
- Standard support
- 250 feedback submissions per month (max)
Starter Plan
This plan offers a generous 30-day free trial. Pricing starts at $150 per month and is tailored to brands that want to modernize their customer support experience. It offers:
- Web and mobile in-app messaging
- Web and mobile in-app help center (Help Center 2.0)
- In-app SDK (SDK X)
- Custom bots (only two on this plan)
- QuickSearch bot
- Basic automations
- Basic intent-based classification (one customizable smart intents menu)
- Basic intent-based routing
- Integrations
- 60 API calls per minute
- Analytics and reporting
- Unlimited agent seats
- Email support
- Agent desktop
- Unlimited FAQs
- Includes 250 free issues per month
Growth Plan
The Helpshift team will provide a custom quote for the Growth Plan. It includes all Starter Plan features, plus:
- Unlimited customizable bots
- Intent-based classification (two customizable smart intents menus)
- Intent-based routing
- Queue management
- Skill-based routing
- Automated agent workload balancing
- SLA management and business hours
- Team management roles
- Real-time operations dashboard
- FAQ scheduling
- Analytics APIs
- 300 API calls per minute
Enterprise Plan
The Enterprise Plan is priced based on your custom needs. It includes all Growth Plan features, plus:
- Intent-based classification (unlimited customizable smart intents menus)
- Feedback bots
- FAQ announcements
- 1,500 API calls per minute
Final Thoughts
Helpshift is an excellent option for mid-sized companies looking to improve their customer service using AI and in-app support. It’s especially good for those who want a system that’s easy to use and improves over time with AI.
The pricing is flexible, ranging from a free plan to more advanced options. Overall, Helpshift offers an effective way to update customer support, balancing efficiency and ease of use.
