More than 50% of customers will leave your brand after one bad experience. This means that just one mistake can cost you half your customer base. So, how can you prevent this?

The key is in ensuring a satisfactory shopping journey for customers. You can do this by leveraging customer experience tools that will let you track relevant analytics, provide better customer support, and gather customer feedback. We listed the top 5 you should consider below.

What Are the Top 5 Customer Experience Tools in 2024?

There are several top-performing customer experience tools in 2024, but let’s start with the ones that cater to SMEs.

1. Zendesk

Zendesk is a leading customer experience platform that enhances customer service and engagement through its comprehensive suite of products. It allows businesses to manage interactions across email, phone, chat, and social media from a unified interface, streamlining the process of tracking, prioritizing, and resolving inquiries.

Here are the key customer experience-focused features of Zendesk:

  • Omnichannel Support: Allows businesses to manage customer interactions across email, chat, social media, phone, and any other channel from a single dashboard.
  • Automated Ticketing System: Efficiently organizes, prioritizes, and tracks customer inquiries and issues, ensuring timely responses.
  • Self-Service Options: Through a customizable Help Center, customers can access FAQs, articles, and guides to find answers independently.
  • AI-Powered Bots: Zendesk offers AI and chatbot functionalities to automate responses and guide customers to relevant information or escalate issues as needed.
  • Knowledge Base Management: Enables businesses to create and manage an extensive library of help articles and resources.
  • Customer Feedback Collection: Integrated tools for gathering and analyzing customer feedback to measure satisfaction and identify areas for improvement.
  • Advanced Analytics and Reporting: Provides insights into customer behavior, support team performance, and overall customer service effectiveness.
  • Personalization: Utilizes customer data to personalize interactions and support experiences, enhancing customer satisfaction.

Zendesk is ideally suited for businesses of all sizes seeking to elevate their customer service and engagement, particularly beneficial for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) looking to scale efficiently. 

With its robust suite of products, Zendesk offers SMEs a cost-effective solution to manage customer interactions across multiple channels from a single platform, enhancing responsiveness and service quality.

2. Salesforce

Salesforce is a globally acclaimed customer relationship management (CRM) platform that significantly enhances customer experience through its innovative suite of services. As a customer experience tool, it excels in delivering a 360-degree view of the customer, enabling companies to understand their customers' needs, preferences, and behaviors deeply. 

Here are the features of Salesforce:

  • Customer 360: Integrates customer data from various touchpoints into a unified view, offering insights into customer interactions and history.
  • Einstein AI: Leverages artificial intelligence to provide personalized customer experiences, predictive insights, and automated task handling.
  • Salesforce Service Cloud: Delivers comprehensive customer service and support features, including ticketing systems, case management, and a knowledge base.
  • Marketing Cloud: Supports targeted marketing campaigns with tools for email marketing, social media management, and customer journey mapping.
  • Commerce Cloud: Offers a platform for creating seamless e-commerce experiences, including personalized shopping and online storefront integration.
  • Salesforce AppExchange: Provides access to thousands of third-party applications that extend the functionality of the Salesforce platform.
  • Analytics and Reporting: Advanced analytics and customizable reporting tools to measure and analyze customer interactions and satisfaction.
  • Community Cloud: Enables the creation of branded online communities for customers to connect, share, and find information.

Businesses of all sizes and across various industries can leverage Salesforce for enhancing customer experience, but it's particularly beneficial for those looking to scale their operations and deepen customer relationships through personalized engagement. 

With its robust CRM capabilities, Salesforce is ideal for businesses that have complex customer relationship management needs, require detailed customer insights, and aim to deliver personalized marketing, sales, and service experiences.

3. Hubspot

HubSpot is a renowned all-in-one inbound marketing, sales, and customer service platform designed to optimize the customer experience from the first interaction to long-term loyalty. It stands out for its integrated approach, combining various tools within a single ecosystem to attract, engage, and delight customers.

Here are the key customer experience-focused features of HubSpot:

  • CRM System: At its core, HubSpot offers a powerful and free CRM system that provides a 360-degree view of customer interactions, enabling personalized engagement and streamlined communication.
  • Marketing Hub: Features tools for email marketing, social media management, SEO, and content creation, designed to attract and convert leads by offering valuable content.
  • Sales Hub: Equips sales teams with tools like email tracking, meeting scheduling, and deal pipeline management to close more deals with less work, enhancing the buying experience.
  • Service Hub: A suite of customer service tools including ticketing, live chat, and customer feedback surveys to help resolve issues quickly and build stronger relationships.
  • Automation: Allows for the automation of marketing, sales, and service processes, ensuring timely and relevant interactions with customers.
  • Analytics: Offers comprehensive reporting and analytics across marketing, sales, and service activities, giving insights into customer behavior and campaign performance.
  • Content Management System (CMS): A powerful, integrated CMS that enables businesses to create and manage website content that’s optimized for every device and personalized for every visitor.
  • HubSpot Academy: Provides extensive training and certification programs to help businesses better understand and implement inbound marketing and customer experience strategies.

Businesses of all sizes, especially small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and those with a strong focus on inbound marketing, stand to benefit significantly from using HubSpot as a customer experience tool. 

Hubspot’s comprehensive suite, which seamlessly integrates CRM, marketing, sales, and service hubs, makes it an ideal choice for companies looking to offer a personalized and cohesive customer journey across multiple touchpoints.

4. Qualtrix XM

Qualtrics XM (Experience Management) is a leading platform designed to manage and improve the four core experiences of business: customer, employee, product, and brand. It stands out for its sophisticated analytical capabilities and real-time insights, which empower businesses to make data-driven decisions and enhance the overall experience at every touchpoint.

Here are the features of Qualtrics XM:

  • XM Directory: Acts as a centralized system to capture, analyze, and act on customer insights, storing rich profiles that track preferences, behaviors, and feedback over time.
  • Predictive AI and Analytics: Utilizes advanced AI and machine learning to predict customer behavior and identify trends, enabling proactive engagement and personalized experiences.
  • Customer Feedback Management: Offers comprehensive tools for collecting feedback across multiple channels, including in-app, website, and post-transaction surveys.
  • Customer Journey Mapping: Allows businesses to visualize the customer journey, identify pain points, and optimize interactions based on real-time feedback and behavior data.
  • Automated Actions: Triggers automated responses or actions based on customer feedback, ensuring immediate resolution of issues and enhancing customer satisfaction.
  • Sentiment Analysis: Employs natural language processing to analyze and understand customer sentiments, providing deeper insights into customer satisfaction and loyalty.
  • Dashboards and Reporting: Customizable dashboards and in-depth reporting tools offer real-time insights into customer experience metrics, enabling informed decision-making.
  • Integration Capabilities: Easily integrates with other business systems (CRM, ERP, etc.), allowing for a seamless flow of customer data across platforms.

Qualtrics XM is highly suitable for businesses of any size that prioritize data-driven decision-making to enhance the customer experience. 

Whether you're a small startup or a large enterprise, Qualtrics XM provides the tools to transform customer feedback into actionable strategies, driving satisfaction and loyalty.

5. ChurnZero

ChurnZero is a real-time customer success platform designed specifically to help subscription-based businesses reduce customer churn and increase retention. Its suite of tools and features is geared toward understanding customer needs, automating personalized engagements, and identifying at-risk accounts early, allowing for timely interventions.

Below is a list of the customer experience-focused features offered by ChurnZero:

  • Customer Health Scores: Offers customizable health scores that predict how likely customers are to churn, enabling businesses to proactively address issues with at-risk accounts.
  • Journey Mapping: Allows businesses to track and analyze the customer journey, identifying key touchpoints and opportunities for engagement to improve the customer experience.
  • Automated Playbooks: Automates targeted actions based on customer behavior, engagement levels, and lifecycle stages to ensure timely and relevant interactions.
  • Real-time Alerts: Provides instant notifications about important customer events, usage trends, and satisfaction changes, allowing customer success teams to react promptly.
  • In-app Communication: Enables businesses to engage with customers directly within their application, offering support, gathering feedback, or promoting new features.
  • Segmentation and Reporting: Offers advanced segmentation capabilities and detailed reporting on customer usage, satisfaction, and retention metrics to inform strategic decisions.
  • NPS and Surveys: Integrates Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys and custom feedback tools to gather actionable insights directly from customers.
  • Account Management: Facilitates comprehensive account management, including tracking all customer interactions, notes, and tasks in a centralized location.

ChurnZero is best suited for subscription-based businesses focused on reducing churn and enhancing customer retention. Its real-time analytics and customer engagement features make it ideal for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and SaaS companies that need to proactively manage and understand their customer's journey.

Let Experts Handle Your Customer Experience

To make the most out of customer experience tools, you have to ensure that you have the money for subscription fees and the time to explore and monitor its features. Unfortunately, for most retailers, this investment isn’t really a priority since you have to allot more resources for core business functions.

With a full-service company like ManilaPros that offers five-star customer care for retailers, you can leave your customer experience in the hands of experts. We’ll do everything for you, from providing vetted, trained, and certified agents that will utilize customer experience tools and  dedicated account manager who can oversee your operations and ensure high-quality service.

Do you want to learn more about our retail customer care services? Book a call with us today.