Best Shopify Customer Service Apps to Level Up Your E-commerce Support

For Shopify store owners, providing exceptional customer service is essential for building trust and encouraging repeat business. To support this need, there are a variety of powerful customer service apps available for Shopify. These different solutions are designed to streamline support, boost efficiency, and enhance the all-around customer experience. This post highlights the top Shopify customer service apps that can transform your support operations.

Why You Need Shopify Customer Service Apps For A Great Customer Experience

Today consumers have strong expectations for great e-commerce service. According to Salesforce, 80% of customers say customer service is as important as a business’s products. 88% of customers say good customer service makes them more likely to purchase from the business again. While Shopify is a powerful e-commerce platform, a bare-bones stone will unlikely give you everything required to meet your customers’ service expectations. Shopify apps can help extend your store’s functionality to provide the exemplary service they desire.

Common Shopify Customer Service App Features

From live chat and support ticketing systems to AI-driven automation, each app offers unique features to meet the needs of growing e-commerce businesses. By nature, Shopify customer service apps must offer a deep integration with the Shopify platform. This includes a two-way sync of customer profiles, order histories, and contact information. Beyond that, Shopify customer service apps can serve a diverse range of use cases. Here are some of the most common functional areas of Shopify customer service apps:

Live Chat

Speed and convenience are the pillars of great e-commerce customer service. Today’s consumers expect fast service and quick answers to questions. Live chat is the best way to give customers the prompt assistance they seek. It allows real-time interaction between you and your customers, whether the chat is powered by AI or overseen by a human agent.

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Modern live chat tools include customizable chat windows and saved chat histories. These features help create a unique brand experience while allowing agents to improve their service by referencing past conversations. Furthermore, AI-powered chat can greatly improve the handling of common inquiries while delivering a more personal experience at scale.

Support Tickets

Support tickets are a more traditional method of managing e-commerce customer service inquiries. While chat can help reduce the volume of e-commerce tickets, it is still helpful to have this customer service option in place. There are instances where a chat agent can’t properly address the customer’s concerns. In these cases, escalating the ticket to support representatives allows the customer to get the service they need. 

Self-Service

Most consumers prefer resolving issues on their own. If they can solve their problem via self-service, many will choose this option over interacting with an agent. As such, merchants need to give their customers plenty of self-service options to resolve their needs. Shopify customer service apps can fulfill this need by allowing merchants to create knowledge bases and FAQ hubs for their audience. Customers can then use these resources to easily find what they need.

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However, not all pertinent information can be displayed in a knowledge base. Customers also need a convenient way to see their order information, purchase history, subscription, deliveries, user account, and individual support tickets. Like a well-made knowledge base, this information needs to be organized and easy to find. AI customer service apps can help expand on the native Shopify customer accounts by allowing customers to quickly ask AI for the information they need.

Automation

It is not uncommon for customers to share the same support-related issues. For example, it is normal for people to update their address, cancel an order, or ask for an update on their delivery status. Some Shopify customer service apps can handle these concerns efficiently through automation features. These features can include automated responses to common inquiries, auto-routing of tickets, or trigger-based actions to modify orders within Shopify.

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Naturally, automation is a preferred choice for merchants as it helps to resolve issues faster and with a low workload for your team. The hours saved from completing repetitive tasks give you more time to invest in creating standout customer experiences.

Centralized Management

With customers reaching out across email, chat, and social media, centralized support management is vital to merchants with multiple sales channels. Having a centralized customer service dashboard lets agents manage support interactions from a single place without having to switch between platforms. This can boost productivity while ensuring customers receive consistent responses regardless of the channel they use. A Shopify customer service app with a centralized support platform will automatically consolidate all incoming tickets and interactions into a single location. The platform can sync with your Shopify data to then link each incoming ticket to a customer profile.

Best Shopify Customer Service Apps

Now, let’s examine five of the best customer service apps for Shopify.

1. Rep AI

Rep AI is a conversational AI Shopify app with powerful customer service features. With an intelligent live chat, customers can get immediate support for all types of concerns. Whether they have product-related questions, need help with an order, or want to initiate a return, the AI can service the user without the need for human input. For more complex questions that require human intervention, the AI can escalate to a live support agent, ensuring customers receive comprehensive service at every stage of their shopping journey.

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The AI chat uses natural language processing to understand customer inquiries and provide accurate and relevant responses that mimic human conversation. You can train the AI to ensure its tone and messaging are aligned with your brand. Plus, you can easily add custom FAQs for the AI to give specific answers to repetitive questions.

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Rep AI streamlines customer service processes by providing merchants with several support automation functions. These features let your AI automatically handle common support-related tasks for you. Currently, there is automated support for Cancel Order, Returns/Exchanges, Check Order Status, and Change Order Address. Each AI-powered function allows the respective task to be done quickly and without customer service reps.

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Consider a scenario where a recent customer needs to cancel an order. To complete this task without automation, they need to contact the store and wait to hear back from a representative. After the initial cancellation request, the buyer typically must provide one last confirmation before waiting for a representative to manually cancel the order within the eCommerce platform.

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However, with Rep AI’s support automation, the customer can cancel their order instantly from your AI conversational chat. They simply need to go to your site, open the chat, and ask to cancel the order. After providing the order information, the AI will do all the work in the background to cancel the order within Shopify. This speed can have a massive impact on your customer experience.

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Without automation, the buyer may not get the order canceled before the product is delivered. In this case, they would then need to go through the manual steps of completing the return process. This experience would likely frustrate the customer and could lead to negative feedback that lowers your brand reputation. The same holds true for other key customer service tasks such as checking an order status or initiating a return. With Rep AI’s automated support task agents, you can ensure your customers receive prompt and efficient service when common support needs arise.

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With 24/7 availability, Rep AI ensures that customers receive around-the-clock assistance. This can help reduce the likelihood of abandoned carts and improve customer satisfaction for those shopping outside standard business hours. The app also comes with detailed support-related analytics. You can easily see how many conversations are resolved by AI, how many are handled by humans, how many have unanswered questions, and the potential savings from ticket reduction.

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Rep AI is built specifically for Shopify merchants and it integrates seamlessly with the platform and other leading Shopify support applications. The AI can sync with Shopify orders and product data to provide accurate and detailed answers to product-related questions. The app can also automatically forward support inquiries to integrated helpdesk tools like Zendesk and Gorgias.

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2. Zendesk

Zendesk is a robust customer service platform with a wide range of features to handle all areas of customer support. The platform simplifies the process of centralizing customer interactions across email, chat, and social media. With the ticket management dashboard, you can easily track and organize customer inquiries no matter the channel. Additionally, the customizable help center allows you to create knowledge bases and FAQs.

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Zendesk features comprehensive analytics to help you measure different areas of the customer experience. The platform integrates data from multiple channels and you can customize metrics and dashboards according to your needs. As a centralized customer service, Zendesk also includes integrations with a variety of other e-commerce solutions. For example, you can integrate the help desk platform with Rep AI to efficiently convert chat conversations into Zendesk support tickets.

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3. Gorgias

Gorgias is an AI e-commerce customer service platform that empowers brands to create amazing customer experiences. The platform connects support channels (email, chat, social media, voice) into a single tab view, making it easy to have quick and personalized conversations with customers. You can configure automation rules to answer repetitive questions and you can quickly convert messages on social media into customer support tickets.

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The Shopify integration lets merchants view order history and customer data in profiles nested within Gorgias support tickets. This saves you from switching between platforms or asking customers for pre-existing information. Plus, by integrating the CX platform with a conversation chat like Rep AI, you can create a streamlined multichannel customer service system.

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4. Richpanel

Richpanel is an e-commerce customer experience platform that works seamlessly with Shopify and other e-commerce solutions. The centralized multichannel dashboard helps streamline work by freeing support teams from needing to switch between applications. With the Voice of Customer AI, you can analyze conversations for customer preferences to then adapt your customer support approach.

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Richpanel also includes a self-service portal that allows customers to answer questions and resolve support issues without needing an agent. By integrating the solution with Rep AI, you can ensure unanswered customer queries are automatically escalated to human representatives in the Richpanel admin.

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5. Shopify Inbox

Shopify Inbox is a customer service app that works well for businesses looking to provide basic support. It includes a live chat that can be configured with automated messages and order notifications. When a shopper asks a question, the app can provide you with AI-generated suggestions to quickly answer the person’s question. While the chat is not as robust as a dedicated solution like Rep AI, the mobile app and native connection to Shopify make it an efficient choice if you have less extensive customer service requirements.

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Summary

Great customer service is critical to maintaining customer loyalty. By choosing the most effective Shopify customer service apps, you can improve customer satisfaction while streamlining your support processes. If you're ready to see the difference a conversational AI concierge can make, try Rep AI for free and discover how the app can help drive conversions in addition to providing great customer service.

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