| What is social media customer service software? Social media customer service software is a tool that centralizes and streamlines customer interactions from various social media platforms. |
Customer service has evolved from traditional channels like phone calls and emails and now includes support directly on social media. Social media customer service enables real-time engagement, personalized support, and the potential to convert frustrated posts into loyal customers.
Managing multiple social media platforms and responding quickly doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Our guide to social media customer service software details how to transform your social media presence into a dynamic customer service hub, making it easier to handle conversations and provide exceptional support. Ready to embrace the power of social media customer service? Let’s explore how the right tools can help you create a winning strategy.
| Software | Best For | Features | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nextiva | Most businesses | All-in-one omnichannel inbox Social tagging and monitoring Competitor and social listening | $149 per month + 99/mo for each additional user, billed annually |
| Sprout Social | Mid-sized businesses | Social media publishing Conversation management Reporting and analytics | $199 per user/month, billed annually |
| Hootsuite | Scheduling and collaboration | Centralized dashboard Social media engagement AI-powered features | $99 per month (one user), billed annually |
| Salesforce Service Cloud | Enterprises | Social media listening and monitoring Social media scheduling Social media analytics | $25 per user/month, billed annually |
| Zendesk | Customization | Zendesk AI for social media Omnichannel agent workspace Unified ticketing system | $55 per agent/month, billed annually |
| Freshdesk | Ease of use | Centralized social media management Automated workflows Advanced ticketing | $0 per month (up to 10 agents), billed annually |
| Zoho Desk | Integrations | Unlimited scheduled posts Social monitoring Analytics | $7 per user/month, billed annually |
| LiveAgent | Omnichannel ticketing | Universal inbox Social media integrations Productivity tools | $9 per agent/month, billed annually |
| HubSpot Service Hub | Marketing automation | Post scheduling Keyword monitoring Lead tracking | $90 per seat/month, billed annually |
| Front | Team collaboration | Centralized inbox Omnichannel communication Customer history profiles | $19 per seat/month (up to 10 seats), billed annually |
1. Nextiva
Best for most businesses
Nextiva’s social media management platform integrates marketing, engagement, and customer support across various social media channels into one unified dashboard. It supports platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube, with Pinterest coming soon.
Key features include scheduling and publishing posts, real-time interaction and engagement, and advanced analytics for monitoring social media performance. The platform also offers workflows and automation tools such as an all-in-one inbox, advanced filtering, social tagging, intelligent routing, performance monitoring, and competitor listening. These capabilities help streamline social media management, improve customer interactions, and enhance overall social media presence.
Features
- All-in-one omnichannel Inbox: View and manage incoming customer reviews in real time from various channels in a unified interface.
- Social tagging and monitoring: Create custom tags to categorize reviews and track keywords across social channels for efficient search and analysis.
- Competitor and social listening: Track brand mentions, conversations, and competitor performance across social media platforms, forums, blogs, and custom sources to stay informed about customer sentiment, industry trends, and areas for improvement.
- Case automation and escalations: Ensure customers never fall through the cracks using automation to elevate issues to senior support reps and managers with complete visibility.
Pricing
Nextiva offers various packages for businesses of all sizes, ranging from standard plans for small businesses to custom plans with all the bells and whistles.
- Standard: $149 + $99 for each additional user per month, billed annually
- Growth: $149 + $99 for each additional user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise: Custom pricing that includes white-glove service
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy to use Reliable Great customer support | No integrations marketplace Advanced features limited to the Enterprise plan SMS isn’t in the basic plan |
2. Sprout Social
Best for mid-sized businesses
Sprout Social provides a unified platform for managing cross-channel customer care on social media. Its centralized workspace puts customer interactions into a single dashboard, allowing agents to monitor and respond without switching interfaces. With tools for social listening, post management, automation, and sentiment analysis, Sprout Social helps businesses effectively engage with their audience and measure performance.
Features
- Social media publishing: Plan, organize, and deliver social content and campaigns with cross-network scheduling
- Conversation management: Track campaign performance and identify, personalize, and respond to incoming direct messages (DMs)
- Reporting and analytics: Evaluate outcomes with access to social data and customizable reporting tools
Pricing
Sprout Social features pricing for four different plans:
- Standard: $199 per user per month, billed annually
- Professional: $299 per user per month, billed annually
- Advanced: $399 per user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise: Contact Sprout Social for a custom quote
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free 30-day trial available User-friendly interface No contracts | No free plan High price Steeper learning curve with advanced features |
3. Hootsuite
Best for scheduling and collaboration
Hootsuite is a social media management platform offering a unified dashboard for scheduling posts, interacting with users, and analyzing performance across multiple platforms. Its centralized workspace and integration options allow businesses to connect their CRM systems, marketing tools, and other essential software. Hootsuite’s automation features enable scheduling posts, setting up automated responses, and auto-assigning messages to team members.
Features
- Centralized dashboard: Manage all your social media accounts from one central dashboard. This includes scheduling posts, responding to comments and messages, and tracking performance.
- Social media engagement: Respond to comments and messages from various platforms within the Hootsuite interface.
- AI-powered features: Hootsuite’s social media AI writer can help draft content and suggest hashtags.
Pricing
Hootsuite offers three plans: a one-person subscription, team, and customizable enterprise options.
- Professional: $99 per month (one user), billed annually
- Team: $249 per month (three users), billed annually
- Enterprise: Contact Hootsuite for a custom quote
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Ease of use Customer support Inbox management | Difficulty adding functionality Lacks key features Unable to tag on LinkedIn |
4. Salesforce Service Cloud
Best for enterprises
Salesforce Service Cloud is a customer service solution that helps businesses with social media management. While Salesforce is primarily recognized for its sales CRM tool, Service Cloud offers omnichannel customer support capabilities that extend to social media channels.
In addition to social media, Salesforce includes email, live chat, and self-service channels. It also provides add-ons like field service and AI tools, as well as seamless integration with Salesforce’s CRM for enhanced customer insights.
Features
- Social media listening and monitoring: This feature tracks brand mentions, industry conversations, and competitor activity across various social media platforms.
- Social media scheduling: This feature enables you to schedule and publish social media content directly from the Salesforce platform, streamlining your workflow.
- Social media analytics: This feature provides insights into the performance of your social media campaigns, including metrics like reach, engagement, and website traffic generated from social media.
Pricing
Salesforce offers a four-tier pricing structure with an add-on for AI chatbot Einstein. Here are the prices:
- Starter Suite: $25 per user per month, billed annually
- Professional: $80 per user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise: $165 per user per month, billed annually
- Unlimited: $330 per user per month, billed annually
- Einstein 1 Service: $500 per user per month, billed annually
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Integrates easily Reliability Customer support | Difficult to customize Complicated to use Slow setup |
5. Zendesk
Best for customizations
Zendesk is a customer experience platform that provides omnichannel support. Its ticketing systems help manage conversations across various channels, including social media, with options for basic email support on lower-cost plans and expanded support for phone and chat on higher-tier plans.
Zendesk AI enhances customer and employee experiences by providing instant responses and streamlining workflows. Its analytics suite offers insights into response times and agent performance, enabling businesses to refine their strategies for a seamless customer experience.
Features
- Zendesk AI for social media: This service provides AI-powered features like chatbots for social media interactions, including troubleshooting, recommendations, and escalation to human agents.
- Omnichannel agent workspace: This integrates social media channels with other communication channels — like email, live chat, and social media — into a unified platform for agents, providing a complete customer history.
- Unified ticketing system: Funnels all customer interactions from various channels into one system for consistent response management.
Pricing
Zendesk offers five different pricing tiers for its customer service suite.
- Suite Team: $55 per agent per month, billed annually
- Suite Growth: $89 per agent per month, billed annually
- Suite Professional: $115 per agent per month, billed annually
- Suite Enterprise: Contact Zendesk
- Suite Enterprise Plus: Contact Zendesk
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| User-friendly interface Service-level agreements Customer support | Cost Complexity Social listening challenges |
6. Freshdesk
Best for ease of use
Social media customer service tools like Freshdesk streamline communication by allowing teams to manage high volumes of social media inquiries across multiple platforms in one place. Freshdesk features self-service options, automated workflows, advanced ticketing, and intelligent routing to streamline workflows. Additionally, Freshdesk’s analytics tools empower agents to resolve issues quickly and gain valuable insights.
Features
- Centralized social media management: Freshdesk allows businesses to integrate social media platforms like Facebook, Linkedin, WhatsApp, Instagram, and X into a unified dashboard.
- Automated workflows: Features like automatic ticket creation for incoming social media messages and intelligent routing can streamline workflows.
- Advanced ticketing: Freshdesk converts social media interactions (comments, messages) into tickets within the platform.
Pricing
Freshdesk offers various packages, from free plans with limited features to enterprise plans with advanced features.
- Free: $0 per month (up to 10 agents), billed annually
- Growth: $15 per agent per month, billed annually
- Pro: $49 per agent per month, billed annually
- Enterprise: $79 per agent per month, billed annually
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Ease of use Canned responses Ticket grouping | Search functionality Lag issues Customization flexibility |
7. Zoho Desk
Best for integrations
Zoho Desk has social monitoring tools that track brand mentions across platforms like Facebook, X, and Instagram, centralizing communication for efficient ticket management. Capabilities include scheduling unlimited posts with a user-friendly content calendar, real-time engagement features, and basic analytics for insights into audience behavior and performance.
Additionally, features like automatic ticket assignments, predefined response templates, and workflow automations streamline support processes.
Features
- Unlimited scheduled posts: Save time by scheduling social media content in advance for optimal reach and consistent posting.
- Social monitoring: Track brand mentions and customer conversations across social media platforms.
- Analytics: Track metrics like follower growth, engagement rates, and website traffic generated from social media.
Pricing
Zoho Desk offers affordable pricing tiers. Here are their options:
- Express: $7 per user per month, billed annually
- Standard: $14 per user per month, billed annually
- Professional: $23 per user per month, billed annually
- Enterprise: $40 per user month, billed annually
Zoho Desk also has a free plan for minimal support needs.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Scheduled social media posts Social media content calendar Easy to customize | Hashtag tracking Competitor monitoring Reporting and analytics |
8. LiveAgent
Best for omnichannel ticketing
LiveAgent offers a unified customer support platform that consolidates email, calls, and social media communication into a single dashboard. Its gamification approach makes customer support engaging by rewarding teams for task completion.
The platform integrates with social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, streamlining workflows with automated routing and responses. Additionally, LiveAgent provides valuable insights through robust reporting capabilities and supports team collaboration with integrations like Slack and WhatsApp.
Features
- Universal inbox: Centralizes all social media inquiries into a single platform for efficient management and omnichannel support.
- Social media integrations: Connects with popular social media platforms to convert messages and mentions into trackable tickets automatically.
- Productivity tools: Templates and canned responses improve efficiency in social media communication.
Pricing
LiveAgent offers a tiered pricing structure with different plans catering to various business needs. Here’s a breakdown of their pricing.
- Small: $9 per agent per month, billed annually
- Medium: $29 per agent per month, billed annually
- Large: $49 per agent per month, billed annually
- Enterprise: $69 per agent per month, billed annually
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy-to-use interface Affordable Flexibility | Not very intuitive for editing tickets Too many features Difficulty sorting through calls |
9. HubSpot Service Hub
Best for marketing automation
HubSpot offers comprehensive social media customer service tools within their HubSpot Service Hub platform. Core functionalities include a Social Inbox for unified management of social media conversations, conversation management for direct response and resolution, and social monitoring to track brand mentions and industry discussions.
Additional features include ticketing to convert social interactions into trackable tickets, reporting and analytics for performance insights, and automation for tasks like scheduling posts and pre-written responses.
Features
- Post scheduling: Plan and schedule your social media posts in advance so that you can publish them at the best times for your audience.
- Keyword monitoring: Alert your agents in real time when brand mentions (or other keywords) are used across social media platforms.
- Lead tracking: Attribute business value by tracking the leads and customers that your social media marketing generates.
Pricing
HubSpot features different pricing models for businesses of different needs and sizes. Depending on the plan you choose, HubSpot may require a one-time onboarding fee.
- Marketing Hub Starter: $15 per seat per month, billed annually
- Starter Customer Platform: $15 per seat per month, billed annually
- Service Hub Professional: $90 per seat per month, billed annually
- Service Hub Enterprise: $130 per seat per month, billed annually
HubSpot Service Hub also offers a free plan with limited tools for up to five users.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy to use Integrates well with other software Robust features | Cost and hidden fees Limited automation Difficult to modify templates |
10. Front
Best for team collaboration
The social customer service platform from Front features a simple, user-friendly interface. Automated workflows handle routing and ticket handoff, ensuring fair workload distribution. It supports omnichannel communication across various channels, including social media, and empowers agents to provide personalized service through customer history profiles and in-app note-taking. Detailed analytics offer insights into response times, resolution rates, and team performance.
Features
- Centralized inbox: Manage all customer interactions in a single workspace.
- Omnichannel communication: Seamlessly switch between channels while maintaining context for the customer.
- Customer history profiles: Store past interactions with a customer, regardless of channel for personalized responses and a more consistent customer experience.
Pricing
Front’s pricing plans come in four different packages.
- Starter: $19 per seat per month (up to 10 seats), billed annually
- Growth: $59 per seat per month, billed annually
- Scale: $99 per seat per month, billed annually
- Premier: $229 per seat per month (50 seat minimum), billed annually
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Collaboration tools Intuitive interface Customization | Limited reporting Difficulty setting up complex workflows Customer support |
Top Features of Social Customer Service Software
The right social media management platform provides businesses with the customer service tools to handle interactions across various social media channels effectively.
Here are a few valuable features to look for:
- Unified omnichannel dashboard: This central hub displays all your social customer interactions in one place. From a single view, you can quickly manage responses to Facebook messages, Instagram mentions, and online reviews without switching between different platforms.
- Social tagging: Categorize incoming messages with custom social tags based on topic, urgency, or product. This allows for better organization and faster routing to the right agents or departments and optimizes reporting and analysis.
- Intelligent routing: Automatically route incoming customer queries or reviews to the best-suited agent or appropriate department to handle, based on expertise and availability. This ensures faster resolution times and improves productivity and efficiency.
- Performance monitoring: Real-time dashboards help management and stakeholders track metrics like response times, resolution rates, and customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores to identify areas for improvement and measure the impact of your customer service teams.
- Social listening: Using social listening tools helps you uncover brand mentions, industry trends, and customer sentiment across the social media landscape beyond just responding to messages. This allows you to proactively address potential issues, engage with customers in conversation threads, collect and implement customer feedback, and gain valuable customer insights.
- Advanced ticketing: An intelligent ticketing system streamlines your customer service workflows by converting social media requests into tickets, tracking their progress, and collaborating with team members for fast, accurate resolutions.
Benefits of Social Support Software
Social media customer support software does more than simply help you respond to customer messages and online reviews. It centralizes customer interactions and streamlines workflows, making it easy to track and engage with customers from one place, no matter the social media channel.
Here are a few key benefits of social media customer service software:
- Respond faster: Social media customer service software helps you respond to all social media messages and reviews from one centralized inbox. It streamlines workflows through categorization, tagging, filtering, and intelligent routing, while AI-powered tools assist agents by surfacing instant information and suggesting responses, reducing research and response time.
- Increase customer retention: In addition to faster customer service and social media support, the software enables proactive interactions, personalized responses, and social listening. It fosters a positive community, encourages brand advocacy, and ensures prompt replies, building trust, creating loyal customers, boosting engagement, and increasing sales.
- Track issues and opportunities in real time: With tools that provide real-time social listening, monitoring, and analysis, you can track brand mentions and custom keywords, analyze customer sentiment, and identify trends, ensuring you’re addressing issues and customer inquiries promptly.
How to Choose the Best Social Media Customer Service Platform
Providing exceptional customer service on social media requires the right tools. Here’s a guide to help you find the right platform to elevate your social customer interactions:
- Which social media channels will you support? Identify which social media channels your customers prefer. A platform that helps you provide fast, convenient customer service where your customers already are helps build customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- What are your business objectives? Set SMART goals for social media customer service and how you will measure success. That means goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Then, decide if the platform has the features and capabilities to reach your defined objectives and customer service metrics and KPIs — such as faster response times, improved customer sentiment, and increased sales.
- Who will be using your social support tools? Think about your business’s growth plans and choose a platform that can adapt to your evolving needs and changing customer preferences and behaviors. Future-proof your operations with an agile social media customer service software that grows seamlessly with your team and your customer base.
Solve Social Customer Service With Nextiva
Choosing the right social media customer service software is crucial for providing fast, efficient support, enhancing customer engagement, and proactively addressing issues before they begin.
Nextiva provides an AI-powered reputation management platform that offers an all-in-one inbox with advanced ticketing for real-time interaction across social media channels, intelligent routing for efficient team collaboration, performance monitoring, competitor and social listening, and more. Try Nextiva and enhance your customer experience today.
Social Media Customer Service FAQs
Here are answers to common questions about social media customer service.
Social media customer service software is a toolbox that helps businesses manage and improve their interactions with customers on social media platforms. It centralizes conversations, streamlines responses, and offers features like automation and analytics to deliver positive experiences to meet and exceed customer expectations.
Social media customer service platforms can significantly improve response times, boost agent efficiency, and provide valuable insights into customer sentiment. They also help businesses build stronger customer relationships and enhance their brand reputation.
Social media is a powerful tool for small businesses to connect with customers. Customer service software can help them manage this effectively, even with limited resources. Many platforms offer affordable plans specifically designed for small businesses.
Here are a few examples of good customer service on social media:
* Responding to comments and messages promptly and professionally
* Taking ownership of customer issues and working towards resolutions
* Using a friendly and helpful tone in all interactions
* Going the extra mile to surprise and delight customers
The best social customer service software depends on your specific needs and budget. However, Nextiva offers a comprehensive social media customer service solution that is scalable, feature-rich, and easy to use. It empowers businesses of all sizes to deliver exceptional customer service on social media.
