In a world of heightened ecommerce competition, how will your ecommerce store compete?

There are an estimated 12-24 million ecommerce stores globally, each one hoping to secure its own piece of the market. Among this vast field of competitors, customer service is a huge factor that can help to push your store above the rest.

In fact, customers are demanding it. 90% of Americans use customer service to decide whether they want to do business with a company. It’s not even about just being “nice” or quick to reply (although those things do matter!). Consumers have growing expectations around the personalization of a service and being able to control how they interact with companies.

Large ecommerce providers such as Amazon have raised the bar for these expectations, but merchants on other platforms can compete with a careful customer service strategy. Providing better service may just be your best bet.

Shopify is a preferred platform for ecommerce merchants, with over 4.4 million websites globally. One thing that makes Shopify stand out is the plethora of available apps to add functions to your store. Of those, the focus of this post is five of the best apps for customer service on Shopify. Here are our picks:

5 best customer service apps for Shopify

The Shopify app store offers over 8000 apps for customizing your own Shopify website. Customer service apps offer you anything from help desks, to order changes, to loyalty programs, to contact forms. Here are our top five:

#1. Gorgias

Gorgias is a subscription-based helpdesk and live chat service that unifies support conversations into a centralized view.

A key merchant problem it solves is the siloing of different communication channels. Sometimes a customer has emailed, called, sent a message on chat, or communicated via other channels, and all of those messages remain in their own separate “home.” This can result in customer service reps not having all relevant information in front of them when they’re helping the customer, but Gorgias is the solution.

From the customer's perspective, support reps without already provided context to their problems can lead to a poor service experience. A common complaint of customers is that they don’t like having to repeat themselves, but when communications become siloed, they often have to.

With unified conversations, your support team has all relevant information at their fingertips. Some core features of the app include:

Centralization of communication from email, social media, live chat, voice, and SMS.
The ability to create smart automations, including self-service options. For example, an automation can answer typical questions such as “where is my order?”
Your support team can perform typical Shopify order tasks (such as refunding, creating, or canceling orders), without having to navigate away from Gorgias.
Your team can immediately see the customer’s entire order history.
The app has robust features for measuring and improving performance.

We like it because Gorgias’ strong integration with Shopify helps with prompt, error-free customer service.

#2. Cleverific Order Editor

Order Editor is the solution to make any edits to your Shopify order - beyond Shopify’s native editing capabilities. It also meets customer demands for the ability to solve issues themselves with self-service order editing. In fact, 67% of customers prefer self-service options rather than being forced to speak with an agent, or wait for a business to get around to responding to their support ticket.

On the merchant side, Order Editor allows your customer support team to make sophisticated edits to customer orders. For example, if a customer changes their mind, or if the item they ordered goes out of stock, your team can quickly resolve the issue through the app.

From the customer's perspective, customer self-service gives them the power to solve their own problems. If they’ve changed their mind immediately after placing an order, Order Editor’s Customer Portal allows them to add or remove items, change variants such as color or size, or even cancel their order. It takes some of the typical pain away from order edit requests, reduces the cost of returns, and frees up customer service time.

Some key features of Order Editor include:

Customer Portal, the customer self-service feature that allows customers to make edits to their order through the order status page on your store. On the merchant end, you can set the rules for this, such as the editing timeframe and tag-based rules (e.g. some orders may be tagged so that they can’t be edited, like fraudulent orders or final sales).
Editing for your customer support team that goes beyond native Shopify functionality. For example, they can change customer information and taxes, add discounts to single products, and gifts or samples to orders.
Optimized logistics workflows for subscriptions and bundles.
Send payment requests when you need prepayments
Recover abandoned carts
Marketing features such as gifts with purchase campaigns, samples, flyers, and thank you notes.

change order — *Editing in Customer Portal*

When mistakes happen, or when a customer simply changes their mind, making the order editing process as painless as possible for them will help create a positive experience. You want them to come back, even if they had to cancel their order this time!

#3. Reamaze

Reamaze offers live chat, along with chatbot services so that you can quickly respond to customer messages. Live chat ranks third among customer preferences for how to contact your support team, according to a Hubspot survey. They also found that while 59% prefer a human on the other end of a chat service, 30% prefer live chat, but will use an automated (chatbot) service.

You can look at chat as another tool in your arsenal for providing superior customer service. Hubspot also found that 66% of consumers expect a response to chat or direct messages within five minutes. You can support this wish with a chatbot, even if your human team isn’t able to respond that quickly.

Some key features of Reamaze include:

Manage support requests from multiple sources, including email, live chat, social media, SMS, and voice.
You can manage, modify, or create Shopify orders while chatting with customers.
Set up a customizable, embeddable FAQ center.
Give customers timely status updates.
Boost your marketing with targeted, push notification campaigns.

We like Reamaze particularly for its robust chat features, helping Shopify merchants to respond quickly to customer requests.

#4. HelpCenter

HelpCenter has multiple customer service functions, including live chat, chatbot, and helpdesk ticketing. One of the core features that put this app on our list is its FAQ builder.

As we talked about previously, customers expect to have access to robust self-service options. When they have a question, many will turn to your FAQs first, preferring to be able to resolve their issue themselves if they can.

Get in front of customer complaints - see how your team can resolve issues faster here

HelpCenter makes building an intuitive FAQ page easy, with its clean design and simple navigation. Some of their top features include:

FAQ builder that easily integrates into your Shopify website.
Helpdesk ticketing system.
Real-time communication with live chat, or automated responses with a chatbot.
Tabs, which allow you to easily organize your product descriptions.

#5. Tidio

Tidio is a live chat, chatbot, and multichannel communication solution that easily integrates into Shopify stores. It boasts the ability to turn passive visitors into active customers via smart, pre-made chatbot strategies.

This is one chat service that grows with you, making it a great choice for Shopify merchants of all sizes. Plans begin with a free option that allows three operators to have conversations with 50 visitors. It then goes up in paid tiers, depending on your usage needs.

Some key features of Tidio include:

AI-powered chatbots that can help save abandoned carts, recommend products, direct upsells, and more.
Live chat, so your customer service team can help resolve issues in real-time.
Support ticketing, including systems for prioritizing tickets.
A multi-channel tool, pulling all of your customer conversations from different channels into one place. This also helps with a timely response, so your customer support team doesn’t have to frequently jump between checking channels.

Tidio helps Shopify merchants to improve the customer experience by providing prompt support when your customers need it.

Shopify apps to boost your customer service

We’ve introduced you to our top five customer service apps for Shopify merchants:

Gorgias
Cleverific Order Editor
Reamaze
HelpCenter
Tidio

Your customer experience will set you apart and help you compete, even in the face of giants such as Amazon. These apps can help you meet customer demands and deliver prompt, efficient service.

Each of these apps has a free trial you can tap into if you’re keen to try them out. We suggest you take advantage of these to find the best fit for your Shopify store. To start your free trial of Cleverific Order Editor, click here and select a plan to try out.

The best customer service apps for Shopify stores