As humans, our first instinct when faced with a problem or a challenge is to roll up our sleeves and tackle it ourselves. Businesses are catching on to this desire for self-reliance and have realized that a staggering 81% of customers prefer to try and solve issues independently before reaching out to support teams. This realization has led companies to explore creative ways to offer customer support self-service options.
Customers expect instant solutions, available at their fingertips, 24/7. Implementing a self-service strategy can help you meet this demand. But there’s a catch: self-service done poorly can backfire spectacularly. Ineffective troubleshooting options, poorly written knowledge bases, and complicated FAQs can leave customers feeling abandoned and frustrated. As a result, instead of supporting them, you end up driving them away.
This is where customer self-service software solutions shine. They give you the tools and technology to create exceptional self-service customer support options that make customers feel valued and understood. These software solutions promise faster resolution times, reduced support tickets, and happier customers.
In this article, we explore the top 11 customer self-service software solutions so that you can improve your customer experience, increase customer satisfaction, and improve your retention rates.
Key Pointers
- Customer self-service software solutions are applications that facilitate self-service options for customers, allowing them to access information, find solutions to issues, and manage their accounts. Self-service customer support software can provide tools like knowledge bases, FAQs, and AI-powered automated chatbots.
- The best customer self-service software solutions include DevRev, Freshdesk, Zendesk, HelpCrunch, LiveAgent, Help Scout, HubSpot Service Hub, Zoho Desk, FuseBase, Gorgias, and Whatfix. These tools offer several advanced self-service features that can help you improve your customer experience and increase satisfaction.
What is customer self-service software?
Customer self-service software is a digital platform that offers various tools to help you set up self-service options and resources for your customers. These software solutions help you deliver fast, accurate, and personalized support to your customers without requiring them to interact with human agents.
Customer self-service platforms can help you set up the following tools and resources:
- Automated AI-powered chatbots for quick responses.
- Detailed knowledge bases where customers can find relevant information through articles, tutorials, and guides.
- FAQ pages that answer the most common queries.
- Customer portals where customers can access their information, such as account details, order details, tracking information, and more.
Top 11 best customer self-service software 2025
1. DevRev
DevRev is a cloud-based, AI-Native platform designed to supercharge your customer support efforts. Its innovative solutions leverage artificial intelligence to expand your self-service options, leading to faster resolutions, increased customer satisfaction, and a boost in agent productivity.
At the heart of DevRev’s AI capabilities is PLuG, an intelligent chatbot that understands both the intent and sentiment behind customer queries. This allows PLuG to provide quick, accurate, and personalized responses, effectively handling a vast majority of Level 1 support requests and significantly reducing the need for agent intervention. Beyond AI chatbot, DevRev’s AI digs deep into support requests and customer interactions to identify recurring issues, enabling you to create targeted FAQs and proactively fill gaps in your knowledge base with automatically generated articles.
An example of how PLuG improves self-service is that of Goodmeetings, a business who faced issues with customer ticket resolution and found that most self-service and customer support platforms led to data discrepancies. By onboarding PLuG they were able to use Generative AI in customer support and increase the velocity of customer support through self-support options.
This success story was possible because of DevRev’s knowledge graph that connects all customer data points to offer meaningful and personalized self service options. DevRev integrates data from all your platforms to create a comprehensive database that helps you consistently improve and offer accurate self-service resources.
Key features:
- AI-powered chatbot
- AI Agents
- Advanced analytics and reporting
- Gen AI-assisted knowledge base creation
- In-depth FAQ pages
- Omni-channel support
- Snap-ins for quick integrations
- AI-based routing and ticketing
- Shared inboxes
- Unified customer views
- Community forum
- Feature request submissions
Pricing: DevRev’s Starter Plan is $19.99 per user/month and includes a 45-day free trial of the Pro Plan. DevRev offers flexible and scalable plans to suit various requirements.
G2 rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
2. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a cloud-based support platform that focuses on providing user-friendly self-service tools to improve customer experience. It is an AI-powered software and offers easy-to-use knowledge bases, automated chatbots, and email automation. Freshdesk is versatile, scalable and comes with omnichannel capabilities to bring all your support queries onto a single platform.
Key features:
- Omnichannel support
- Automated chatbot
- Knowledge bases
- Team collaborations
- Analytics capabilities
Pricing: Freshdesk has a Growth plan priced at $15/month and a Pro plan priced at $49/month.
G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
3. Zendesk
Zendesk is a customizable and scalable support solution with a suite of self-help offerings such as comprehensive help centers, AI-powered chatbots, and knowledge bases. Along with its self-service options, Zendesk also offers exceptional analytics and reporting capabilities that allow you to gather valuable insights from your support interactions. With Zendesk, however, setting up self-service features can be complex and may result in a steeper learning curve for your team.
Key features:
- AI-powered chatbots
- Help center
- Unified agent workspace
- Analytics and reporting
Pricing: Zendesk offers a basic Support Team at $19/month. You can purchase the higher-tiered plans starting at $55/month for more advanced features.
G2 rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars
4. HelpCrunch
HelpCrunch is a customer support platform with a modern and intuitive interface that both customers and agents find easy to use. Its focus is on improving customer engagement by offering proactive support through chatbots and knowledge base automation. HelpCrunch also offers features like live chat, email marketing, and in-app messaging. However, you may find it lacking in advanced customization options.
Key features:
- Multichannel support
- Proactive support
- Automated chatbots
- Knowledge bases
- Multilingual support
Pricing: HelpCrunch’s basic plan starts at $10/user/month and offers basic features. The Pro plan is priced at $16/user/month.
G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
5. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a feature-rich customer support help desk software. It offers a comprehensive suite of self-service tools, including a knowledge base, forum, and feedback & suggestion system. LiveAgent consolidates customer interactions from various channels into a single platform and is a great tool to handle large volumes of support requests. While it offers several features, LiveAgent’s interface can feel dated compared to other options on this list.
Key features:
- Chatbots
- Knowledge bases
- Universal inbox
- Feedback and suggestions system
- Ticketing systems
- Forums
Pricing: LiveAgent offers four pricing plans: $15/agent/month, $24/agent/month, $39/agent/month, and $59/agent/month for small, medium, large, and enterprise businesses respectively.
G2 rating: 4.5 out of 5
6. Help Scout
Help Scout is a support software solution with a focus on building strong customer relationships. As part of its self-service offerings it provides a knowledge base solution called Docs that supports content categorization and branding. It also has an in-app messaging widget called Beacon that answers FAQs within the knowledge base.
Key features:
- Knowledge base
- In-app messaging
- Customization options
- Analytics and reporting
Pricing: Help Scount’s Standard plan is priced at $22/user/month and the Plus plan is priced at $44/user/month.
G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5
7. HubSpot Service Hub
HubSpot Service Hub is a part of the HubSpot Software that focuses on customer support tools and resources. It offers a searchable knowledge base that is integrated with its proprietary HubSpot CRM platform for personalized content recommendations. It also allows you to build your own chatbot to automate support. Apart from this, HubSpot offers a customer portal software solution where customers can access their information.
Key features:
- Knowledge base
- Automated chatbots
- Customer portal
- Survey and feedback solutions
- Analytics
- CRM integrations
Pricing: HubSpot’s Professional plan is priced at $90/month/seat.
G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
8. Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk is a customer support software solution with a focus on automation. It enables self-service through a customizable knowledge base with articles, FAQs, and community forums. The AI-powered chatbot, Zia offers automated support and can be integrated with various channels. With Zoho desk you can also embed your self-service options to various parts of your website or your applications.
Key features:
- Multilingual support
- AI-powered chatbot
- Community forums
- Workflow automation
- Integrations with third-party tools
Pricing: Zoho Desk’s Standard Plan is priced at $15.50 per month and it offers basic features. For advanced features, you can opt for the Professional Plan at $25 per month or the Enterprise Plan at $39 per month.
G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
9. FuseBase
FuseBase is a no-code support platform that helps you create and manage knowledge bases with minimal effort. It offers a user-friendly interface and provides all the essential features for organizing and sharing information. It also integrates the customer support aspect of your business with project and task management to help you achieve increased productivity.
Key features:
- Searchable knowledge base
- Branding customizations
- Analytics
- Project and task management
- Customer support portal
Pricing: FuseBase has an Essentials plan that start at $28/month and a Plus plan offered at $73/month.
G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
10. Gorgias
Gorgias is a customer support software that caters specifically to e-commerce businesses. It offers a unified view of customers and provides a feature-rich help center. It enables you to set up a customizable knowledge base with articles and FAQs and gives you AI-powered chatbots that can assist with tasks like order tracking, cancellations, and returns. Gorgias also offers automated guides that take customers through specific processes.
Key features:
- AI-powered chatbot
- Automated workflows
- Help center
- Live chat
- Knowledge bases
- FAQs
- Integration with e-commerce platforms
Pricing: The Gorgias Pro Plan starts at $10/month for 50 help desk tickets and can be scaled up to up to 10,000 tickets by opting for higher pricing plans.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5
11. Whatfix
Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that helps customers learn how to use software solutions. With Whatfix, you can provide interactive guidance and in-app support for the user’s workflow. It offers tools like walkthroughs, tooltips, and task lists to help users navigate complex software. It also has a self-help widget to give users access to help articles, FAQs, and other resources.
Key features:
- Interactive walkthroughs
- On-screen guidance
- Knowledge base articles
- FAQs
- Smart Tips
Pricing: Pricing is available only upon request.
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5
Benefits of self-service portal
While a self-service portal is only a small part of your customer support platform, the impact it can have on your customer experience is huge. Here’s why:
1. Quicker resolution times:
With self-service portals customers are given the resources to find answers to their questions through a simple search or a quick conversation with an AI-chatbot. This means their problems are solved quicker and they can move on to using your product or service without waiting for assistance from your team.
2. Increased satisfaction:
When you give customers useful and relevant tools and resources to find solutions to their problems, they feel understood. Self-service tools like AI chatbots enable you to offer consistent and accurate responses quickly, whereas well-organized and detailed knowledge bases can help customers learn more about your products. When customers are able to use your products and services without friction, their satisfaction levels and loyalty towards your brand increase.
3. Improved onboarding and retention:
Self-service options can be an excellent way for new customers to understand how to use your products and services. You can facilitate more effective customer onboarding by providing automated product walkthroughs, offering relevant support resources at various stages of their customer journey and other tools like FAQ pages and community forums. Research shows that great onboarding processes can increase your customer retention rates by up to 82%.
4. Better support efficiency:
Automated self-service tools can take on most if not all L1 support requests, reducing the number of support tickets created for common questions. This gives your agents more time to attend to matters that need their direct attention and expertise.
5. Greater support scalability:
With self-service customer support, you do not have to hire more agents when the volume of support requests increases. As self-service tools can automate resolutions for common issues and can do so at larger volumes, you can easily offer support to more customers without compromising quality.
How to choose the right customer self-service portal
A customer self-service portal software is only as good as the functionalities it offers. Here are some things to look out for:
1. AI capabilities:
Most tools on this list offer AI capabilities, but the extent of AI integration into each of these platforms is what makes the difference. Look for tools that offer advanced artificial intelligence capabilities like intent-aware AI chatbots, GenAI for knowledge base updations, AI-powered analytics, and AI-automated routing and escalation systems. These will increase the overall efficiency of your support efforts.
2. Integration:
The first rule of onboarding a new software is ensuring that it gels with the rest of your tech stack. Look for tools that work well with your existing business tools so that you can create a unified system for your customer support operations. Look for platforms that offer in-built and API integrations.
3. Cost of ownership:
With cloud-based tools, a common mistake businesses make is that they factor in only the initial subscription cost. However, the actual cost of the tool includes the implementation costs, training costs, and upgradation costs. When selecting software for self-service, ensure that it can grow with your business and offers enough features and benefits to justify the cost of ownership.
4. Ease of use:
A self-service portal should be intuitive and user-friendly for both your customers and the support team. If the platform is complicated, customers might get frustrated and reach out to support directly, canceling out the benefits of self-service. Look for tools with a clean interface so that customers can find answers quickly.
Choosing the best self-service tool: Final thoughts
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking self-service is a “set it and forget it” solution. However, truly effective customer self-service requires ongoing care and attention. This means you have to look beyond just the self-service tools each software offers and focus on finding solutions that help your customer behavior, identify knowledge gaps, and proactively refine your self-service content to ensure it remains relevant and helpful.
DevRev, as an AI-native platform, integrates intelligent chatbots, comprehensive knowledge bases, and targeted FAQs, all powered by powerful artificial intelligence and machine learning models. However, it goes beyond simple self-service tools. It bridges the gap between customer support and product development, creating a feedback loop that fuels improvement. With DevRev, your support team can identify recurring issues through AI-powered analytics, and that information can instantly be conveyed to your product team. They, in turn, can use this insight to improve the product, reducing future support requests and ensuring your self-service resources are always accurate.
To learn more about how DevRev facilitates exceptional self-service customer support, book a demo today!
