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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Help Scout

    Score9.3 out of 10
    N/AHelp Scout is help desk software. The vendor’s value proposition is that that their solution reduces time spent on training users because Help Scout is simple to use and set up and scales like any enterprise product. This solution includes multiple mailboxes to support as many email addresses as needed in order to work collaboratively across teams, and manage several products or brands from one account. Reports on conversation trends, team performance, productivity, and customer happiness are…

    $30

    per month starts with 100 contacts

    Hiver

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AHiver is a customer service platform that brings together communication channels, apps, and data to improve customer support operations. Hiver enables real-time collaboration across every customer communication channel, offering AI and automation to resolve issues and help teams work faster. Hiver states that over 10,000 teams of all shapes and sizes globally from Flexport to Harvard University, Vacasa, and Epic Games rely on Hiver to deliver support that wins and retains customers for…

    $24

    per month per user

    Pricing
    Help ScoutHiver
    Editions & Modules
    Standard
    $30
    per month starts with 100 contacts
    Plus
    $90
    per month starts with 200 contacts
    Company
    Contact sales team
    Lite
    $24
    per month per user
    Growth
    $34
    per month per user
    Pro
    $59
    per month per user
    Elite
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Help ScoutHiver
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—20% discount for annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Help ScoutHiver
    Considered Both Products
    Help Scout
    Chose Help Scout
    Help Scout easily plugs into Gmail and allows us to create reports based on our tagging. We found its price point for us as a nonprofit was a good fit. Customer service was also supportive. It also allows us to have an external help desk for our common questions from clients.
    Incentivized
    Hiver
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Help ScoutHiver
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Help Scout and Hiver
    Feature
    Help Scout
    8.7
    23 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Hiver
    9.0
    4 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets9.123 Ratings9.04 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications8.113 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission8.021 Ratings9.04 Ratings
    Ticket response9.522 Ratings9.04 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Help Scout and Hiver
    Feature
    Help Scout
    8.5
    21 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Hiver
    8.0
    1 Ratings
    0% below category average
    External knowledge base8.720 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base8.219 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Help Scout and Hiver
    Feature
    Help Scout
    8.5
    23 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Hiver
    8.5
    4 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Email support9.623 Ratings9.04 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration7.415 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customer portal00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Help ScoutHiver
    Small Businesses
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Help ScoutHiver
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.6
    (23 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.4
    (6 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    4.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Help ScoutHiver
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Help Scout
    Small businesses that want a conversational type of customer support experience. Nothing wrong with support tickets, but it does make you feel like a number. Also, we needed to get up and running quickly so the "inbox" feel of the dashboard was already familiar with the team so they could adopt the new software quickly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hiver
    One scenario where Hiver works really well is in a shared support or billing inbox or anywhere multiple team members need access to the same messages. For example, when a customer emails about a billing question, we used to reply and manually loop in the billing team or forward the message. That often caused confusion, especially when someone forgot to “reply all” or responded only to the teammate instead of the customer.Now with Hiver, we just assign the conversation to the billing inbox, and whoever is available can respond. Everyone on the team can see the thread, status, and notes, which avoids duplicated efforts and missed replies. We also used to rely on Google Groups, but it wasn’t clear if someone had already replied, and there was no easy way to collaborate behind the scenes. Hiver completely solved that for us.As for situations where Hiver might be less ideal, I’d say if your team isn’t using Gmail or Google Workspace, then it’s probably not a good fit. It’s really designed for teams that live in Gmail so the team doesn't have to learn a new system. I'm sure some businesses will require a more robust ticketing solution but for our use case, this was a perfect option to improve outcomes, client service, and satisfaction.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Help Scout
    • Extremely simple to use and understand as a user - treats communications like human beings and provides a much more personal feel to communication (as opposed to making people feel like numbers).
    • The email newsletter.
    • They are super responsive. They are pretty rad and transparent: if something goes wrong on their end they are not afraid of admitting fault. Which leads me to trust them because I can believe them. I know that tells you very little about the product, but as leadership, that's something that I really need
    • Help Scout does exactly what it needs to (facilitate organized, efficient conversations between customers and support people) without getting in the way.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hiver
    • automation through rules
    • tagging emails, anaylics behind them
    • support, chat always responds right away
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Help Scout
    • Trying to group tickets is a bit unflexible. You can create folders which can be part of a workflow (automatic trigger) but you can't create a folder based on tags. This needs to be improved because there's a need to create smarter segments and mix them.
    • Metrics are useful but there needs to be more details about them. You can drill down in some but others are still not very actionable or visible (ok, that number went down, but what was the cause? what's the criteria with what you measure that?)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hiver
    • It could be considered expensive, but ultimately worth every penny for those who use shared inboxes/groups to run their business.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Help Scout
    We are receiving feedback from the organizational level that they may want us to transition to a different solution to provide consistency across the company.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hiver
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Help Scout
    Help Scout is a great solution for support teams. There are many articles and webinars to help you learn how to use Help Scout. There are also many features to help make your workflows easier and more efficient. I would readily recommend Help Scout to any small or medium-growing support teams.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hiver
    Easy to use
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Help Scout
    No answers on this topic
    Hiver
    Support is there, can be slow at times.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Help Scout
    Only have minimal experience with G-Suite for a much smaller company. This worked well for that organization but did not have similar specialization functions that suite our larger organization very well. Help Scout's pricing makes sense, and continues to service our needs well. Minimal usage of other programs, but have no need to explore alternatives at this time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hiver
    True ticketing solutions are certainly more robust in that you can typically manage social media channels and phones, etc. But, in my opinion, when you don't have a team solely responsible for managing a ticketing system they can be complicated to implement. With HIVER, we're already all accustomed to managing our own G-Suite inbox, so it was simply a matter of teaching the team how to utilize the solution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Help Scout
    • We are able to retain our customer base due to the outstanding customer service our Customer Experience department provides. Without an organized tool like Help Scout, this would not be possible. We pride ourselves in quick response times to customers and are able to do so by effectively routing tickets to the right agents.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Hiver
    • The ROI on showing how many emails are being received and addressed in a timely manner are great for KPIs
    • the ability to search and ensure emails are not being deleted as an automatic report is sent out the following day saying if any emails were deleted by whom
    • the ability to automate who gets assigned what emails from specific vendors per entity
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Help Scout Screenshots

    Screenshot of Build better relationships with your customers, and work together better as a teamScreenshot of Tools designed specifically for team collaboration on customer supportScreenshot of Docs Knowledge Base provides self-service that sets your customers up for successScreenshot of The conversation report can change the conversation with your customers from problems to praise by pinpointing what they write in about and when.Screenshot of Productivity Reports track your team's customer-helping velocity and identify sticking points to push through with even greater momentum.Screenshot of Happiness Reports are the closest you can get to your customer's true feelings without hiring a telepath.

    Hiver Screenshots

    Screenshot of Hiver in GmailScreenshot of a view of a shared mailboxScreenshot of the collision alerts feature