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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

    Meltwater

    Score7.6 out of 10
    N/AMeltwater Media Intelligence platform is a set of public relations software tools for media monitoring, social media monitoring, and collecting brand insights. The four areas of functionality are Monitor, Analyze, Distribute, and Engage. (Note that this product combines features from the vendor Meltwater's former Buzz, Press, and News products.)N/A
    Pricing
    Help ScoutMeltwater
    Editions & Modules
    Standard
    $30
    per month starts with 100 contacts
    Plus
    $90
    per month starts with 200 contacts
    Company
    Contact sales team
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Help ScoutMeltwater
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Help ScoutMeltwater
    Considered Both Products
    Help Scout
    No answer on this topic
    Meltwater
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    63%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    7 Answers
    62%
    Delivers good value for the price
    16 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    69%
    Happy with the feature set
    22 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    63%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    15 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    22 Answers
    Features
    Help ScoutMeltwater
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Help Scout and Meltwater
    Feature
    Help Scout
    8.7
    23 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    Organize and prioritize service tickets9.123 Ratings00 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications8.113 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission8.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket response9.522 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Help Scout and Meltwater
    Feature
    Help Scout
    8.5
    21 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    External knowledge base8.720 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base8.219 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Help Scout and Meltwater
    Feature
    Help Scout
    8.5
    23 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Meltwater
    -
    Ratings
    Email support9.623 Ratings00 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration7.415 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Help ScoutMeltwater
    Small Businesses
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
    Score5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Cision Communications Cloud
    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Cision Communications Cloud
    Score8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Help ScoutMeltwater
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.6
    (23 ratings)
    7.2
    (73 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (10 ratings)
    Usability
    9.4
    (6 ratings)
    5.6
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (29 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.1
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Help ScoutMeltwater
    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
    Meltwater
    Meltwater is well-suited for agencies that have an engagement team who is looking to service a variety of client needs such as social media reporting, public relations outreach, and community management. If you're looking to have a platform serve just one need, you can still use Meltwater but will get more bang for your buck if you are needing a variety of tools.
    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
    Meltwater
    • Media research - you can search for relevant publications and journalists to add to your media list.
    • Earned media coverage - you can search for coverage of your brand and find news stories that also include data that may be useful (how many people did the story reach for example).
    • Building media lists - if you have no current existing list, you can build and export one in Excel for example.
    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
    Meltwater
    • The dashboards are not user-friendly, customizable (color, font size, etc.), or worthy of presenting to a client. All of the insights from a dashboard get pulled from the platform and placed into a more client-friendly presentation.
    • Paywalls for certain publications connected to who-knows-what. DowJones racket limits media monitoring capabilities and results in manual searches for a growing number of publications.
    • TVeyes, the broadcast monitoring arm of the media monitoring capabilities, just needs TLC and to become more client-facing. Currently, the links produced to share clips look sketchy, and they have a relatively short shelf life.
    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
    Meltwater
    Meltwater works well for our organization and has allowed us to meet our internal goals. We are always open to new products and services that may be able to provide similar or better features; however, our experience has been that many of Meltwater's competitors are not up to the task.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Meltwater
    Once you get some basic training it's pretty easy to use. I would like to see training manuals, or instructional videos to help me explore features I'm not currently using.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Help Scout
    No answers on this topic
    Meltwater
    Our account rep at Meltwater went dark for a long time. Then, a couple of weeks ago, our new account manager reached out to set up a meeting. Apparently, they had a big shakeup in the company, and there were some personnel changes. Our new account rep was great in discussing the platform's capabilities that were available to us and even offered to schedule a follow-up meeting with his technical team to introduce our new social media team members to the platform and how it could help them with their jobs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Help Scout
    No answers on this topic
    Meltwater
    Again, really in-depth and helpful for a program that is really easy to use.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Help Scout
    No answers on this topic
    Meltwater
    Walked step by step through program. Very informative on a program that doesn't require much training.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Help Scout
    No answers on this topic
    Meltwater
    You are only allowed 15 users, so make sure you've identified who will have access to use the tool.
    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
    Meltwater
    I was looking for a full-service option. I did some research. What really sold me was the presentation. They offered products that were helpful, and I wasn’t even aware of them. It is more expensive than the other products that are out there, but you get more. The other companies are good, but Meltwater Media Intelligence is more full service.
    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
    Meltwater
    • As a PR firm, we rely on the media databases that [Meltwater Media Intelligence Platform] supplies to deliver the media exposure that they expect from us.
    • We utilize their tracking of media hits for our overall reporting to our clients.
    • Both of these are advantageous in helping us to not only keep our existing clients happy but also to gain new clients (and, in turn - revenue), as well.
    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.