Gorgias has emerged as a popular help desk software for Shopify merchants, renowned for its' seamless integration with Shopify & its ability to centralize customer communications from various channels.

However, as businesses grow and their needs evolve, some may find that Gorgias falls short in certain areas. Whether it's the escalating costs, the lack of support, or poor reporting capabilities, these pain points have prompted many e-commerce entrepreneurs to explore alternative solutions.

To top it all, Gorgias recently increased their pricing which did not sit well with many merchants, especially because there are a lot of other competitors that offer same feature parity at a fraction of the price.

As Gorgias' customer base expanded, many merchants found themselves facing longer response times, less personalized assistance, and a general decline in the quality of support they received. This issue is particularly problematic for a platform like Gorgias, which requires significant configuration and integration to align with a business's unique workflows and processes.

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If you've found yourself in a similar situation, wondering if the grass might be greener on the other side, you're not alone. In this comprehensive guide, we'll dive into the top alternatives to Gorgias, evaluating their features, strengths, and weaknesses to help you make an informed decision for your business.

From AI capabilities to user-friendly interfaces and affordable pricing plans, these alternatives aim to address the common frustrations faced by businesses outgrowing Gorgias. So, let's dig in and explore the options that could potentially help your provide a better customer service experience and increase your operational efficiencies and cost.

Criteria for Evaluating Gorgias Alternatives

When considering alternatives to Gorgias, it's essential to have a clear set of criteria to evaluate each option effectively. After all, every business has unique needs, and what works for one might not be the best fit for another. To ensure you make an informed decision, we'll be assessing the potential alternatives based on the following key factors:

1. E-Commerce Integration: A seamless integration with your e-commerce platform is non-negotiable. We'll examine how well each alternative integrates with popular platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento, ensuring a smooth flow of customer data and order information.
2. AI Capabilities: With the rise of GPT and other AI models and their successful deployments, many businesses are looking for helpdesk solutions that leverage AI to enhance customer service. We'll explore the AI features offered by each alternative, such as intelligent assistants, natural language processing, and business insights.
3. Ticketing System: At the heart of any helpdesk solution lies its ticketing system. We'll look at the ease of creating, assigning, and managing tickets, as well as the availability of features like automated ticketing, prioritization, and collision detection.
4. Live Chat and Messaging: In today's fast-paced world, customers expect real-time support. We'll evaluate the live chat and messaging capabilities of each alternative, including the ability to handle multiple conversations simultaneously, canned responses, and integration with popular messaging apps.
5. Automation and Workflows: Efficient customer service often relies on well-designed automation and workflows. We'll explore the automation rules, templated responses, and workflow customization options offered by each alternative, ensuring they can streamline your processes and save valuable time.
6. Reporting and Analytics: Data-driven insights are crucial for continuously improving your customer service efforts. We'll assess the reporting and analytics features, including customizable dashboards, team performance tracking, and the ability to identify trends and areas for improvement.
7. Integrations and Extensions: A robust helpdesk solution should seamlessly integrate with the tools and services you already use. We'll consider the available integrations with CRM, marketing automation, accounting software, and other popular business applications.
8. Pricing and Scalability: Cost is often a deciding factor, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. We'll examine the pricing plans and scalability options of each alternative, ensuring you can find a solution that fits your budget and grows with your business.
9. User Experience and Support: A user-friendly interface and reliable customer support can make all the difference in your team's productivity and satisfaction. We'll evaluate the overall user experience, as well as the availability and quality of customer support provided by each alternative.

By carefully considering these criteria, you'll be better equipped to identify the helpdesk solution that aligns with your specific needs, goals, and budget, ensuring a smooth transition and a seamless customer service experience for your e-commerce business.

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Gorgias Alternatives in 2024: Best Help Desk Software:

Here are some of the most popular Gorgias Alternatives- 

• Richpanel
• Zendesk 
• Gladly 
• Re:Amaze
• Kustomer

Alternative #1: Richpanel

Known for: AI Capabilities & Simple Interface

Richpanel ticks all the right boxes when it comes to a comprehensive customer service tool for e-commerce businesses. Richpanel integrates seamlessly with major ecommerce platforms & all your support channels, offering a robust ticketing system with automation, prioritization, and collision detection features. Here are the key features that set Richpanel apart.

Self-service portal for customers:

Merchants praise the self-service portal for it's ability to automate a significant portion of customer queries. Ecommerce businesses get a ton of repetitive queries like where is my order, returns, order edits. These requests can be automated using a self-service portal as shown below. This way customers get instant resolutions, 24x7 and support teams get lesser queries.

Help every agent reply like your best agent (using AI)

Richpanel's standout feature is the AI sidekick, trained on your brand's past conversations to draft accurate responses and improving the speed of your support agents.

Social media moderation with AI:

The comment section of your ads greatly influence the CTRs. Businesses are using AI to intelligently engage with comments and removing spam comments in real time.

Ecommerce founders and agents have reported that they are able to blow through the comments at record speeds.

A downside of Richpanel: Self-service portal is hard to setup

Self-service portal is unique to Richpanel. While other self-service tools do FAQs and knowledge base, the Richpanel self-service portal is a no-code builder that allows you to build end to end journeys for scenarios like order edits, damaged order claims or product recommendations. It can resolve customer queries end to end. But it takes time to build the flows and set it up. This can be bit overwhelming and has a learning curve. We created this guide to make it a bit easier.

Richpanel is best suited for:

Richpanel is best suited for mid-size and large-scale ecommerce brands that have outgrown Gorgias. For businesses looking to leverage AI to improve quality of support and get cost efficiencies. Most of Richpanel customers come from an existing helpdesk like Gorgias.

You can watch a 15-min demo of the product here. Or book a demo with a Richpanel rep here.

Alternative #2: Zendesk

Known for: Zendesk is the incumbent on this list. They are the default customer service software for most orgs.

When it comes to comprehensive customer service solutions, Zendesk is a name that's analogous to customer service software. While it is not purpose built for ecommerce, this industry leader has long been a go-to choice for businesses seeking a robust and scalable helpdesk platform. Zendesk is a customer service tool built to serve various industries. It is highly customizable. It acts as a helpdesk software, CRM, and workload management tool. These are some of Zendesk's key features:

Powerful customer service software:

With the wide range of Zendesk features and numerous integrations, Zendesk is versatile and helps different types of businesses meet their requirements. You can also create a self-service portal and  Live chat feature with  Zendesk Guide and Zendesk Chat. This makes Zendesk a one-stop solution for businesses. 

However, there is a flipside to this. With numerous options and customizations, Zendesk becomes challenging to set up. The interface also has a steep learning curve, making it difficult for agents to adapt to this tool. Your support team may end up feeling overwhelmed due to the numerous features and options, many of which they don’t need.

Live chat & messaging capabilities:

Zendesk's live chat and messaging capabilities are equally impressive, allowing agents to handle multiple conversations simultaneously, leverage canned responses, and integrate with popular messaging apps. This ensures that customers receive prompt and personalized support, fostering brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. 

Extensibility:

One area where Zendesk truly shines is its extensive integration and extensibility options. With a vast ecosystem of apps and integrations, businesses can seamlessly connect Zendesk with their existing tools and services, such as CRMs, marketing automation platforms, and accounting software, creating a unified and streamlined workflow.

Reporting System:

Zendesk has a comprehensive and customizable reporting system called explore. It allows you to gain insight into agent productivity and help provide directed feedback where ever necessary. It helps you identify top performers in your team. Zendesk can also help you track conversions due to customer support and give you insights into consumer behavior by providing combined analytics from different communication channels.  

Much like the Zendesk features, creating these customized reports on explore can be time-consuming. They require complex configurations and can be tedious to set up. 

A downside of Zendesk: Their customer support "blows"

We know it's ironic, but it's true. Zendesk forums and review sites are filled with businesses complaining about their support. If you are unhappy with Gorgias customer support, you'll be disappointed when you move to Zendesk because it's almost non existent!

Zendesk is best Suited For:

Zendesk is a best suited for large-scale businesses that want extensibility and custom reporting capabilities. We have also seen companies using Zendesk because of support lead's previous experience and comfort with the tool. It's ideal if you have a tech or IT team to help you configure Zendesk to best suit the business requirements. 

Recommended reads:

• Gorgias vs Zendesk
• Zendesk alternatives

Alternative #3: Gladly

Known for: Clean UI & Native Phone Channel

Gladly is a customer service software with an intuitive user interface. Gladly takes a radically different approach by putting personalization at the forefront. This platform is designed to deliver personalized, efficient, and delightful experiences to customers across various touchpoints. Gladly also has an impressive clientele including brands like Tumi, Crate & Barrel and Chubbies.

Here are some of Gladly’s key features- 

Clean Agent Interface

Gladly's most attractive feature is it's clutter free, minimalistic interface that's easy on the eyes and loved by most agents. It doesn't matter which tool you used before, there is a high chance your support team will like this interface better.

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Chat Support:

Gladly has an in-built chat feature that lets you handle queries from the website and other communication channels. It also helps you identify customer behavior and offer help with pop-up messages when they seem to be struggling to make a decision. This improves the shopping experience, making visitors more likely to convert into customers with this feature. 

While the chatting feature is excellent, Gladly fails to make the right impact because customers reaching out after hours are asked to contact via email. It would be great if the chat widget could accept contact form submissions so you don't deflect and frustrate customers.

Integrated phone channel:

You don't need a separate subscription for voice channel. Gladly has a natively built-in phone support.

Dedicated support hero:

Gladly has a feature to appoint/set a dedicated hero (support agent) per customer. This way all subsequent queries go to that specific agent in the future. This is a useful feature if you are a B2B business as you'd want to assign sales reps/ to each account.

Gladly customer service software allows you to route queries according to the customer history, situation, or needs. This means you can prioritize customers with greater CLV or route certain types of questions to the correct department or an agent with expertise on the matter. This reduces wait time and helps you make the most of your agents’ experience. 

While this feature aims to improve efficiency, agents cannot access customer details for a conversation that is not assigned to them. This may cause discrepancies and increase wait time instead of reducing it. 

A downside of Gladly: It's pricey

Gladly requires you to buy minimum 10 seats starting at $180/mo per agent. You'll also have to sign an annual contract and there is no option to take a free trial. You'll have to sit through a few sales calls to get access to the product.

Gladly is best suited for:

Large brands with a high AOV looking to provide a very personalised, hands-on support without needing too much automation.

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Related Read: Gladly Alternatives in 2024

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Alternative #4: Re:Amaze

In the realm of customer service solutions, Re:amaze has carved out a niche for itself as an all-in-one support tool for smaller e-commerce businesses.  Re:Amaze is one of the most popular Gorgias alternatives for smaller DTC brands.

Where Re:amaze truly shines is in its omnichannel support capabilities. Agents can effortlessly manage customer interactions across multiple channels, including email, live chat, social media, and messaging apps, all from a single unified inbox. This eliminates the need for constant context-switching, ensuring a smooth and consistent customer experience.

While Re:amaze may not be as good looking as some of its other competitors, it makes up for it with its affordability and extensive feature sets. Its pricing plans are designed to cater to businesses of all sizes, making it an attractive option for startups and small to medium-sized e-commerce businesses.

Here are some of its key features:

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Live Chat:

Re:Amaze has a customizable live chat feature that stands out. It has automated chatbots that trigger messages based on the customer activities and time spent on your website. This helps businesses offer help round-the-clock and improve their shopping experience. They also have an instant “check your order status bot, " a unique self-help feature.

The automation takes the load off your agents and reduces the volume of queries. But it does not help nurture customer relationships. The automated responses can feel like the business is deflecting questions instead of looking for resolutions. This is one of the drawbacks of using Re:Amaze. 

Related Read:

• ‍Benefits of live chat for Ecommerce‍
• ‍Best Ecommerce Live Chat Software : Best Practices
• Best Shopify Live Chat Apps

Customer Communication Hub:

Much like the other platforms on this list, Re:Amaze offers a shared inbox for the support team.  It integrates messages from different platforms such as email, SMS, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It also shows real-time customer information and has extensive collaborative features such as notes, reminders, and assignments. They make Re:Amaze an all-in-one customer communication hub with the collision detection feature. 

However, the chat does not support media files, and the backend of the live chat, including the collaborative feature, is slightly tricky. The UI is confusing, and there are far too many clicks to complete some simple tasks. This is frustrating, and your agents may need to rely on an entirely different messaging platform for internal communications. 

Best Suited For:

Smaller DTC brands looking for an affordable solution that still packs a ton of features.

Related Reading: ReAmaze Alternatives & Competitors for 2024

Alternative #5: Kustomer

Kustomer is a customer service software and CRM platform. It provides a 360-degree view of the customer history and behavior and the ability to respond to customer inquiries from multiple channels through one platform. Here are some of the noteworthy features of Kustomer- 

Customer Timeline

Kustomer's claim to fame was legacy systems don't do a good job of showing the customer history in a manner that makes most sense for the support agents. Often times, support agents have to click around to search for past conversations and understand the context. Kustomer aims to solve this with their customer timeline feature which shows every interaction and purchases in a timeline view.

While the approach looks great on paper, it leads to certain challenges in real world applications as agents are provided with more context than needed. Example: When an agent receives a query they are shown events from months and years ago which are not relevant for this particular conversation. And that means agents will have to read them all and decide which ones are relevant to current conversation.

Kustomer IQ: 

Kustomer IQ is an automatic chatbot feature that aims to improve agent productivity. This is previous generation chabot. The replies are robotic and often redirects customers to basic troubleshooting steps that have already done. So customers sort have to go through the extra step of telling the bot they have already tried it before getting transfered to an agent.

Integrations:

Kustomer integrates with major eCommerce platforms such as Amazon Connect, Magento, Bigcommerce. It also supports integrations with other customer support tools such as Slack, Jira, and Twilio. This brings an extensive list of features and capabilities all under one roof. 

However, these integrations are reasonably complex, and you’ll need technical know-how to set them up initially. This makes it difficult for business owners to adapt to this software. 

A downside of Kustomer - Hard to setup

The implementation of Kustomer may vary, typically ranging from one to three months. Similar to Gladly, it presents comparable challenges, including the absence of a free trial option. Access to the product is restricted, necessitating several discussions with sales representatives. Moreover, an annual contract is mandatory, with a requirement for a minimum of eight seats. Pricing begins at $89 per month, escalating to $139 per month for more advanced features.

Best Suited For:

Enterprise businesses that want advanced reporting capabilities and have the bandwidth and resources to dedicate.

Related Read: Kustomer Alternatives in 2024

Conclusion: How To Choose The Right Gorgias Alternative

As we've explored the top alternatives to Gorgias, it's evident that each solution brings its own unique strengths, features, and capabilities to the table. While Gorgias remains a formidable choice for many e-commerce businesses, the alternatives we've discussed offer compelling options for those seeking a better fit for their specific needs and budgets.

Whether you're drawn to the innovative AI capabilities of Richpanel, the scalability and robustness of Zendesk, the all-in-one simplicity of Re:amaze, the personalized approach of Gladly, or the intelligent omnichannel experiences of Kustomer, there's an alternative that can elevate your customer service game.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, the following recommendations can serve as a guide to help you choose the best fit for your business:

1. Richpanel: If you're looking to leverage the power of AI capabilities while maintaining cost efficiencies, Richpanel emerges as a compelling choice. Its AI-powered sidekicks and innovative features make it a future-proof option for businesses seeking to streamline customer service processes.
2. Gladly: For businesses that prioritize personalized, 1:1 support and require a more human touch, Gladly's customer-centric approach and unified customer profiles make it an attractive alternative. Its focus on creating delightful experiences can be a game-changer for building long-lasting customer relationships.
3. Kustomer: As an omnichannel solution, Kustomer excels in integrating data from various sources, including custom systems. Its intelligent capabilities and advanced AI features make it an excellent choice for businesses seeking a comprehensive and future-proof customer service platform.
4. Zendesk: For businesses seeking a versatile and scalable solution, Zendesk remains a safe and reliable option. Its robust feature set, extensive integrations, and proven track record make it a trusted choice for e-commerce businesses of all sizes.
5. Re:amaze: If you're a small business looking for an affordable and user-friendly solution, Re:amaze's all-in-one approach and e-commerce focus make it a compelling alternative. Its simplicity and cost-effectiveness cater to the needs of startups and growing e-commerce ventures.

As you evaluate these options, it's crucial to consider your business's unique requirements, growth trajectory, and long-term goals. Factors such as ease of integration, automation capabilities, reporting and analytics features, pricing, and scalability should all play a role in your decision-making process.

Remember, exceptional customer service & timely replies are a necessity in today's competitive e-commerce landscape. By choosing the right helpdesk solution, you can streamline your processes, gain valuable insights, and ultimately provide a superior experience that fosters customer loyalty and drives business growth.

Don't be afraid to trial multiple solutions or seek input from your team members and industry peers. The right helpdesk platform can be a game-changer, empowering your business to deliver the level of customer service that sets you apart from the competition.

So, take the time to evaluate your options carefully, and we hope you find the tool that's best suited for you.