Help Scout
About Help Scout
Help Scout is a dedicated customer support platform built for growing teams to deliver top-notch customer service. When you sign up, you get access to an entire suite of tools — including shared inbox, knowledge base, and live chat software — all built to help you create the best customer experience possible.
Help Scout's shared inbox includes features like private notes and @mentions to improve team collaboration, plus collision detection to prevent duplicate work by showing when an agent is actively working on a specific conversation. You’re also able to automate routine tasks with workflows and add additional context with customer profiles.
Help Scout's knowledge base builder, Docs, makes creating self-service content quick and easy. Built-in search functionality and organization features help customers find the answers they need quickly, and Docs-specific reports show which content is doing best and areas where you have room for improvement.
Help Scout's Beacon offers live chat capabilities and proactive support options through an embeddable widget. Customers can search your Docs site articles or submit a question to your support team right from the widget, helping them get answers when and where they need them most.
Help Scout also comes loaded with pre-built performance reporting dashboards. Create custom reports to zero in on the metrics that matter most to you and your team. And finally, you get access to Help Scout’s world-class support team, which is available by email 24/6 to answer any questions you may have.
Key benefits of Help Scout
- Value: Help Scout is the most complete platform you can buy for the money.
- Predictable, transparent pricing: No surprise add-ons or fees.
- Quick set up: Go from zero to power user in a day or less.
- Simplicity: Spend more time helping customers and less time configuring your software.
- Scalability: Add teammates, workflows, integrations, and new support channels quickly.
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Reviews
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- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Simply the best customer support system
Reviewed on 12/04/2020
The product is very well designed, easy and natural to use. On top of that, their support is...
The product is very well designed, easy and natural to use. On top of that, their support is excellent and they reply very quickly.
Pros
I like how transparent the experience is for the user and how easy it is to set up and use. I like the integration with the KB system to quickly insert a reference to the article.
Cons
Difficult to tell. I'm really enjoying everything on it, especially now that they added the live chat so I can stop using other software for that.
Maybe I'd love a more advanced system to manage the custom replies.
I'd appreciate if there's a better way to manage formatting inside the editor for the KB.
- Industry: Logistics & Supply Chain
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 5.0 /10
Expensive, but good. There are alternatives if you're willing to sacrifice plug and play.
Reviewed on 05/05/2022
The alternatives to Help Scout are far and wide, but my recommendation for an option would be Free...
The alternatives to Help Scout are far and wide, but my recommendation for an option would be Free Scout. It is an open-source alternative to Help Scout that acts almost the same way.
You need to know how to deploy the self-hosted service, or you can find companies willing to manage it for you. The downside is the setup takes a while, but the positive is that the cost is a small fraction of the amount we were paying to Help Scout.
Pros
HelpScout was the first shared emailing system we implemented that worked flawlessly with our setup. It rivals all other methods that focus on a ticket number approach but makes the communication process simple for users to grasp and professional yet informal.
The best part of Help Scout for us was the shared inbox aspect and the ability to collaborate with others easily.
Cons
Help Scout is expensive. In my opinion, it is overpriced. They started at a great introductory rate and grandfathered those rates for early-stage users. I heard from many users when they increased their rates, all of whom got a personalized message from the [SENSITIVE CONTENT], promising our rates would stay the same.
Months later, they recanted on their promise and hiked our rates. It was not a great feeling being lied to, and my love for the company quickly disappeared.
Other shared email services can replace Help Scout, but this is your best bet if you're looking for a simple approach and are not worried about the price tag.
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 5.0 /10
Pretty convenient and easy to use, but lacking in features…
Reviewed on 02/02/2023
It was ok day to day, but we had to rely on other tools too often to get the job done.
It was ok day to day, but we had to rely on other tools too often to get the job done.
Pros
Super easy to pick up and use and their support was great. They always responded promptly and did their best.
Cons
Compared to other products, it lacks a lot of features and some of what it does have is too simplified.
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10
The review
Reviewed on 22/08/2019
Really nice product for email support teams, but it doesn't do the work for others. I like the goal...
Really nice product for email support teams, but it doesn't do the work for others. I like the goal Help Scout has, but they need to fit to the market before they are dropping out.
Pros
It's your best solution on the market if you are looking to interact with your customers only via email. Really easy to implement and the CS is really helpful too.
Cons
It's really difficult to spice things up for the customer. Limitations are set rather quickly when trying to customize Reports or being proactive with customers.
Alternatives Considered
FreshdeskReasons for Choosing Help Scout
Zendesk was awful for email conversationsSwitched From
Zendesk Suite
- Industry: Outsourcing/Offshoring
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 9.0 /10
Dead Simple to use Help Desk
Reviewed on 11/01/2019
Our company uses HelpScout as its internal Help Desk for all of our associate's requests/needs such...
Our company uses HelpScout as its internal Help Desk for all of our associate's requests/needs such as equipment request, payroll inquiries, BYOD access, and so.
We found HelpScout incredibly useful; it has increased our response time and productivity, and we are starting to build our internal Knowledge Base. Moreover, most importantly, the price is affordable and goes along well our needs.
Pros
Initial setup is straightforward. We currently only use the ticketing/email feature in HelpScout, so setup and email configuration were complete in less than 10 minutes.
The interface is clean, direct, and getting used to the layout is quick.
We have synced our main Mailbox queue to a private channel in Slack, so each time there's a new ticket is sent there, which is beneficial to keep track of incoming tickets.
Working with HelpScout is simple and straightforward. Currently, we only use the ticketing feature, and it's been a gratifying experience. All the essentials like adding internal notes, tags, tagging other agents, and replying to customers are there.
My favourite feature is the search function, which helps you find that four-week-old ticket you closed a while ago easily just by searching a few keywords that were included in it.
Cons
So far, the only complaint we had was the "next" feature, once you reply to a ticket, the next open ticket assigned to you would pop up immediately, and if you're not careful, you might respond the wrong thing to the customer!
Help Scout FAQs
Below are some frequently asked questions for Help Scout.Q. What type of pricing plans does Help Scout offer?
Help Scout offers the following pricing plans:
- Starting from: US$20.00/month
- Pricing model: Subscription
- Free Trial: Available
Free trial available. Standard pricing starts at $20 per user per month. Standard: $25 user / month, or $20 user / month billed annually Plus: $40 user / month, or $35 user / month billed annually Company: $60 user / month billed annually Help Scout serves businesses from small to enterprise. Plans range from Free to keep everyone on the same page, to Standard for automation features and reporting, to Plus for advanced reporting & features designed for large teams. All Plans include 24x7 support, unlimited volume & storage, and 40+ third party integrations.
Q. Who are the typical users of Help Scout?
Help Scout has the following typical customers:
11–50, 51–200, 201–500
Q. What languages does Help Scout support?
Help Scout supports the following languages:
English
Q. Does Help Scout support mobile devices?
Help Scout supports the following devices:
Android (Mobile), iPhone (Mobile), iPad (Mobile)
Q. What other apps does Help Scout integrate with?
Help Scout integrates with the following applications:
ActiveCampaign, Aircall, AppFollow, Asana, BriteVerify, Bronto Marketing Platform, Campaign Monitor by Marigold, Campfire, Capsule, Census, ChannelReply, ChargeDesk, Chatra, Churn Buster, CircleLoop, Clockify, CloudTalk, Constant Contact, Cyfe, Databox, Fivetran, Fleep, FormKeep, FreshBooks, FullContact, Fullstory, Geckoboard, Gmail, Google Apps for Work, Google Workspace, Gravity Forms, Help Desk Migration, Heymarket, Highrise, Hively, HubSpot CRM, Infusionsoft CRM Singapore, Intercom, Jira, JustCall, Kissmetrics, Klaviyo, LemonStand, LiquidPlanner, Mailchimp, Mixpanel, MySQL, Nicereply, Olark, OnePageCRM, Paperform, Pipedrive, Plecto, Process Street, Pushover, Salesforce Starter, SalesforceIQ, Salesmachine, Savio, Segment, Shopify, Slack, Smooch, SnapEngage, SurveyMonkey, Talkdesk, Textline, Transifex, Trello, Userlike, Weglot, WooCommerce, WordPress, Wufoo, Zapier, Zendesk QA, Zengine, elevio, iorad
Q. What level of support does Help Scout offer?
Help Scout offers the following support options:
Email/Help Desk, Knowledge Base, Chat
Related categories
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