8 Best AI Chatbots To Automate Customer Support

Customer support has improved significantly with the rise of AI chatbots, offering businesses a more efficient way to manage inquiries, engage customers, and provide 24/7 assistance. These tools not only reduce the workload for human agents but also enhance customer satisfaction through quick, personalized responses.

Interestingly, a study found that 35.4% of students are familiar with AI tools like ChatGPT and regularly use them, highlighting the growing reliance on AI for problem-solving and assistance. As AI becomes more embedded in everyday life, businesses increasingly adopt chatbots to meet the demand for faster, more efficient customer support.

1. ProProfs Chat: Best for 24/7 Delightful Support

This is a powerful AI chatbot tool designed to provide seamless, real-time customer support around the clock. ProProfs Chat integrates easily with Help Desk and Knowledge Base systems.

The chatbot helps businesses engage customers through personalized chat experiences. Its pre-chat forms collect customer information, and it routes inquiries to the appropriate agent. It also provides real-time visitor tracking, allowing you to monitor customer behavior and tailor responses accordingly.

Key Features

• Pre-Chat Form: ProProfs Chat collects customer data before a conversation begins, allowing for personalized interactions and better routing to the right agents.
• Real-Time Visitor Tracking: The tool enables you to monitor customer behavior on your website in real-time, allowing for proactive engagement based on visitor actions.
• Bot Performance Reports: ProProfs provides performance insights, helping businesses track the effectiveness of their chatbots and make necessary improvements.
• Post-Chat Surveys: After each chat session, ProProfs Chat allows you to collect customer feedback through post-chat surveys, helping measure customer satisfaction.

Pros

• Customizable Chats: ProProfs Chat enables businesses to create personalized, human-like interactions that engage customers and improve satisfaction.
• Seamless Ticket Integration: The chatbot integrates with Help Desk systems, automating the creation and routing of support tickets to the appropriate team members.
• Post-Chat Surveys: Collects valuable customer feedback through post-chat surveys, helping measure and improve service quality.

Cons

• No On-Premise Version: ProProfs Chat is available only as a cloud-based solution, which may not suit businesses with specific data storage requirements.
• No Dark Mode: The platform lacks a dark interface option, which may be preferred by some users for comfort and readability.

Pricing

A forever-free plan with premium features is available for small teams. Paid plans start at $19.99/operator/month.

2. HubSpot: Best for Converting Sales

The tool provides an AI-powered chatbot that integrates directly with its CRM to deliver personalized support and lead generation. Hubspot’s chatbot builder is intuitive, allowing users to create bots to handle tasks like answering common questions, qualifying leads, or scheduling meetings.

HubSpot’s chatbot seamlessly integrates with its CRM, allowing businesses to offer personalized support by pulling in customer data. It allows users to create custom bots or choose from pre-built templates, all without any coding.

Key Features

• Predefined Templates: HubSpot offers ready-to-use chatbot templates for tasks like qualifying leads, answering FAQs, or scheduling meetings, helping users quickly set up their bots.
• CRM Integration: The chatbot integrates seamlessly with HubSpot’s CRM, allowing for personalized responses based on customer data, improving engagement.
• Free Live Chat: HubSpot includes a live chat feature that enables businesses to interact with customers in real-time, enhancing customer experience and conversion rates.
• Visual Chatbot Builder: Users can create custom chatbots using HubSpot’s easy drag-and-drop editor, without the need for coding knowledge.

Pros

• Easy Setup: HubSpot’s visual editor allows users to create chatbots quickly and easily without needing coding skills, making it accessible for all levels.
• CRM Integration: The chatbot pulls in customer data from HubSpot’s CRM, enabling personalized responses that can improve customer engagement and conversions.
• Effective for Lead Generation: The chatbot efficiently qualifies leads and schedules meetings, helping streamline the sales funnel.

Cons

• Limited Free Plan Reporting: HubSpot’s free plan offers limited reporting functionality, with only three dashboards available for tracking performance.
• Complex Setup for Beginners: New users may find the initial setup challenging, especially if they are unfamiliar with HubSpot’s suite of tools.

Pricing

HubSpot provides a free version of its chatbot with basic features. For advanced functionality, pricing starts at $800 per month, which includes more comprehensive tools for customer support, sales, and lead generation.

3. Kommunicate: Best for Omnichannel Integrations

An AI chatbot, Kommunicate, integrates across various messaging platforms, including Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It allows businesses to manage inquiries across multiple channels with no-code chatbot building and bot-to-human handover capabilities.

It's a no-code bot builder, Kompose, enables businesses to create chatbots that handle inquiries across different channels. Its AI can remember context and hand over complex queries to live agents when necessary, providing a seamless customer experience.

Key Features

• Live Dashboard: Kommunicate provides a live dashboard to track all ongoing conversations, helping teams monitor interactions in real-time for better customer service.
• Bot-to-Human Handover: This feature ensures that when a chatbot can’t handle a complex query, it seamlessly transfers the conversation to a human agent for resolution.
• No-Code Bot Builder: It allows businesses to create and deploy chatbots without needing any coding knowledge, making it accessible to all users.
• Omnichannel Support: It supports customer engagement across multiple channels, including Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and websites.

Pros

• Omnichannel Support: Kommunicate supports multiple communication channels, including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, offering a seamless customer experience.
• Contextual AI: The chatbot remembers customer interactions, allowing for smooth and continuous conversations that improve satisfaction.
• No-Code Setup: Kommunicate’s Kompose bot builder allows users to create chatbots without any coding knowledge, making it accessible for non-technical teams.

Cons:

• Complex Lead Collection Setup: The process of setting up lead collection chatbots can be complicated, requiring careful planning and implementation.
• Limited Third-Party Integrations: Kommunicate offers fewer integration options compared to some competitors, which may limit its flexibility for certain businesses.

Pricing

Kommunicate’s pricing starts at $83.33 per month.

4. Tidio: Best for Live Chat With Ticketing 

This tool combines AI chatbots and live chat features to provide comprehensive customer support. Tidio is ideal for businesses that want to handle customer inquiries in real time while also offering ticketing functionality for more complex requests.

Tidio’s AI chatbot handles routine tasks, such as answering FAQs or recommending products, while live agents can step in for more complex inquiries. It integrates across various channels, including chat, email, and social media, allowing businesses to manage all interactions from a single dashboard.

Key Features

• Ready-to-Use Chatbot Templates: Tidio offers pre-designed chatbot templates that can be used to greet customers, answer FAQs, or recommend products, saving setup time.
• Real-Time Visitor Tracking: Tidio allows businesses to monitor the behavior of visitors in real-time and proactively engage with them based on their activity on the site.
• Ticketing System: Tidio includes a built-in ticketing system, which creates support tickets for more complex customer inquiries, ensuring follow-ups and proper resolution.
• Multi-Channel Communication: Tidio lets businesses manage customer inquiries through live chat, email, and social media platforms like Facebook Messenger, all from one dashboard.

Pros

• Multi-Channel Support: Tidio allows businesses to manage customer inquiries from multiple platforms, including live chat, email, and social media, all within one dashboard.
• Real-Time Visitor Tracking: Businesses can track visitor activity on their websites in real time, allowing for proactive customer engagement and assistance.
• Offline Messaging: Tidio’s offline messaging feature enables customers to leave messages during non-business hours, ensuring no query is missed.

Cons

• Pricey for Small Businesses: Tidio’s paid plans can be expensive for small businesses or startups with limited budgets.
• Steep Learning Curve: The platform may be challenging for users with limited technical experience, requiring time to fully understand and utilize all its features.

Pricing

Tidio offers a free plan with limited features. Paid plans start at $29 per month, which includes multi-channel support, real-time visitor tracking, and access to additional chatbot templates.

5. Intercom: Best for Support With Messenger 

It offers a powerful AI chatbot that integrates across multiple platforms such as email, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Intercom provides a range of tools for automating repetitive customer service tasks, improving engagement, and routing inquiries to the right team.

Intercom’s chatbot uses AI to resolve common customer queries and tasks such as booking meetings or answering questions about shipping and returns. It pulls from help center articles and previous customer interactions to deliver accurate responses.

Key Features

• Task Bot: Intercom’s Task Bot automates repetitive tasks such as booking meetings or collecting customer feedback, improving efficiency.
• Resolution Bot: The Resolution Bot provides instant answers to common customer queries, saving time for both agents and customers by resolving issues automatically.
• Customer Segmentation: Intercom allows businesses to segment customers based on their behaviors and preferences, ensuring targeted and personalized communication.
• Omnichannel Support: Intercom connects with multiple channels, including email, WhatsApp, Instagram, and websites, to provide a seamless customer experience across platforms.

Pros

• Multi-Platform Integration: Intercom supports multiple communication channels, including email, WhatsApp, Instagram, and websites, making it easy to engage customers on their preferred platforms.
• Task Automation: The Task Bot automates repetitive tasks, such as booking meetings and collecting feedback, freeing up time for support agents to handle more complex queries.
• Resolution Bot: This bot provides instant answers to frequently asked questions, improving response times and customer satisfaction.

Cons

• No Multilingual Support in Basic Plan: The basic plan lacks support for multiple languages, which could limit its use for businesses with a global customer base.
• Customer Support Delays: Some users report that getting assistance from Intercom’s customer support team can take time, which may delay issue resolution.

Pricing

Intercom offers various pricing tiers, with plans starting at $39 per month.

6. Freshchat: Best for Freshworks Suite Users

This tool is a part of the Freshworks suite, designed to help businesses automate customer support and personalize interactions. Freshchat offers smart chatbots that streamline the customer experience across websites, apps, and messaging channels.

Freshchat uses Freddy AI to automate responses and provide customers with real-time support. The tool integrates with Freshworks’ helpdesk system, allowing agents to view customer history, purchases, and issues in a unified workspace for personalized interactions.

Key Features

• Freddy AI: Freshchat’s AI-powered Freddy automates responses using natural language processing, providing intelligent and fast answers to common customer queries.
• Unified Agent Workspace: The unified agent dashboard gives support agents access to all relevant customer information, such as purchase history and previous interactions, for more personalized service.
• Co-Browsing: Freshchat includes a co-browsing feature, which allows agents to assist customers by navigating through complex processes or issues in real-time via screen sharing.
• Campaigns: Freshchat enables businesses to send targeted messages to customers based on their behavior and attributes, improving engagement and conversions.

Pros

• Seamless Freshworks Integration: Freshchat integrates perfectly with the Freshworks suite, offering a unified experience for customer support, sales, and marketing teams.
• AI-Powered Responses: Freddy AI handles customer inquiries in real time, offering intelligent and fast responses that help reduce response times and improve customer satisfaction.
• Co-Browsing Feature: Freshchat’s co-browsing functionality allows agents to assist customers by navigating them through complex tasks or issues via screen sharing.

Cons

• Cluttered User Interface: Some users find Freshchat’s interface cluttered and difficult to navigate, especially when managing multiple conversations at once.
• Feature Glitches: Users have reported issues with some features, such as chat notifications and file transfers, which can disrupt the customer experience.

Pricing:  Freshchat’s paid plans start at $17.87 per month, with a free version available that includes limited features.

7. Chatfuel: Best for Social Media Platforms

Chatfuel is ideal for businesses looking to automate customer support on social media platforms. It offers a no-code solution for creating AI-powered chatbots to manage common customer inquiries and boost engagement. With keyword-based responses and pre-built templates, the chatbot can handle common inquiries, collect feedback, and help businesses improve customer satisfaction.

Key Features:

• Built-In Stats: Chatfuel provides performance analytics for each chatbot block, allowing businesses to assess and improve the chatbot’s effectiveness.
• Keyword Rules: The tool allows businesses to set up keyword-based rules that trigger specific responses, ensuring accurate and contextually relevant conversations.
• Integration with Knowledge Base: Chatfuel can integrate with your knowledge base, allowing the bot to deliver helpful articles and answers to reduce the number of customer inquiries.
• Plugins for Additional Functionality: Chatfuel supports plugins that add extra features, such as payments, forms, and image galleries, enhancing the chatbot’s versatility.

Pros:

• Social Media Integration: Chatfuel is ideal for businesses that rely on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp for customer engagement, offering a seamless experience for social media-based support.
• Performance Analytics: The built-in stats feature helps businesses assess the performance of each chatbot block, enabling continuous optimization of chatbot interactions.
• Customizable Templates: Chatfuel provides a variety of templates to choose from, making it easy to set up chatbots for different use cases like lead generation or customer service.

Cons

• Advanced Analytics Restricted: More detailed analytics features are only available in higher-tier subscription plans, limiting access for businesses on lower plans.
• Limited Multilingual Support: Chatfuel offers limited support for handling conversations in multiple languages, which could be a drawback for global businesses.

Pricing

Chatfuel offers a starting plan priced at $10.13 per month, which includes basic chatbot features for Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

8. Botsify: Best for Conversational Forms

An AI chatbot, Botsify, is a platform that excels at creating conversational forms to collect data and engage customers. With easy setup and a wide range of templates, Botsify is a great option for businesses looking to improve customer interactions without needing coding skills. The chatbot collects user data, sends follow-up emails, and helps reduce cart abandonment, making it an ideal solution for e-commerce stores.

Key Features

• Templates: Botsify offers a variety of ready-made chatbot templates tailored to different industries, allowing users to quickly set up bots without having to start from scratch.
• Story Tree: Botsify’s Story Tree feature lets users visualize chatbot flows with branching logic, making it easier to create interactive and engaging conversations.
• Sentiment Analysis: Botsify’s chatbot can detect customer emotions through sentiment analysis, adjusting its responses to create a more empathetic and relevant conversation.
• Human Takeover: The chatbot can seamlessly transfer conversations to live agents whenever necessary, ensuring that complex or sensitive issues are handled properly.

Pros

• Engaging Templates: Botsify provides pre-built templates tailored to various industries, helping businesses quickly set up chatbots without needing to design them from scratch.
• Interactive Story Tree: Botsify’s Story Tree feature makes it easy to create engaging and interactive chatbot flows, allowing businesses to visualize complex conversations.
• Sentiment Analysis: The chatbot detects user emotions using sentiment analysis, allowing it to adjust its responses based on the user’s emotional state.

Cons

• Limited Customization Options: Users may find the visual appearance of the chatbot difficult to customize, limiting its adaptability to brand-specific aesthetics.
• Delayed Knowledge Base Updates: Updating the chatbot’s knowledge base can take time, which may affect the bot’s ability to provide accurate and up-to-date responses.

Pricing

Botsify’s pricing starts at $49 per month. Higher plans provide additional customization options and advanced features.

Examples of Effective Customer Service Chatbots

Customer service chatbots have become essential tools for businesses looking to offer faster, more personalized interactions. Below are two real-world examples of how leading brands have effectively used AI chatbots to improve customer experiences and streamline their services.

H&M Integrating Chatbot for Personalized Shopping

The famous retail company around the globe, H&M, uses a chatbot on Kik to offer a personalized and interactive shopping experience. The bot asks customers questions about their style preferences, clothing sizes, and the occasion they're shopping for, allowing it to curate tailored outfit suggestions. 

This customization not only makes the shopping process more engaging but also drives conversions by connecting directly to H&M’s online store, enabling users to view and purchase the suggested outfits instantly. H&M’s chatbot reduces abandoned carts and enhances the overall user experience, making shopping easier and more enjoyable for customers.

Domino’s Enhancing Pizza Ordering with AI Chatbot

The famous pizza chain, Domino’s, uses a voice-enabled chatbot powered by machine learning to simplify the ordering process. Customers can place and customize orders using voice commands across platforms like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. 

The chatbot also allows reordering of previous favorites and provides real-time delivery tracking. With machine learning, the system continually improves, offering a faster and more convenient customer experience.

Final Thoughts

AI chatbots are streamlining customer support by automating routine tasks, speeding up response times, and boosting customer engagement. Whether it's for 24/7 availability or handling inquiries across social media, these tools cater to a wide range of business needs. 

By saving time and providing efficient service, chatbots help businesses enhance the customer experience and ultimately improve satisfaction. With various options available, companies can choose the right solution to meet their specific goals and scale their support operations effectively.