AI advancements have given rise to chatbots that utilize Generative AI, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and other advanced technologies. These enhancements enable chatbots to detect intent, urgency, and sentiment better when responding to customer queries. When necessary, they also route tickets to specific agents based on domain expertise, language familiarity, and other criteria.
However, with so many options in the market, selecting the right AI chatbot can be difficult. Choosing the wrong AI chatbot could lead to inefficiencies in customer service, such as difficulties in setting up complicated workflows or generic AI chatbots hallucinating or providing incorrect responses. This leads to poor customer experience, affecting retention and CSAT scores. It also increases agent workload, leading to burnout and decreased job satisfaction. In this article, we’ve carefully selected and compared the top 15 AI chatbots for customer service in 2024 to help you find the right provider.
What is an AI chatbot in customer service?
AI chatbots offer significant advancements over traditional rule-based chatbots. Powered by large language models (LLMs), these chatbots can understand and resolve most queries independently while seamlessly handing off more complex issues to human agents.
Read: How Helpshift’s AI chatbots helped SYBO achieve a 4.3 CSAT rating (from 3.8) in under 3 months
The latest chatbots are a significant improvement over their predecessors. Unlike older versions, which followed rigid workflows and often led to unhelpful responses and longer customer wait times, the latest chatbots are more adaptable and aim to reduce customer frustration by providing better responses and shorter wait times.
AI chatbots excel in managing complex, multi-turn conversations, and providing customers with relevant information and assistance. They require little to no human intervention, which marks a significant advancement over older chatbot technologies.
15 Best AI Chatbot Customer Service
Here is a rundown of the best customer service chatbots to help you discover one that fits your business perfectly.
HelpShift: Best for all-round AI-driven customer service
What differentiates Helpshift’s chatbots is how they enable self-serve customer experiences, deflect tickets, and unlock bandwidth for your support agents. With its advanced AI capabilities, Helpshift could automate and resolve more than 70% of tickets for brands like Sybo, Kraftonn, Halfbrick, and many others.
Powered by Intent AI, Language AI, Sentiment Analysis, and Generative AI, Helpshift’s chatbots can respond to large volumes of customer queries, and provide instant, relevant, and helpful responses. In case of complex queries, the chatbot can escalate the issue to a human agent.
Another core differentiator is that Helpshift’s chatbots are multilingual. Powered by Language AI, the bot can understand and respond to customer queries in 150+ languages, reducing the costs of hiring multilingual support agents or using separate bots for each language. Users of this feature reported an increase in CSAT scores and a 30% cost reduction in dealing with non-English language tickets.
Key Features
Gen AI-Powered Answers
Helpshift’s chatbot, powered by Gen-AI, provides personalized, instant support by leveraging large language models (LLMs) trained on your data. It delivers accurate and safe responses without misleading answers using approved support content. The chatbot understands natural language, identifying the meaning and intention behind customer queries while continuously learning from interactions. For complex issues, it seamlessly connects customers with live agents for personalized assistance.
AI-driven Intent Detection
Powered by Intent AI, Helpshift’s chatbot understands the intent behind customer queries and classifies them based on language, sentiment, and intent. With its patented Smart Intent technology, the chatbot presents users with a menu of the most common issues so users can self-serve without the need to type their queries and have a long conversation with bots.
Multilingual Chatbot
Powered by our proprietary Language AI, the chatbot understands the intent behind customer queries in over 150+ languages and provides article recommendations and solutions in the customer’s native language.
Chatbot Analytics
Chatbot analytics offer real-time insights into data generated by customer interactions and chatbots. This provides relevant information to measure chatbots’ impact and identify their successes, failures, and areas for improvement.
Chatbot analytics also reveal customers’ interaction paths and identify common errors chatbots fail to understand.
Helpshift also has an Intent Analytics feature that offers actionable insights into your Smart Intent (SI) and Automatic Intent Assignment (AIA) performance with Intent Analytics Reports.
The report helps to:
- Analyze issue performance by assigned intent
- Evaluate individual intent performance
- Compare issue performance between intent and non-intent cases
These insights will help assess and improve the accuracy of categorizing and addressing issues, enhancing overall satisfaction and retention rates.
Pricing
- Starter plan: $150 per month. It comes with a 30-day free trial
- Growth plan: Customized based on your team’s needs
- Enterprise plan: Customized based on your team’s needs
Helpshift also offers a comprehensive 30-day free trial, including 250 free tickets.
Helpshift’s Complete Bot Toolbox
Helpshift comes equipped with four powerful ts.
Custom bots: Custom bots are bespoke automated programs specifically crafted to meet your unique customer support needs. They are tailored to handle specialized workflows and processes, ensuring personalized interactions and efficient resolutions..
Feedback bots: Feedback bots engage with customers after ticket resolution to confirm satisfaction and collect feedback. If unsatisfied, customers are prompted to reopen the resolution until fully satisfied. Feedback bots also provide detailed CSAT analytics to measure and understand customer ratings.
Identity bots: Identity bots verify customers’ names and contact information easily and are configurable for web chats and in-app messaging.
Quick search bots: The quick search bot responds to the user’s first message by suggesting up to three relevant FAQs. As customers access the knowledge base, the quick search bot searches for support to find answers. It generates a support ticket if it does not meet the user’s needs.
ManyChat: Best for E-commerce businesses and marketers using Facebook Messenger
ManyChat leverages the power of social media, especially Facebook Messenger, to connect businesses with their customers. The support team responds to various customer questions directly on the messaging platform.
Key Features
- Features for converting leads
- A/B testing
- SMS and email capabilities
Pricing
ManyChat has a free plan with limited features. However, the pro version offers more at diverse pricing depending on the number of subscribers.
Botsify: Best for Small to medium-sized businesses seeking customizable chatbot solutions
Botsify’s unique selling point is that its AI chatbot technology requires no prior coding experience to understand. It helps businesses build customer relationships by creating intelligent chatbots across diverse social media platforms and websites.
Key Features
- Its simple drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to use
- Integrates easily with social media platforms and websites
- Collects user information using conversational lead-generation forms
Pricing
Plans start at $50 per month for self-service to as much as $300 for fully managed plans. Includes a 14-day free trial.
LivePerson: Best for AI-powered customer engagement solutions for large enterprises
LivePerson targets large enterprises for its AI-powered messaging and chatbots for customer service. This customer service chatbot works across multiple messaging channels to help businesses connect seamlessly with their customers.
Key Features
- Offers natural language understanding and advanced AI
- Predictive analytics to understand customer preferences better.
- Omnichannel messaging across multiple digital channels
Pricing
Offers custom pricing based on the unique needs of the business.
Zendesk Chat: Best for seamless integration with Zendesk’s customer support platform
Zendesk Chat offers an AI customer service chatbot with helpdesk software. This is an all-in-one solution for live chat and chatbot functionality. Businesses can manage client contacts seamlessly and create FAQs as one of their outstanding self-service options.
Key Features
- Manage the roles of multiple human agents without confusion
- Offer multilingual support
- Direct access to knowledge bases
Pricing
Plans start at $55 per agent per month, with the option of custom enterprise pricing. However, Zendesk also offers a 15-day free trial.
Drift: Best for B2B companies focusing on lead generation and sales
Drift is suited for sales teams as it focuses solely on lead generation. This AI-powered platform features a conversational chatbot that integrates with video, email, and live chat software. However, as a strictly sales-first platform, it includes integrations for customer service chatbots. It studies your brand’s voice through past conversations and customizes output to reflect superior customer service.
Key Features
- AI engagement scores
- Self-service options
- Suggested replies from GPT
Pricing
The premium plan starts at $2500 per month, making it a pricey option. However, a free trial is available.
Ultimate: Best for social media chatbots
Ultimate is a no-code AI customer service chatbot that helps teams build advanced conversation flows to improve their answers to frequently asked questions across the customer journey. It features high-accuracy natural language processing technology.
With API integrations, you can connect this AI chatbot with backend systems to automate routine tasks. However, it may be too expensive for smaller businesses.
Key Features
- Great API integrations
- Supports more than a hundred languages
- No-code platform, which makes it easy to use
Pricing
Offers custom pricing that depends on business goals.
Zowie: Best for chatbot support
Zowie is one of the available customer service chatbots that focuses strictly on chatbot support for e-commerce. This AI customer service platform uses relevant customer data, including purchase history, behavior, and location, to deliver exceptional customer experiences. This tool is easily customizable to your brand’s voice and tone.
Key Features
- Automated email management
- Shopping assistant as an add-on to increase conversions
- Personalized experiences across multiple digital channels
Pricing
Custom pricing
Ada: Best for no-code chatbot builder
Ada is an AI customer service chatbot that leverages conversational AI to automate billions of conversations at a time. Powered by AI and natural language processing, this fully automated chatbot can imitate human speech in its responses.
It can handle customer queries across various companies. A huge advantage of this chatbot builder is that it works perfectly without coding. However, the initial setup may be a bit complex.
Key Features
- Drag and drop user interface
- Easily routs conversations from chatbots to human agents
- Multilingual support for more than 100 languages
Pricing
Custom pricing based on business type and services.
IBM Watson Assistant: Best for large enterprises with complex requirements
This is IBM’s chatbot API that utilizes the power of natural language processing to understand human conversations and respond appropriately to customer service inquiries. It uses conversational AI for businesses that want to improve customer service interactions.
Its services include natural language processing, machine learning, and data analysis. Overall, this serves as a virtual assistant that assists customers with complex issues.
Key Features
- Conversational AI with high-level accuracy
- Pre-built templates for easy setup; no coding required
- Integrates with Slack, Messenger, and other popular messaging platforms
Pricing
Custom pricing
Microsoft Bot Framework: Best for integration with Microsoft ecosystem (Azure)
The Microsoft Bot Framework provides tools to build, test, and manage intelligent chatbots for customer service. Therefore, developers can use this framework to create bots with excellent natural language understanding, the ability to answer customer questions, and the ability to use human speech. The AI-powered chatbots can also use Azure AI services for cloud storage and building intelligent applications.
Key Features
- Create authentic and consistent responses using natural language processing.
- Integrates with multiple tools such as Slack and Microsoft APIs like Bing.
- Conversational AI can search across the entire web.
Pricing
Pricing is based on the number of messages sent through premium channels. However, standard channels are free.
Intercom: Best for SaaS businesses and online marketplaces
Intercom, through its conversational AI-powered bot, Fin, provides automated support, seamless integration with hundreds of apps, and multilingual support in over 40 languages. It is built on GPT-4 and helps automate routine tasks to make human agents more effective. Therefore, it combines proactive support, help desk software, and an AI chatbot to streamline customer communication.
Key Features
- It can easily handle routine tasks and collect direct user feedback
- Features a resolution bot to solve common customer queries faster
- Works great with applications, mobile and web versions
Pricing
The basic plan starts at $74/month and increases based on specific business needs. Offers a 14-day free trial.
Certainly: Best for E-commerce brands
Certainly is a chatbot-building software exclusively for e-commerce brands looking to automate and personalize their customer interactions. This AI assistant can resolve customer queries, track orders, upsell products, and improve the shopping experience. This tool also gathers information provided by customers through conversations and furnishes them to customer service teams who can use them to increase customer satisfaction.
Key Features
- Integrations with popular CRM solutions and helpdesk software
- Multilingual and omnichannel support support
- Live chat transfer
Pricing
Custom pricing
Hubspot Conversations: Best for integration with HubSpot’s marketing and CRM tools
HubSpot Conversations is a standard AI customer service chatbot with solutions for customer support, content management, marketing, and sales. This chatbot enables sales teams to generate leads and features a standard chatbot builder to automate live chat conversations. Therefore, it is not tailored to customer service operations.
Key Features
- Generate tickets for customer requests
- Scheduling
- No-code custom chatbots
Pricing
The free and starter plans have limited features, including qualifying leads and creating tickets. However, the more advanced chatbot features are available in the professional plan at $450/month and the enterprise plan at $1200/month.
Aivo: Best for multilingual customer service
Aivo leverages artificial intelligence to provide a chatbot solution that helps businesses streamline support services. A key feature is that they provide multilingual support. This allows them to seamlessly interact with diverse customers in over a hundred languages without a language barrier.
Key Features
- Third-party integrations
- Supports voice messaging and live text
- Uses ChatGPT technology to improve customer interactions.
Pricing
Operates a one-time subscription model ranging from $500 to $2500, depending on conversation volume. The monthly fee starts at $99, depending on the number of users and conversation volume.
How to choose the right AI chatbot customer software
AI-powered chatbots can improve customer satisfaction while minimizing support costs. But how do you choose the right one for your business?
Evaluate your business and audience needs
The right AI customer service chatbot will typically be tailored to your business needs. With numerous options available, you should look for chatbots with training on real conversations within your industry. This means they can provide personalized services where customers feel heard and valued. Your business has a unique style, and your chatbot should reflect this.
Consider your budget
What is the total cost of ownership of the customer service chatbot? You should have the answer to this question. This encompasses the cost of purchasing, configuring, and maintaining the software. If this is considerably low, it will benefit your business as less is spent on the chatbot software. Keep costs low by subscribing to an AI customer service chatbot that requires no technical expertise.
- Compare features
Explore the options available to you. Compare features such as the pricing models, potential resolution rates, and how seamless it is to transfer queries from the chatbots to your support team. Make sure the one you choose aligns with your brand’s needs.
- Check for integrations
Seamless integrations with existing CRM systems and databases ensure the AI chatbot can access relevant information to provide personalized customer service operations. This makes it easy for customer service reps to interact with customers easily.
Key features to look for when choosing an AI chatbot for customer service
Omnichannel support (web, mobile, messaging apps)
Your AI chatbot should provide omnichannel support. You should be able to deploy them across messaging platforms, mobile apps, social media, websites, and as voice assistants.
Integration with existing CRM and customer support systems
The best AI customer service chatbot doesn’t work alone. Your chatbots are better when they seamlessly integrate with other tools, from databases to CRM systems and analytics tools. This creates a cohesive ecosystem for your customer service team.
AI-powered knowledge base
The right AI chatbots for customer service should analyze content in your help center, and answer customer issues. The platform should also leverage AI to respond to customer queries in your brand’s voice, extending your brand experience even in the absence of a customer support rep.
Personalization and contextual understanding
Customers expect to be treated like they are the only ones who matter. Therefore, a great AI customer service chatbot leverages advanced analytics to harness customer data that can help tailor interactions unique to each customer. This personalized service plays a great role in driving customer satisfaction.
Customization
Your chatbot software should have the flexibility to help you design unique widgets that match your brand and website.
Scalability and flexibility for business needs
As your business grows, your chatbot shouldn’t be left behind. Therefore, your customer service chatbots should scale effortlessly and handle increasing customer interactions without negatively impacting the customer experience.
FAQs
What is the difference between generative AI and conversational AI?
Generative AI can create new content in diverse forms based on various inputs. An example of this is ChatGPT. However, this form of AI can provide incorrect or outdated responses without conversational AI to recall information and engage customers in authentic conversations.
What are conversational AI platforms?
These platforms are dedicated to creating, testing, and deploying AI chatbots for customer service. These bots help businesses solve complex issues by answering frequently asked questions with little human intervention. They also have the capacity for continuous improvement as they learn from conversations and drive customer satisfaction.
How do AI chatbots improve customer service?
Chatbots help customer service teams be more productive. They provide support agents with valuable information to aid customer interactions. Most importantly, they streamline customer service processes so businesses can provide 24/7 support without spending more on human agents.
