You're at a popular restaurant, eager to savor their best dishes. But as you wait, your hunger multiplies, and frustration sets in. Minutes turn into eternity, and all you can think about is how long it's taking for your meal to arrive.
That’s exactly what your customers feel when they have to endlessly wait to talk to a support agent or resolve their ticket.
In a world running on ChatGPT’s instant responses, it’s clear that customers crave convenience and efficiency. They want answers without jumping through multiple hoops.
That's where self-service support comes in. A self-service setup empowers customers to take control, find solutions on their own terms, and get back to what matters most.
So, we reviewed several customer self-service tools in the market to find the 10 best platforms you can consider for your stack.
What is customer self-service?
Customer self-service is a way for customers to get the help they need without contacting customer service. It can include various services, from searchable knowledge bases to automated chatbots to video tutorials.
By providing self-serve options, customers can quickly find the answers they need, reducing customer service costs for businesses and improving customer satisfaction.
Make your customer self-serve tech stack with these 10 tools
Here are our top 10 picks for the best customer self-service tools categorized into:
Embedded how-to guide
Explainer video
Knowledge base
Chatbot
User community
In-app guidance
Embedded how-to guide
Floik
Whether you want to answer the most frequently asked questions or add contextual resources in other product-focused content, showing the workflow visually is always better than explaining it in big blocks of text. But creating a visual guide can consume too much time, effort, and money.
That’s where Floik can make life easy for you with its interactive and engaging guides. These embeddable step-by-step guides give users a clear walkthrough for any task or action.
The best part: making these how-to guides is as easy as slicing through butter with a hot knife.
All you need to do is record your screen and capture the workflow—Floik will automatically create a step-by-step guide with screenshots, text, click marks, and more. Then you can edit and customize each guide per your preferences. Sign up and try it yourself!
Key features
Interactive interface: With Floik, you’re not creating guides for passive consumption. Users can leave comments and ask questions in any part of the guide by simply pointing their cursor to a specific part of the guide.
Convert into videos: Convert your guides into video tutorials with a single click and help customers consume information in their preferred format. You can add a custom CTA to every video, redirecting them to the right place.
Engagement analytics: Track how users interact with your content with detailed viewer insights. You can check every guide's total number of views, comments, and clicks. The dashboard will also tell you the last time somebody viewed your guide.
Here’s a Floik how-to guide in action:
Tango
Tango is a software platform that allows users to create embeddable how-to guides for self-serve support. With Tango, companies can quickly and easily create step-by-step instructions and walkthroughs to guide their customers through complex processes, such as setting up an account or troubleshooting an issue.
The platform also includes features such as analytics and customization options to enhance the effectiveness of these guides.
Key features
Easy Guide Creation: Tango's intuitive interface and drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for businesses to create how-to guides for self-serve support. With the ability to customize the appearance of these guides, businesses can ensure they align with their brand and tone.
Embeddable Guides: You can embed Tango's guides directly on your website or application, making them easily accessible to customers needing self-serve support. This feature also allows you to provide contextual help to customers by embedding the guide on the relevant page or section.
Analytics and Insights: Tango provides detailed analytics on how customers interact with the how-to guides. Businesses can learn which guides are most effective, which areas may need further improvement, and how customers engage with the self-serve support options.
Explainer video
Floik
When your users get stuck at any point or feel lost inside the product, their first instinct is to watch an explainer video on YouTube. Since YouTube is the port of call, building a fully updated self-serve content playlist on your channel is crucial.
Floik lets you create, edit, and download/share explainer videos within minutes.
Record your screen and voice—along with your camera, if you’d like—and Floik will instantly create a video. You can trim your videos, blur your screen, and crop the video effortlessly. Plus, you can make your content more accessible with subtitles.
You can also choose to hide or show your click marks in the video. Try Floik to create videos effortlessly!
Key features
One-click transcription: Transcribe your audio automatically and edit the transcription to remove unnecessary words and display only the most relevant text.
Custom branding: You fully own the content you create with the custom branding feature. Every guide will have your domain name and no watermarks for Floik.
Capture your clicks: Make your explainer videos more informative by capturing click marks for each step. Floik adds a beacon to highlight your mouse clicks and give users a better view of the steps to follow.
Here’s an explainer video made using Floik:
Loom
Loom is a powerful tool that allows users to create explainer videos for self-serve support. With Loom, CS teams can easily record, edit, and share videos to guide their customers through various processes, provide tutorials, or troubleshoot common issues.
The platform offers a range of features to enhance the creation and sharing of explainer videos, making it an ideal solution for self-service support.
Key features
Easy Video Creation: Loom provides a user-friendly interface to record high-quality explainer videos in a few minutes. You can capture your screen, webcam, or both and add voiceovers to create visually engaging resources.
Video Editing Capabilities: Loom offers a range of editing tools to refine your explainer videos. You can trim footage, add captions, and include annotations and interactive elements to guide viewers through the content.
Seamless Sharing and Collaboration: You can share videos directly through links, embed them on websites or knowledge bases, or send them via email. Loom allows for easy collaboration by letting you invite team members to review, comment, and provide feedback on the videos, ensuring accuracy and consistency in your self-serve support content.
Knowledge base
Floik
Your knowledge base is one of the most critical pieces of the customer self-service setup. Instead of creating text-heavy knowledge-base articles, make your help content more interactive using Floik.
Create a custom domain for your help center and make folders for each category you’d like to include. You’re all set to create videos and guides for each category.
Add a short blurb to add more context for each knowledge base article. Then guide users through the solution/answer to their query with a step-by-step guide and explainer video.
Key features
Seamless integration: Host your knowledge base directly on your Floik dashboard or embed your content pieces on your existing self-serve stack, including tools like Intercom, Zendesk, Freshdesk, and more.
Viewer annotation: Collect feedback or follow-up questions from users by letting them annotate and comment on your content. Use this information to improve your articles and pack them with more value.
Quick content creation: Win back time for more important tasks while Floik creates all your knowledge base content in a few minutes. Edit, publish, or download every asset effortlessly.
Zendesk
Zendesk is a popular customer service and support platform that helps businesses manage customer interactions across email, chat, and phone channels. A knowledge base is one of its critical offerings for customer marketing and support teams to create a centralized self-service portal where customers can find answers to their questions.
Key features
Customizable and user-friendly: Zendesk's knowledge base is highly customizable and can be easily branded to match a business's look and feel. It's also user-friendly, with a clean and intuitive interface that makes it easy for customers to find what they want.
Multilingual support: Zendesk's knowledge base supports multiple languages, which is vital for businesses with a global customer base. This allows companies to create localized content tailored to their customers' needs in different regions.
Insights and analytics: The tool provides detailed insights and analytics on how customers use the knowledge base, including which articles are most viewed and which search terms are used. With these insights, you can identify gaps in your knowledge base and make necessary improvements.
Chatbot
Intercom
Intercom is a customer messaging platform that simplifies customer communication across various channels, including live chat, email, and social media.
The tool offers a variety of features, including chatbots, for self-serve support. Its chatbots are powered by automation and AI, allowing teams to provide quick and efficient customer support 24/7.
Key features
Automated Messages: Intercom allows businesses to set up automated messages that can help customers find the information they need quickly and easily. These messages can be triggered based on customer behavior, such as visiting a specific page on a website or asking a particular question.
Customizable Chatbots: Intercom's chatbots can be customized to match a business's brand and tone of voice, making them feel more personal and human-like. Teams can also add their own custom responses to common questions.
Analytics and Insights: Intercom provides detailed analytics and insights on how customers interact with your chatbot, including which questions are frequently asked. This information can improve the bot's performance and level up your self-serve support over time.
Drift
Drift is a conversational marketing and sales platform for businesses to personalize client communications. Its AI-powered chatbot has advanced functionality, like natural language processing, personalization, and detailed analytics.
You can deliver support through more laser-focused and natural conversations with Drift's chatbots.
Key features
Natural language processing: Drift's chatbots can understand and respond to natural language, which makes it easy for customers to get the help they need. It can accurately analyze the question and process its database to present the response.
Personalization: Drift's chatbots can personalize their responses based on the customer's past interactions, which helps to create a more personalized experience. For example, if a customer has previously purchased a product from a business, the chatbot can greet them by name and ask if they need help with anything.
Analytics: Drift provides detailed analytics on how customers interact with its chatbots, which can help you improve your chatbot over time. You can use these analytics to see which questions customers ask most frequently and use this information to enhance your bot's programming.
User community
Discourse
Discourse is the go-to forum software for online communities of all shapes and sizes. It's free, open-source, and built by a team of passionate developers. With over 30,000 communities using Discourse, including popular sites like Stack Overflow, Hacker News, and Product Hunt, it's safe to say that it's a powerful platform.
One of the coolest things about Discourse is its ability to create and manage user communities for self-serve support. It's packed with features that make it easy to build a community and keep it engaged. Here are some of its key features:
Key features
Topics and Categories: Discourse is organized into topics and categories, which makes it easy for users to find what they're looking for. You can have a topic for general discussion, one for product support, and another for user feedback, for example.
User Profiles: Discourse allows users to create profiles to share information about themselves and their interests. This feature helps connect users with each other and build relationships within the community.
Notifications: Users receive notifications when new topics are created or when they're mentioned in a post, which keeps them engaged and informed.
Wix
Wix is a popular website builder for users to create and manage their own websites without any coding expertise. With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, a wide selection of templates, and a powerful editor, Wix provides an easy-to-use platform for building and managing websites.
What’s more, the platform offers tools for building a user community, such as forums, blogs, and social media integration.
Key features
Forums: Wix forums are a great way to create a space where users can ask questions, share information, and collaborate on projects. They can be used to support customers, provide product feedback, or simply connect with other users who share your interests.
Blogs: Wix blogs allow you to share your thoughts and ideas with the world. Use them to promote your business, share your expertise, or connect with your audience.
Social media integration: With Wix, you can easily integrate with a variety of social media platforms, making it easy for users to connect with their friends and followers. Social media integration can be used to promote your website, drive traffic, and build relationships with your audience.
In-app guidance
Whatfix
Whatfix is a digital adoption platform to deliver in-app guidance and performance support for web applications and software products. It helps companies create interactive walkthroughs and in-app guidance flows to lead users through a task on the application.
The tool can also help you create personalized onboarding experiences to get new users up and running in no time. Not just that, you can create interactive training modules and provide self-service support.
Key features
Contextual guidance: Whatfix's contextual guidance delivers just-in-time support right when users need it within the application. This helps users get the job done quickly without searching for help elsewhere.
Interactive walkthroughs: Whatfix's interactive walkthroughs share step-by-step instructions on how to complete an action in the application. This eliminates the need to hunt down the necessary information in lengthy documents.
Personalization: The tool helps you create personalized in-app guidance experiences. This ensures that users receive the help they need exactly in the way that they need it—resulting in improved adoption and productivity.
Chameleon
Chameleon is a customer self-service platform designed to help businesses improve their customer experience. The platform offers features like content creation and management, user engagement tracking, and more.
Its ease of use and ability to measure the impact of self-service efforts without writing code make it a go-to choice for many customer success managers.
Key features
Create and manage self-service content: Experiment with multiple content formats—articles, FAQs, and knowledge base articles. Edit and format content, track user engagement, and get granular insights into how customers are using your self-service content.
Track user engagement: Get detailed analytics on how users are interacting with self-service content. Identify which content is most popular, where users are getting stuck, and how the platform can be improved.
Measure the impact of self-service efforts: Use a variety of metrics, such as customer satisfaction scores and support ticket volume, to track the effectiveness of self-service. See how self-service is impacting your bottom line.
What to look for in a customer self-service tool
Self-service is the future of customer service. Here’s the proof: 69% of customers want to resolve as many issues as possible independently with the help of customer self-service options.
Essentially, self-serve support is a way for customers to get the information and guidance they need on their own without having to wait on hold or send an email.
It's a win-win for everyone: customers get the help they need quickly and easily, and businesses save time and money.
So what should you look for in a customer self-service tool? Here are a few things to consider:
Ease of setup and use: The tool should be easy to set up and use, both for you and your customers. The interface should be intuitive and easy to navigate, with clear and concise language.
Advanced analytics and reporting options: The tool should provide detailed analytics and reporting so you can track the performance of your self-service program and make improvements as needed. This information can help you identify which content is most popular, where customers are getting stuck, and how you can improve the overall experience.
Multichannel support and embeddable content: The tool should support multiple channels, such as your website, mobile app, and social media. It should also allow you to embed content on your website or in your email newsletters. This will make it easy for customers to find the information they need, no matter where they are.
Seamless integrations with other support software: The tool should integrate seamlessly with your other customer support software, such as your CRM system or help desk software. This will save you time and effort, and it will make it easier to keep your customer information up-to-date.
Robust search functionality for quick content discovery: The tool should have a robust search functionality so customers can quickly find the information they need. The search should be able to index all of your content, including articles, FAQs, and knowledge-base articles.
Customizable branding to create a seamless experience: The tool should allow you to customize the branding so it matches your company's look and feel. This will create a more seamless experience for your customers and make them feel like they are interacting with your company directly.
Build a self-service ecosystem for savvy customers
Just as a well-run restaurant ensures a delightful dining experience by minimizing wait times, customer success teams can deliver an exceptional experience by embracing self-service tools.
Try these eight customer self-service tools to give your customers the satisfaction of effortlessly finding answers and resolving issues without enduring frustrating delays.
The result? Increased customer satisfaction, improved loyalty, and a competitive edge in your industry. So, get ready to guide your customers towards self-sufficiency and elevate your customer experience through the power of self-service.
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