Offering exceptional customer service is critical to a business’s success. After all, many customers will look elsewhere after facing a company’s poor customer experience.
One of the best ways to provide top-notch support is to arm your customer service agents with the right toolset – in other words, a robust customer support platform.
One such solution to consider is GrooveHQ.
GrooveHQ provides all the features a good customer service solution should. Its shared inbox has essential collaboration tools, including collision detection, private notes, and saved replies. In-built reports offer valuable information about how well your support agents handle customer conversations. The Gmail-inspired interface means you can get up and running in a short while.
Despite these benefits, GrooveHQ has its own share of drawbacks.
For starters, you might experience performance snags as you handle more and more customer conversations. Even worse, you cannot perform bulk updates on conversations.
GrooveHQ has attracted criticism for its search functionality. You cannot filter search results based on particular criteria and have to enter keywords. Plus, you could run into glitches while receiving messages with different formats, particularly graphics-heavy conversations.
The lack of popular social media integrations, such as Twitter and WhatsApp, can be a deal breaker.
Though GrooveHQ’s pricing looks affordable at first glance, the features included in its basic plan are pretty sparse, especially when it comes to automations and CRM integrations. You will need to upgrade to higher-cost plans as you manage more agents or a broader customer base.
Let’s dig into customers’ sentiments regarding GrooveHQ:
“We’ve had a hard time getting the chat version of the software to work in Shopify and it’s taken more time than I would prefer to configure the knowledge base.” – Jennifer L.
“There could be some improvements to the way tickets are organized. Using tags works great for small companies, but with larger companies getting many tickets an hour, I can imagine this would get a little messy.” – A verified user.
“Multiple attachments can be a bit tedious to download, you have to download one file at a time. It would be great to have a “download all attachments in this email” button.” – Reece S.
This article discusses the ten best GrooveHQ alternatives you should consider if you are tired of the platform.
Helpwise is a customer support solution that guarantees prompt responsiveness and effective collaboration across multiple channels. You can handle customer conversations on WhatsApp, live chat, texts, email, social media, and calls.
Helpwise arms you with data-rich reports on customer satisfaction, response rates, and agent performance. You can filter these insights based on multiple time-frames and support agents that are accessible in various formats. Furthermore, the shared inbox contains numerous useful features, including assigning, tagging, and team chats. You can also let their AI bot manage query prioritization and response drafting.
What makes Helpwise a great GrooveHQ alternative is its usability: The customer service platform scores 9.35/10 in the usability index versus GrooveHQ (8.35/10).
Helpwise’s basic plan perfectly fits small businesses that primarily run on one or two communication channels. It works seamlessly on the web and has both iOS and android apps.
Pricing
Standard: US$15/user/month
Premium: US$25/user/month
Advanced: US$50/user/month
Enterprise: Custom quote on request
Being part of the extensive Zoho family, Zoho Desk is a context-aware solution that meets all your customer support needs, from social media integrations to agent monitoring tools.
If you want AI capabilities, Zoho Desk will not disappoint you. Its chatbot – Zia – processes queries/complaints and redirects customers to relevant knowledge base articles. Moreover, the AI chatbot converts conversations into trackable tickets, identifies negative sentiments, and alerts you about unhelpful solutions.
While all these features make Zoho Desk a promising GrooveHQ alternative, its limited customization and integration abilities can hinder agents’ productivity. Shockingly, essential features like live chat and guided conversations are locked in the topmost plan.
Furthermore, getting used to Zoho Desk’s UI takes a while. One user complained,“ some features are very hard to find, such as user permissions.” Its dashboard is laden with dozens of features, which can play against new users.
Pricing
Standard: ~US$16/user/month
Professional: ~US$26/user/month
Enterprise: ~US$39/user/month
LiveAgent is another leading GrooveHQ alternative that helps businesses build digital-first customer service strategies. It brings conversations from multiple channels – chat, email, calls, and social media – to one dashboard. That way, you can offer proactive customer support no matter how you engage.
LiveAgent offers intelligent automation rules to streamline your workflow and improve agent productivity. Case in point, it automatically routes customer conversations to relevant support agents, reducing response times. Plus, you can serve customers even after business hours using a multi-brand knowledge base.
While LiveAgent’s web app functions exceptionally well, the mobile app is yet to achieve that efficiency level. According to one user, “the iOS app has a lot of missing features and doesn’t have a cool Look and Feel.”
Besides, communicating with customers via social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, is cost-prohibitive. You have to pay extra (US$39/month) to integrate with these social media channels.
Pricing
Small: US$15/user/month
Medium: US$35/user/month
Large: US$59/user/month
Enterprise: US$69/user/month
Tidio is “live chat enabled with bots.” The customer support platform delivers a laser-like focus on the live experience with a strong emphasis on e-commerce.
Tidio has robust chatbots and AI capabilities that any of your support agents can configure without spending days or weeks figuring out how things work. Its AI chatbot, Lyro, uses predefined responses to suggest solutions. These bots gather query details when agents are unavailable, ensuring web visitors stay engaged.
As a sweetener, Tido’s conversational AI is available on all plans, including the free one.
However, if you need video/voice chat functionality, Tidio is not for you. Worse, the platform does not let you handle WhatsApp customer chats.
Besides, many users have complained about Tido’s confusing and steep pricing models. You will have to pay US$20 every month on top of your subscription just to remove the “Powered by Tidio” logo from your chat widget.
Pricing
Starter: US$15/month
Communicator: US$35/month
Chatbots: US$59/month
Tidio+: US$394/month
Hubspot Service Hub is among the newest additions to the Hubspot toolkit. The customer support platform has in-built reporting tools to monitor critical metrics, including response times, customer satisfaction scores, and query volumes.
Hubspot Service Hub offers all of the essential channels, like email and live chat, alongside integrations to extend the functionalities. Its app marketplace is loaded with call and social media channel add-ons and integrations with leading platforms like Slack, Jira, and Stripe.
However, various users have highlighted limitations with Hubspot Service Hub’s reporting capabilities, saying that “it provides some basic metrics and insights, more advanced reporting capabilities and customization options are lacking.”
When it comes to setting the close date of customer conversations, you can edit the day but not the hour. Hence, you cannot get accurate “time to close” data for conversations.
Lastly, there is a sharp price rise when you upgrade to Hubspot Service Hub’s higher-end plans. As such, start-ups and small businesses looking for advanced functionalities to scale up fast will find it unsuitable.
Pricing
Starter: US$20/user/month
Professional: US$500/user/month
Enterprise: US$1200/user/month
If a major bulk of your customer conversations happen via live chat, Olark is a suitable GrooveHQ alternative. Its live chat tool includes general functionality, including automation, customization, forms, and reports.
In addition, Olark’s powerful chatbot, CoPilot, helps you start and end a full-fledged conversation with customers. It even qualifies leads for you and lets you create a solid contact list.
However, Olark users have faced usability hiccups. One user noted, “We would put a limit on how many users you could connect to at once, and sometimes that wouldn’t work correctly so you would have multiple users you are trying to talk with at the same time.”
Creating the chatbot and personalizing its responses is a significant challenge, especially during peak times. Worse, the feature is locked in the Pro plan.
Furthermore, you have to pay additionally for Olark’s PowerUp features, Visitor Cobrowsing (US$99/month), Visitor Insights (US$59-99/month), and Non-branded Chatbox (US$59/month). All these add-ons add up to the overall costs quickly.
Pricing
Olark: US$29/user/month
Olark Pro: Custom quote on request
HappyFox is another GrooveHQ alternative that comes with a multichannel facility, a knowledge base builder, and automation capabilities. One of its highlights is its ability to support 39 languages, including (besides English) Arabic, Portuguese, and Russian.
Once you receive a customer query/complaint in the system, HappyFox Workflows takes care of the routing process. The feature auto-escalates conversations to relevant support agents based on the context, auto-merges duplicate responses, and automatically replies and closes basic how-to queries.
However, users have reported that “the basic smart rules have limited triggers and actions, and the smart rules cannot apply to custom fields.” Other negative reviews reveal that the smart rules cannot be configured for other actions like changing the status and assigning conversations to agents in one step.
Further, you will need to upgrade to HappyFox’s upper-tier plans to unlock advanced features, including custom fields, task management, and asset management. This can be expensive and require considerable thinking, particularly if you are small-to-medium (SMB) business.
Pricing
Mighty: US$39/user/month
Fantastic: US$59/user/month
Enterprise: US$79/user/month
Enterprise Plus: US$99/user/month
ProProfs combines the functionality of email support with chatbots, knowledge, live chat, and web forms.
Powerful automation capabilities let you accelerate issue resolution and build chatbots to serve customers even beyond business hours. Moreover, your support agents can raise “child tickets“ if they need further help from other agents to fix complex queries/complaints.
No wonder why ProProfs deserves a spot in this list of GrooveHQ alternatives.
That said, various users have complained about limited integrations, particularly CRM and social media. Another user pointed out, “Due to the lack of skill-based routing in ProProfs Help Desk, it may be challenging to assign tickets to the appropriate agents.”
Further, ProProfs can get expensive as you expand your support team as well as your customer base.
Pricing
ProProfs offers a single plan at US$30/user/month. Unlock a 30% discount for annual contracts.
Re:amaze is an integrated customer service platform that helps organizations engage with clients on a large scale. Its integrations with popular solutions, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce, make it an attractive GrooveHQ alternative for online retailers.
These e-commerce integrations provide you with crucial information like order and refund details. Built with scalability and customer-centricity in mind, Re:amaze lets you create “Intents” (an NLP/ML-enabled feature) that you can use as automated workflow triggers.
However, Re:amaze’s knowledge base editor has troubled some users, with one saying, “it doesn’t support uploading photos to an article. If you want to add an image to an article, you have to point to an external URL.,”
More importantly, the pricing model can hurt your bottom lines as you scale up.
Pricing
Basic: US$29/user/month
Pro: US$49/user/month
Plus: US$69/user/month
Dixa is an emerging customer support platform that offers a unified view of all customer conversations and enables you to serve customers on their preferred channels.
Thanks to Dixa’s customer recognition functionalities, you can identify customers the moment they contact you. It does this by showing each customer’s conversation history with your brand in a timeline as well as their order history.
That way, your support agents have the information necessary to resolve customer queries/complaints faster with a more personal touch.
However, users have reported Dixa’s limitations in managing multiple email recipients. You can add only one recipient to the recipient field at a time. You have to manually enter each recipient’s email address separately, which is effort and time-intensive.
Dixa does not offer support for common channels (phone, email, and live chat) and social media integrations (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Twitter) in its basic plan. You have to upgrade to the upper-tier plans to unlock those features, which can be expensive for OPEX businesses.
Further, chatbots come as an add-on, US$999/month, driving start-ups and small businesses to other options.
Pricing
Essential: US$49/user/month
Growth: US$109/user/month
Ultimate: US$169/user/month
Custom: Contact sales for a custom quote
Comparison of GrooveHQ Alternatives
| Platform | Key Features & Pros | Pricing | Cons | Best for |
| Helpwise | Custom integrations Automation rules Advanced analytics | Paid plans starting at US$15/agent/month | No major con but could do with a desktop app and more integrations | Businesses of all sizes looking for omnichannel support, AI-enabled features, and deep integrations |
| Zoho Desk | Help center Ticket tags Advanced search | Paid plans starting at US$16/agent/month | Limited customization and integration Steep learning curve Live chat only in the highest plan | Lean businesses looking for AI-based functionalities |
| LiveAgent | Merge tickets Custom tags Rules & time rules | Paid plans starting at US$15/agent/month | Mobile app lacks some features Additional cost for social media channels | Organizations with a live chat-focused support team |
| Tidio | AI Lyro conversations Visitors info Canned responses | Paid plans starting at US$15/agent/month | No video, voice, and WhatsApp support Expensive add-ons | E-commerce businesses looking to offer pre- and post-sale support |
| Hubspot Service Hub | Knowledge base Association labels SLAs | Paid plans starting at US$20/month | Limited reporting and customization Sharp rise in plans’ pricing | Medium-to-large businesses looking for advanced features with multichannel support |
| Olark | Targeted chat Customizable chatbox Multichannel support | Paid plans starting at US$29/month | Usability issues Complex chatbot configuration | Small-to-medium companies with a heavy focus on live chat support |
| HappyFox | Knowledge base SLA management Asset management | Paid plans starting at US$39/agent/month | Unprofessional customer support Complicated interface | Medium-to-large organizations with a strong focus on multi-lingual support |
| ProProfs | Unlimited tickets Child tickets Custom fields & filters | Paid plans starting at US$30/agent/month | Limited CRM and social media integration No skill-based routing | Small-to-medium businesses looking to offer world-class customer service |
| Re:amaze | Chatbots Response templates Performance reporting | Paid plans starting at US$29/agent/month | Issues regarding knowledge base editor Cannot add images directly to articles | Small-to-medium companies looking for basic customer support features for e-commerce |
| Dixa | Side conversations Scheduled conversations Activity log API | Paid plans starting at US$49/agent/month | Chatbots come as an add-on Social media, live chat, and email support not in the basic plan | Medium-to-large businesses looking for powerful features |
The marketplace is filled with multiple GrooveHQ alternatives. Among those, these ten are the strongest contenders. Of course, the right choice depends on the features that matter most to your business.
For instance, small businesses looking for essential support functionalities can opt for Helpwise,, and LiveAgent. HappyFox and are the best bets for medium-to-large organizations looking for feature-rich customer service platforms. For online retailers, Re:amaze and Tidio offer superior e-commerce integrations.
That said, if you want all these perks and functionalities in a single solution, look no further than Helpwise.
Helpwise offers a support platform that is customer-centric to its very core. You can handle customer conversations from any channel they love – live chat, email, WhatsApp, and social media (Facebook and Twitter) – from a centralized dashboard. Saved replies and SLA triggers let you solve queries/issues faster and more effectively.
Helpwise automatically assigns customer conversations to your support agents based on workload and round-robin. It offers precise reports on critical KPIs, including customer satisfaction, agent productivity, and response times, so you can make accurate decisions.
Thinking all these features can make navigation difficult? Worry no more. Helpwise is highly focused on usability with a clean and intuitive interface.
Found this impressive? Sign up for a 14-day free trial to supercharge your support operations.
Some GrooveHQ alternatives for customer support include Helpwise, Tidio, Zoho Desk, and. Among these, Helpwise stands as the best bet as it offers advanced support-specific features at affordable prices. These include auto-assignment of conversations based on logic, omnichannel support, real-time insights into ongoing conversations, and notes & mentions.
There are some customer support platforms like Hubspot Service Hub and Tidio whose basic plans look affordable, but the pricing increases sharply as you upgrade to higher-end plans.
Then, solutions like HappyFox and whose basic plans already start with expensive price tags.
Fortunately, Helpwise offers straightforward and cost-effective plans starting at US$15/user/month and topping out at US$50/user/month – without compromising the feature set.
GrooveHQ alternatives outperform the customer support solution in various areas.
For example, Tidio and Re:amaze offer Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce integrations, while GrooveHQ is integrable with only Shopify.
Likewise, Helpwise lets you manage conversations of Twitter and WhatsApp customers, unlike GrooveHQ. Besides, GrooveHQ’s basic plan offers only 5 rule templates, while Helpwise offers 15 rule templates in its basic subscription.
All GrooveHQ alternatives support native and third-party integrations with popular tools and apps – Jira, Salesforce, and Zapier. That said, Helpwise goes further by offering deep integrations that easily blend in with your existing systems to optimize workflows and improve agent efficiency.
Most GrooveHQ alternatives have received mixed reviews, with the negative ones mostly pointing out their limited customization, integration, and reporting capabilities.
However, Helpwise has garnered majorly positive user feedback. Here is what customers feel after using the customer support platform:
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