8 best customer messaging platform for better conversations

Over the past decade, customer messaging software has undergone a transformative evolution spurred by technological advancements and changing work dynamics. Traditionally, organizations have relied heavily on email for communication, which, although effective, often led to delays in response times and cluttered inboxes. Newer messaging platforms like WeChat, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp now offer instant communication, multimedia sharing, and improved privacy for enhanced consumer interactions. 

Furthermore, the standardization of artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) has significantly strengthened the capabilities of messaging software. AI-powered chatbots now provide quick answers to common queries, ensuring consistent and accurate responses to users across all channels.

Today, we’ll dive into what messaging software is, the benefits that it can offer your company, and the best platforms available to you today.

What is messaging software?

Messaging platforms are designed to facilitate communication between individuals through text, multimedia, or voice messages. These tools enable real-time interaction, enabling users to share information, collaborate on projects, and engage in discussions regardless of geographical location. One of the primary functions of messaging software is instant messaging, where users can exchange text-based messages in real time. 

Many messaging applications also offer group chat capabilities, allowing multiple users to participate in conversations simultaneously. Group chats can be organized into threads based on specific topics, projects, or departments, enhancing business segmentation.

8 best messaging platforms for 2024

Which messaging software is the best fit for your specific needs will depend on the challenges that your organization is facing. Slack is great for enhancing internal communication, while Telegram may be ideal if you’re seeking to emphasize privacy.

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular applications available to you today:

Top pick: Freshchat

This unified platform provides easy support, marketing, sales, and customer conversations. It quickly and effortlessly creates and deploys AI-driven bot experiences. It also helps Android, Mac, and Windows users to connect with everyone.

1. WhatsApp

WhatsApp is one of the most widely used messaging software by businesses across the globe. Customers can connect with companies through phone, video, and text. It also offers group chats, status updates, and location sharing.

2. Slack

Slack enhances internal communication by facilitating the creation of various channels under the umbrella of a single platform. It provides features such as screen sharing, video chat, phone calls, and more to help streamline organizational communication.  

3. Brosix

Tailored for smaller businesses, Brosix integrates with platforms like Shopify, GitHub, Dropbox, YouTube, and Google products. It’s a go-to app for sharing files of unlimited sizes and formats.

4. Microsoft Teams

With over 13 million daily users, Microsoft Teams is one of the most popular chat apps for businesses. It’s part of Microsoft 365, renowned for its superior collaboration capabilities, making it a superb choice for companies seeking an interdepartmental communication solution.

5. Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger is a relatively informal platform used by companies to automate interactions and deliver 24/7 support. Various live chat plugins, scannable codes, and campaigns allow businesses to keep their consumers connected at all times.

6. Ryver

Ryver is an instant messenger that’s mainly used for internal communication. Organizations can create private groups for different teams, allowing video conferencing, screen sharing, and developing forums to enhance collaboration.

7. Telegram

Telegram is a cloud-based messaging application that offers instant messaging, voice calls, group chats, file-sharing capabilities, and more. Perhaps its most distinguishing feature is its focus on privacy, offering end-to-end encryption for all messages shared on the platform.

8. WeChat

Also known as Wei Xin in China, WeChat is one of the most commonly used instant messaging platforms worldwide. With this app, businesses can share QR codes, create content, launch ads, or sell their products directly to customers.

Key features to look for in customer messaging software

There’s no shortage of messaging software available to companies today; to ensure you’re partnering with a capable provider, you should verify that they offer real-time messaging, chatbots, integration capacity, and other relevant tools.

Real-time messaging

Decisions often need to be made swiftly in fast-paced business environments, and real-time messaging enables teams to exchange information more quickly than other channels. Whether it's discussing project updates, clarifying doubts, or seeking immediate assistance, the instantaneous nature of real-time messaging ensures that communication barriers are minimized.

Chatbots

One of the primary benefits of chatbots is their capacity to handle routine inquiries and repetitive tasks, freeing up human resources to focus on higher-value activities. By leveraging its AI capabilities, bots can interact with users immediately, providing instant responses, processing orders, and troubleshooting basic issues. This automation not only accelerates response times but also ensures consistent customer support, leading to higher satisfaction levels.

Integration capabilities

Employees rely on many digital tools to accomplish tasks, from project management platforms to document-sharing services and video conferencing applications. Integration allows messaging software to connect with these systems, facilitating the smooth data exchange across an organization’s infrastructure. This connection streamlines workflows by reducing the need for manual data entry and switching between multiple applications, ultimately saving time and enhancing productivity.

Customization

Customization features enable organizations to tailor the platform to their specific needs. Every business operates differently, with unique communication requirements, security protocols, and branding standards. Customization allows for personalization of messaging interfaces, features, and settings to align with a company’s particular requirements.

How to choose the right customer messaging platform for your business in 2024?

Selecting the best provider for your unique business needs will require a bit of research in assessing the challenges that you face, the capabilities that specific vendors offer, and which services align with your current budget.

Understand your needs

Firstly, consider the specific communication objectives you hope to achieve with messaging software. 

Determine the primary use cases, such as team collaboration, customer support, or internal communication. Evaluate the functionalities required to support these priorities, such as real-time messaging, video conferencing, or integration capabilities. Keep in mind the scalability of the platform to accommodate future growth and evolving business needs.

Ensure it has the features you need

After you’ve outlined which difficulties you aim to alleviate, examine whether or not providers offer features that will help address them.

Conduct a comprehensive review of the tools offered by messaging software providers to determine their alignment with your identified priorities. Look for features that can directly attend to your organization's pain points, such as real-time messaging for enhancing collaboration, integration capabilities for streamlining workflows, or robust security measures for protecting sensitive information. 

User experience

Ensure the software is simple to navigate for end-users by examining its interface design and ease of use. A well-structured messaging platform should have an intuitive layout that allows users to access features and seamlessly engage in conversations quickly.

Also, be sure to assess the customization options offered by the software provider to tailor the platform to the needs of your base while allowing individual users to tweak their experiences to fit their preferences.

Strong security

Verify that the platform's encryption standards are up to par and that communication data is transmitted securely. Look for end-to-end encryption, which cyphers messages from the sender's device to the recipient's device, preventing unauthorized access during transit. 

Moreover, assess the vendor's data protection and privacy practices to ensure compliance with applicable privacy regulations. Inquire about information retention policies, ownership rights, and residency options to understand how user data is stored, processed, and managed. 

Scalable to business needs

Request a breakdown of the provider's infrastructure to examine its flexibility to evolving business requirements. Look for aspects such as cloud-based deployment, elastic scaling, and distributed architecture that enable the platform to scale easily. Cloud-based deployment offers the flexibility to dynamically adjust resources, allowing businesses to scale up or down based on fluctuating user activity and workload requirements. 

Cost-effective

Carefully evaluate the vendor's pricing plans to understand the total cost of ownership over time. Look for transparent models that align with your usage patterns, such as tiered pricing based on the number of users or flat-rate pricing with unlimited usage.

Additionally, consider the return on investment (ROI) and potential cost savings associated with deploying the messaging platform. Evaluate the software's ability to streamline communication processes, enhance collaboration, and improve team productivity.

What are instant messaging programs?

Instant messaging offers functionalities tailored to meet specific business requirements, enabling effective communication in professional settings. Unlike consumer-oriented messaging apps, instant messaging programs prioritize security, compliance, and collaboration, making them suitable for use in corporate environments.

These programs support various communication modes, including one-on-one messaging, group chats, and video conferencing, to accommodate diverse communication preferences within the organization. They further offer message threading, file sharing, screen sharing, and presence indicators to enhance user collaboration. 

How customers benefit from messaging software

Messaging software provides consumers with multiple communication channels, catering to the diverse preferences among a base. Users can select the channel that best suits their needs, whether they prefer live chat, messaging apps, or social media platforms. This flexibility empowers customers to interact with companies on their terms, allowing them to receive enhanced support and an improved customer experience (CX).

Additionally, messaging software offers continuous availability for users, allowing them to send messages and receive responses at their convenience without the need for synchronous communication or real-time availability.

Whether through SMS, mobile notifications, or omnichannel contacts (messaging channels that are non-native to the website), getting to your customer quickly helps ensure customer conversations lead to resolutions and improved customer satisfaction. Utilizing a chat widget and other in-app messaging (like for a mobile app) can greatly increase your customer communication opportunities and overall resolutions (leading to improved CSAT/NPS scores or LTV).

Benefits of customer messaging platform

Businesses can utilize a single, centralized platform with messaging software, enabling team members to connect in real-time effortlessly. With instant messaging and group chats, employees can share information, discuss projects, and coordinate tasks seamlessly, regardless of their physical location. 

Furthermore, these systems enhance organizational agility, enabling businesses to adapt quickly to changing market conditions and customer needs. Robust integration capabilities, mobile access, and scalability empower companies to connect with customers and employees anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

Why are messaging platforms so vital to businesses in 2024?

As the technological landscape continues to evolve, customers increasingly anticipate perpetual availability and instantaneous responses to their inquiries. In fact, consumers report that requests for issue resolutions take longer than they expected 75% of the time. This percentage can be drastically reduced through good use of customer messaging platforms.

1. Enhances customer experience by increasing convenience

Messaging platforms enable users to communicate with businesses at any time and from anywhere, providing round-the-clock support. 

Unlike traditional communication channels, which have limited operating hours, these channels offer asynchronous communication, allowing customers to exchange messages at their convenience. Whether it's seeking assistance, inquiring about product availability, or providing feedback outside of business hours, consumers can engage with businesses through messaging platforms whenever it's most convenient for them.

2. Boosts agent productivity

By centralizing communication channels within a single interface, messaging platforms allow representatives to easily manage customer inquiries, support tickets, and internal messages. 

With features such as message threading, tagging, and prioritization, these systems enable teams to prioritize their workload effectively, reducing time spent switching between different software. This cohesive approach streamlines workflow management and enhances agent productivity.

3. Capable of solving complex queries instantly

Support teams can gain enhanced collaboration abilities through messaging platforms, helping them consolidate resources and knowledge to better serve end-users.

Tools like internal messaging, group chats, and multimedia sharing enable reps to consult with colleagues, share insights, and collaborate on problem-solving in real-time. Bringing together diverse expertise within the organization empowers teams to address complex queries more efficiently and comprehensively.

4. Ability to trace the customer journey

Messaging platforms track consumer interactions in real-time, allowing businesses to monitor customer journeys as they unfold. 

Whether users engage through live chat, chatbots, or instant messaging, each interaction is recorded within the messaging platform. By capturing key data points such as message content, timestamps, and channel preferences, these systems provide comprehensive views of customer journeys, facilitating an improved understanding of how they interact with businesses.

5. Balances speed with quality

Automation and self-service features can be leveraged to handle routine inquiries quickly and efficiently in messaging platforms. Chatbots equipped with AI and NLP capabilities can provide instant responses to FAQs, qualify leads before transferring them to human agents, and much more.

These softwares also empowers human agents with tools to deliver high-quality exchanges for more nuanced queries. Features such as canned responses, message templates, and knowledge bases enable reps to provide consistent and accurate information promptly.

How to get started with customer messaging for your business?

Firstly, assess your organization's communication needs and objectives. Consider the size of your organization, the nature of your business, and the communication preferences of your users. Research different messaging software providers and select a solution that aligns with your company's goals, requirements, and budgetary constraints.

Once you've chosen a vendor, develop a comprehensive implementation plan to guide the deployment process. Define clear objectives and timelines for integration and establish roles for key stakeholders involved. Collaborate with IT personnel, project managers, and end users to ensure alignment across the organization. 

Finally, monitor the implementation process to ensure the messaging software effectively meets your organization's requirements. Gather feedback from stakeholders to assess user satisfaction, identify pain points, and address any concerns that arise during the rollout. Continuously refine the software's configuration, workflows, and usage patterns based on feedback gathered from users.

Customer messaging with Freshchat!

Freshworks is the ultimate messaging software available to organizations today, offering superior chatbot capacity, live chat capabilities, omnichannel potential, and much more. Freshworks supports text, image, video, and GIF sharing to enhance interactions for employees and customers alike while offering integration with 1,000+ apps through our Marketplace to ensure a connection with your existing infrastructure.

Our satisfied client, Liza S., praises Freshworks’ ease-of-use, saying, “What I like best about Freshworks is its seamless and user-friendly interface. The platform makes communication effortless, allowing for smooth interactions with customers. Freshworks’ intuitive design and powerful features make it a standout solution for enhancing customer engagement and support.”

We’re confident that once you experience the Freschat advantage, you won’t want to use anything else – sign up for a free trial today!