5 Free Apps That Promise to Boost Customer Satisfaction

By Daniel Adams

There are many small businesses that focus their energies on solely driving sales and gaining new customers -- while overlooking their existing, deserving customers, and sometimes losing them. For a small business to stay competitive, it's crucial to have engaged and loyal customers. And the key to creating customer loyalty is making customers feel valued by delivering a great customer service experience.

In fact, improved customer satisfaction leads to more repeat sales, and more referrals. A recent report by Cisco found that "organizations that focus on improving customer satisfaction are likely to be more successful in expanding their customer base, generating higher sales from existing customers, and building loyalty."

Although small businesses may not have the large budgets, resources, and time of their bigger competitors, there are still ways to ensure existing customers remain engaged, loyal, and happy. Even better, there are free ways to do this, so getting started is easy and won't break the bank. Here are five apps that offer free plans to help you improve your customer support and satisfaction:

1. Insightly (Customer relationship management software)

CRM software is a small business's best friend, allowing you to keep track of all your customer data and interactions in one easily accessible place and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. This means you're kept informed and up to date about all your customers' profiles -- from their purchases through to previous communications. Insightly's free plan will get you started with 2,500 customer records.

2. Olark (Live chat software)

Today's modern fast-paced world demands fast-paced customer support, and that's exactly what Olark's live chat software provides. With the free plan, you'll have the ability to direct your customers to the information they need and answer questions in real time. Fast (even instant) responses means satisfied, happier customers. You'll be happy too as one employee can handle multiple chats at one time with no more phone lines tied up with just one query.

3. Freshdesk (Help desk software)

Sometimes customers don't want the time and hassle of contacting you, but they still want to find crucial answers. Enter customer knowledge bases offered through help desk software like Freshdesk. Help your customers to help themselves by providing easy to access, searchable customer knowledge bases where they'll find comprehensive FAQs quickly and easily, with no frustrations. This offers the added bonus of saving you time and money too, as you don't need to answer the same questions repeatedly.

4. Hootsuite (Social media management)

It's a big, wide world in the digital sphere; ensure you're on top of what your customers are saying with social media management tools like Hootsuite which allows you to manage your social media presence. You can schedule posts, respond to customer queries, see analytics and, importantly, listen to your customers. Smart analytics allow you to track the content that your audience engages with, meaning you can share more exciting posts and links that your customers will love.

5. Hively (Customer satisfaction surveys)

Take the guesswork out of what your customers are thinking and feeling and keep track of customer happiness with customer satisfaction surveys. Hively allows your customers to easily rate their interactions with your company and staff. By giving your customers a voice, it will make them feel like they're being listened to and that their views are important. It's great for you too, as you can see which employees are performing the best, and monitor those that may need additional help or training.