The Best CRMs for Customer Service in 2023

We’ve all been there. Stuck on hold, getting bounced from one customer service agent to another, trying to resolve an issue. When you finally do get to speak to a real person, they’re clueless to your situation, and you have to explain everything again.

It’s bad customer service, and you don’t want it happening at your business.

Enter customer service CRM (customer relationship management) software. With it, you’ll turn your agents into lean, mean service machines. No more spreadsheets, no more notebooks, and no more data silos – just a system that unifies communication across your email, social media, and phone channels, and helps you prioritise, organise, and handle customer service issues with aplomb.

But which CRM is the right fit for your business? We’ve researched, rated, and ranked six leading customer service CRM providers in the UK to answer that very question for you. With a team of independent researchers, we assessed each CRM provider across four key metrics, as well as four features crucial to the smooth running of your service team. Which supplier came out on top?

Let’s find out.

The best customer service CRM for UK businesses in 2023

According to our research, the best CRM for customer service teams is Salesforce Service Cloud. Comprising the rest of the top six is Zendesk for Service, Freshworks CRM’s Freshdesk, HubSpot Service Hub, Zoho, and Dynamics 365 for Customer Service.

But before you dive into our research and rankings of the best CRM software for UK customer service teams, why not compare CRM software quotes with us? Simply provide us with a few details about your business, and you’ll receive quotes tailored to the size and unique needs of your customer service team, for free.

1. Salesforce Service Cloud

As our top CRM pick for customer service, Salesforce (somewhat predictably) cleans up across the board for customer approval ratings, features, and help and support. And, while it scores slightly lower on price – its expensive premium plans see to that – its basic plan should still be accessible for most small businesses.

Salesforce Service Cloud for customer service: feature analysis

We investigated whether each supplier offers the five following features that are important for customer service CRMs, and how well it can do them.

Issue management capabilities? Salesforce boasts strong case and issue management functionalities across all plans. 

Upgrading to Salesforce’s more expensive tiers (i.e. Enterprise or Unlimited) provides advanced issue management functionality, including case re-routing and case milestone tracking. All plans enable quick, seamless communication between your customer service agents.

Customer interaction tracking? Yes.

Customer loyalty tracking? Yes.

Customer history? Yes. Salesforce Service Cloud’s ‘Field Tracking History’ capability allows you to track any field changes to accounts, cases, and service contracts over the last 18 months. This ensures that you keep your finger on the pulse regarding any changes in your customers’ situations or details, and can react accordingly.

Curious to find out more about how Salesforce can elevate your business to new heights? Read our Salesforce CRM review now.

2. Zendesk for Service

A classy customer service CRM tailored to the needs of small teams, Zendesk for Service soars in the metrics of both help and support and price, and boasts a strong weighted customer approval score of 85%.

Zendesk for Service for customer service: feature analysis

Issue management capabilities? Included as part of Zendesk’s ticketing system.

Customer interaction tracking? Yes, across all plans.

Customer loyalty tracking? Yes – Zendesk allows you to generate NPS surveys to gauge customer engagement with and loyalty to your brand.

Customer history? Yes.

3. Freshdesk

Freshdesk (from Freshworks CRM) is our joint-top customer service CRM pick for price, but its limited features prevent it from reaching the heady heights of our list’s summit. Freshdesk still boasts a strong customer approval score, though, and its help and support is among the best we found.

Freshdesk for customer service: feature analysis

Issue management capabilities? Freshdesk enables excellent issue management across all plans. Key highlights include its priority setting feature, split ticket functionality, and (for those on the Garden plan up) the ability to create customised satisfaction surveys to monitor progress against your customer service goals.

We particularly love ‘Freddy', Freshdesk's AI-powered solution to managing customer success, and ideal for tackling your ever-growing list of repetitive, mundane tasks. The productivity-boosting bot comes with Freshdesk's ‘Forest' plan (£75 per user, per month), which provides 3,000 ‘Freddy sessions'.

Each session equals one use of the bot (one email send, or 24 hours of chat replies). When you max out, an extra 1,000 sessions will cost you $100 (£77). Not to be confused with ‘Freddo', of the delicious, chocolatey variety – but just as good at keeping people happy!

Customer interaction tracking? Yes, across all plans – even its free one!

Customer loyalty tracking? Freshdesk’s Garden plan and above enable you to integrate your CRM with Survey Monkey – letting you capture overall customer loyalty and track NPS scores.

Customer history? Yes.

4. HubSpot Service Hub

Though HubSpot excels in its CRM offerings for sales and marketing teams, its customer service-focussed software doesn’t quite hit those same lofty heights. Hamstrung by a more limited range of features and a hefty price tag, HubSpot’s Service Hub is redeemed by wonderful help and support, and superlative customer approval ratings.

HubSpot Service Hub for customer service: feature analysis

Issue management capabilities? Yes – these are included as part of HubSpot’s ticketing system. With this feature, you can record, organise, and track all of your customers' issues from a single dashboard, which is accessible to your entire team via the cloud.

Customer interaction tracking? No.

Customer loyalty tracking? No, but Service Hub’s Professional and Enterprise plans allow you to run NPS surveys to calculate overall customer loyalty.

Customer history? Yes.

What do we mean by ‘the cloud'? Head to our guide to the best cloud-based CRM for small businesses to find out.

5. Zoho

A poor customer score, so-so features, and help and support ratings that lie at the wrong end of the spectrum are offset by Zoho’s biggest selling point – it’s really, really cheap!

Zoho for customer service: feature analysis

Issue management capabilities? Yes. Zoho even allows you to create solutions whereby the system tracks issues automatically, and uses the customer’s initial query to populate the relevant fields when replying.

Customer interaction tracking? Yes.

Customer loyalty tracking? No.

Customer history? Yes.

6. Dynamics 365 for Customer Service

Bringing up the rear is Microsoft’s own answer to the CRM needs of customer service teams. Though much more affordable than its solutions for sales and marketing, this saving is reflected in Dynamics 365 for Customer Service’s scaled back list of features, and indifferent help and support.

Dynamics 365 for customer service: feature analysis

Issue management capabilities? Yes, and all basic case management features are included. Among our favourites are case re-routing, and the ability to convert service issues into knowledge articles.

Customer interaction tracking? Yes.

Customer loyalty tracking? No. Dynamics 365 for Customer Service currently offers no way of keeping tabs of individual loyalty to your brand. 

Customer history? Yes.

How can CRM improve customer service?

In addition to the basics (customer support, price, contact limit, and whether there’s a free trial), the best customer service CRM providers below are ranked by their ability to perform the following four crucial functions:

• Issue management capabilities
• Customer interaction tracking
• Customer loyalty tracking
• Customer history

Handily, these functions also serve as an excellent example of how CRM can improve your business’ customer service. Let’s take a look.

Issue management capabilities

When customer service issues arise – and no business is perfect, so rest assured they will – you’ve got to respond with speed and professionalism.

And, with customer service CRM, you can. CRM software allows you to create ‘tickets’, with which you can record, organise, and track any issues that have been reported to your team. Using a simple drag-and-drop queue, you can keep tabs on the status of each issue, and easily spot links between different cases.

You can also prioritise issues, and assign team members to specific ones – thus increasing the accountability of your team, and ensuring that cases are resolved with greater efficiency.

Customer interaction tracking

As with CRM for sales and marketing – where tracking customer interactions helps you sell to them – CRM for customer service allows you to monitor how and where your client base is interacting with your brand.

Is that through social media? Do your customers prefer to get in touch via email, or would they rather pick up the phone and give you a call? Tracking your customers’ interactions with your brand helps you understand their preferences, and empowers you to tailor how you deliver your service going forward.

Customer loyalty tracking

Acquiring new customers is all well and good… but the real business is in retaining them.

It’s cheaper, for one. Plus, statistics show that your probability of converting an existing customer is around 60% to 70% – with new customers, that figure is as low as 5%.

Given this, engendering customer loyalty to your brand and services becomes even more crucial – as does being able to accurately track it.

CRM allows you to gain invaluable insights into your business, courtesy of your customers themselves. From directly within the CRM, you can reach out to your client base with surveys and feedback requests, allowing you to better understand your business’ NPS (Net Promoter Score), and how it’s impacting on your bottom line.

Customer history

A key benefit of customer service CRM is being able to build up a rich, detailed history of each interaction you have with your customers. 

Having a comprehensive record of what conversations you’ve had – and whether they took place via phone, email, or social media – allows you to better understand the customer, and where they are in their journey with your business.

Plus, when your team grows beyond a certain size, having a customer history database isn’t just a plus – it’s a necessity. When one service agent picks up the phone, it won’t always be the same one that the caller dealt with last time – so it’s important that they have all the info they need to handle the new enquiry, right at their fingertips.

Next steps

Though we’ve ranked these six customer service CRM suppliers based on their features, help and support, customer approval ratings, and price, there’s still more research to do to find the right system for you. 

And ultimately, the system you choose will be defined by the unique requirements and restrictions of your own business.

Bargain hunter? Go for Zendesk for Service, or – at a stretch – Zoho.

Hung up on the aesthetics? HubSpot Service Hub is your best bet, while Freshdesk also provides a high level of usability with fewer costs.

Dynamics 365 is for the hardcore Microsoft fans only, while Salesforce Service Cloud, as our top pick, is recommended for all.

Remember, which customer service CRM is best for you always comes down to the bespoke needs of your team. And that, in turn, is why we always take your needs into account when you use our free quote-finding service.

Simply tell us what CRM features you want, how many people it’s for, and what (if any) contact management software you’re already using. We’ll do the rest, and you’ll be contacted with tailored quotes from leading CRM software suppliers. It’s that easy!