Bonfire Rating: 4.7/5
HubSpot Service Hub is your one-stop shop for all of your customer service management.
HubSpot Service Hub
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Easy to Use Ticketing Feature
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Tons of Free Tools Available
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Customizable Live Chat Feature
Customer service can be a tricky business—in the ever-evolving digital age.
With many tools available to help manage customer service, it can be difficult to know which one is the best fit for your specific needs.
Choosing the wrong one can lead to wasted time and money, along with having to start all over with a new service.
My Name’s AJ and I built a digital agency over 4 years to a multi-million dollar exit, so needless to say I have a pretty good understanding of the tools available on the digital market.
The team at Small Business Bonfire and I thoroughly tested out HubSpot’s Service Hub and I have to say, it is worth a look.
Here’s my experience with the product to help you decide for yourself.
Let’s get into it!
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Since 2009 Small Business Bonfire has been testing and rating thousands of business software to help you (our small business owners) start & scale your organizations. If you want to know more about how we test, please read this article here.
What is HubSpot Service Hub?
Simply put, HubSpot Service Hub enables companies to connect with their customer base and provide them with an exceptional customer service experience from start to finish.
This includes tools such as:
- Tickets
- Customer portals
- Feedback surveys
- Live chat
- Knowledge base
- Reporting and analytics
They offer free tools, which we thought was great. Plus, their Starter plan only costs $45/month.
At the agency, we used HubSpot on most clients; however, for this test, we set up HubSpot for Small Business Bonfire and tested it thoroughly over several months.
Pros and Cons of HubSpot Service Hub
Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of HubSpot Service Hub.
HubSpot Service Hub Pros
- Customizable live chat feature
- Free plan has lots of features
- We loved the easy-to-use Ticket system
- All-in-one customer service channel
- Advanced plans are extremely robust despite the price
HubSpot Service Hub Cons
- Some more advanced features require expensive plans
- We had some issues with Mailchimp integration
- Email, chat, and phone options not available with free plan
Who Is HubSpot Service Hub Best Suited For?
HubSpot Service Hub is best suited for companies looking to automate their customer service processes and streamline their operations.
Any business that wants all of its customer service channels in the same place could benefit from using Service Hub.
For this reason, and for the price, our team would recommend this service to just about any company. The fact that there’s a free plan only makes it better for beginners and startups.
Who Is HubSpot Service Hub Not Suited For?
HubSpot Service Hub essentially focuses on customer service ticketing, and let’s face it, there are better programs for ticketing out there.
If your business relies heavily on ticketing and has an enterprise-level of client concerns, HubSpot might not be for you.
In our case, we often deal with a lower number of client issues and we found it to be perfect for the job.
HubSpot Service Hub Pricing: How Much Does It Cost?
HubSpot Service Hub offers four pricing plans for businesses of different sizes.
Service Hub offers the following plans:
- Free – Free forever
- Starter – $20/Month
- Professional – $500/Month
- Enterprise – $1,200/Month
Their professional and enterprise plans come with additional features that are seriously worth checking out if it’s within your budget.
Here’s our full breakdown of HubSpot pricing.
How Does HubSpot Service Hub Pricing Compare?
HubSpot Service Hub – $20/Month
- Free plan
- Live chat & chatbots
- Ticketing system
- Advanced service automation
EngageBay Service Bay – Free Forever
- Free plan
- Live chat & chatbots
- Ticketing system
- Basic service automation
Freshdesk – $18/Month
- Free plan
- Live chat & chatbots (through integration)
- Ticketing system
- Advanced service automation
Zendesk for Service – $25/Month
- Chatbots
- Multichannel ticketing
- 1000+ integrations
- Advanced service automation
When you break it down, EngageBay Service Bay comes out on top for pricing, with all of its features available for free.
However, cheaper doesn’t always mean better. When we look at overall features, HubSpot is our winner.
It’s got powerful live chat and chatbot creation, a fantastic ticketing system, useful automation, and a robust free plan.
So there you have it—if you’re on a budget, go with EngageBay. If you’re looking for the most powerful service platform on the market, go with HubSpot.
HubSpot Service Hub Pricing Tips
HubSpot Service Hub Core Features
Some general features of Service Hub include the following:
- Ticket Management System
- Support Center Portal
- Analytics & Reporting
- Live chat and chat builder
- Knowledge Base System
We'll get into some more specifics below.
HubSpot Service Hub's live chat lets you customize your live chat window to make the chat more engaging and user-friendly.
You can customize your window in the following ways:
- Custom messaging
- Scheduled or 24/7 chat options
- Custom name and logo options
We found that we were able to track customer conversations easily as well as set up automated responses.
After that, we saw a preview of how the chat looked on our site and got started by connecting the messages to the team's HubSpot inbox.
Here's an example of our live chatbot customization process in the screenshot below.
The Tickets feature of HubSpot is one that especially stands out in our opinion.
Handling customer queries has never been easier.
The ticket pipelines feature allows users to group all of their tickets together into customizable pipelines and easily track them in the HubSpot dashboard. Closed tickets are separate from ongoing tickets, making it easy to see what still needs to be done.
We were able to create up to two pipelines with HubSpot's standard plan, allowing us to create both an Urgent Tickets and Support Tickets pipeline to easily delegate work between teammates.
The survey feature is easy to set up, customize and track responses from customers over time.
We were able to easily create some mock-up surveys to send to our clients. The interface is easy to read, with all of your surveys in one place.
These surveys also come with real-time insights so that users can quickly act on any feedback received in order to provide better customer service.
HubSpot offers the following templates to help you get started:
- Customer support
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer loyalty
You can also create your own custom survey, which is the option we went with.
In less than 10 minutes, we created a custom survey requiring feedback and set up email automation to send it out. Needless to say, we were impressed.
HubSpot Service Hub allows you to create reports based on the following metrics:
- Ticket volume
- Average resolution time
- Customer satisfaction metrics
These performance reports can help users gain visibility into how well customer service teams are performing over time.
Plus, users can easily export the data or send it directly to their team's inbox for further analysis.
One thing we liked about this feature was how easy it was to see all of our reports in one place.
HubSpot Service hub can easily integrate with other third-party platforms such as the following:
- Mailchimp
- WordPress
- Slack
- Zoho
- Freshdesk
- Survey Monkey
- Facebook Messenger
- Zendesk
- Canva
There are lots more, but these are just a few that caught our attention.
With just a few clicks, we connected Canva to HubSpot and were creating designs that were easily shared.
HubSpot Service Hub provides a way to store and view all of your customer service data in one place with its Data Model feature.
What we liked about this feature is that it allows you to create custom fields and view real-time analytics for your data.
This way, you can quickly see how customers are interacting with your products or services.
The Data Model is also helpful in segmenting customer inquiries into different categories, so you can tailor the customer support experience based on their needs.
What are the Limitations of HubSpot Service Hub?
\While HubSpot’s free and standard plans offer tons of features to simplify your customer service processes, their professional ($450/month) and enterprise plans ($1,200/month) are extremely pricey.
Their free plans don’t have access to email, phone, or chat support. If you’re a small business on a budget, this can be a major downside.
What Sets HubSpot Service Hub Apart from the Competition?
What sets HubSpot Service Hub apart from its competitors is its ability to combine so many different aspects of customer service and automation into one place.
If you’re looking for a one-stop shop for customer service management, you can’t go wrong with HubSpot Service Hub.
Their focus on making customer relationship management simple for businesses seems to be their trademark. Plus, they offer the ability to integrate all of your apps in one place and work with multiple teams to accomplish goals together.
Basically, if you want your customer experience to be legendary, look into HubSpot Service Hub.
Getting Started with HubSpot Service Hub
Getting started with Service Hub was incredibly easy.
They asked a few questions about our industry, job title, and organization size.
After that, we explored their user guide and upgraded to the Standard plan with ease.
In my opinion, they were one of the easiest services to navigate in terms of getting started.
Here’s an example of the user guide.
How Do You Use HubSpot Service Hub?
HubSpot Service Hub is best used to keep all of your customer service software in one place.
Your customer support team should have all of the tools they need to deal with the following:
- Support requests
- Customer feedback
- Multiple ticket pipelines
- Chat responses
By having everything in one place, you can ensure proper customer relationship management and prevent potential issues from falling through the cracks.
HubSpot Service Hub Customer Service & Support Review
HubSpot Service Hub has a help desk with the following support options to choose from:
- Community – Get tips from experts or start a discussion
- Knowledge Base – Read how-to guides and help articles for HubSpot’s tools and features
- Academy – Wtch helpful training videos
- Customer Blog – See examples of customers utilizing HubSpot for their own business
The help desk provided a ton of detailed information that we used throughout our testing process.
We reached out to a Service Hub professional for the issues we were having with Mailchimp integration.
Within a matter of about 10 minutes, they were able to help by directing us to an article found using the help desk. It turns out it was an easy fix with the right information.
Overall, this experience was fantastic, and nothing less than we’d expect from a platform that specializes in customer service management.
Other HubSpot Hubs
In addition to HubSpot Service Hub, the platform also offers a suite of other Hubs that covers everything from marketing and sales to customer service.
HubSpot provides an all-in-one platform for managing business needs and streamlining your processes.
We personally loved the fact that it allows us to easily access customer data from all parts of the platform and that we can have an updated view of our customer’s journey.
HubSpot offers the following additional tools:
- HubSpot Marketing Hub
- HubSpot Sales Hub
- HubSpot CMS Hub
- HubSpot Operations Hub
Let’s get into our overview of each.
HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot’s Marketing Hub covers everything you need to run your online marketing campaigns.
It provides a range of tools such as:
- Reporting and analytics
- Marketing email tools
- Campaigns
- Lead Capture
These features help you stay on top of your campaigns while offering key insights into customer behavior and preferences.
It also offers native integration with other platforms like Slack and Zoom for easy collaboration.
We especially found their email marketing tools to be easy to use and intuitive.
We were able to quickly add our logo and create a template for a hypothetical email campaign. We added our social media links and website URL with just the click of a button. In terms of ease of use, HubSpot’s Marketing Hub is fantastic.
HubSpot Sales Hub
Sales Hub is a CRM platform designed to help businesses automate sales activities, speed up deal cycles, and get more out of their sales efforts.
It includes features such as:
- Deals manager
- Forecast capabilities
- Tasks function
- Payment tracker
It helps sales reps stay organized and on top of their deals.
Plus, you can keep track of leads from multiple sources in one place.
We created some hypothetical deals with just a few clicks.
We were able to select and sort by the following metrics:
- Deal stage
- Close date
- Deal owner
- Amount
In our HubSpot Sales Hub review, we do a deep dive into the product to give you as much information as possible.
HubSpot CMS Hub
HubSpot’s CMS (Content Management Software) Hub allows you to manage your website content and customize it the way you want.
The site walked us through a 5-minute setup process and we were ready to go.
We had the ability to customize our template with the following:
- Colors
- Logo
- Fonts
- Images
It was quick and easy to get started.
Here’s an example of some of the customization options.
The CMS Hub had a user-friendly interface that even a beginner user could navigate with ease.
Our HubSpot CMS Hub review goes into more features and benefits that the service offers.
HubSpot Operations Hub
Operations Hub is the perfect tool for streamlining your business operations and making sure all processes are running smoothly.
It essentially helps to manage your data between multiple systems and makes sure everyone is on the same page.
It includes features such as:
- Data Bridge (to connect multiple systems)
- Integrations with other platforms
- Analytics & reporting tools
We integrated the site with Mailchimp and honestly found it to have quite a few bugs in this particular case.
The most common issue was our team email not updating or loading in real-time. We were able to get assistance with their live chat feature, however, it was frustrating not being able to rely on instant updates.
HubSpot Service Hub Alternative Comparison
So how does HubSpot compare to the competition? In this case, we went head to head with Monday, Pipedrive, and ClickUp. Here are the results.
Is HubSpot Service Hub Worth it for Small Business Owners?
In short, yes. The team at Small Business Bonfire was impressed with everything it had to offer.
Its ability to integrate a variety of customer service tools in one place is an invaluable asset for businesses looking to streamline their customer support processes.
It is definitely worth the cost if you’re serious about setting up a successful customer service program.
That said, its more intensive plans come at a hefty price tag compared to some of its competitors, so make sure your business can afford it before committing to the software.
Overall, if you have the money and are looking for a comprehensive customer service platform, HubSpot Services Hub may be just what you need!
Frequently Asked Questions About HubSpot Service Hub
HubSpot Service Hub is an all-in-one customer service platform designed to help businesses manage their customer experience and support processes more efficiently. With a wide range of popular features and tools, Service Hub makes it easy for businesses to provide high-quality customer support and ensure customer satisfaction.
HubSpot Service Hub has many popular features and tools specifically designed for customer service, such as ticket pipelines, team email support, chatbots, and support requests. These tools make managing customer relationships easy and efficient. With these powerful capabilities, businesses can ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction possible.
Service Hub is an incredible tool offered by HubSpot that provides businesses with multiple benefits. Some of the key advantages of choosing Service Hub include enhanced support and customer satisfaction, streamlined communication, and improved overall efficiency.