Help Scout

Help Scout is a cloud-based customer support software company founded in 2011 by Nick Francis and Denny Swindle, with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The platform provides a suite of tools for businesses to manage customer interactions through email, live chat, and self-service knowledge bases. Unlike many competitors, Help Scout emphasizes a human-centric approach, aiming to foster genuine connections between support agents and customers. The software includes a shared inbox for team collaboration, automated workflows, and in-app messaging via the Beacon widget. It also offers extensive reporting and analytics to measure support performance, customer satisfaction (CSAT), and response times. Help Scout serves over 10,000 customers worldwide, including well-known companies like Buffer, Trello, and Basecamp. The platform is known for its clean design and ease of use, often praised for not sacrificing user experience for feature depth. Pricing is per-user per-month, with plans starting at $20 per user per month for the Standard plan, up to Enterprise options with custom pricing. Help Scout competes in the crowded customer service market against giants like Zendesk and Intercom but differentiates itself by its focus on simplicity and email-centric support. The company has raised venture capital, including a $31 million Series B round in 2019 led by Insight Partners. Help Scout has also acquired the customer messaging platform Snaps in 2021 to enhance its live chat capabilities. The platform integrates with over 200 third-party apps, including Shopify, WordPress, and Salesforce. Help Scout’s culture is remote-first, with a distributed team across the United States and other countries. The domain helpscout.com was registered in 2009, predating the company's official launch, and the website is hosted on Amazon Web Services with a content delivery network via Vercel Edge, ensuring fast global access. Help Scout is recognized as a top workplace by Inc. Magazine and has a strong reputation in the customer service community for its product quality and customer-centric values.