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Hiver is a cloud-based help desk solution that works directly within Gmail, turning shared inboxes into effective customer service centers. Since it integrates with Google Workspace, team members don’t need to learn new interfaces or switch platforms to manage, assign, and track customer queries right from their email inbox.
This platform streamlines customer support by converting incoming emails into tasks that can be assigned, tracked, and resolved quickly. It centralizes communication from various channels, including email, live chat, voice, and WhatsApp, ensuring no customer query is overlooked. As a result, companies using Hiver report resolving queries up to 50% faster and saving hundreds of hours each month.
Hiver Help Desk benefits organizations of all sizes, from small teams to large enterprises, particularly customer service, tech support, and finance teams that manage many incoming requests through shared email addresses like support@, help@, or info@. With a scalable pricing structure, you can enhance your service without large upfront costs.
AI capabilities automate routine tasks and suggest email responses, further boosting benefits. Also, it provides valuable insights through detailed analytics reports. For ecommerce businesses, Hiver’s multi-channel approach is ideal for handling a high volume of customer inquiries, ensuring consistent and timely support across all touchpoints.
Hiver: Plans and Pricing
Hiver offers a tiered pricing structure designed to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes. There are four main plans available: Free, Lite, Pro, and Elite. Each plan comes with special features to help you with your customer service needs.
The Lite plan is a great starting point at just $19 per user per month. It provides essential tools for new customer service teams, including 2 shared email inboxes, support for up to 10 users, live chat, and a knowledge base. This plan is perfect for small teams or businesses just beginning their customer support journey.
The Pro plan is Hiver’s most popular choice, priced at $39 per user per month. It builds on the Lite plan by offering 5 shared inboxes with unlimited users and aliases. You will also enjoy advanced features like live chat auto-assignments, basic workflow automation, and customer satisfaction reports. Plus, the Pro plan integrates seamlessly with tools like Asana, Jira, Zapier, Salesforce, Slack, and QuickBooks, making it an excellent fit for growing businesses.
For larger enterprises, Hiver offers the Elite plan at $49 per user per month. This plan includes unlimited shared inboxes, users, and aliases. It features advanced tools such as skill-based auto assignments, detailed workflow automation, and scheduled custom data reports. The Elite plan ensures HIPAA compliance and includes a dedicated success manager along with an AI bot for extra support.
Hiver also provides a Free plan for unlimited users, though specific features are not listed. You can try out the platform with a 7-day free trial, which lets you experience its benefits before committing to a paid plan.
While Hiver’s pricing is competitive given its range of features, some smaller businesses may find it a bit high. The increase from Lite to Pro ($19 to $39 per user per month) might be a consideration for smaller teams looking to expand. However, the advanced features in the higher tiers can lead to better efficiency and happier customers, making the investment worthwhile.
Overall, Hiver’s pricing structure offers great flexibility for businesses at various stages of growth. The ability to upgrade as your needs evolve is a valuable advantage, and the free trial allows you to evaluate whether Hiver is the right fit for you before making a financial commitment.
Hiver: Features
Hiver is a friendly help desk solution that works right within Gmail. You won’t have to worry about installing extra software. This cloud-based platform makes your shared inboxes into effective customer service centers. Your team can manage customer questions through email, live chat, voice, and WhatsApp — all from your inbox.
The platform is packed with features that enhance customer support and teamwork. You can manage emails, assign tasks, automate processes, and access detailed analytics. AI features make things even easier by automating tasks, suggesting email replies, and providing insights through analytics.
Shared email management
Hiver’s email management turns shared inboxes like support@ or help@ into collaboration hubs. Your team can convert every customer question into a task assigned to specific agents right from Gmail. This promotes accountability and ownership, reducing the chances of important queries slipping through the cracks.
The platform also helps managers assign incoming questions to the best team members based on their skills and availability. With email tagging, prioritization, and internal notes, teams can work together smoothly without the confusion of CC chains or forwards. This has helped businesses cut email resolution time by up to 50%, leading to happier customers and better retention.
AI-powered assistance
Hiver uses AI to enhance customer service with several helpful features. AI can summarize emails, suggest response templates, and close conversations that don’t need further attention. These allow your support team to work more efficiently by cutting down on routine tasks, so agents can focus on more complex issues.
The impact of these AI features is quite impressive. By automating repetitive tasks and offering smart suggestions, Hiver’s AI helps businesses respond faster while maintaining high service quality. This allows support teams to handle more inquiries without needing extra staff, improving efficiency and saving costs.
Automation and workflow management
Hiver’s automation features make support operations easier by handling routine tasks automatically. Your team can set up custom workflows to assign tickets based on rules, categorize incoming questions, and trigger actions depending on email content. These ensure consistent inquiry handling and lighten the load on support agents.
Companies using Hiver see great results, with efficiency increases of up to 250%. By automating tasks like ticket assignment, support teams can focus on solving complex problems and providing personalized service. This not only speeds up response times but also enhances customer interactions, leading to greater satisfaction and loyalty.
SLA management
Hiver’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) management helps businesses ensure timely responses and resolutions by setting clear expectations. Teams can define SLA policies based on query type, customer segment, or priority level. Automated reminders keep agents on track, while real-time monitoring helps managers identify potential issues before they arise.
Effective SLA management boosts customer satisfaction by delivering consistent support. Companies using Hiver report 100% SLA success rates, showcasing how well the platform helps teams meet service commitments. By maintaining high response and resolution standards, businesses can build trust with customers and stand out in competitive markets.
Self-service options
Hiver’s knowledge base allows businesses to create a helpful library of articles, guides, and FAQs for customers. This self-service option empowers customers to find answers on their own, providing quick solutions and reducing the number of routine inquiries for agents.
A strong knowledge base offers two main benefits. First, it enhances customer satisfaction by providing instant answers, reducing wait times for simple issues. Second, it boosts operational efficiency by lowering the number of routine inquiries that require agent assistance. This optimizes resource use while ensuring high-quality support when needed.
Hiver: Analytics
Hiver offers insights into customer service performance and team efficiency. Managers can use real-time reporting to see task progress, spot bottlenecks, and track ticket resolution times. Quick access to this information allows for timely adjustments, improving efficiency and meeting Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
The analytics dashboard shows key performance indicators (KPIs) for customer support. You can view metrics like first response time, average resolution time, and customer satisfaction scores (CSAT). Managers can track these KPIs in real-time, helping them spot trends, identify improvement areas, and make informed decisions to enhance service.
Hiver’s analytics tools also support customizable reporting. This flexibility helps businesses focus on relevant data. For example, CSAT reports offer quick feedback on customer experiences. Teams can quickly address issues and refine their strategies.
Additionally, Hiver’s tools aid in workload distribution and performance analysis. Managers can see how individual agents are performing, monitor ticket volumes, and analyze trends over time. This understanding of team dynamics and workload supports smart decisions about resource allocation, training, and process improvements.
Hiver: Ease of use
Given that it sits inside Gmail itself, it might be most helpful to think of Hiver as an upgrade to your Google Workspace. Certainly in their video tour showcasing the UI, much is made of how snugly features fit into Gmail, such as being able to provide support to customers through various channels like WhatsApp. You can also use the existing ‘Activity’ pane in emails to assign and track support queries.
On the plus side if you and your team are already familiar with Gmail and are happy to use the interface this will mean virtually zero time spent in getting to grips with it. In fact, Hiver fares well against the competition when it comes to its UI. Its interface is intuitive and easy to navigate.
Hiver has also dedicated a page to its workflow management, which makes it easy to visualize tasks assigned to your team by displaying all active conversations in your shared inbox. You can also filter conversations, such as by team member, with just one mouse click.
Despite its strengths, Hiver’s interface may not seem quite so familiar to individuals who aren’t big Gmail users. For teams that are more comfortable using Microsoft Outlook or any of the many other email providers out there, there could be some teething problems.
Hiver: Security
Hiver maintains a dedicated ‘Security Center’ on its website. Given that it sits on top of Gmail, we were pleased to see it answered one of the first questions we had right away: the company doesn’t store your emails on its servers, instead leaving that to Google. It does, however, store some metadata like email subjects.
When it comes to processing email data, the company claims the ‘raw’ data is stored temporarily and subject to encryption until it’s synced across Gmail accounts, after which it’s deleted permanently.
Hiver also claims to undergo regular external security audits. All its data is hosted by AWS (Amazon Web Services) in the USA. This means the company’s data centers benefit from all the protections Amazon provides such as 24/7 security and fire suppression systems.
All of Hiver’s servers use network firewalls and all data transmission to or from Hiver happens over a 128-bit SSL-encrypted connection. The hiver application endpoints are TLS/SSL only and score a rating of “A+” rating on SSL Labs tests.
Unsurprisingly, Hiver uses Google SSO (Single Sign On) to access the app and users can revoke Hiver’s access to their G Suite at any time.
The company has been working hard to be compliant with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) but therein lies the catch: in 2019, Google was fined for breaching the GDPR.
The tech giant has recently made some changes to make its Chrome browser more data-protection compliant but the fact remains that Google’s business model revolves around serving up targeted ads. This begs the question of whether moving your help desk to Google will allow your organization to comply with local data protection laws.
Hiver: Support
Hiver has a dedicated Help Center, with helpful guides on topics like setting up your email account and integrating a WhatsApp channel into Gmail.
The Resource Center also contains some benchmark reports and a couple of e-books on topics like using Gmail as a help desk. As helpful as these are, the resources available seem quite spartan compared to other help desk providers we’ve reviewed. There is a wide range of articles that can help with your Hiver queries, including around topics like the latest CX trends and a detailed comparison guide.
No matter which pricing plan you choose, all users receive onboarding support and 24/7 assistance via email and live chat. Only subscribers to the most expensive ‘Elite’ plan receive priority support, however, which includes callbacks and your own ‘Success Manager’.
Hiver: The Competition
Hiver faces competition from many established help desk solutions, especially Zendesk. Zendesk has more features and scalability, but it comes at a higher price and a steeper learning curve. Some businesses still find Hiver limiting and choose Zendesk despite the cost.
Front is another competitor. It offers a collaborative platform for managing email, SMS, and social media. It’s great for teams, with features like shared drafts and analytics. Pricing starts at $29 per user per month, making it a solid choice for businesses with lower ticket volumes.
Freshdesk is also a strong option for growing teams that need customization and integration. It includes advanced features like AI-powered automation and analytics. However, its interface is less user-friendly than Hiver’s. Freshdesk is more expensive than Hiver but cheaper than Zendesk. Hiver suits businesses that value simplicity and email support, while Freshdesk is better for teams with more complex needs.
Hiver: Final verdict
‘Hiver’ is actually the French word for ‘Winter’. We wonder if the owners know this, as the platform could be the ‘Winter of your discontent’ if you’re already using Google Workspace within your organization and want to set up a help desk quickly and smoothly.
Leveraging an existing platform to manage tickets makes perfect sense, especially if you can include extra features like live chat and assigning tasks to other users. The pricing plan also starts from a very reasonable $15 per agent per month.
The biggest conundrum you’ll face as a business owner is if you want to trust yet more of your organization’s client information to Google, as they don’t have the best record for data protection. However, there’s a reason why they are trusted by so many. If you still have your doubts, why not sign up for Hiver’s free trial and see whether this help desk solution meets the needs of your organization?
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