Comparing Kustomer and Gladly Customer Service

If you’re deciding between Kustomer and Gladly, you’ll find that Kustomer is a popular option for brands conducting digital-first support. Does that make it the best option for your company? Here, we’ll break down the history and functionality behind Kustomer, and how it stacks up to Gladly’s CX platform.

What Is Kustomer?

Kustomer is an “AI-driven customer service CRM” that prioritizes automated and digital CX. Core capabilities include self-service chatbots, intelligent ticket routing, and digital-first customer service on channels like social and SMS.

History of Kustomer

Founded by two Salesforce alumni in 2016, the original goal was to create an interactive CRM that allows anyone within a business to theoretically jump in and act as support at any given time.

In 2020, Kustomer was acquired by Facebook parent company Meta, which saw a potential consumer data opportunity given Kustomer’s digital and social CX capabilities. The deal went through numerous alterations and wasn’t finalized until 2022. A year later, Meta sold off Kustomer, maintaining a minority stake while the company operates independently once again.

At the time, the investment made sense in Meta’s pursuit of dominating social commerce. The Kustomer CRM and AI are designed for digital CX, particularly within the Meta portfolio (WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook). The company continues to work with ecommerce brands that attract young consumers, like Sweetgreen, Glossier, and Skims as of July 2023.

Comparing Gladly and Kustomer Features

Kustomer features

Kustomer is best known for its digital/social channel comprehension and fluency in chatbots. These capabilities enable potential customers to push self-service tactics and consolidate conversations into a single interface for simplified access and easier management.

Of note, Kustomer is built around individual conversations, not customers. Conversations basically function like tickets, so operational issues common in ticketing systems still persist. For instance, if a customer channel hops, a new conversation is created even though it may be related to the same topic.

Kustomer’s flexible CRM infrastructure is designed for complex automation that powers intelligent routing, tagging, and personalized responses based on internal and third-party customer data. While powerful, these capabilities require IT resources and take time to build.

According to Info-Tech research, Gladly was rated higher than Kustomer, Salesforce, and Zendesk in the Security Protects category.

While digital and email channels are native, Kustomer users must license a third-party voice solution — even though, according to our 2022 Customer Expectations Report, phone calls are still the most popular overall channel.

Gladly Features

Gladly offers a single platform to support ALL channels, including social media, chat, email, and native voice out of the box.

Gladly also integrates customer data and offers intelligent features like routing and People Match, providing automation, speed and context within an omnichannel support environment.

And unlike Kustomer, Gladly is conversation-driven and customer-centric. All customer information and conversations, across all channels, are tied to a customer’s profile, so agents don’t have to open up multiple conversations relating to the same issue because they can access the entirety of the customer’s brand history.

According to Info-Tech research, Gladly was rated higher than Kustomer, Salesforce, and Zendesk in the Ease of Implementation category.

Comparing Price

Gladly and Kustomer offer competitive pricing options, charging on a monthly basis per user so brands can easily expand their support centers.

Gladly Pricing

• Hero Package: $180 per support hero/month, billed annually; with a 10 hero minimum
• Superhero Package: $210 per support hero/month, billed annually; with a 45 hero minimum

Kustomer Pricing

• Enterprise Tier: $89 per agent/month, billed annually
• Ultimate Tier: $139 per agent/month, billed annually

While Kustomer has the baseline price advantage, the solution doesn’t offer full functionality and native channel options. Kustomer does not come equipped with voice as a channel, so users have to license an additional vendor on top of any voice-related integrations that help gather data and optimize.

Gladly includes all of the tools modern brands need packaged in a straight-forward pricing model, giving users full access to all channels without any additional licensing, including:

• Voice and IVR
• SMS
• Social media
• Chat
• Email
• Automated Self-Service

The Final Verdict: Kustomer and Gladly

If your brand operates exclusively on nimble, digital platforms instead of serving customers across their channel of choice — and you’re comfortable working exclusively through tickets — then Kustomer could be a good option for you. But if your brand is looking to scale with a full-featured, omnichannel CX platform that puts people at the center — Gladly is a more comprehensive choice.

To see how Gladly can be your ideal CX partner, try a demo and start seeing the difference our conversation-driven system can make.

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