Live chat software is a type of customer service software that helps businesses improve customer relations, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction. A live chat software helps your customer support teams and sales teams handle customer interactions in a more streamlined way.
A live chat software simplifies communication between you and your audience. Whenever a visitor comes onto your website, a chat window opens up. In the chat pop-up, users can ask questions, leave comments, or submit requests. Which are then answered in real-time.
Live chat software is used by businesses all over the globe. Having a live chat software on your website means potential buyers will get in touch with you automatically instead of leaving a mail and waiting for long delays between replies.
Why Use Live Chat Software?
Live chat is a convenient way to connect with your audience. Using live chat software, you can improve customer service and support for both your current and potential customers.
It focuses on fostering greater engagement and offers excellent customer service. Live chat software assists online businesses in capturing visitor information and reducing bounce rates.
Proactive messages in the chat box encourage visitors to converse and you can even set up some predefined messages to inform them of important business events like new product launches, live sessions, and offers.
Benefits of Live Chat Software
Let’s talk about the 4 main key benefits of live chat software.
- Get Answers Instantly
You can add chat boxes to your website pages using live chat software. These software allow for real-time live chat communication between users and human agents or AI chatbots. It is a quick and effective way to address questions from guests.
The customer experience is ultimately improved because it offers the visitor a real-time solution.
- Have Continuous Conversations
Emails and phone calls might not be as quick as live chat. The majority of people do not like making calls, and some people do not like mail because it is a slow process.
However, live chat is quicker than calls and emails and saves previous conversations for use in the future.
- Personalize Every Conversation
Live chat software offers a straightforward and easy-to-use interface. Just like other instant messaging programmes, both the customer and the agents can use emojis and animation.
A touch of personalization can make the users feel at ease and establish a rapport.
- Affordable Real-Time Communication
Live chat software is easy to implement and it doesn’t cost too much. Live chat software can be used in your work even if you run a small business. It is affordable and does not require the hiring of any IT teams or similar services.
Buying Factors of Live Chat Software
There is a wide variety of live chat software available on the market that you can use to take your business to the next level.
How can you pick the best live chat software for your company, is the question. Not to worry! Here are some essential features to look for in a live chat software.
1. User-Friendliness
User-friendliness is one of the important things to look for in live chat software. A user-friendly environment and customised features help you create a personalized user experience. You can add your company’s logo, colors, and fonts, for instance, and you can also get rid of features that are unnecessary for your objective.
2. An Array of Features
Automated campaigns, chatbots, event-based messaging, chat routing options, co-browsing and screen-sharing, and a priority inbox are some features that live chat software should have.
However, the specific feature you need should depend on your use case. So, if they don’t add anything useful to your work, you can ignore them.
3. Deployment Model
A cloud-based deployment model is always the best option. Why? Because your live chat can be made quicker, simpler to set up, and more affordable, and it keeps you connected to contemporary technology.
Though, in some circumstances, you may also choose the on-premise deployment model. This is helpful only when you can invest more money when your operations are more rigid and when you have a huge customer base.
4. Omni-Channel Capabilities
The majority of users prefer live chat software because it has omnichannel capabilities. A multi-channel strategy enables you to reach more clients. Choose live chat software that enables marketing with customer support software and gives you access to more channels, such as third-party integration and mobile readiness.
5. Budget
Sometimes, despite liking all the features of your live chat software, the cost is out of your price range. Because of this, it’s important to select high-quality software with a price that works for your company and doesn’t leave you perplexed about pricing.
6. Analytics and Reporting
The majority of live chat software offers some level of analytics and reporting; while they are not always precise, they are still helpful. Before buying, you can try out the live chat application.
Live Chat Software Pricing
Because there are so many plans and options available, live chat software pricing can be confusing. However, if you are clear about your needs and requirements, you may be able to make a decision much easier.
Before buying a live chat tool, you should consider the common pricing structures that come with live chat software:
- Free Plans
Thankfully, most live chat software comes with a free plan for an unlimited time. This is the perfect option for small businesses or if you just want to see how it works.
Free plans help you gain a good idea about the importance of the live chat software. While the free plan doesn’t offer all the features, but still, it can still help you get a better understanding.
- Per Agent Pricing
Vendors charge according to the number of agents they have each month when they use per-agent pricing.
This means that you must select a solution that is appropriate for the size of your team while also ensuring that it won’t negatively impact you when your team size needs to be increased or decreased.
- Pricing Based On Volume
Pricing based on volume means charges depend on the size of the traffic that comes to your website. However, if you are running an e-commerce website, maybe it will not work for you, but it is great for niche businesses that have good traffic on their website.
- Pay-Per-Lead Pricing
Instead of paying a set fee, you only pay for the number of leads you generate over the course of a month or year under this model. According to the vendor, lead prices generally range from $18 to $40 per lead.
5 Best Live Chat Software
| Tool | Best For | Standard Feature | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveChat | Overall functionality | Easy to setup | From $24/month for 1 user |
| tawk.to | A free option | Option to choose your own pricing models instead of set ones | Free for unlimited users; paid add-on options available |
| Re:amaze | User experience | Powerful automation options | From $29/month for 1 user |
| Zendesk Support | A full-featured service suite | Integration with other channels | From $25/user/month |
| LiveAgent | Agent gamification | Helpful gamification features | From $9/user/month |
1. LiveChat – Best Overall Live Chat App
LiveChat is one of the overall best live chat app you’ll find. LiveChat offers a number of support-focused features that are perfect for most small teams.
LiveChat offers a clean, and modern chat console. You can find all the functionalities of the tool chats, traffic, tickets, reports, settings, and help, and other in the left side of the screen.
The installation process is super easy and takes only a couple of seconds. Once you get the tool up and running, everything else is easy to manage. But if you somehow get stuck in the process, you can access the 24x7x365 phone, email, and chat support.
It offers all the important features you may want such as chat transfer, message sneak peek, and transcripts. There’s also a Messaging Mode, which lets you and your customers communicate by chat and email. Even after the business mode, a customer can send the chat and it will be waiting for your team in the chat queue.
You can connect LiveChat to a range of integrations including the Zapier integrations which lets you do things like adding LiveChat contacts to HubSpot or tracking LiveChat conversations in Google Sheets.
| Pros of LiveChat: | Cons of LiveChat: |
|---|---|
| A super solid, fully-featured live chat option | Can be expensive for a multi-user pricing model |
| Very quick to set up and easy to use |
2. Tawk.to – Best Free Live Chat for Websites
Tawk.to is one of the most well-known live chat software in the market and it’s completely free. It offers unlimited users, automated triggers, chat whisper, a knowledge base, and so much more.
The tool is completely free forever unless you add AI assist (that costs $29/month), video + voice + screen sharing ($29/month). If you want additional features then you may have to pay more.
Tawk.to is loved by a number of small businesses as it’s completely free and offers a number of features. The chat widget is completely customizable, which allows you to set when and where it’s visible on your website. There’s also a consent form option and a scheduler to enable and disable the chat widget online automatically.
Tawk.to also comes with a knowledge base, which lets you create a subdomain that you can use to share articles with customers and for your agents to use internally. Your customers will also be able to find answers to their questions using the search box.
While the app is completely free, it also offers 24x7x365 chat support. You can also connect tawk.to with other apps in your tech stack.
| Pros of Tawk.to: | Cons of Tawk.to: |
|---|---|
| Almost all features are completely free | Have to pay to remove the branding |
| Complete control over any extra features | Limited integrations compared to other options |
3. Re:amaze – Best Live Chat Application for User Experience
Re:amaze makes providing customer support easier for businesses. It’s a modern-day live chat app with a FAQ/knowledge base. If you want a live chat software that comes with in-built ticketing, Re:amaze is not for you.
Re:amaze can also classify user questions with a feature called Intents. You can use these as intents as triggers in a Workflow that will perform a certain act if the requirements are met.
We used Re:amaze for a while and it’s a pleasure to use because everything you may need is right in the app.
| Pros of Re:amaze: | Cons of Re:amaze: |
|---|---|
| Modern app which is easy to use | No integrated ticketing system |
| Powerful automation tools |
4. Zendesk – Best Live Chat App With Range of Features
No list of customer support tools can be completed without mentioning Zendesk. Zendesk service suite offers everything a business could need to handle service needs. If you need an all-in-one ticketing solution, it’s a great option. But if you’re a small business that just wants a live chat tool, Zendesk may be too much for you.
Zendesk is a full-fledged customer support suite, and while live chat is a huge component, it’s far more than that. If you don’t want multiple agents across departments using a powerful ticketing system, then this may be for you.
| Pros of Zendesk: | Cons of Zendesk: |
|---|---|
| Affordable full-service ticket-based help desk solution | Not ideal for small businesses |
| Can be integrated with almost every channel |
5. LiveAgent – Best Live Chat for Agent Gamification
LiveAgent offers a gamified version of metric tracking that makes customer support fun for your representatives. Moreover, your agents can earn badges for different support levels.
You can customize each one based on conditions, such as number of chats handled each hour, answers per hour, missed chats, and several dozen others. You can also customize the badges for the fastest chat response times. Anything you want, you can customize the labels.
Apart from gamification features, LiveAgent offers a full customer support suite that you can integrate with Twitter and Facebook to manage your company’s social channels.
The only downside we could find about LiveAgent, it’s the excessive use of unexplained, and unlabeled icons that can be quite confusing for the new users.
| Pros of LiveAgent: | |
|---|---|
| Gamification is incredibly robust | Interface can be confusing for new users |
| An affordable full-service customer support suite |
