Interaction is all that matters now, be it a chatbot Or a human. More than 82% of US and 74% of non-US clients want to use more chatbots in the future. It is the main reason why using the right technology in the service of customers is so crucial.
You can reduce cart abandonment on a website by 25% if the right live chat aligns with your business goals.
Suppose you are looking for the best alternative to live chat. Live chat may not fit your business because you need to outgrow it or need a more advanced solution. In that case, you can check out some available alternatives below.
Stay with this blog. This will help you to shortlist the best among all, considering their features and prices.
What is live chat?
LiveChat is an online customer service software launched in 2002, currently developed in a SaaS business model by LiveChat software. It engages the website visitors with business in real-time through messaging.
What does live chat offer?
Here are some advanced features of Live Chat.
- Browse chat history with a particular customer
- Enable customers to queue and begin chats with specific clients
- Get notifications about chats and conferences
- Invite available agents to chat and organize conferences.
- Proactively engage your customers to chat
- Manage and request a customer's desktop using Remote Desktop functionality
- See customers' details, including page and geolocalization
- Spell check in real-time using suggestions and custom dictionaries support
- Supervise chats
- In a real-time talk with unlimited customers at the same time
- Transfer customers to another agent
- Whisper to other helpdesk team agents and help with the sales process
- Fill out the Post-chat Survey and assess a team agent's service
Pricing of Live Chat.
Starter
$16/mo
Per agent billed annually
Or $19 month to month
- 60-day chat history
- Basic widget customization
- Ticketing system
Team
$33/mo
Per agent billed annually
Or $39 month to month
- Unlimited chat history
- Full widget customization
- Ticketing system
- Data security
- Automated greetings
- Basic reporting
- Agent groups
- Multiple brandings
Business
$50/mo
Per agent billed annually
Or $59 month to month
- Unlimited chat history
- Full widget customization
- Ticketing system
- Data security
- Automated greetings
- Advanced Reporting
- Agent groups
- Multiple brandings
- Staffing prediction
- Work scheduler
Enterprise
- Unlimited chat history
- Full widget customization
- Ticketing system
- Data security
- Automated greetings
- Advanced Reporting
- Agent groups
- Multiple brandings
Top 7 alternatives to Live Chat.
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is an online cloud-based customer service software. It includes live chat, email, phone, and social media and is easy to use.
Freshdesk features:
- Self Service Portal
- Satisfaction Surveys
- Multi-product/Multi-brand Support
- Multiple Service Level Agreement policies
- Multi-language & Multi-time zone support
- Multi-channel support, including Facebook & Twitter
- Leaderboard & gamification
- Knowledge Base
- Integrations: Freshbooks, Google Apps, Harvest, CapsuleCRM
- Email to Ticket Conversion
- Community Portal with Idea Management & Voting
- Automations – Ticket routing, scenario automation
Freshdesk pricing:
Free
Up to 10 agents
- Email & Social Ticketing
- Ticket Dispatch
- Knowledge Base
- Ticket Trend Report
- Data Center Location
Growth
For fast growth
₹999 /agent/month, billed annually
₹1199 /agent/month, billed monthly
- Everything is Free and
- Automation
- Collision Detection
- Marketplace Apps
- Helpdesk Report
- SLA & Business hour
- Custom Email Server
- Custom Ticket Views
- Ticket Fields & Status
- Custom SSL
- Customer Fields
- Timesheet summary report
- Time tracking
Pro
For high performance
₹3599 /agent/month, billed annually
₹4299 /agent/month, billed monthly
- Everything in Growth and…
- Round-robin Routing
- Custom Reports and Dashboards
- Versions in Knowledge Base
- Multiple Products (up to 5)
- Includes up to 5000 Collaborators
- Extendable API Limits
- CSAT Survey & Reports
- Multiple SLA & Business hours
- SLA Reminder & Escalation
- Multilingual Knowledge Base
- Custom Apps
- Average handling Time (AHT)
Enterprise(POPULAR)
For Enterprise-grade support
₹5699 /agent/month, billed annually
₹6899 /agent/month, billed monthly
- Everything in Pro and…
- Skill-based Routing
- Sandbox
- Audit Log
- Knowledge Base Approval Workflow
- Agent Shifts
- IP Range Restriction
- Email Bot
- Includes 5000 bot sessions/month
- Assist Bot
- Auto-triage
- Article Suggester
- Canned Response Suggester
- Multiple products (Unlimited)
- Social Signals
- Flexible Hierarchy
- Custom Objects
BotPenguin
BotPenguin is an AI-powered chatbot software which easily builds incredible chatbots to engage with your customers on various websites, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and other platforms.
BotPenguin features:
- Natural Language Processing
- Zero Development Time
- Zero Setup Cost
- Conversational UI
- Deep Analytics
- Easy to Integrate
- Cost Effective
- Easily Customized
- Strong Validation
- Human Handover
- Multiple Messaging Channels
- Branching
- Capable of Being Trained
- Chatbot
- Code-free Development
- Live Chat
- Multi-Language
- Pre-Configured Bot
- Speech Recognition
BotPenguin Pricing:
Baby – Free
- 1 Bot
- 2,000 Messages Per Month
- 1 Team Member
- 1 Facebook Page
- Live Chat
- Conditional Flow
- 30 Days of Data Storage
King – $5/month ($4.17/month if billed annually)
- Unlimited Bots
- 3,000 – 500,000 messages/month
- Unlimited Team Members
- 10 Facebook Pages
- Live Chat
- Conditional Flow
- Book Appointments
- Reports & Analytics
- Email and Call Support
Emperor – By quote
- Live Chat
- Conditional Flow
- Book Appointments
- CSV Export
- Customer Success Officer
- Google Calendar, Bitrix, and Zoho CRM Integrations
- Reports & Analytics
- Remove BotPenguin Branding
Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk derives from the Zoho corporation, a cloud-based help desk solution. It provides large integration.
Zoho Desk features:
- Case Management
- CRM integration
- Customer Support
- Knowledge Management
- Mobile Support
- Mobile App
- Call Recording
- Call Management
- Self Service Portal
- Assignment Management
- Customer Feedback
- Workflow Management
- Email Management
- Call Center Management
- Call Monitoring
- Call Logging
- Ticketing System
- Social Support Software
- Agent Productivity
- Company-wide Collaboration
- Knowledge Base and Forums
- Help Desk Essentials
- Reporting and Insights
Zoho desk pricing:
FREE
₹0
3 Free Agents
- Email Ticketing
- Customer Management
- Help Center
- Private Knowledge Base
- Predefined SLAs
- Macros
- Multi-language Help Desk
- Mobile Apps
- 24x5 Email Support
STANDARD
₹800 /agent/month billed annually
Features from FREE +
- Social & Community Channels
- Product-based Ticket Management
- Help Center Themes Gallery
- Public Knowledge Base
- SLAs & Escalations
- Workflow, Assignment & Supervise Rules
- Customer Happiness Ratings
- Reports & Dashboards
- Work Modes for Tickets
PROFESSIONAL
₹1,400 /agent/month billed annually
Features from STANDARD +
- Multi-Department Ticketing
- Team Management
- Telephony
- Automatic Time Tracking
- Multilingual Knowledge Base
- Blueprint - Basic Process Management
- Round Robin Ticket Assignment
- Agent Collision
- Tasks, Events & Call Activities
- Ticket Templates
- Private Marketplace Extensions
- SLA Dashboards
- Ticket Sharing
ENTERPRISE
₹2,400 /agent/month billed annually
Features from PROFESSIONAL +
- Live Chat
- Help Center Customization
- Multi-brand Help Center
- Advanced Process Management
- Multi-level IVR
- Global Reports & Dashboards
- Scheduled Reports
- Contract Management
- Validation Rules
- Layout Rules
- Field Watching
- Multiple Business Hours & Holidays
- Role-based Data Sharing
- 50 Light Agents
Drift
It is a conversational marketing and sales technology company. It facilitates communication with potential customers and helps to generate leads.
Drift features:
- Rep Profiles
- Activity History
- Conversation Qualified Leads
- Follow Contacts
- Enriched Data
- Overall Performance Metrics
- Dynamic Routing
- Smart Notifications
- Live View
- #DriftLinks
- Lead Bot
- Saved Replies
- Conversation Reporting
- Advanced Targeting
- Knowledge Bot
- Per Playbook Reporting
- Email Fallback
- Agent Reporting
- Email Playbooks
- Chat Targeting
- Inbound/Outbound Sales Playbook
- Agent Status
- Book Meetings
Drift pricing:
Free
- Great for small businesses.
PREMIUM
- Everything is Free, plus:
- Custom Chatbots:
- Drift Intel
- Drift for Salesforce App
- Encryption at Rest
- Drift Deal Room
ADVANCED
- Everything in Premium, plus:
- Drift Fastlane
- Drift Audiences
- A/B Testing
- Advanced Lead Routing
ENTERPRISE
- Everything in Advanced, plus:
- Drift Workspaces
- Multiple Languages
- AI-Powered Chatbots
- Custom RBAC
Crisp
Crisp is a cloud-based helpdesk platform that lets you centralize and unify your customers' profiles.
Crisp features:
- Data Import/Export
- Document Storage
- Email Automation
- File Transfer
- Geotargeting
- Group Messaging
- Help Desk Management
- Human Handover
- Interaction Tracking
- Knowledge Base Management
- Live Chat
- Macros/Templated Responses
- Product Recommendations
- Reporting/Analytics
- SMS Messaging
- Surveys & Feedback
- Third-Party Integrations
- Transcripts/Chat History
- Transfers/Routing
- Two-Way Audio & Video
- Auto-Responders
- Automated Routing
- CRM
- Campaign Management
Crisp pricing:
Basic
Free
Forever
Two seats included
- Live chat
- Team inbox
- Mobile apps
- Contact form.
Pro
$25
Month / Per Workspace
Four seats included
- Triggers
- Unlimited history
- Canned responses
- Unlimited history
- Customization
- Audio messages
- Telegram
Unlimited
$95
Month / Per Workspace
20 seats included
- Knowledge base
- Status page
- Chat reminders
- Live translate
- Video chat
- Magicbrowse.
Zendesk
Zendesk is an American company that unifies everything to support your company's needs and provides software as a service product.
Zendesk features:
- Phone, chat, email, web, and social media are all multi-channel support.
- Flexible ticket management with automated workflow
- Branded customer-facing web interface
- Powerful reporting and advanced analytics
- Multi-brand support with linked accounts
- Community forums
- Screencasting
- Group rules and macros
- Multi locale (timezone and languages)
- Public and private forums
- Open API
- Real-time updates
Zendesk Pricing:
Suite Team
US$ 49 per user/month billed annually
- Industry-leading ticketing system
- Messaging across web, mobile and social
- Email, voice, SMS, and live chat support
- Easy-to-set up automation & workflows
Suite Growth
US$ 79 per user/month billed annually
- Industry-leading ticketing system
- Messaging across web, mobile and social
- Email, voice, SMS, and live chat support
- Easy-to-set up automation & workflows with additional options
Suite Professional
US$ 99 per user/month billed annually
- Industry-leading ticketing system
- Messaging across web, mobile and social
- Email, voice, SMS, and live chat support
Tidio
Tidio is an all-in-one customer service platform. It is powerful and helps to drive more sales. It combines both live chat and chatbot to provide super customer service.
Tidio features:
- AI/Machine Learning
- Alerts / Escalation
- Augmented Analytics
- Automated Responses
- Automated Routing
- Live Chat
- Multi-Language
- Natural Language Processing
- Offline Form
- Proactive Chat
- Process/Workflow Automation
- Query Suggestions
- Canned Responses
- Chat/Messaging
- Chatbot
- Code-free Development
- Complaint Monitoring
- Email Management
- Feedback Management
- For Sales / Marketing
- Geotargeting
- Interaction Tracking
- Lead Capture
- Lead Qualification
- Third-Party Integrations
- Transfers/Routing
- Virtual Assistant
- Website Visitor Tracking
- Workflow Management
Tidio pricing:
Free
Up to 3 operators
- 100 users engaged with chatbots
- 50 users contacted on Live Chat
- Desktop & mobile apps
- Visitors Info
- 3rd party apps integration
Chatbots
$39
USD/mo.
- All the Free Features
- 40,000 users engaged with Chatbots
- Unlimited active chatbots
- Chatbot templates
- Visual chatbot editor
Communicator
$19
USD/mo.
Up to 5 operators
- All the Free Features
- Unlimited Live Chat conversations
- Team departments
- Live Typing
- Viewed Pages
- Live Visitors List
- Permissions
Final takeaway.
Live chat is an amazing tool for your business. It completely understands your needs and comes with a website and a mobile app. They provide you with a 14-day free trial without asking for credit information. It is not only present for chatting but also manages other support correspondences. However, it may not be the best fit for you.
You can judge the alternatives through aspects like the size of your business and budget. Also, your needs, goals, and most importantly, what you want out of the software.
Once you consider the following, you can narrow your choices and select the best option.
Related articles: https://botpenguin.com/livechat-review
