In today’s fast-paced, highly connected digital environment, providing exceptional customer service is more important than ever. To achieve client expectations for prompt responses and customized service, businesses must discover efficient and effective solutions. Live chat platforms for customer assistance are useful in this situation. Live chat tools offer a useful and fast channel of communication that enables companies to communicate with their customers instantly, address their inquiries and issues, and deliver prompt solutions. With capabilities like chat transcripts, file sharing, and proactive chat invitations, these solutions help to enhance customer satisfaction, expedite the customer support process, and ultimately help to build stronger customer connections. Making the smart choice to incorporate live chat solutions into your customer service plan will help you maintain your competitiveness in this quickly changing market.
Key Features of Live Chat Tools
A variety of features are available in live chat customer support systems that are intended to improve communication and speed up the assistance procedure. Here are some crucial characteristics that live chat systems frequently have:
1. Real-time messaging:
Customers and support staff can communicate instantly and in real-time via live chat technologies, which enables quick responses to questions and problems.
2. Support for numerous channels:
These solutions frequently support a number of channels, including website chat, mobile apps, social media platforms, and messaging apps, giving users a variety of ways to contact assistance.
3. Automated greetings:
Live chat systems can welcome website visitors or initiate a conversation automatically. This adds personalized touch and engages visitors right away.
4. Integration with chatbot technology:
Integration with chatbot technology enables automated solutions to frequently asked queries, inquiry routing to the proper department, and agent assistance by supplying pertinent information.
5. Sharing data and documents:
Live chat technologies make it possible for agents and clients to exchange files, papers, screenshots, and photos, which speed up problem-solving and issue resolution.
6. Canded responses:
Pre-defined responses, sometimes known as “canned” messages, can be saved in the live chat interface to allow agents to swiftly address frequent questions or problems while still preserving consistency and saving time.
7. Chat transfer and routing:
Live chat platforms frequently come with features that let agents route talks to more qualified team members or escalate them to supervisors, ensuring that clients receive the best support possible.
Learn more: 10 Best Live Chat Software For Websites in 2023
Overviews of the 10 Best Live Chat Tools for Customer Support
1. Olark
Olark is a specialised chat solution with lots of cutting-edge features for teams who want to utilize live chat frequently. Your team can use Olark’s automation features and chatbots, artificial intelligence systems that communicate with customers instead of a live person, in addition to the usual live chat services, to divert tickets.
Pre-chat surveys can also help you better understand your strengths and areas for improvement by providing context and in-depth data. Additionally, they provide some quite sophisticated add-on functions, including co-browsing and live chat translation.
Cost: Starting at $29 per month per seat.
2. Thankful AI
Thankful AI is the top-tier AI solution for an email, chat, SMS, and social media in the retail sector. The Thankful multi-channel AI solution is integrated into your help desk and can handle a large volume of customer support queries automatically (without the need for human involvement) while also providing Agent Assist capabilities to boost agent productivity and decrease handle time.
A brand’s support team may also save money, increase customer satisfaction, and offer a better client experience around-the-clock with the use of Thankful AI.
The price is determined by product characteristics and ticket sales. Contact us to learn more!
3. Userlike
Userlike is the best option if you’re seeking for a reputable all-in-one live chat and customer messaging solution. With this unified messaging service, businesses may receive messages from several channels, including website chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and more, in a single central inbox. It provides a powerful Website Messenger that businesses can easily integrate into their website. Assist website visitors in their purchasing process and foster enduring relationships with your clients. Strong customer support tools including scripted messaging, file sharing, live translations, voice messages, and video calls with screen sharing enable service representatives to assist consumers.
You may use Userlike’s AI Automation Hub to automate your service and develop self-learning chatbots, intelligent FAQ pages, and contact form suggestions that are all linked to a common knowledge base that learns over time. Additionally, data security comes foremost. Because of this, Userlike is a GDPR-compliant customer communication solution because the software is created and hosted in Germany.
Price: A free plan is offered. Premium Plan with 4 operator seats, 4 widgets, and 2 chat applications beginning at €90/month.
4. LiveChat
LiveChat can be an excellent alternative for your team if you’re interested in offering both reactive and proactive help through chat. They not only enable real-time communication but also the automatic sending of customized messages to site visitors in an effort to proactively engage them.
LiveChat can manage even the most demanding teams because to its sophisticated reporting, chatbot features, and team management tools. The more sophisticated capabilities and some of the reporting features, however, are only available on their more expensive plans, it should be noted.
Price: Starting at $16 a month for each agent.
5. Chaport
Chaport is a good choice for organizations who are keen on using chatbots to speed up first responses. Although their chatbot functionality starts at a lesser price ($23 per a user per month), they provide features that are comparable to those of the chat solutions mentioned above. In addition, they provide a free package for users that only requires extremely basic chat features.
Price: Free plan available. Monthly fees for paid plans begin at $15 per operator.
Learn more: Top Live Chat Software for Small Businesses in 2023
6. Acquire
Another specialized assistance tool is Acquire. Despite the fact that the bulk of the other businesses on the list offer services that are relatively comparable to theirs, they do have one distinct advantage over the competition: social media integration.
Teams who routinely interact on chat and social media sites like Instagram and TikTok may find Acquire to be a strong contender. Keep in mind nevertheless that it is more pricey.
For price details, please contact us.
7. Podium
Podium provides a variety of services, such as video chat, web chat, and SMS (text) marketing. They are essentially whole chat messaging platform.
They are a wonderful alternative for teams looking for that increased capability, but they might not be appropriate for smaller teams or those just getting started with chat.
Starting at $189 per month, the cost.
8. Chatlio
Chatlio can be a fantastic chat solution for you if your company uses Slack. You can chat with clients via their app right from Slack. To make your chat windows consistent with your brand, they offer quick setup and some modest customization options.
The lower-cost plans have some plan limitations that, depending on the volume anticipated, might be a concern, but otherwise, it is a solid candidate.
Price: Starting at $29 per month, the cost.
9. SnapEngage
SnapEngage could be a strong choice for you if you require multi-channel chat alternatives or are keen on chatbot services. They are able to communicate with users logging in via Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and a few other channels even with their basic package.
In addition, as was already noted, they provide a variety of chatbot alternatives, but only as possibilities for their more expensive subscriptions.
Price: Get prices by getting in touch.
10. HubSpot Live Chat
HubSpot Live Chat is a crucial live chat tool for customer support service. By offering website users real-time support, it enables businesses to provide great customer care. HubSpot Live Chat guarantees a seamless chat experience for both clients and support professionals thanks to its user-friendly UI and simple setup.
The platform also enables proactive engagement through targeted messaging and chatbots, allowing organizations to start discussions in response to particular triggers. Companies can improve their customer support efforts and offer quick answers to customer questions and issues by utilizing the power of HubSpot Live Chat.
Price: Free.
Conclusion
In conclusion, live chat solutions have completely changed how companies offer customer service. These solutions have significantly improved the client experience by providing real-time communication, quick responses, and individualized help. Quick resolution of questions and issues has strengthened brand loyalty, raised conversion rates, and increased consumer happiness. Additionally, using live chat platforms helps businesses collect useful consumer information, understand customer behavior, and make data-driven decisions to improve their goods and services. Live chat systems will probably develop further as technology progresses, adding automation and artificial intelligence to deliver even more effective and efficient customer assistance. Adopting live chat tools is now a requirement for companies that want to survive.
