Businesses strive to enhance their customer interactions and engagement by providing real-time communication.
Having the right live chat software helps businesses provide quick support and self-service options to their customers.
Although LiveChat is widely used and has a wide range of real-time features conducive to company growth and rapid customer query resolution, it is not without its limitations.
Its high cost, complicated user interface, and restricted customization options often make businesses explore other LiveChat alternatives.
These LiveChat alternatives offer stronger automation, enhanced engagement, and revenue-boosting capabilities.
In this blog, we’ll explore the top LiveChat alternatives so you can choose the best solution for your company’s needs.
Why look for a LiveChat alternative?
LiveChat is not perfect as a real-time assistance platform. It has drawbacks, some of which might be reason enough for some businesses to opt for other alternatives. Below are some of its downsides.
- Financial considerations: LiveChat’s per-agent pricing can be expensive for larger teams, especially if you’re a small business or a startup. The starter plan costs $20/agent/month, which can be difficult for small to medium-sized businesses.
- Customization: LiveChat’s customization options are restricted, and premium plans are needed to customize chat keys and the enterprise package to remove LiveChat’s brand logo. This may limit the ability to provide a unique customer experience, especially for businesses with unique branding or user flows. More customizable alternatives could offer a better fit.
- Integration requirements: Businesses relying on specific software or services may find LiveChat integrations insufficient. Alternatives with wider or multiple integrations can simplify workflows.
- Products that require additional features: LiveChat’s pricing structure for chat, help desks, and knowledge bases may increase business costs and difficulty, requiring more administration and integration time. As a result, businesses will search for other alternatives.
- Complexity: Businesses may opt for alternatives to LiveChat due to its challenging user interface, which could lead to implementation delays and require additional training for customer support agents.
- Support: If you are not satisfied with the level of customer support provided by LiveChat, you may look for alternatives that offer better support and are quicker to respond to your inquiries to increase your level of loyalty.
- Innovation: Other LiveChat solutions might offer more innovative features, better user experiences, or newer technologies that align better with your business goals and customer expectations.
How to choose the best LiveChat alternative
To select the best LiveChat alternative for your business, it’s crucial to understand your unique requirements and how they relate to the features offered by different platforms.
Here are steps to help you determine the best option:
- Establish your requirements: Specify your requirements for a LiveChat solution. Please consider aspects such as the number of customer queries and desired features you would like to have. For example, if inquiries overburden your support teams, find a solution with an excellent tool for automation or canned responses.
- Consider customer support: Customer service from the platform vendor is crucial, especially throughout the installation and expansion periods. Assess their level of assistance, documentation, tutorials, and resources to maximize platform usage.
- Check for integration: It’s critical that LiveChat alternatives seamlessly integrate with your existing systems and tools, such as CRM software or reporting and analytics tools, to ensure a smooth workflow and effective data management.
- Consider user experience: Evaluate the user interface and experience of each LiveChat feature. The tool should provide a smooth experience for your support teams and customers.
- Think about the features: When comparing LiveChat alternatives, prioritize tools that offer features required by your support teams, such as multilingual support, mobile support, reporting and analytics, and CRM integration.
- Assess flexibility and ease of use: As your business grows, consider using user-friendly LiveChat alternatives for your support teams and customers.
Top 11 LiveChat Alternatives for Customer Support
Here are the top LiveChat alternatives to enhance your customer interactions and engagement.
BoldDesk
BoldDesk is a cloud-based customer service software with a comprehensive suite of features for streamlining customer support. BoldDesk‘s live chat feature offers businesses a simple yet powerful way to enhance real time customer communication.
With just a single line of code, you can easily integrate the live chat widget into your website or app and customize it to match your brand’s aesthetic.
Support agents can view customers’ immediate browsing history to tailor their interactions. They can provide offline support by emailing responses if the customer leaves the chat early, and they can save chat transcripts for future reference.
Features
- Chat widget customization
- Chat history and email transcripts
- Efficient AI-assist features
- Mobile chat support
- Omnichannel support
- Offline messaging support
- Detailed reporting and analytics
- Delivery and read receipt notifications
- Seamless integration with popular productivity tools
- Ticket creation from chats
- Advanced privacy and security
BoldDesk pricing plans
- Scale: $12 per agent/month
- Momentum: $25 per agent/month
- Enterprise: $39 per agent/month
Include tiered pricing options for teams with 10, 25, 50 or 100 agents.
- Scale: $49/month for 10 agents
- Momentum: $129/month for 10 agents
- Enterprise: $199/month for 10 agents
- Standard: $799/month
- Pro: $1499/month ($1999 with Live chat included)
- Business: Talk to us
Our exclusive program tailored for startups gives you 10 Momentum plan agents for free for your first year.
Schedule a live demo to see how BoldDesk’s live chat software can enrich your customer engagement strategy.
To experience its main capabilities for yourself, sign up for a 15-day free trial.
Zendesk
Zendesk offers a live chat feature as part of its customer service platform, allowing businesses to connect with website visitors and customers in real time.
Customers may contact support teams through various channels on the platform to handle any problems they might have while using its services.
With Zendesk, customers can receive instant assistance and enjoy a seamless experience.
Key features
- Chat widget
- Real-time messaging
- Canned responses
- Customization
Pricing: Starts at $19 per month
Free trial: 14 days
Intercom
Intercom is a customer messaging platform with a chat feature that allows customer communication and engagement.
The chat feature enables businesses to interact with their website visitors or app users in real-time, allowing immediate support.
It improves customer relationships and enhances business performance regardless of volume or convenience.
Key features
- Chat
- Automated answers
- Mobile apps
- Apps + integrations
Pricing: Starts at $39/seat/month
Free trial: 14 days
Zoho SalesIQ
Zoho SalesIQ is a customer service tool that provides an excellent alternative to LiveChat. With Zoho SalesIQ, your customers can easily contact you for support on your website and other channels.
Unlike traditional chat solutions, Zoho SalesIQ offers advanced features that enable you to communicate with your users more often and provide them with personalized assistance around the clock.
Key features
- Chat
- Instant messaging
- Visitor tracking
Pricing: Starts at $7/user/month
Free trial: 14 days
Olark
Olark is a chat platform that allows businesses to effectively communicate with their customers in real-time, providing instant support and assistance.
By centralizing customer data, this platform offers businesses insights from chat interactions that they can use to enhance their products and services.
With Olark, businesses can improve customer engagement and create a better user experience.
Key features
- Customizations
- Chat
- Automated messages
- Real-time chat
Pricing: Starts at $29 per month
Free trial: 14 days
Tidio
Tidio is an alternative to LiveChat, enabling businesses to engage with website visitors in real time through chat.
Tidio’s platform empowers businesses to provide personalized customer service, capture leads, and enhance the overall user experience on their websites
Unlike LiveChat, Tidio caters to seasoned chat tool users and those new to the system.
Key features
- Chat
- Ticketing
- Messaging channels
- Analytics
Pricing: Starts at $29/user/month
Free trial: 7 days
Help Scout
Help Scout is a LiveChat alternative that provides tools for managing customer issues, support tickets, and communications.
While Help Scout primarily focuses on email-based customer support, it offers an integrated chat feature called Beacon.
This feature provides proactive customer service for quick support when needed.
Key features
- App messaging
- Integration
- Chat
- Shared inbox
Pricing: Starts at $20/user/month
Free trial: 15 days
tawk.to
tawk.to is another LiveChat alternative. This software enables you to add a chat widget to your website quickly.
With tawk.to you can monitor and chat with your website visitors without putting a strain on your budget.
Key features
- Chat
- Agent-to-agent messaging
- Tags
- Group messaging
Pricing: Free
LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a platform that provides a chat widget to connect with customers immediately.
This software enables you to direct chats to the appropriate department, and with other features, you can evaluate and enhance operator performance.
When it comes to customer support, LiveAgent is extremely good. It guarantees users the necessary support and upgrades to fulfil their changing requirements.
Key features
- Chat
- Ticketing system
- Call centers
- Social media help desk
- Customer service reporting
Pricing: Starts at $9 per agent
Free trial: 14 days
Hiver
Hiver is a customer service tool that simplifies communication with customers by integrating chat into its existing email management tools.
This allows businesses to provide multichannel customer support.
This enables support agents to respond to inquiries, resolve issues, and engage with customers in real-time through email and chat channels.
Unlike LiveChat, Hiver manages your customer support operations without requiring you to run several systems.
Key features
- Email management
- Multichannel support
- Collaborations
- Integrations
Pricing: Starts at $15/user/ month
Free trial: 7 days
Ocelot
Ocelot is one of the LiveChat alternative designed specifically for students in higher education who require help with serious issues.
With regular advice and assistance, the platform helps students create and sustain unique relationships with artificial intelligence and human intelligence.
The software is designed to cater to student’s unique needs and the requirements of colleges and universities, offering features and functionalities to support student engagement.
Ocelot provides a straightforward implementation process that reduces complexity.
Key features
- Chatbot integration
- AI support
- File sharing and video chat
Pricing: Has no pricing plans
LiveChat alternatives comparison table
While LiveChat is a great solution for various teams, more suitable options may be available. Depending on features and affordability, here are a few LiveChat alternatives to consider.
| LiveChat alternatives | LiveChat | Pricing starts at | Free trial |
| BoldDesk | Yes | $12 per agent/month | Yes |
| Zendesk | No (Chatbot) | $19 per month | Yes |
| Intercom | Yes | $39/ seat/month | Yes |
| Zoho SalesIQ | Yes | $7/user/month | Yes |
| Olark | Yes | $29 per month | Yes |
| Tidio | Yes | $29/user/month | Yes |
| Help Scout | Yes | $20/user/month | Yes |
| tawk.to | Yes | Free | Yes |
| LiveAgent | Yes | $9 per agent | Yes |
| Hiver | No (Chat widget) | $15/user/ month | Yes |
| Ocelot | Yes | – | Has no pricing plans |
Select the best LiveChat alternatives for your business
When choosing the best LiveChat alternatives for your business, it’s crucial to consider features, costs, flexibility, and integration capabilities. LiveChat is a reliable tool, but it may not be the most suitable option for every business.
Therefore, if you’re looking for LiveChat alternatives, this list of tools will help you find the one that fits your business.
By using a great alternative, you can improve client connections, increase sales, and simplify customer communication, all of which will eventually contribute to your business’s growth and success.
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