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Businesses strive to enhance their customer interactions and engagement by providing real-time communication.
Having the right 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.
What is LiveChat?
LiveChat is customer service software that allows businesses to engage with their customers in real-time via chat messaging.
This form of online communication involves a chat box or widget on a website where users can initiate conversations and receive immediate responses from customer support agents or sales representatives.
LiveChat is commonly used for customer service, sales inquiries, technical support, and general assistance.
It provides a convenient and effective automated platform for connecting with clients across several channels to address queries, engage with website visitors, and turn them into real customers with a simple chat.
Advantages of LiveChat
- Customers get their issues resolved faster, leading to higher satisfaction
- LiveChat offers extended 24/7 support catering to customers in different time zones
- It automatically routes chats using AI to the appropriate department
- LiveChat allows personalized communication, building rapport, and positive customer relationships
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:Â 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.
Top 9 LiveChat Alternatives for Customer Support
Here are the top LiveChat alternatives.
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/agent/month
- Momentum: $25/agent/month
- Enterprise:Â $39/agent/month
- 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.
Free trial: 15 days
Zendesk
Zendesk offers a LiveChat 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/agent/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/agent/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/agent/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/agent/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/agent/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/agent/month
Free trial: 15 days
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/agent/month
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/agent/month
Free trial: 7 days
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/agent/month | Yes |
| Zendesk | No (Chatbot) | $19/agent/month | Yes |
| Intercom | Yes | $39/agent/month | Yes |
| Zoho SalesIQ | Yes | $7/agent/month | Yes |
| Olark | Yes | $29/agent/month | Yes |
| Tidio | Yes | $29/agent/month | Yes |
| Help Scout | Yes | $20/agent/month | Yes |
| LiveAgent | Yes | $9/agent/month | Yes |
| Hiver | No (Chat widget) | $15/agent/month | Yes |
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 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.
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 communication, all of which will eventually contribute to your business’s growth and success.
Was this article helpful? Do you have any suggestions or recommendations for other LiveChat alternatives?
Please provide your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
A business might seek alternatives because LiveChat’s pricing is more expensive, has limited customization on lower tiers, and a steeper learning curve for some teams. Other tools might offer better automation, more integrations, or lower costs tailored to your needs.
If you are a small business looking for a LiveChat that does not break your budget, here are the best options available in the market:
- BoldDesk – Offers a free startup program. It also provides live chat software and help desk ticketing system features at affordable pricing for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
- LiveAgent – Combines live chat, ticketing, and a built-in call center with affordable pricing tiers.
- Tidio – Has a free plan that includes the live chat functionality.
Key features to consider:
- Omnichannel support (chat, email, social media).
- AI-powered and automation.
- Easy integration with CRM or other tools.
- Real-time analytics and visitor tracking.
LiveChat’s main focus is on chat support. However, if you need comprehensive ticket management with live chat support features, BoldDesk is the better choice to consider.
