Live Chat Solutions of 2024

Live chat has become increasingly prevalent, and you’ve likely encountered many live chat boxes on business websites. With the rise of AI, live chatbots are now applicable to a broader range of scenarios, particularly benefiting those working remotely.

Moreover, live chat software is often omnichannel, facilitating communication through a website chat box and via social media, email, VoIP, and even video. This versatility makes it an invaluable tool for handling support from a single platform.

Despite its apparent complexity, live chat software is easy to set up and typically includes integrations and analytics. These features allow seamless integration with other software platforms to enhance productivity and offer real-time reporting for better insights.

Livechat.com

LiveChat is our top pick for the best live chat software thanks to its user-friendly design and extensive feature set.

LiveChat enables you to create a chat box on your website for direct communication with customers. Through this chat box, you can send files, links, calendars, and canned responses to common questions. Additionally, you can transfer live chats to other support representatives, a crucial feature for businesses with multiple teams.

Other valuable live chat functions include seeing what customers are typing before sending their message, assigning contextual tags to each chat, and accessing previous chats via an archive. You can also receive chat notifications, request customer ratings, conduct short surveys, engage new visitors with chat invitations, announce new products, and more.

Moreover, LiveChat organizes all your communications (emails, chats, SMS, apps, etc.) in a user-friendly dashboard. It integrates with over 170 software platforms, including Facebook, Messenger, WordPress, Salesforce, Shopify, and Dropbox.

Pricing starts at approximately $20 per month when billed annually, with higher-tier plans offering additional advanced features.

Current Best Deals

• LiveChat – Starter: $24/month
• LiveChat – Team: $49/month
• LiveChat – Business: $69/month

Reasons to Choose LiveChat

• User-Friendly Interface
• Contextual Tagging
• Internal Team Communication
• Extensive Integrations

LiveChat stands out as the top live chat software due to its intuitive design and extensive feature set.

Key Features

• Chat Box Creation: Engage with customers directly on your website.
• File Sharing: Send files, links, calendars, and canned responses.
• Chat Transfer: Seamlessly forward chats to other support representatives.
• Real-Time Typing View: See what customers are typing before they hit send.
• Contextual Tagging: Assign relevant tags to each chat.
• Chat Archive Access: Easily review previous conversations.
• Notifications & Surveys: Receive chat notifications, request customer ratings, and conduct surveys.
• Visitor Engagement: Prompt new visitors to chat and share announcements.

Tidio

Tidio is a versatile live chat, chatbot, and ticketing solution tailored for mid-size businesses aiming to resolve customer issues and boost sales. It boasts an extensive library of chatbot templates for both support and sales scenarios, and an advanced AI response bot available at a higher cost.

Tidio’s sleek design, fast messaging, and user-friendly features stand out. It offers various support options, including live chat, chatbots, ticketing, Instagram messages, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp integration. The self-learning AI response bot differentiates it from similar competitors, while the free plan provides a basic option for budget-conscious businesses.

While Tidio’s well-designed live chat, chatbot, and ticketing combo are ideal for businesses starting out or expanding, those needing advanced support and analytics features should consider Tidio Plus. This newest plan is dedicated to larger businesses requiring higher limits, additional integrations, advanced features, and premium support.

Even though Tidio is free, a site with more traffic can quickly slip out of the free package and become a loan. In this case (and if automatic bot replies are not a priority), it’s worth considering Livechat.com.

Zendesk

Zendesk allows you to engage with customers in real time, initiate targeted and behavior-driven chats, send files, request chat ratings, and log and analyze all live chats across your business.

A standout feature of Zendesk is its robust chatbot functionality. You can create chatbots to automatically answer frequently asked questions, helping you respond to customers outside working hours and reducing your overall workload.

You can customize the appearance and include your business logo to ensure your live chat widget aligns with your business and website branding. Zendesk also offers a JavaScript API for enhanced chat customization. Additionally, it integrates with popular platforms such as WordPress, Squarespace, Joomla, Drupal, Prestashop, Wix, and Shopify.

As one of the largest and best-known customer service software providers, Zendesk offers a comprehensive live chat solution tailored to meet diverse business needs.

HubSpot Live Chat

HubSpot provides a completely free live chat option for businesses without the budget for a comprehensive solution.

With HubSpot Live Chat, you can initiate conversations with customers and website visitors. You can easily transfer the chat to the appropriate person if a request is better suited for another team.

The live chat widget can be customized with your business branding and personalized welcome messages targeting different audiences. All live chat conversations are stored in a centralized inbox for future reference.

For businesses that cannot respond to every customer chat, HubSpot allows you to create chatbots to handle frequently asked questions, set up meetings, and more. The integrated chatbot builder makes this process simple.

HubSpot Live Chat also integrates with Slack, enabling you to receive live chat notifications and communicate with customers directly from the platform. Additionally, live chats can be conducted through the HubSpot mobile app.

While the free service has some limitations, HubSpot offers paid content and marketing plans to extend live chat functionality into a comprehensive CRM software platform.