Live chat software for best customer conversations

What is live chat software?

Live chat software is the technology that powers instant messaging platforms through which an organisation’s customer service agents communicate with prospects and customers. The platforms allow agents to carry on real-time and asynchronous conversations through a brand’s website, over social media channels (i.e. Facebook Messenger), via text message, or in a company’s mobile app.

More broadly speaking, live chat software is often integrated with chatbots, automation platforms, CRMs, analytics, messaging apps, knowledge bases, help desk software and more through APIs and native or third-party integrations. These integrations allow live chat apps to:

• Save service agents time and reduce operating costs by deploying chatbots to handle repetitive customer requests, allowing more complicated requests to be handled by live agents.
• Enable companies to provide faster, more personalised services by pulling in relevant data from CRMs and analytics software to trigger workflows and for use by chatbots and live agents.
• Build rapport between company and customers by conducting conversations in the messaging channels customers are most comfortable with (like WhatsApp, Instagram Direct, etc.).

Put simply, live chat software lets you deliver rich conversational experiences that are connected across your web, mobile and/or social apps. It’s easy to automate and fast to scale for every customer’s needs.

What are the common features of live chat software?

There are a few high-level features you’ll typically find with most modern live chat apps.

Just keep in mind that capabilities may be more advanced on some solutions compared to others. Still, you’ll need to know the essential, common features of live chat. So here are the six features to look for and evaluate.

Chatbots

The dirty little secret of live chat website software is that it isn’t always ‘live’. Chatbots are computer programmes that can carry out a chat with a customer on your website without a live agent. Chatbots are a natural complement to live chat website apps because they can handle simple and repetitive requests on their own and pass off more complicated requests to live agents which helps teams to scale and serve more customers more efficiently.

Proactive chat (or smart triggers)

Proactive chat allows your agents or salespeople to initiate a chat in real-time with a website visitor. You can also set up triggers that proactively initiate a chat with a customer, which can help encourage and facilitate sales throughout the checkout process.

Smart triggers are predetermined rules that determine what should happen if certain circumstances occur. For example, you could set a smart trigger that causes your website’s live chat window to pop up with a canned message if a website visitor spends a certain amount of time on a certain page.

Canned responses

Canned responses are prewritten sections of text designed to be used in a predetermined situation. Since support agents often face similar situations, they can create canned responses to automatically do things like:

• Greet a returning customer by name
• Offer a discount
• Transfer a chat to another agent
• Answer a common question

Queue management

When all your agents are occupied, queue management allows you to choose how you communicate with and prioritise waiting customers. Queue management capabilities often include:

• Manual or automatic chat routing
• Chatbot messaging with waiting customers
• Setting queue limits to control the size of an agent’s waiting line

Performance Metrics and KPIs

Live chats can generate a treasure trove of data and business intelligence. But you’ll only be able to make sense of it if you can extract insights from how your customers engage with your company. The most essential metrics and KPIs to look for include:

• First response time (FRT)
• Average resolution time (ART)
• Chat to conversion rate
• First contact resolution rate (FCR)
• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
• Average wait time
• Missed chats

Advanced Features

As mentioned, the features above are what you can expect to find in most live chat software. But the following are what you can expect from more sophisticated tools:

• Chatbot builders: provide low or no-code tools that allow admins to customise conversation flows for automating web and mobile messaging interactions with your customers, giving them the opportunity to, for example, self-serve their support issues before connecting with agents.
• Rich message types: enable agents and bots to send emojis, GIFs, forms and carousels to facilitate self-service, collect customer information, communicate more clearly and express your brand personality.
• Quick replies: provides immediate answers to incoming questions using machine learning to reply with relevant information so customers can get answers without waiting. Answers can be delivered via email, ticket form, live chat, messaging, Slack, API and/or SDK.
• Contextual self-service: a live-chat-embedded help centre that suggests relevant articles with the live chat website plugin or widget and mobile SDK.

What are the benefits of using a live chat app?

Provide more context-relevant service at scale

When successfully integrated with chatbots and CRMs, live chat software is unique in that it allows you to engage with prospects and customers in a contextually relevant way at scale.

For example, imagine a customer who’s filled their shopping cart and nearly completed their purchase on your website. Before completing the order, they pause on the checkout page. With a trigger-based chatbot, you could prompt the customer — after a predetermined time — with a message asking if the customer needs any assistance. This allows you to engage with a customer who has shown clear purchase intent.

Plus, because you can set up the chatbot-to-live-chat handover so only customers who request assistance are put in touch with a live agent, you can provide context-relevant service while streamlining staffing costs.

Support prospects and customers at their convenience

Live chat website technology has improved the ability of service agents to support customers at the customer’s convenience. With the right live chat solution, businesses can provide options for customers to:

• Find their own answers (self-serve) with relevant knowledge base content, delivered by a chatbot
• Request to be transferred to a live agent
• Leave a message for customer service
• Continue conversations from where they left off

Also, companies can offer support to customers 24/7 because chatbots and self-serve options are always available. The result of all this? Higher CSAT scores and a support team that can scale to serve more customers, more effectively than ever before.

Increase customer and agent value

According to Forrester, customers who chat with a company convert three times more often than those who don’t. Customers who chat with a company tend to buy on average 10-15% more that other customers.

These stats are a direct reflection of how live chat can increase the lifetime value of your customers. But it’s not just your customers — live chat can make your agents more valuable too. When properly implemented within live chat:

• Chatbots and self-service options filter out easy questions
• Automation handles repetitive logistics (i.e. tagging and routing tickets)
• Chat analytics deliver relevant insights

By filtering out the simple questions, live agents can focus on providing the personalised services that engender the kind of brand loyalty that results in larger purchases and greater sales volume.

Top 13 live chat software and apps for 2021

1. Zendesk Messaging

Formerly known as Zendesk Chat, Zendesk Messaging enables your team to engage with customers in live chats with full conversation histories available at all times. Accessible through the Zendesk Suite, messaging helps you create and deliver rich conversations across your web, mobile or social apps. It’s easy to automate and fast to scale for every customer’s needs.

Zendesk Messaging includes built-in integrations with the most popular social messaging channels, website and in-app live chat, and powerful tools to build chatbots, automation, and case management workflows — all built on a unified, open and flexible platform you can customise to your heart’s content.

In Zendesk, conversations are ongoing and connected across all these channels (and more!) so customers never have to repeat themselves and agents always have the context they need to provide faster and more personalised service.

Zendesk also provides strong value to your business as well.

Flow Builder is a drag-and-drop tool for designing customised conversation flows that can address your customers’ specific needs. Answer Bot — Zendesk’s AI chatbot — can help customers self-serve by providing direct links to help centre articles or hand off the conversation to an agent along with all the context and information the customer has already shared.

These built-in automation tools allow you to provide rich, interactive and personal conversations with absolutely no coding skills required.

Finally, Sunshine Conversations, Zendesk’s customisable messaging platform, allows you to connect all your business systems to the conversation, from payment processors to third-party bots and AI. You can also unlock advanced capabilities like outbound notifications for proactive customer engagement and group messaging to connect the right people, whether that’s buyers and sellers in a marketplace or restaurants, customers and drivers in a food delivery app. However, these advanced capabilities don’t come built into Zendesk Messenger; you’ll need to purchase Sunshine Conversations at an additional cost to access these features.

Zendesk’s features include (but aren’t limited to):

• Built-in, build-your-own and third-party chatbot integrations
• Chat routing and chat queue management
• Canned responses
• Branding customization
• Native integrations to knowledge base, CRM and other business systems
• Performance metrics (CSAT, FRT, ticket volume, etc.)
• Prebuilt analytics dashboards
• Knowledge base management
• Pre-built apps and integrations
• API access
• User authentication and secure access options

Learn more about Zendesk Messaging

2. Ada for Chat

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Ada’s AI-powered chatbot, the premier chatbot partner for Zendesk, is an automated chatbot powered by AI and Natural Language Processing. Its intuitive chatbot builders make it easy to build and manage automated workflows, including handoffs to live agents.

Ada doesn’t publicise their pricing information, but you can request a demo from the company for more details. They can build you a customised quote that depends on your business’s needs.

Features

• Chat routing
• Chatbots
• Canned responses
• Automation
• Reporting and Analytics
• Branding customization

Learn more about Zendesk for Ada

3. Certainly

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Formerly known as BotXO.ai, Certainly is an AI-powered conversational assistant for e-commerce and customer service. It integrates with your live chat software to assist across chat, email, phone and messaging.

Certainly can take website visitors to contextually relevant products, deliver dynamic support to customers, assist buyers at the point of sale, process returns, and more. And when the situation calls for it, Certainly hands support conversations over to service agents so they can handle more complex issues without leaving their chat software.

Features

• Support for over 14 languages
• Multiple APIs and Webhooks
• Integrations with Zendesk Chat, Support, Sunshine, etc.
• Ticket management

Learn more about Zendesk for Certainly

4. DigitalGenius

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DigitalGenius is a customer service automation platform that aims to automate your customer support logistics. The platform uses AI to understand conversations so it can automate repetitive processes and your customer service agents can focus on delighting your customers. Among other things, DigitalGenius automatically fills tags, suggests macros and automates answers to frequently asked questions.

It can even resolve repetitive customer issues including order status enquiries, cancellations, refund requests, and more. Plus it’s available in over 15 languages. And you can integrate DigitalGenius with Zendesk’s suite of chat tools with Zendesk’s free app for DigitalGenius.

Features

• Support for over 15 languages
• AI-driven automation
• Integrations with Zendesk Chat, Support, Sunshine, etc.
• Enhanced reporting and analytics

Learn more about Zendesk for DigitalGenius

5. Ultimate.Ai

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It’s far too easy (and common) for businesses to end up stuck between a chatbot solution that’s quick to deploy but not flexible enough to customise to their needs. Ultimate.AI threads this needle perfectly by providing a no-code automation platform that can automate a significant portion of your support requests.

In fact, with Ultimate.AI’s one-click integration with Zendesk, users have automated up to 70% of their support requests across Zendesk Chat, Messaging and Support. Plus, with support for multiple languages and every channel, businesses can deploy Ultimate.AI in all markets.

Features

• Response suggestion for agents
• Actionable service analytics
• Support for all languages
• Public API
• Chat routing
• Integrations with Zendesk Chat, Support, Sunshine, etc.
• Enhanced reporting and analytics

Learn more about Zendesk for Ultimate.Ai

6. Cognigy

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Built for customer service reps in all industries and verticals, Cognigy.AI is an enterprise-grade
conversational AI platform that helps you build advanced chat and voice bots to enhance your customers’ service experience.

Yet despite its powerfully sophisticated features, Cognigy.AI features a low-code, visual interface designed to make it easy-to-build bots that help your service operation scale while providing excellent service. Cognigy.AI supports conversations on any channel including web, phone, SMS and mobile apps and has a ready-to-use connector to Zendesk’s Sunshine Conversations.

Features

• Backend system integrations (i.e. CRM, ERP, RPA, etc.)
• Support for 20+ languages
• Low-code, graphical conversation editor
• KPI dashboards

7. Zowie for Chat

Zowie is another AI-powered chatbot that helps you automate a significant portion of your customer service volume. It does this by analyzing historical chat data which Zowie’s experts then use to consult with you to design the ideal automation strategy.

Zowie is compatible with 56 languages and supports chatbots on your website chat, mobile chat, social media and messenger apps. Zowie doesn’t publicise pricing information so you need to reach out to them through their website for their most current pricing.

Features

• Chat routing
• Chatbots
• Canned responses
• Automation
• Reporting and Analytics
• Branding customization

Learn more about Zendesk for Zowie

8. Facebook Messenger

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Along with WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger dominates the global landscape of messaging apps. In 2020, it was (and still is) the messaging app of choice in 57 countries, including the United States. And since it’s embedded within Facebook, Messenger is a powerful way for e-commerce and retail brands to field pre-purchase questions when prospects respond to ads.

Using a tool like Sunshine Conversations, retailers can easily provide support in the massively popular Messenger. And service agents can add a little flair (when appropriate) with GIFs, images, emojis, videos, and more.

Features

• Native integrations
• Booking
• Payments
• Image/audio/video file support
• API

Learn more about using Facebook Messenger with Zendesk

9. WhatsApp

WhatsApp is a strong option if your customers live in or come from Southeast Asia, Europe, Latin America or the Middle East, where it’s a favorite among messaging apps. In fact, WhatsApp is currently the leading messaging app in 112 countries including India, Hong Kong and Singapore.

By connecting WhatsApp with Zendesk via Sunshine Conversations, you can keep your customers informed, and ease the pressure on your agents, by connecting automation tools and sending proactive messages.

Features

• Group chat
• Booking and payments
• Voice and video calls
• Document sharing
• API

Learn more about using WhatsApp with Zendesk

10. LINE

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When you supplement your live chat software by connecting it with LINE, you gain access to 167 million monthly active users, mainly in Japan, Thailand and Taiwan, where LINE is the messaging app of choice.

LINE users — including businesses — can share fun animated stickers, like a Baby Yoda or Goku from Dragon Ball Z, to show off their brand personality in a fun way. Plus, LINE’s integration with the Zendesk Suite makes it easy to connect and expand your business’s messaging capabilities.

Features

• Animated stickers
• Voice and video calls
• LINE Games
• LINE Creators Market
• Chat-based medical consultation
• Payments

Learn more about using LINE with Zendesk

11. Instagram Direct

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There are at least two reasons for e-commerce companies and retailers to fold Instagram Direct into their messaging strategy. For one, over 78% of customers say that personally relevant content — which Instagram’s curated feed has in abundance — increases their purchase intent.

Also, in North America, Millennials and Gen Z show a strong preference for Instagram Direct. Considering that Millennials and Gen Z make up about 42% of the population in the United States, it’s clear that any retailer with customers in this demographic needs to be on Instagram.

Features

• Group messaging
• Group video chats
• Selfie stickers, customised reactions and message effects
• Customisable chats
• Messenger and WhatsApp integrations
• Vanishing messages

Learn more about using Instagram Direct with Zendesk

12. Telegram

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Telegram stands out as a unique option to consider because it provides end-to-end encryption. This helps citizens keep conversations private in countries where social media and messaging apps are banned. But it’s not just for citizens trying to get around oppressive governments.

Encryption is an increasingly hot topic in the world of messaging. So many users, from all walks of life, are making the switch to messaging apps with end-to-end encryption. And of course, the Telegram Channel Integration enables you to expand your customer service delivery through instant messaging between Telegram and Zendesk Support.

Features

• End-to-end encryption
• Secret chats
• Telegram bots
• Chat folders
• Video editing
• Animated stickers

Learn more about using Telegram with Zendesk

13. Sprout Social

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While it’s not technically live chat software, if your customer service relies heavily on social media, Sprout Social is a great tool to integrate with your live chat. Sprout Social provides social media monitoring, sales, marketing and support tools to connect the workflows of support agents and social media teams.

Sprout Social combines social media monitoring, engagement, sales, support, and marketing tools for a cohesive social media strategy. This prevents disconnected communication or workflows between social media teams and social support agents.

Features

• Reporting and Analytics
• Social media monitoring
• Sales, marketing and support tool integrations

Learn more about Sprout Social’s Zendesk integration

A summary of top 13 live chat software with mobile app integration

How to choose the best live chat website software for your business

The best live chat website software for your business depends on… your business. Your business model, competitors, customers, governments, and a bunch of other things affect how much value you can get from live chat software.

Rather than trying to wrap your head around so many different factors, focus on these four considerations to guide your purchasing decision:

1. Ability to unify systems, software, channels and customer data

   One of the top reasons companies offer messaging is to provide more contextual, better-informed support, according to companies surveyed in Zendesk’s 2020 Trends Report. Yet, only 35% of those businesses are taking an omnichannel approach — one that connects channels, systems and software to end siloed conversations.

   To get the most out of your live chat software, it must be capable of pulling in a single unified profile of your customer, complete with conversation history and context from any channel. This allows customers to avoid repeating their address or request number while being bounced between different departments or waiting on hold.

   And it ensures everyone across your business — including chatbots — has the context they need to create a consistent personalised experience.

2. The agent experience

   Customer service teams need an intuitive live chat user interface for responding to conversations on the front end. But having the tools to manage those conversations at scale on the back end is important too. So the trick is to find the live chat providers that offer both an easy developer experience and a great agent experience.

   For instance, the Agent Workspace within Zendesk’s Support Suite equips support teams with the tracking, routing and collaboration tools needed to close out an issue, live updates about incoming messages, and the ability to seamlessly channel-switch — in other words; an agent can follow-up on a live chat with an email, without ending the messaging conversation.

   As businesses introduce chatbots, automation, and multi-department messaging infrastructure, they need a way to centrally define rules of engagement and streamline handoffs between people, automation, and AI across the business. With the help of triggers, automations, and workflows that go beyond ticket-based routing, agents can streamline customer-facing interactions, saving support resources and decreasing time-to-resolution.

3. Current fit and future scalability

   Initial time-to-value and continuous time-to-value are key for creating a seamless customer experience. This is why an open live chat platform that allows your business to both ramp up fast and change quickly is so valuable.

   The ideal live chat software is configurable enough to support your existing workflow, powerful enough to handle the most complex business and flexible enough to scale at any pace.

   A partner that’s based on open APIs, like Zendesk’s Sunshine, doesn’t lock a business into using proprietary tech. It lets organisations leverage the technology investments they already made and surface data wherever they want — like their homegrown applications. And developers can use the tools they already know, empowering them to build fast.

4. Use case

   What makes the best live chat software truly ‘the best’ depends on how you plan to use it. As you evaluate your options, ensure your software fits your use case by considering the following questions:

   How many participants will you need in a single conversation?

   Modern customer relationships often include multiple parties inside and outside the business. For example, marketplace companies may need to connect buyers with sellers and support agents. Most live chat software offers one-to-one communication: the key is to find one that’s also successful at one-to-many.

   Do you plan to offer self-service?

   Businesses can integrate chatbots for self-service at scale, enabling customers to find answers on their own, in context, around the clock. Businesses should look for live chat apps that give them the ability to launch a bot across multiple channels and the flexibility to avoid being locked into a specific set of integrations or capabilities.

   How can you brand the messaging experience?

   With the help of SDKs for web and mobile, you can build in-app live chats on any device to drive engagement within the products and services your customers use every day — such as on the web, Android or iOS — using rich content types like GIFs and location sharing.

Frequently asked questions