In this review, we’re evaluating one of the most popular chat apps and messaging tools available for modern business owners. LiveChat is a comprehensive software solution designed to assist businesses in connecting with customers across many platforms.
The service not only allows companies to add a custom chat widget to their website, but it also provides you with a unified inbox where agents can monitor and respond to conversations from a range of channels.
LiveChat integrates with everything from WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to SMS, email, and Apple Messages. Moreover, it offers a range of tools and services created to improve customer experiences, increase leads, and unlock sales opportunities.
We’ve tested a handful of live chat and chatbot-focused software tools in the past, and we consider LiveChat to be one of the most straightforward and comprehensive tools on the market.
Ultimately, LiveChat is a powerful, flexible tool for managing customer conversations in today’s age of omnichannel service.
The platform aligns conversations from multiple services and tools, making it easy for agents and professionals to deliver highly streamlined, personalized customer experiences.
What’s more, the tool provides companies with an easy way to monitor support tickets, build their own chatbot, and even leverage integrated solutions like helpdesks and knowledgebases.
LiveChat Key Features
LiveChat is a robust, multi-functional, and comprehensive chat application suitable for lead generation, customer service, and support.
The solution can integrate into any website, requiring very little coding knowledge. All you need to do is copy and paste a piece of code.
Plus, LiveChat will actually guide you through the process of adding the app to your website and customizing your chat widget with step-by-step instructions.
Part of what makes LiveChat such a compelling option for today’s customer service teams is its ability to do a lot more than simply add chat functionality to your site.
The comprehensive platform combines chat tools with a range of solutions for customer engagement and sales. You can connect LiveChat to WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS, and over 200 other tools.
Plus, LiveChat has its own helpdesk, knowledgebase, and chatbot solutions (available for an additional cost), which allow companies to manage all of their customer service functions in one convenient place.
The software even comes with various premade surveys and tools for collecting customer feedback so that you can track the consistency of your service over time.
Core features of the LiveChat application include:
Chat Tools
At the heart of the LiveChat application is a variety of chat tools, designed to enhance your experience when connecting with customers through messaging apps.
You can create rich messages, share files, and build chat archives for training and auditing purposes. There are inactivity messages available to let your customers know when an agent isn’t around. Plus, you can leverage the message “sneak peaks” to see what customers are writing at the moment.
The chat tools also include chat transfer options, so you can pass a customer over to another member of staff, as well as chat ratings (for gathering customer feedback), canned responses, and more. Plus, everything is organized in a convenient, all-in-one feed, where users can track all of their conversations across channels in one environment.
Chat Widget Customization
LiveChat gives companies comprehensive control over how their chat widgets appear on their website and other assets. You can customize the fonts and colors of your widgets and there’s the option to implement Accessibility settings to ensure your widgets are usable for all customers.
Users can choose from a range of language options, and set up agent profiles to provide clients with a behind-the-scenes insight into who they’re chatting with. There’s also the option to add “Boosters” to your widget, which directs customers to your helpdesk or knowledgebase articles.
Customer Engagement Tools
One thing we found particularly impressive about LiveChat is its dedication to customer engagement.
The solution ensures business leaders can build powerful customer relationships over time through targeted, personalized messages.
You can assign specific chats to individual staff members, based on their skills and knowledge and set up custom routing rules.
You’ll also be able to create your own chat buttons for different online assets, ticket forms for customers who need specialized requests, and more.
Live Chat offers a range of “Eye-catchers”, which grab user attention with custom animations. You can choose from over 120 ready-to-use images or upload your own visuals and GIFs.
Reporting and Analytics
To ensure you’re getting the most out of your chat strategy, LiveChat provides access to a range of reports and insights. You can access a comprehensive “data summary” page within your admin interface, which offers an overview of key statistics, or you can dive deeper into findings with specialist reports for customers, agents, chat sessions, and ecommerce.
The comprehensive reporting platform includes filters to help you sort through your data and a customizable dashboard for keeping track of KPIs like customer satisfaction score. It’s also possible to export the raw data from your LiveChat environment to a CSV file to share with stakeholders.
Security and Team Management
Whenever you’re communicating with customers, it’s important to ensure you’re keeping their data secure. Fortunately, LiveChat has numerous built-in security tools for this purpose. You can control your data storage policies and leverage end-to-end encryptions for all conversations.
For companies taking payments, there’s a credit card masking option. Plus, you can restrict access to certain records and leverage single-sign-on features for teams.
The ”Team” environment within LiveChat will allow you to control exactly what your employees can do during any chat session. You can also “suspend” agents and stop them from using the app for a specific period of time. Chat supervision options are also available if you need to give a manager an insight into what a new team member is doing in each conversation.
Add-ons and Integrations
Depending on the plan you choose for LiveChat, you can leverage a range of add-ons and additional tools to expand your customer service strategy. There’s the option to implement your own knowledge base and service desk tools into your chat system, so you can support customers with direct access to valuable articles and resources.
LiveChat also supports the integration of numerous tools and messaging channels. You can connect everything from Facebook Messenger to Instagram, SMS, in-chat voice, video and screen sharing services, WhatsApp, and more. Various LiveChat APIs are available, so you can embed the tool into your existing app and create automated workflows.
You can find some of the add-ons within the homepage section of your LiveChat app, and add them to your service with just a couple of clicks.
Alongside various customer service and support add-ons and integrations, LiveChat also supports ticketing tools and ecommerce platforms. You can even embed product cards into your LiveChat environment to help agents send personalized recommendations to customers.
Chatbots
If you want to automate some of your customer service and support experiences, LiveChat will also allow you to create custom chatbots. There are various templates to choose from, so you don’t have to start coding from scratch. Options range from Welcome and Afterhours chatbots, to FAQ bots capable of responding rapidly to a range of questions.
Thanks to built-in AI algorithms, the LiveChat bots can learn and evolve over time, becoming more efficient as they interact with customers. They can transfer conversations to agents using your routing rules, create help tickets, and even send transcripts automatically to your team, or to your customers, depending on your needs.
LiveChat Pros
LiveChat is one of the most popular chat tools on the market today for a reason. It’s an efficient, easy-to-use tool with a host of valuable features and add-ons to choose from.
Here are just some of the most significant advantages of LiveChat:
Ease of use: LiveChat boasts a straightforward and clean user interface, with plenty of guidance and help wizards to get you started. There’s even a step-by-step checklist for beginners to assist you in setting up your new widget and chat tool.
Feature rich: There are tons of tools included in LiveChat, as well as various add-ons and apps you can use to enhance your experience. Users can explore a range of chatbots, knowledgebase, helpdesk, service desk, and analytics systems in one place.
Apps: Aside from giving agents an easy-to-use web-based platform for managing conversations, LiveChat also has its own Android and iOS apps for customer service on the go. They even have automatic time-out features.
Unified inbox: LiveChat makes it easy to track crucial conversations with customers across a range of channels in one environment. You can connect all of the channels you’re already using into one space, to boost team productivity and efficiency.
Reports and analytics: With LiveChat, it’s easy to track core metrics and KPIs related to customer service, so you can enhance and optimize your strategy over time. Creating custom reports is a breeze, and there’s even a real-time dashboard available.
Compliance and security: LiveChat has a host of security features already built-in, such as end-to-end encryption, and gives you complete control over team access levels. You’ll also be able to retain chat archives for compliance purposes.
LiveChat Cons
Although we believe the pros of LiveChat far outweigh the cons, there are still some disadvantages of this tool to be aware of. Notably, the biggest issues include:
Pricing: LiveChat is more expensive than other chat tools such as JivoChat, and it does require you to pay extra fees for things like chatbots and knowledgebase integration.
Initial setup: It can take a little while to get your LiveChat solution up and running. You’ll need to commit to customizing your widget, building forms, creating targeted greetings and so on, which can take some time.
Some missing functionality: There are some features missing from LiveChat which could improve both agent and customer experience, such as automatic spell checking.
LiveChat Plans and Pricing
As mentioned above, LiveChat isn’t the cheapest chat app on the market. However, it does offer a fair bit of functionality, which means it can be pretty good value for money, depending on the features you need.
There’s a 14-day free trial available, which doesn’t require you to enter any credit card details, so you can test the capabilities before you start.
Currently, LiveChat offers 4 core plans for its service. You can save money by opting for the annual plan over the pay-monthly alternative.
Starter: $20 per month, per agent (billed annually): 60-day chat history, ticketing system, basic widget customization, access to multiple channels (excluding Apple Messages and SMS), canned responses, agent ratings, customer details, and more. You can also track up to 100 customers with the “traffic tracking” service and create routing rules.
Team: $41 per month, per agent (billed annually): All the features of the Starter plan, as well as an unlimited chat history, full widget customization, enhanced data security, basic reporting, and agent groups. The Team plan includes ecommerce functionality, advanced engagement features, and two-step verification options too.
Business: $59 per month per agent (billed annually): All the features of Team, plus advanced reporting, staffing predictions, and work scheduling functionality. You can also track up to 1000 customers, leverage chat takeover capabilities, and access on-demand reporting tools.
Enterprise: Custom pricing: All the features of Business, plus software engineer support, product training, a dedicated account manager, Single Sign-On, HIPAA Compliance, security assistance, and more. This plan also includes legal assistance, yearly PO and invoicing features and advanced customer support.
How Does LiveChat Compare with Other Chat Software?
LiveChat may be one of the better-known chat tools on the market today, but it’s not the only option out there. We’ve tested the most popular software solutions for customer service via chat over the years, and many of them offer similar functionality. Options include:
LiveChat Vs Tidio
Tidio is a straightforward and multifunctional customer experience platform, similar to LiveChat. The solution is a little more cost-effective than LiveChat, with cheaper pricing plans for more advanced features.
Additionally, it comes with a comprehensive email marketing solution, which allows you to build and edit email templates within your online platform. The WYSISWYG email editor is extremely easy to use. Additionally, it comes with built-in email address validation.
However, LiveChat does offer more options for customer service, such as phone, FAQ, and forum solutions not supported by Tidio.
LiveChat also has far more customizable widgets and automated workflows available, saving employees a lot of time. Plus, you get eye-catchers, ecommerce, and security tools with LiveChat that aren’t available with Tidio.
Read our comprehensive Tidio Review for more details about Tidio.
LiveChat Vs LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a chat and customer service tool focusing heavily on engaging and unifying employees. The communication platform offers in-suite and standalone tools for self-service, ticket management, live chat, and more. Plus, it provides access to a unified inbox where agents can monitor all conversations in one place, similar to LiveChat.
Prices start from $15 for LiveAgent, making it a little cheaper to access. Plus, the solution covers most of the same channels and platforms as LiveChat. The service also includes a range of employee engagement features, such as gamification solutions to help inspire your employees to accomplish their best work.
However, it doesn’t offer the same engagement features as LiveChat, and the widgets available aren’t heavily customizable.
LiveChat Vs JivoChat
Similar to LiveChat, JivoChat is an omnichannel customer communication app, which unifies conversations across email, phone, Facebook Messenger, and various other channels.
JivoChat offers companies the opportunity to augment their agents with custom chatbots built with rules and AI algorithms. There are also tools available to help boost sales, such as in-chat product sharing, and automated cross-selling and upselling workflows.
JivoChat also offers excellent security features, such as firewalls and end-to-end encryption. Plus, it offers features you don’t get with LiveChat, like automatic translation, and instant callback options.
However, there aren’t as many options for things like canned and automatic responses. Plus, customizing JivoChat can require a little more developer knowledge.
LiveChat Vs Olark
Olark is a simple and straightforward chat tool, which companies can customize and upgrade using paid “power-ups”. For instance, you can pay $99 monthly to allow your agents to access “co-browsing” features and see what customers are looking at in real-time.
Olark comes with valuable insights into crucial metrics in real-time and provides access to offline messaging, triggered messages, and custom pre-chat forms.
Olark can be a little more expensive than LiveChat, with various “power-up” add-ons included. However, it does offer some great benefits, like advanced privacy features and automation tools. However, the tool does have a slightly higher learning curve than LiveChat.
LiveChat User Reviews and Testimonials
LiveChat receives highly-rated reviews in all major software review platforms.
| Platform | Star Rating | No of Reviews |
|---|---|---|
| G2 | 4.5 / 5 | 744 |
| Get App | 4.7 / 5 | 1,400 |
| TrustRadius | 9 / 10 | 129 |
| Capterra | 4.6 / 5 | 1502 |
Overall, LiveChat appears to be highly praised by its users for its ease of use, customer support, and ability to improve customer satisfaction.
