Top 8 Live Chat Software Systems of 2017

by Jason Grills, Guest Contributor

​It’s no wonder that live chat solutions increase sales while cutting down expenses – being of great convenience for customers and agents alike, helpdesk automation proactively taps into customer pain points, thus ensuring a competitive edge. In fact, “44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a website can offer.”

So, choosing whether or not to include a live chat service into your regular customer support isn’t a dilemma anymore; what remains now is to choose the best possible solution. Surely, not every website live chat software delivers the aforementioned benefits, and no live chat at all is sometimes better than a badly designed one. A solution worthy of your investment and training time would have to be highly intuitive, responsive, and mobile-friendly, as well as easy to customize and use.

According to this criteria, we’ve selected, tried out and evaluated 8 live chat software systems, so that you don’t have to. Here are our thoughts and suggestions.

​SnapEngage
​​With all the essential features and a number of innovative ones, SnapEngage is a great choice for modern, customer-oriented businesses. Especially if social media is your main lead generation and marketing source, live chat will help you stay on top of your CRM knowledge base through Social Discovery feature, thus drastically improving your customer service resolution rate.
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Both seamless customization and integration options (with PM tools, CRM systems and Google Analytics) are ensured with an application programming interface, the same one that allows agents to log in from wherever they are and send template text commands without appearing “generic”. The software is mobile responsive and adjusted to PCI and HIPAA standards.

Zopim
​Suitable when the money is tight, Zopim is a live chat solution with a great range of analytical features. Its developer, Zendesk, is its main integration option, alongside other third party customer relationship management tools.
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For only $11.20 per month, the Basic plan comes with plenty of opportunities for customization (even holiday design templates), while the Premium Zopim ($44 per month) offers even more features developed for performance monitoring and analysis. Not only that Zopim tracks actual chats, but it converts logs into actionable data as well, thus giving you a valuable insight into both customer behaviour and customer support efficiency.​

​PureChat
​​Though empowered with a feature package that exceeds your basic live chat needs, PureChat delivers just what its name suggests: pure functional simplicity. When it comes to integration, this live chat solution is certainly one to watch – Zapier, Shopify, Etsy, Facebook and Wordpress are just some of the much-needed services that PureChat operates with.

For utmost customer convenience, this live chat for website offers native mobile apps as well, primarily for Kindle, Android and Apple. For the utmost agent productivity, Pure Chat allows template customization, and it records and saves live chat transcripts that can be used for employee evaluation and lead nurturing alike.

Live2Support
​Live2Support understands that live chat solutions go beyond ticket resolutions, which is why it offers a comprehensive set of features for lead nurturing and customer conversion as well. Easy to set up and effortless to use, this live chat system yields efficiency in terms of both helpdesk resolutions and sales.

While pre-defined message and operator to operator chat help agents save valuable time and use it more productively, the possibility to anticipate customer questions, just as well as real-time visitor monitoring, chat trackers, seamless Google Analytics integration and post-chat surveys, all contribute to instant delivery and high-quality customer service. Recently improved features are available in 3 different plans, costing from $9.99 to $39.95 per month, which certainly makes this solution worthy of consideration.

​Kayako Engage
​​Similarly to Zopim, Kayako Engage is most powerful when employed by long-time users of its native system, Kayako customer support software. Both the interface and the reporting language are a little harder to master if not already familiar with this developer’s programs.

For those who are, Kayako Engage is certainly worth the price ($24 per agent yearly or $29 per agent monthly). It comes with live chat management system that lets you allocate roles and assign specific clients to team members, thus bringing structural support. Even though Kayako Engage doesn’t currently integrate with other platforms, it uses the Chat Gateway service for connecting with different instant messaging apps.

​ClickDesk
​A bit pricier – The basic plan will cost you $16.99 every month, while additional features that make this solution stand out from the crowd go for $21.99 – ClickDesk is perfect for mature companies that can afford staying in constant face-to-face touch with all of their customers.
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Implemented through Google Talk and Skype, ClickDesk’s video conferences and live chat calls are exactly what makes this live chat system different. Apart from these, a full-feature package integrates with WP, Tumblr and MailChimp, just to name the few, includes social media buttons embedded into a chat box and allows your agents to meet customer demands both in real-time and beyond chat, via a convenient Helpdesk/Ticket feature.

​LiveHelpNow
​Of course, customer relationship management goes way beyond live chat services. However powerful, this real-time solution is only a piece in the puzzle, and is of greatest potency when implemented as such. Being an all-in-one CRM system, LiveHelpNow guarantees exactly that.

Apart from live chat for the website, the full LiveHelpNow package includes a CRM database and ticked-based customer service as well, with the addition of an impressive set of features for tracking, monitoring, analysing, and reporting. System-based analytics are empowered with Google Analytics, while Social Insights allow agents to track customers across a wide range of social networks during the chat.

​WebsiteAlive
WebsiteAlive certainly doesn’t come cheap – 2 licences cost $50 per month, and you’ll have to pay an additional $20 monthly fee for each licence, and that’s only for the least costly package – but it can surely afford to ask so much. Currently, this website live chat beats the competition both in price lists and features.

Almost every basic feature is covered by WebsiteAlive, and this live chat is therefore easy to install, use and customize. Customer support conversations go straight from the chat box to metrics where the logs are analysed and sent back to agents for real-time problem resolution. For the same purpose, WebsiteAlive lets agents monitor their customers while chatting, while the platform actually provides an opportunity for employing trained helpdesk live chat professionals in order to make your customer service even more effective.

Before deciding upon either of these, establishing a list of features you need the most might be a clever idea. And, given that all of them offer a trial version, try to test as many of them as you can before making the final decision.
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Author Bio: 
Jason Grills is a writer and a technical support executive currently associated with ProProfs.com. He enjoys writing about emerging software products, new designs and trends in content marketing. He lives in Los Angeles, California. In his spare time, Jason enjoys pampering his pet dogs, shopping, and doing all things creative.