Posted on by admin Allgemein

How To Find A Good Live Chat Software?

With a live chat software you can easily address the visitors of your website. We looked at many different programs and compared the top three: Zopim vs Olark vs LivePerson. Below you will find our recommendation and a detailed comparison of costs, features, usability and expansion options.

In this article we compare Zopim LivePerson and Olark but there are a lot more support chat tool provider on the market.

Zopim vs Olark vs LivePerson: Who is the best live chat provider?

Zopim offers you lots of advanced tools that would cost you hundreds of dollars if you purchased them from other providers. For example, you can view a wide range of analyses of website visitors, store pre-formulated responses to speed up conversations, allow customers to email themselves a transcript of the chat, and much more. LivePerson has similar tools, but they are about 10x more expensive. Olark is inexpensive, but you won’t get any of these advanced features.

Zopim also had the best user interface for chatting and viewing reports. Most of all, I liked the fact that you can review past conversations you had with customers without leaving the chat window. You can also save notes about the customers that are displayed when you reconnect to the same IP address.

Finally, 2-page extensions are supported with numerous CRMs, including Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Sugar CRM, and Highrise and ZenDesk (for customer service). This means that not only can you get CRM data when you contact an existing contact, but you can also store information about the CRM directly from Zopim.

When to use Olark

Olark is perfectly suited for companies in eCommerce. It is the only program of those we evaluated that could be integrated into eCommerce platforms. This includes Shopify, Bigcommerce, Magento, Volusion and many more. This gives us the opportunity to see what’s in customers’ shopping carts as you talk to them so you can advertise, offer complementary products or help them find the products they’re looking for.

Olark is also one of the more affordable programs – it costs $17/month for 1 user or $49/month for 4 users. The disadvantage of this program is that I found the speed of the interface slower than with Zopim and LivePerson.

When to use LivePerson

LivePerson has a free version that impressively has all the core features. While Zopim’s free account is limited to 1 chat, LivePerson offers you an unlimited number of chats. They also have an appealing interface with numerous advanced tools, including pre-formulated answers, auto email transcripts and a tool that detects when a customer is dissatisfied. The disadvantage here is the paid version. Once you subscribe to it, you pay almost ten times as much as for Zopim.

Detailed rating: Zopim vs Olark vs LivePerson:

Zopim and Olark have comparable prices: 56 $/month and 49 $/month respectively for 4 users. LivePerson, on the other hand, is significantly more expensive, with about $545/month for the same number of users. And that’s the reason:

Zopim has several different editions. The free version offers limited functionality for 1 user: You can only open 1 chat at a time and cannot save triggers. These are rules for interaction with the customer, such as “Open chat window when customer was inactive for 30 seconds”.

The basic version offers an unlimited number of chats and 2 triggers for $14/user/month (or $11.20 for annual payment). The enhanced version offers an unlimited number of triggers and more detailed chat reports for $25/user/month (or $20 for annual payment). There is also a premium version that gives you even more detailed reports and the ability to make your chat window unbranded. This version costs $55/user/month (or $44 for annual payment).

Olark also has several different editions. All give you the same main features, with the difference in the number of users. This program starts at $17/month for one user and continues at $49/month for 4 users. For 129 $/month 8 users can use the program and you can divide the users into groups. For 243 $/month you get 15 user licenses and access to telephone support.

There is a 10% discount on all prices if you choose an annual contract or a 30% discount on a 2-year contract.

LivePerson has a free version with full access for 1 user. For the other versions, the price is determined by how many calls you make per month. You do not pay per user. 1 call = 1 “commitment”. You pay for a certain number of engagements per month:

  • 20 $/month – 12 commitments
  • 50 $/month – 30 commitments
  • $92/month – 55 exposures
  • 166 $/month – 100 exposures
  • 298 $/month – 180 exposures
  • 545 $/month – 330 exposures

Note: The price is approximately 10% lower if you pay annually.

So if you expect 11 conversations, or “engagements”, per day (330 per month), you will have to pay $545 per month. This makes LivePerson significantly more expensive than the other programs that offer you unlimited calls and are billed per user.

Features

Here are the functions you get with all 3 programs:

  • A personalizable icon, which you can place on your website and with which your users can open a chat window by clicking on it.
  • You can set the style, color, size, position and much more.
  • Targeting Rules to determine when the live chat icon should appear. For example, to nudge visitors to your website after they have been inactive for 30 seconds, or to exclude customers from certain countries from live chat, etc.
  • An online dashboard and mobile app for you and your employees to log in and communicate with your visitors. The chat window provides you with information such as location, search activity, time of visit, visitor’s IP address, and much more.
  • Chat Tools, which have the function to transfer the chat to another operator or to block a visitor. You can also browse a history of past conversations.
  • Support for most world languages, including reverse languages such as Arabic.
  • Reports on visitors, chats, operators, and more.
  • Extensions with CRMs, HelpDesks and eCommerce platforms.

In addition to these core features, there are tools such as pre-formulated responses, chat transcripts that can be sent by email, and more. Zopim and LivePerson have the most advanced tools, while Olark works on a more elementary level.

This is how the programs compare:

Zopim is peppered with advanced tools. On the one hand, you can use pre-formulated answers. These are already stored statements that the operator can use in the chat. For this purpose you simply have to start typing something and Zopim suggests suitable statements.

On the other hand, Zopim gives visitors a choice of chat tools. You can make the chat window disappear, attach files, send the chat transcript to your email address and rate the operator you spoke to.

Some reports are only available to advanced users ($25/month) and premium users ($55/month). These are, for example, the satisfaction ranking and the duration of the chat.