As it’s often asked of us, we wanted to go through the top Live Chat apps on the AppExchange and pick our favorites. We’ve done some in depth analysis of the best live chat agents for Salesforce below!
$16 to $30/month (single license)
LiveChat had one of the smoothest implementation within their own website, which is partly the reason it tops my list.
The best part about LiveChat is that it gives support agents access to Salesforce information within their chat window so they can quickly get up to speed on the customer or lead’s history with the company.
They also have very detailed documentation on the integration with Salesforce and how it should be set up, which is much more than most of the other apps had. They certainly keep the documentation clean and updated which is a good sign that their support is stellar.
LiveChat has multiple mobile apps as well, so support agents can really work from anywhere, answering chats on their iPhone, Android, even BlackBerry phones!
The final selling point is their customer base. When companies like ING and Adobe trust LiveChat, its a lot easier to get onboard.
$129/month (8 licenses)
SnapEngage is the most popular of AppExchange apps containing “live chat”. Like many of the others, it’s a completely separate Live Chat client that integrates with salesforce.com
The best feature of SnapEngage is probably its proactive chat window, automatically starting a chat with pre-formatted text so that your support agents can focus on the visitors who want to chat rather than starting new chats.
Additionally, it can populate Leads, Contacts, Cases, and custom fields, with no setup on the Salesforce end. All setup is done within SnapEngage and maps back to your Salesforce org, so no additional SF configuration is necessary.
The main downside is the pricing. On the AppExchange they list the price at $129/company/month. This gives you 8 user licenses, which will be suitable for many companies, but for those that only have one or two support agents, this will obviously be overkill.
$19/month (single license)
LiveHelpNow offers a full suite of web interaction logging, but they also allow customers to purchase only the Live Chat functionality. This is a benefit as it would be very easy to add new functionality once the Live Chat is up and running.
Their Live Chat client is web-based, but can be run from almost any device, allowing support reps to track customer requests from anywhere.
LiveHelpNow also provides a robust reporting system to see where the gaps are in your online sales process which integrates with data from Google Analytics. This allows the customer to tweak their site based on where people begin chatting, where they want to be directed, and what kind of questions they ask.
The final piece that not many of the other tools have is tips on when to present information to a customer and the best “flow” that leads to the most sales. This can help increase conversion and remove all barriers to purchase.
There aren’t many cons of LiveHelpNow other than the AppExchange product is very recent. This may not be an issue, as the only review is 5 stars, but it still isn’t seasoned like some of the other offerings.
Free – $17/month (single license) Non-profit discount
Olark is another very smooth implementation of Live Chat within a web browser. The website is well designed, has a great support forum, and is easy to navigate.
AppExchange reviews tout their customer service, saying that any questions about pricing or Salesforce integrations were immediately answered and resolved. The downsides also arise in the reviews however, with some users saying that the application can be glitchy and that the web interface presented to leads isn’t very customizable.
Apart from that, the price is right (with 1 agent and 20 chats/month it’s Free!) and the integration seems to work just fine.
Olark is rated at the 4th position because of its position on the AppExchange and because of the limitations around customization.
$18/month (for 12 chat sessions)
LivePerson is a robust application and LiveChat is one of the many features they offer within their plan.
The app allows you to track their location, the value of items in their cart, whether or not they’ve visited before, and what type of device they used. Although Google Analytics tracks this, LivePerson seems to do it in a more streamlined way, portraying the data in an actionable format.
It also allows you to target visitors based on their actions within your website, whether they’re looking at a specific page, completing a specific action, or they came from a notable referral site.
LiveEngage has a chat agent that identifies users who may need more direct assistance than others and sends them a request. This allows a support agent to chat with them and direct them to the correct area either on the page or within the website. These conversations can then be converted into Leads or simply added to a record as a chat transcript so that you can track interactions with current or potential customers.
The two downsides to this application is that the integration was created a few years ago and doesn’t seem to be well-supported. Additionally, it’s priced “per engagement”, which means you pay anytime someone needs to chat. This isn’t cheap (about $1.50 per chat). It has some bad reviews, and most of them center around the lack of response from the support team (which is ironic based on what the app does!)