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The best live chat support software for your brand in 2023

The best live chat support software
Aug 8, 2023
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Mike Cha
Lead Product Manager
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Boost ops efficiency, drive revenue, & save big with omnichannel messaging

Scrolling is motivated by instant gratification. We get messages, likes, notifications, views, and content delivered anytime we pick up the phone.

And in a world of lightning-fast responses, your customer is not only expecting you to be quick —they’re expecting you to be personable. To answer questions. To solve their problems. To leave them feeling valued.

This is where live chat support software plays an instrumental role between brands and customers. By leveraging the best live chat support software, your company can engage in real-time customer interactions, increasing conversion rates and offering immediate assistance and rapid issue resolution.

Instant gratification, support style.

Best live chat support software for 2023

1. Freshchat

Freshchat is a popular live chat support software that offers a range of features to enhance customer interactions. Its key features include:

  • Omnichannel support: Freshchat allows businesses to engage with customers across various channels, including website chat, email, social media platforms, and ensuring a seamless customer experience.

  • Intelligent automation: The software leverages AI-powered chatbots and smart workflows to automate routine tasks, route chats to the right agents, and provide instant responses to common queries.

  • Proactive messaging: Freshchat enables businesses to engage with customers proactively by triggering targeted messages via their journey builder, increasing customer engagement.

However, some users find the customization options in Freshchat to be somewhat limited, making it challenging to align the chat widget with their brand's visual identity.

Case study Support mobile

Virgin Mobile UAE improved their CSAT with Sendbird Desk.

2. Zendesk

Zendesk is a well-established customer service platform that includes live chat support as one of its core offerings. Here are some benefits of using Zendesk for live chat support:

  • Seamless integration: Zendesk’s live chat integrates smoothly with other Zendesk products as well as third-party apps and integrations, enabling businesses to consolidate their customer support operations in one platform.

  • Ticketing system: Zendesk's chat support seamlessly integrates with its ticketing system, allowing agents to convert chat conversations into support tickets for follow-up.

  • Extensive reporting and analytics: Zendesk provides comprehensive reporting and analytics features, enabling businesses to gain insights into customer interactions, agent performance, and customer satisfaction levels.

A drawback to consider when considering Zendesk for your brand is complexity. Some users find Zendesk to be complex and overwhelming, especially for smaller businesses that may not require all of its advanced features.

3. Intercom

Intercom is a popular live chat support software that focuses on personalized customer engagement. Here are the advantages of using Intercom:

  • Conversational support: Intercom has recently announced the release of Fin, an AI bot powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 AI model which provides personalized and human-like conversations with customers, enabling businesses to build strong customer relationships.

  • User segmentation: The software allows businesses to segment their user base based on various attributes, enabling targeted messaging and customized support experiences.

  • App ecosystem: Intercom offers an extensive app ecosystem, allowing businesses to integrate with other tools and systems for seamless workflow management.

Despite its advantages, Intercom's pricing structure can be both complex and expensive depending on the features your business uses and may include hidden costs not fully visible before use.

4. Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud is a comprehensive customer service platform that offers live chat support capabilities. Here are the pros of using Salesforce Service Cloud:

  • Complete customer view: Salesforce Service Cloud provides a 360-degree view of customer interactions, enabling agents to deliver personalized and contextually relevant support.

  • Robust integration: The software integrates seamlessly with other Salesforce products, allowing businesses to leverage a complete ecosystem of customer relationship management tools.

  • AI-powered automation: The Digital Engagement add-on to your Service Cloud subscription leverages Einstein, Salesforce’s homegrown AI, to automate routine tasks, provide intelligent suggestions to agents, and deliver proactive support.

When compared to the vast functionalities of Salesforce Service Cloud and the greater Salesforce ecosystem, Salesforce Service Cloud’s live chat capabilities are limited to web or webview on mobile, thereby limiting the seamless interaction that brands look for when integrating live chat into their web or mobile applications.

5. Sendbird Support Chat: Salesforce Connector

Sendbird Support Chat: Salesforce Connector is a powerful live chat support software that integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, offering the following benefits:

  • Seamless integration: By integrating with Salesforce, Sendbird Support Chat allows businesses to manage their customer interactions and support operations from within the Salesforce ecosystem.

  • Real-time Messaging: Sendbird’s Salesforce Connector enables real-time messaging between customers and agents, promoting instant and efficient support that includes all the advantages of Sendbird Chat features including push notifications, delivery receipts, typing indicators, auto-translation, moderation, ability to send/receive attachments, and more.

  • Customization and scalability: Sendbird Support Chat: Salesforce Connector not only provides chat embedded within a case for Service Cloud agents to use without any learning curves, it offers extensive customization options for chat widgets on platforms such as Android, iOS, React, React Native, and Flutter, allowing businesses to tailor the chat widget to their brand's identity. It also provides scalability, accommodating businesses of various sizes.

However, since Sendbird Support Chat is a Salesforce Connector, businesses that do not use Salesforce may not be able to benefit from this software. To take full advantage of live support chat powered by Sendbird Chat without dependency on Salesforce, Sendbird offers a full-fledged support tool called Sendbird Desk.

6. Hubspot Live Chat

Hubspot Live Chat is a free-to-use chat service included in Hubspot’s CRM. It provides a no-code live chat and chatbot builder that lets you install live chat on your website quickly.

  • Hubspot integration: Hubspot Live Chat integrates with Hubspot CRM and other hubs like marketing, sales, and operations. It saves every chat transcript to Hubspot, giving agents context and visibility into every interaction.

  • Customizable widget: You can change the look of the Hubspot chat box to match your branding and website design for a unified brand experience.

  • Tailored messaging: The Chatflows feature lets you create chat messages to engage different visitors. You can target messages by sender type (all visitors, segments) and where visitors will see the messages on the site.

Hubspot Live Chat is an excellent option for businesses using the free Hubspot CRM. It provides a feature-rich, seamless lead generation, and customer support solution. The free version doesn’t offer the same depth of features as other chat solutions, and other hubs (Sales, Marketing, Service) require a paid subscription.

7. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a leading live chat customer service solution with many features and tools to automate and streamline the customer support and sales process. Here are some of the critical features of Zoho’s solution:

  • Advanced AI assistant: Zia, Zoho’s AI assistant, improves customer support with features like sentiment analysis, automated FAQ and knowledge base sharing, and ticket auto-tagging.

  • Self-service: Zoho enables customers to solve their problems quickly with guided conversations, community management, and knowledge base features.

  • Process automation: Zoho automates ticket assignments, SLAs, notifications, and workflows so agents can focus on serving customers.

Zoho is a feature-rich and versatile customer support solution that provides an excellent live chat package at a good price. It’s not as customizable or user-friendly as other live chat solutions, and although it offers a wide range of features, many of them aren’t as deep as the market leaders.

8. Tawk.to

It’s said the best things in life are free. Tawk.to, the “100% FREE live chat software for your website!” certainly think so. Tawk.to offers an impressive array of features only available in paid packages, such as:

  • Unlimited chat agents: Add as many users as you want–tawk.to doesn’t charge for additional users.

  • Real-time monitoring: tawk.to lets you monitor site visitors in real-time, and track which pages they are visiting, what they are searching for in your knowledge base and other metrics.

  • Group chat: Agents can speak to decision makers and other agents without leaving the tawk.to platform. They can also open a group chat and enable screen sharing to engage prospects and customers better.

Tawk.to is a great tool, especially for small businesses. However, there’s another saying: “Nothing in life is free.” Although tawk.to’s live chat platform is free to use, many of its features aren’t. Be prepared to pay extra for features like video chat, voice, and screen sharing–or to remove the tawk.to branding from your chat window.

9. LiveAgent

Omnichannel help desk software solution LiveAgent facilitates native live chat support with a hybrid ticketing and automated chat routing system. Its productivity-focused features include these benefits:

  • Gamification: LiveAgent’s gamification feature improves agent morale and engagement by letting them earn badges, achievements, and levels for support performance.

  • Social media integration: Facebook and X (Twitter) integration help agents respond to posts and messages, monitor mentions, and create support tickets.

  • Omnichannel support: LiveAgent’s hybrid ticket stream lets agents engage with customers on multiple channels and store interactions as tickets in a universal inbox.

LiveAgent’s focus on agent productivity and engagement makes it an excellent solution for customer service and support, however it can get pricey as you add additional features and third party integrations.


Other live chat solutions

There’s a wide range of live chat solutions designed to fill almost any niche or business use you can imagine. Here are a few alternative solutions to consider:

Thankful AI: is an intuitive multi-channel AI live chat solution that handles customer support inquiries without human intervention.

Drift: Drift integrates with CRMs like Hubspot or Salesforce to detect and inform you when a targeted VIP account visits your website. When VIPs arrive at your site, Drift greets them with an automated personalized message from their sales representative.

Userlike: Germany-based Userlike is a unified messaging system that offers file sharing, integration with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, and Slack, and a GDPR-compliant customer service and support communication solution.

Chaport: Chaport offers reasonably priced multi-channel chatbot functionality in a full-featured live chat solution and user experience.

Acquire: Multi-channel messaging solution Acquire differentiates itself with flexible co-browsing screen share options, automatic language detection, and easy connection to social media platforms.

Olark: Olark lets you customize targeted chat messages by using visitor tracking and chat history to provide your agents with context and build engagement.

Tidio: Tidio is a versatile platform that offers advanced chatbots and integration with tools like Shopify and WordPress.

How to choose the best live chat software

When considering a new live chat solution, it's important to ask yourself three crucial questions:

What do I need? Before investing in any new tool, it's helpful to understand your specific needs. Do you need it for customer engagement for ecommerce, support, or sales? Knowing how you'll use the tool will help you decide on necessary features.

What do I already have? To avoid duplicating tools, take an inventory of what you already have. If you currently use help desk software, it may already include chat as an add-on.

What's my budget? Weigh the value a product brings against its actual cost. A more expensive but robust product may provide more value and justify the higher price tag.

Integrating live chat support software to improve your overall support experience

"With Sendbird we provide a 100% digital customer support experience for our customers with native in-app chat based interactions. Our customers are more engaged and consistently give us a CSAT score of 5/5."

Ozgur Gemici

Senior Product Manager at Virgin Mobile UAE

Live chat support software has become an essential tool for businesses looking to provide prompt and efficient customer service. Each of the five options we’ve covered has its own pros and cons, and the right choice depends on your specific business requirements and priorities.

Consider factors such as budget, scalability, integration needs, and the size of your customer base when making a decision. If you are already using Salesforce as your customer relationship management system, Sendbird Support Chat: Salesforce Connector offers a seamless integration that can enhance your customer support operations within the Salesforce ecosystem.

By carefully considering the features, integration capabilities, and pricing structures of these software solutions, you can find the best live chat support software to enhance your brand’s customer support operations and ultimately improve customer satisfaction.

“The chat built on Sendbird's SDK has become the most popular communication channel among all options available to Traveloka users, including SMS, email, Facebook, or Twitter."

Adi Alimin

VP of Platform Products at Traveloka

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