LiveChat Review: The Mac of Live Chat Tools?
Giving your software the name of a whole category of applications is quite a bold move. Their name "LiveChat" clearly sends out a message: "we want to shape the market." We'll find out whether that's true.
It's worth noting that unlike other providers in this space, LiveChat bills you per concurrent user. That means one seat can be used by multiple agents, which is particularly advantageous if your team works in shifts.
There are five different pricing tiers to choose from: their most affordable package "Starter" is priced at $16 per month. If you need more than just four themes and a full chat history, you should take a look at the "Team" ($33) plan. The "Business" ($50) tier is designed for larger teams and adds a staffing prediction as well as a work scheduler module. "Enterprise" provides you with a dedicated account manager at a price of $149 per month.
So what's behind their well-designed and polished website? Let's lift the curtain:
Our LiveChat Inc. rating in detail
| Criterion | Rating | Comments |
| Ease of use |  |
We love the clean menus and also the loading speed of the backend. Some of the options can be a bit tricky to find at times. |
Setup |
 |
Sign up (no credit card required), paste a piece of code onto your website and it's ready to go. Changes in the backend will show without any additional code change on your website. |
| Appearance customization | |
Their basic widget looks very good and there are different templates. Advanced users can get additional themes from the marketplace or edit the CSS. Use one of their attention grabbers for more visibility. |
| Chat features | ||
| -Chat client (that customers use) |
|
Show your company's logo and a photo of the operator (optional). Additionally, you can add your social media accounts. Looks great! |
| -Chat agent console / use of instant messengers (IM) |
 |
Extremely nice and clean web interface that works perfectly. There is also an installable software for Mac and Windows. The advantage of it is that you can set a specific time after which the tool goes offline when you show no activity. |
| -Proactive chats & Triggers |
 |
The 'greetings,' as they call them, can be customized with rules that you define. There is no really elegant way of hiding the chat window in case you only want to use triggered chat invitations. |
| -Offline mode |
|
Hide the chat bar when you are offline or change it into a contact form. There is even a full-blown ticketing system that lets you answer questions directly from within LiveChat. |
| -Shortcuts / canned messages |
|
Define any kind of phrases for quick access as tags. |
| -Create chat protocols | |
The visitor can request a transcript right from the chat client. |
| Tracking & live analytics |
|
Shows basic information, such as country, IP address and visited pages. |
| Internationalization |
|
Interface texts can be customized. To fully support multiple languages, you need to set up different language groups and install different code snippets to your website. |
| Integrations | Yes | Offers plenty of integrations in their marketplace: CRM’s such as Highrise and Salesforce as well as^ Facebook Messenger. There is also an API. Through their marketplace it’s also easy to add an optin checkbox for newsletter services like Mailchimp. |
| More features | ||
| -Working in a team |
Yes | Transfer chats from one agent to another. Also supports agent groups, where users can choose which department they want to talk to. |
| -Mobile support | Yes | Mobile apps for iPad, iPhone and Android are available. |
| -Cobrowsing |
No | There are only screen sharing options available. |
| -SSL encryption | Yes | All plans |
| -Ban users |
Yes | You can define how many days you want to ban the person. |
| -Log creation |
Yes | Creates a searchable chat history. |
| Support | Live chat and knowledge base | They offer an excellent support section and their live chat agents are most helpful. |
| Overall rating | 4.4/5 |
LiveChat provides a fantastic user experience due to its polished interfaces and great features. Thanks to the Marketplace it’s easy to add extra functionality. |
© ChatToolTester Matrix
Conclusion
LiveChat is one of the products we thoroughly enjoyed reviewing. It just works really well and is fun to use. We were also surprised that compared to ClickDesk, which we had on our site before, the number of chat requests skyrocketed. Even though we used the same setup (automatic trigger after 3 minutes).
A feature that sets them apart from their competition is the new ticketing system. Offline messages go directly into this channel and can be handled more easily by your team with different statuses (open, pending, solved).
It is not the cheapest live chat software but certainly one of the best. Their support is top notch and, at the risk of repeating myself: the user-experience with their software is just fantastic. If Apple were ever thinking of acquiring a live chat software, I think they would have to look no further.
> Try LiveChat 60 days for free (includes a 30% discount on your first year)
Updates
22 May 2018 - General update.
12 Feb 2018 - Change in their pricing structure. "Regular" plan got removed.
12 Oct 2017 - Added pros and cons.
14 Jul 2017 - Cobrowsing is no longer available as the external provider Firefly stopped their service.
19 May 2017 - Longer trial period
23 Mar 2016 - Explanation of "seats" added
06 Mar 2014 - Pricing updates
17 Dec 2014 - Video review added
11 Dec 2014 - Higher rating for Appearance Customization
05 Aug 2014 - Information about the new ticketing system added.
19 May 2014 - Information on cobrowsing added.
01 - 04 Oct 2013 - Initial tests.
Last updated: 22 May 2018 | Robert Brandl
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The Company
Company name: LiveChat, Inc.
Founded: 2002
Country: USA, Poland
Offices: Boston and Wrocław
Questions?
If you are not sure if LiveChat or a different provider is the best choice for your business, please contact us.
