22 Best Live Chat Software for Sales and Support Teams in 2024

Using one of the best live chat software can improve customer satisfaction, and increase sales in B2B and B2C sectors. Shoppers use live chat to find answers to their pre-sales queries. Forrester's research shows that site visitors who use web chat are about three times more likely to buy from you than those who don't.

People also use it to access post-sales support and make service requests once they become customers. According to Gartner, the live chat channel is the second most preferred channel for customer service.

When combined with other self-service channels, it can decrease your live support request volume by up to 40% — resulting in significant savings in the cost of delivering support, while ensuring speedier resolutions.

B2C and B2B businesses alike rely on live chat. But a lot of your success with the live chat channel depends on the software you use to power it. Among everything else, your live chat software should help you deliver a seamless sales and support experience across the entire buying journey.

What Is Live Chat Software?#

Live chat software is an application that you can install on your website, so everyone who visits it will be able to send a message to your sales or customer support team and receive an answer in real time from a human, not a chatbot.

Probably, you have already noticed a window that pops up on the corner of your screen with a personalized message, such as "What can I help you with?", and an answer box so you can start chatting. The best live chat software allows you to personalize the message based on trigger actions and the page the user is on.

This part is similar to what a chatbot would do, as the message is automatic, The difference is that, with live chat software, the customer has the opportunity to talk with someone from your team, instead of just receiving bot messages.

Your team can keep track of customer interactions and will be notified once someone sends a message. It will be redirected to the employee in charge of answering them, and you can have access to important metrics such as lead response time, and conversion rate that are usually provided by the live chat software through analytic features.

Benefits of Using Live Chat Software#

Implementing live chat software can bring several benefits, but you need to count on software that is easy to use, and also train your team to know how to deal with customers through the live chat.

Close More Sales#

You can close more sales by solving customer questions right away. Instead of having to wait for an email response or call your company, for instance, the customer can just send a message about what is preventing him from completing a purchase and receive appropriate help immediately.

Your sales team must be able to identify the best solution and offer it to the customer, preventing you from losing deals. Besides, receiving personalized help adds credibility to your company, and improves customer satisfaction.

Increase Customer Loyalty#

The use of live chat software helps to straighten the relationship with your customers. Talking directly to them enables you to get to know them better and have insights about how to improve services and products to solve their demands.

On the other hand, customers know they can count on efficient and quick support when they need it, through live chat, which encourages them to keep buying from your business. It's possible to nurture a long relationship with them.

Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate#

You can trigger personalized messages to pop up on the customer's screen when they are about to leave your website without completing a purchase. For example, offering a coupon discount or free shipping to encourage the purchase, or asking what is stopping them from buying the product.

Someone from the sales team can engage in a conversation with the customer to understand better the situation and help them through the purchase. Offering personalized assistance increases the chance of sales, as the customer's pain points can be better addressed.

Improve Lead and Customer Interactions#

Live chat software allows you to enhance customer experience and interactions with your company. As long as the conversations are dealt with correctly, they enable you to connect with your audience and boots engagement.

Key Considerations When Choosing a Live Chat Software#

A live chat software — just like any other business software you use — is a significant business investment. So before you make a final decision, evaluate each option using the following criteria.

Price Point#

Most live chat solutions come with multiple premium plans, with the highest tier plan offering the most value. So review what's included in each plan carefully as you might end up having to upgrade if you settle for a slimmed-down entry-level plan.

Onboarding#

About 63% of people review a brand's onboarding program when making a purchasing decision. Why? Because the sooner you onboard a solution and learn your way around it, the sooner you can start seeing the value from your investment. Ensure that your live chat solution is easy to onboard.

Scalability#

Before signing up for a contract, think about what your solution will cost you when you go from five users to fifteen, and so on. Also, evaluate how different live chat pricing scales as your message volume grows.

Features#

In addition to the core functionality of adding a live chat channel to your website (or app), your live chat solution should offer all the features that you need. For example, if you're an eCommerce business active on Instagram, your live chat software should support Instagram's messenger.

Likewise, if you're a B2B business, your chat solution should support proactive chats using triggers (like a visitor's or lead's visit to the pricing page).

Security#

Brands use the live channel to facilitate all kinds of conversations. Naturally, it should be safe to use. Not only should your chat solution offer end-to-end encryption for the chats — the same safety standards that leading messengers use — but also secure its own infrastructure.

Customization#

Ensure that your live chat software solution lets you customize your chat experience. You should be able to add custom styling to make your chat widget match your brand.

Omnichannel functionality#

An omnichannel live chat solution is simply one that lets your users connect with you everywhere. So look for a solution that fields chats via channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, and Apple Business Chat.

21 Best Live Chat Software in 2024#

The live chat software market is pretty crowded. Some solutions (like JivoChat) are a good fit for almost any business looking to get started with the live chat channel, while others target very specific user segments.

1. JivoChat#

Powering the live chat channel for 250,562 businesses (and counting), JivoChat brings to your business a unified inbox that fields every message your users send you. It's an "all-in-one" business messenger.

It allows your users to connect with your business from their favorite communication channels (phone, email, social media messengers like WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, and more). This live chat software offers a mix of features to support lots of sales and service chat use cases.

Key features:

• All-in-one business messenger software that works on every major platform - Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, WhatsApp, among many others.
• Sales and service chatbots
• Canned messages to make your agents more productive
• It comes with a one-click call and a callback feature allowing phone support
• Event-based chat triggers
• Real-time visitor monitoring and chat analytics
• Sync omnichannel messaging to your CRM

2. LiveChat#

Beyond enabling customers to interact in real-time via messages on your website, LiveChat integrates multiple communication channels in one platform. You and your team can manage every interaction from one place. You can have as many customized chat widgets as you need on different websites.

Key features:

• Chat widget
• Chat ratings
• Integrate multiple messaging channels
• Customization tools
• Chat and agent reports
• Ecommerce integration
• Work scheduler
• Encryption

3. Zendesk#

Zendesk allows you to personalize the live chat experience in your website, and in other communication channels too. Enjoy AI solutions to solve customer problems faster, and use the agent workspace to access every customer interaction in one place. Another benefit is that you will receive reports with important metrics to evaluate performance.

Key features:

• Personalize conversations across channels
• Ticketing system
• Modify Zendesk to meet your needs
• Data privacy and protection
• Agent workspace
• Integrations
• Workforce management

4. LiveAgent#

LiveAgent offers you an all-in-one customer care solution. You can connect with your customers on multiple channels and manage everything from one platform. It provides a fast chat widget that can help your increase your earnings by 48%. Use the ticketing system to organize customer support and save up to 95% time and money.

Key features:

• All-in-one customer care solution
• Connect with customers on multiple channels
• Fast chat widget
• Personalized customer service
• Call recordings
• Ticketing system
• Integrations
• Proactive chat invitations

5. ProProfs#

ProProfs can be seamlessly integrated into the most popular ecommerce platforms and CMS (content management systems), such as Shopify, Magento, and WordPress. Your customer support and sales team will be able to reach clients instantly, solve their demands faster, and increase the chance of closing more sales.

Instead of waiting for a response via email, which takes time, your customers can interact in real time with your team. The operators can use features such as canned responses, and send self-help articles.

Key features:

• Easily transfer chats
• Answer faster with canned responses
• Anticipate customer questions
• Add self-help articles
• Set chat invitation pop-up
• Set individual operator greetings
• Add announcement
• Send personalized greetings

6. Tidio#

With more than 300.000 users, Tidio enables you to talk to customers in real-time and boost customer satisfaction. You can manage all your channels with one tool, speed up replies by creating canned responses, and use the Tidio app on computers or mobile devices. It's also possible to track the pages each customer visited on your website and see what your customers are typing before they hit send.

Key features:

• Manage all your channels with one tool
• Canned responses
• Viewed pages
• Live visitor list
• Live typing
• Pre-chat surveys
• Customer database

7. Olark#

Olark is a live chat software developed to include people with disabilities, making your website more accessible. It was tested to comply with WCAG (web content accessibility guidelines) 2.1 AA standards. You can enable not only live chat but also a chatbot powered by AI. You will find many automation tools to help you save time and improve customer experience.

Key features:

• Accessible live chat
• AI-powered chatbot
• 100+ plugins and integrations
• Live chat transcripts
• Analytics
• Custom chatbox forms

8. HubSpot#

The HubSpot live chat software lets you add a customizable live chat widget to your website and brings all your website conversations to a universal inbox. HubSpot's live chat solution works best when combined with HubSpot's free CRM solution.

Key features:

• Customizable chat window
• Central inbox automatically saves all web conversations
• Chatbot builder
• Rich contextual information via HubSpot's CRM

9. Social Intents#

Trusted by more than 65,000 users, Social Intents brings your live chat channel straight to your Slack or MS Teams account. With Social Intents, you can handle incoming chat messages right from inside your favorite daily work apps. All you need to do is set up a live chat channel in your communications app, put up the code for the live chat widget on your website, and set up the integration.

Key features:

• Branded chat widget
• Supports unlimited agents
• Supports proactive chats
• Custom chatbots
• Respond to chat messages directly from Slack and Microsoft Teams

10. Glassix#

Glassix, a top-rated Conversational AI and generative AI powered chatbot solution allows you to engage with your prospects and customers via their innovative and lucrative live chat solution using multiple channels.

Your support or sales team can engage in live chat conversations with prospects and customers and provide immediate responses via your Website, your App, WhatsApp, Apple Messages for Business, Messenger and more.

Key features:

• Customizable chat widget
• Seamless handoff from agent to bot and from bot to agent
• Unified inbox and multiple live chat channels
• Open API for easy integration with CRM and ERP systems
• AI-powered Ticketing system
• Auto generated suggested replies
• FAQ and generative AI chatbots visual builder

11. Chaport#

Trusted by over 30,000 businesses for their live chat channel, Chaport offers a "better way to talk to your customers" with its live chat widget that works 24/7 for you (even when your agents or salespeople are offline). Chaport also comes with custom chatbots and a centralized inbox to power your conversations happening both on your website and over other channels (including social media messaging apps).

Key features:

• Multi-channel support
• Custom chatbots for sales and support
• Doubles up as a knowledge base tool (requires at least the business plan)
• Detailed visitor analytics brings context to conversations
• Suite of productivity tools to facilitate conversations
• Highly customizable chat window
• Supports auto-replies (if agents are busy or unavailable)

12. Podium#

Unlike the other live chat software options on this list, Podium — a powering service for 100,000+ businesses — focuses exclusively on local providers and offers three key functionalities. In addition to being a live web chat solution that's built exclusively around the needs of single- and multi-location local businesses, Podium supports collecting payments (via multiple gateways) and running SMS campaigns.

Key features:

• Unified inbox to streamline all customer conversations
• Online reputation management allows users to collect and respond to reviews
• Invoicing functionality
• Offers physical card readers to facilitate payments at local outlets
• Supports video chats for face-to-face interactions
• Lets you create personalized text marketing campaigns at scale
• Works as a survey tool for collecting feedback
• Comes with autoresponders and smart responses

13. Heymarket#

Heymarket is a "business text messaging" solution that enables the SMS text channel on your website. In addition to enabling one-on-one texting with customers, Heymarket also lets you build your contact base and launch personalized text campaigns at scale.

Key features:

• Shared inbox to streamline conversations across multiple channels
• Targeted SMS/MMS campaigns
• Supports texting messaging
• Integrations with popular CRM and help desk platforms
• Hassle-free message routing, assignment, and collaboration
• Shared inbox for Facebook Pages and Google My Business listings

14. Nexa#

Nexa offers you a "people-powered live chat" solution. In addition to the live chat software, you get access to a team of expert agents to handle the channel on your behalf. Essentially, Nexa's chat agents engage with your visitors and offer them the answers or services they seek, and route the conversations to you when it's necessary.

Key features:

• Virtual receptionist answering all chat queries
• Nexa executives answer your phone calls
• Local toll-free number for phone support
• Services are available in English and Spanish
• Appointment scheduling — looping you in only when it's needed
• Text marketing

15. Amity Chat#

Unlike the other live chat software solutions on this list, Amity Chat isn't a plug-and-play solution. It's a development kit (SDK) that lets you build a robust chat channel for your web app or website. It's essentially the backend of a live chat and you're expected to create the front end (chat window) and set up the required integrations.

Key features:

• Robust SDK to build a fully customized 1-1 chat channel
• Supports group chatting
• Custom branding
• Supports event engagement tools such as facebook live streaming

16. Dixa#

The live chat channel is one key solution that Dixa offers as part of its customer experience suite. With Dixa's live chat software, you can avoid siloed service experiences by bringing all your customer conversations from different channels like email, social media messengers, and more to a single place.

Key features:

• Customizable chat widget to match your brand
• Seamless transition between bot and live support
• Real-time visitor analytics
• AI-powered knowledge base software
• Each customer gets a single searchable timeline plotting every touchpoint they've had with a business

17. Genesys#

Powered with all the productivity tools a sales or service representative needs, the Genesys live chat software empowers your business to offer "in the moment" support to your users. It lets you engage with your customers on whatever channels they use (SMS, WhatsApp, social media messengers, etc.).

Key features:

• Multichannel web messaging
• Event-based chat triggers
• Visitor activity analytics
• Supports both live chat and asynchronous web messaging
• Chatbot builder
• Screen sharing and co-browsing

18. Inbenta#

Inbenta offers a mix of a ticketing system and live chat software. It takes conversations from a chatbot to a live support agent using AI. Also, Inbenta fields incoming messages across multiple channels like email, social media platforms, and forums and converts them into tickets for your agents.

Key features:

• Fully-featured ticketing solution
• Seamless routing between bot and human support
• Omnichannel: picks comments, messages, and queries from any channel
• Agent assignment and ticket routing
• Leverages AI to explain ticket content and intent to agents

19. Pure Chat#

Backed by more than 14,000 customers, Pure Chat is a simple live chat software that does just one thing — help you add a live chat channel to your website — but does it well. It's intentionally simple; the website copy says "Everything you need, nothing you don't."

Key features:

• Canned responses
• Visitor analytics
• Customizable chat widget
• Triggered messaging

20. Acquire#

Acquire offers an easy-to-use live chat software that your customers can use to launch text, voice, and video chats. By bringing all your customers' interactions in one place and with its support for bots, Acquire lets you streamline your sales and service conversations and offer meaningful responses sooner.

Key features:

• Chatbots
• Supports web, voice, and video chats
• Supports co-browsing sessions
• Customizable chat widget
• Translates to more than a hundred languages
• Customer analytics
• All-in-one engagement dashboard to streamline customer interactions

21. SnapEngage#

SnapEngage lets you add the live chat channel to your customer service and sales mix. Its superpowers lie in its bots (Info-Capture Bot, Guide Bot, Answer Bot, etc.) that result in more sales opportunities and faster (automated) support resolutions. Support for multi-channel conversations, a host of productivity tools, and integrations with CRM and help desk software solutions make SnapEngage a good fit for most businesses.

Key features:

• Bots for automating sales, operations, and service conversations
• Collect visitor information and run surveys
• Offers multi-channel support
• Brandable chat widget
• Canned responses and pre-chat forms
• Click-to-call and text-to-chat functionalities
• Supports co-browsing

22. Avochato#

Avochato allows you to connect with leads and customers via two channels: web live chat and text. It brings all your conversations to a single dashboard and helps you streamline your sales and service delivery ops. AvoChato also works inside Salesforce.

Key features:

• Shared inbox brings all your web messages, texts, and call data into one place
• Use the SMS channel to connect with your customers and leads
• Integrate phone support
• Auto responses based on the knowledge base and FAQ content
• Survey functionality
• Works seamlessly with Microsoft Teams and Salesforce

FAQ: Best Live Chat Software#

How much does live chat software cost?#

It depends on the live chat software and plan of your choice. You can count on free plans on some of the best chat software though, such as JivoChat.

What is the best live chat software for small businesses?#

The best live chat software for small businesses varies depending on each case. There isn't an answer that fits all since your priorities and needs differ from other companies.

Are live chats secure?#

Yes, the best live chat software usually follows privacy and security standards. Before choosing one, it's important to check what measures they take to ensure your company and your customer data are protected.

Choose the Best Live Chat Software for You#

Choosing the best live chat software for your business comes down to aligning features and functionality. In addition to the core functionality of adding live chat to your website, your live chat software should double up a web messaging solution — enabling customer conversations everywhere, from a single dashboard.

JivoChat brings this and a lot more to your business, and at an extremely affordable price. Plus, it comes with an intuitive dashboard that your support and sales staff will love to use every day.

Businesses report a positive impact on sales and service delivery within just days of adding JivoChat to their websites. Sign up for a free account and see for yourself!