LiveChat is an online customer service software with

online chat Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet that offers a real-time text, real-time transmission of text-based, text messages from sender to receiver. Chat messages are generally short in order to enable other participa ...

help desk software Help desk software is a computer program that enables customer-care operators to keep track of user requests and deal with other customer-care-related issues. It is what makes customer-care service efficient and enterprising. Generally, help desk s ...

, and

web analytics Web analytics is the measurement, data collection, collection, analysis, and reporting of web Data (computing), data to understand and optimize web usage. Web analytics is not just a process for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool fo ...

capabilities. It was first launched in 2002 and is currently developed and offered in a SaaS (

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...

) business model by LiveChat Software S.A. Companies use LiveChat as a single point of contact to manage from one software all

customer service Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but in the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that ...

and

online sales In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

activities that normally are provided using channels (chat,

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

and

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

) and multiple tools.

Technology

Technically, LiveChat is a

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...

built with the use of multiple technologies, including

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

Node.js Node.js is an open-source server environment. Node.js is cross-platform and runs on Windows, Linux, Unix, and macOS. Node.js is a back-end JavaScript runtime environment. Node.js runs on the V8 JavaScript Engine and executes JavaScript code o ...

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database o ...

ElasticSearch Elasticsearch is a search engine based on the Lucene library. It provides a distributed, multitenant-capable full-text search engine with an HTTP web interface and schema-free JSON documents. Elasticsearch is developed in Java and is dual-l ...

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

and Erlang. The entire platform consists of two main elements: *Website chat widget - embedded on customer's website and seen by the end users (website visitors) as a small chat box, traditionally displayed in the bottom right corner of the

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

. Chat widget is visible on desktop and mobile devices, either in the browser or as a part of mobile application. *Agent application - used by the company employees to respond to questions asked by the customers. Usually agents use the

web-based A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

application, which allows employees to log in and conduct a chat with website visitor using any browser. However, there are desktop applications available for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

and

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

and mobile apps for Android and

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...

and

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design la ...

mobile apps used to exist in the past, but are no longer developed. Agent application is enhanced with user interface tools that make one-to-many communication quicker and more efficient. Examples of such tools include:

canned response Canned responses are predetermined responses to common questions. In fields such as technical support, canned responses to frequently asked questions may be an effective solution for both the customer and the technical adviser, as they offer the p ...

keyboard shortcut computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...

s, typing indicator with customer message sneak-peek,

geolocation Geopositioning, also known as geotracking, geolocalization, geolocating, geolocation, or geoposition fixing, is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object. Geopositioning yields a set of Geographic coordinate s ...

, tags system for categorization, etc. There are two ways of having an

session between the agent and website visitor: * Passive communication, started when the website visitor clicks on the chat button or widget displayed on the page. * Active communication, initiated manually by the agent or automatically by the LiveChat system as soon as the visitor meets the predefined criteria (i.e. searched keyword, time on website, encountered error, etc.). Once the criteria are met, LiveChat displays a chat invitation with a customized message. During the chat session, agents close the sales, which results in increasing the overall conversion rate. In areas unrelated directly to the product, LiveChat relies on 3rd party services. This includes Postmark for the delivery of transactional emails, Recurly for subscription billing,

Pingdom Pingdom AB is a Swedish website monitoring software as a service company launched in Stockholm and later acquired by the Austin, Texas-based SolarWinds. The company releases annual reports on global internet use, which are frequently cited in aca ...

for performance monitoring and uptime tracking and Upscope for instant screen sharing with customers.

Features

Apart from website chat, other core features include: real-time website traffic monitoring, built-in ticketing system and agents' efficiency

analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...

. System identifies the best prospects visiting a website based on data gathered from the purchasing decisions of 65 million buyers. Statistics section allows calculating the conversion from chat invitations into chat sessions and then into sales. LiveChat is available in 41 languages: Armenian, Azeri, Bulgarian, Catalan, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (bokmål), Norwegian (nynorsk), Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Tamil.

Customer service platform

First available as closed solution, LiveChat has turned over time into an open and scalable customer service platform. It created an own ecosystem of applications, companies and services supporting business communication with tools such as: *

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

documentation and multiple points of integration within the application and communication protocol, * Community - for connecting users and 3rd party developers, partners and experts, * Partner Program - for app and service monetization, * Marketplace - for distribution of applications and experts' services.

Criticism

Among generally positive reviews, there are comments that emphasize the high cost of the product, especially when compared to cheap or free solutions available on the market. Lack of

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (o ...

version and expensive pricing are mentioned by customers who also admit that "range of features & services" justify the price. Critical reviews claim that "bigger businesses may find the price minimal considering the benefit the product brings, but for start-ups or smaller businesses, it may put LiveChat out of their financial reach".

Research

Since 2014 LiveChat has been publishing ''Customer Service Report'' - an annual study of customer satisfaction and analysis of online business communication trends. It includes research of thousands of companies and millions of customer service email and live support interactions.

References

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External links

Official website
Business software companies Cloud applications Customer relationship management software companies Customer relationship management software Help desk Polish brands Web analytics Web applications