7 Best Chat Commerce Platforms for 2022

Chat commerce is being introduced not only in the retail industry, including e-commerce sites but also in the financial and travel industries. An increasing number of companies are considering the introduction of chat commerce to “increase customer convenience”, “increase sales” and “reduce the burden of customer support”.

However, chat commerce platforms are still few and far between. There are many products that specialize only in chatbots or manned chat, but platforms that can comprehensively use multiple tools such as ‘chatbots, manned chat and messaging’ are limited.

This article therefore introduces seven platforms that have been evaluated internationally, including in the US, a leading chat commerce country. We have also included comments from companies that actually use chat commerce platforms, so please use this information to help you select the right tool for your business.

Communication Business Avenue has been helping some of the world’s largest companies to integrate call center systems and digital communication tools for the past 16 years.

Comparing 7 Chat Commerce Platforms

This section presents the information you need in order to avoid making mistakes when selecting a chat commerce platform. The following information is discussed and compared for each product.

• Features
• Case studies
• Comments and evaluations from companies that have introduced the product
• Recommendations for these companies
• Product websites
• Product videos

This section includes information on case studies from across international markets, as well as information from the US IT tool comparison sites Capterra and Cuspera. The ‘comments and ratings of companies that have used the product’ are from LinkedIn users whose identities have been verified by the comparison sites.

LivePerson

LivePerson is a conversational cloud platform from the US. A well-established player in the chat commerce industry LivePerson developed the world’s first web chat way back in 1995. The company was one of the first in the industry to develop and commercialize advanced technologies such as messaging and conversational AI.

Features:

• Supports chatbots, manned chat and messaging.
• Chatbots can be built using low code.
• A wide range of scenario templates.
• Security and compliance recognised by enterprise companies worldwide

Functions:

• Platform for integration with popular consumer channels (corporate websites, chat apps, SMS, Apple Business Chat, etc.)
• Real-time consumer intent analysis
• Integration with existing systems such as CRM, data management, inventory management and scheduling

Case studies

Introduced in more than 18,000 companies, including HSBC and T-Mobile.

Recommended for companies that:

• Want to use messaging apps and SMS to improve sales and customer care.
• Want to appeal to iPhone/iPad users.
• Want to communicate with their customers through their corporate website.
• Want to improve marketing, sales and customer care with a single tool.

Comments and evaluations from companies that have used the system:

✅ HTML integration is easy. And the real-time customer tracking function is easy to use. ‘The ability to track response times, waiting times and the number of abandoned enquiries in real time has made our operations easier.

⚠️ ‘It takes time in training to fully master how to use it’

Zendesk

Founded in 2007, Zendesk offers a product that has increased customer satisfaction by 25% and customer support productivity by 30% in companies that have implemented Zendesk.

Features:

• Seamless channel design.
• Flexible switching settings from bot to manned chat
• Personalisation through the use of customer data is possible.

Functions:

• 24/7 customer care system using chatbots can be established.
• Messaging support using WhatsApp, Facebook and other channels
• Centralized management of customer information and conversation history in a single pane of glass.

Case Studies:

More than 160,000 companies, including Cathay Pacific Airways, have deployed the system.

Recommended for companies that:

• Want to increase customer engagement with messaging
• Companies that want to increase customer self-resolution with chat support.
• Companies that want to use chat to improve the efficiency of their internal communication system.

Comments and evaluations from companies that have used the service:

✅ ‘The rich functionality made it easy to customize, and the ability to manage via Google is a big help.’

✅ ‘Text messaging, email, live chat and social media are all available, so customers are happy.’

⚠️ ‘Prices are higher than the market. ‘Sometimes we had problems uploading and exporting data.’

Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce provides a world-class customer service platform, Salesforce Service Cloud, which aggregates and responds to customer enquiries via email, social networking, telephone and chat.

Features:

• Information sharing between customer service, sales and other departments is facilitated.
• Easy to set up, as enquiries from multiple channels can be handled by a single application.
• Lead time is only a few hours.

Functions:

• The system provides a single console for information on enquiries from email, telephone, SNS, chat and websites.
• The system can be assigned to the appropriate person for each enquiry.
• The product can be upgraded to meet the needs of customers.

Case Studies:

There are many case studies, including HEAVEN Japan Inc. and Motoyu Jinya.

Comments and evaluations from companies that have introduced the system:

✅ ‘After about two months of using it, I realized that it is a useful tool for tracking customer traffic and improving sales.

✅ ‘I didn’t realize how useful automation could be in customer care.

⚠️ ‘We are prone to dashboards not loading when the cache gets stuck.’

LiveChat

LiveChat is an application that can be integrated into a website to deploy chat support. It is a tool that excels at acquiring leads and improving purchase rates.

Features:

• Good at real-time chat support on websites.
• Simple and easy-to-use UI.
• Easy-to-use UI ・ 14-day free trial available

Functions:

• Surveys can be collected at the end of each chat.
• Targeting function
• Messaging function

Case Studies:

Over 34,000 companies in 150 countries, including Plastic printers, have used the system.

Comments and evaluations from companies that have used the system

✅’It was a highly reliable tool.’

✅’We are happy that we can match the design of the chat to the design of our website.

⚠️’It consumes a lot of memory on the computer we use.

LiveAgent

This is a product of LiveAgent, a Slovakian company founded in 2004. It is a help-desk tool specializing in customer inquiry management.

Features:

• Good at converting customer enquiries into tickets and managing them.
• A single in-tray for managing all customer enquiries, including chats and SNS.
• Free 14-day trial available.

Functions:

• Live chat tracking via Google Analytics.
• Displays the number of available representatives and the number of people waiting for a response to a site visitor.
• Chat invitation by URL or button

Case Studies:

The system is used by 40,000 companies including PC Dock 24 Inc. and Genes Inc.

Comments and evaluations from companies that have introduced the system:

✅ ‘I was relieved to know that embedding it in the site does not slow down the loading speed and has no negative impact on SEO.’

✅ ‘The colour-coding of tickets makes it intuitive to identify important queries.

⚠️ ‘There are a lot of customisation features, so it takes time to set up.’

Drift

This product is provided by Drift, established in 2015. It is an all-in-one platform with excellent marketing and sales functionality through chat support as well as chat functionality.

Features:

• Sales and marketing on a single platform.
• Provides a customer experience where customers can chat freely.
• Centralized management of all necessary information for sales representatives.

Functions:

• Identify potential customers who are interested in buying from your site.
• The ability to notify your sales team on their mobile or PC when a target visitor has visited your site.
• Conversations can take place via chat, video, email, telephone and other channels.

Case studies:

More than 50,000 companies, including Adobe, have used the system.

Comments and evaluations from companies that have implemented Drift

✅’Drift has made our inbound marketing more effective.

✅’We can provide a great chat experience because we can closely track the customer’s path.

⚠️’The price is high, so it may not be suitable for SMEs’

ManyChat

ManyChat is a Facebook Messenger-specific tool that specializes in linking Facebook Messenger with SMS and responding with chat-bots. It is primarily targeted at mobile users.

Features:

• The product is designed to be used for marketing purposes on Facebook Messenger, which is used by more than 1.3 billion users.
• Can use bots to promote and sell products 24 hours a day.
  Interact with 85,000 members of ManyChat’s Facebook community.

Functions:

• Automate the entire process from purchase to payment within Facebook Messenger.
• Automatic reminders to prevent Shopify basket drops.
• Automatically send the most suitable coupons to the target audience by analyzing SNS chats.

Case Studies:

Introduced to more than 1 million companies and 200,000 marketing agencies.

Reviews from companies that have implemented the system:

✅ ‘We’ve seen an 850 per cent increase in organic engagement on our Facebook business page since implementation.’

✅ ‘We’ve seen an increase in customer engagement with our live chat.’

⚠️ ‘I felt the template was a bit stiff’