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Top 5 LiveAgent Alternatives in 2024 based on 57,000+ Reviews

Updated on Apr 18
14 min read
Written by
Cem Dilmegani
Cem Dilmegani
Cem Dilmegani

Cem has been the principal analyst at AIMultiple since 2017. AIMultiple informs hundreds of thousands of businesses (as per similarWeb) including 60% of Fortune 500 every month.

Cem's work has been cited by leading global publications including Business Insider, Forbes, Washington Post, global firms like Deloitte, HPE, NGOs like World Economic Forum and supranational organizations like European Commission. You can see more reputable companies and media that referenced AIMultiple.

Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised businesses on their enterprise software, automation, cloud, AI / ML and other technology related decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.

He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.

Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

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Mert Palazoğlu
Mert Palazoğlu
Mert Palazoğlu
Mert Palazoğlu is an AIMultiple industry analyst focused on network security.
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Companies reply to social media users more rapidly, ~60% of them do so in less than 15 minutes.1Social customer service is a crucial tool that may help you enhance customer satisfaction while delivering customized service by leveraging AI-powered technologies such as omnichannel communications support, automated self-service, and chatbots

LiveAgent is one of the providers in the social customer service field; nevertheless, it may not serve as an optimal solution for each company since they may have unique needs and there are dozens of different providers on the market. 

This article will outline an overview of LiveAgent and its top five alternatives highlighting their:

  • Features 
  • Pros and cons
  • User ratings
  • Pricing

Comparison of LiveAgent and the top 5 alternatives

VendorsTotal reviews*Average rating (out of 5)*Free TrialPricing**
LiveAgent3,1544.6/530-day$9.00

Zendesk Support Suite
10,3954.3/530-day$55.00
Salesforce Service Cloud4,6084.4/530-day$25.00
Zoho Desk7,2554.4/515-day (up to 3 seats)$7.00

Freshdesk
6,6514.4/514-day$15.00
Intercom4,4084.5/514-day$39.00

Zendesk Support Suite
10,3954.3/530-day$55.00

*Based on the total number of Capterra, G2, and TrustRadius reviews and average rating as of 10/30/2023.

**Starting price per seat/month, billed annually.

VendorsAI-powered self-serviceAI chatbotCustomer feedbackSoftware & app integrations
Supported languages
LiveAgentIn premium plans200+43+

Zendesk Support Suite
In premium plans1200+30+

Salesforce Service Cloud
In premium plans2500+35+
Zoho Desk850+40+

Freshdesk
650+30+
IntercomAdd-on350+44+

Note: With LiveAgent at the top followed by sponsored vendors; Zendesk Support Suite, and Salesforce Service Cloud we’ve listed other vendors alphabetically.

Disclaimer: Social listening, omnichannel customer service, social media integrations, multilingual support, and free trial features are all provided in the top 5 listed LiveAgent alternatives, therefore these features are excluded from the list.

Vendor selection criteria

We used an extensive procedure to assess numerous social customer service software vendors to identify the five LiveAgent alternatives. Our evaluations take into account criteria such as:

  • Number of reviews: 3,000+ total reviews on Capterra, G2, and TrustRadius.
  • Average rating: Ratings with more than 4/5 on Capterra, G2, and TrustRadius.

Note: Social listening, omnichannel customer service, social media integrations, and multilingual support features are excluded from the comparison list since they are available in all LiveAgent alternatives.

LiveAgent

LiveAgent is a cloud-based social customer service solution with 175+ features and 200+ social media and application integrations.2

Social customer service: Connects your social media channels (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Viber, and WhatsApp) into a single platform to monitor, organize, and answer customer queries with the LiveAgent ticketing system. LiveAgent offers several capabilities such as automated ticket distribution, interactive voice response (IVR), omnichannel messaging, canned response messages, live chat (with attachments and GIFs), and service-level agreement (SLAs).  

AI-powered self-service: Does not include AI-powered self-service capabilities, however, the company is currently working on new intelligent features that will create tailored email ticket reply templates for knowledge base articles.3 

Intelligent features: Offers a trigger-based proactive chat invitation system that only invites visitors to chat when enough agents are available. Also, the company has an intelligent and customizable 24/7 avaşlable chatbot widget called “Quriobot” that can improve your organization’s team performance.

Pros

Emailing system: LiveAgent is said to have an efficient emailing system when allocating certain emails to different departments or even employees inside the department.4

Customer service: Users claim that the customer support team helped assist with their inquiries.5

Control Panel: Some users stated that the platform’s control panel is efficient and easy to use, especially while managing emails and creating agent accounts.6

Cons

Lack of AI: LiveAgent does not include advanced capabilities such as intelligent AI-powered suggestions or low code – no code capabilities.8

No internal chat channels: Communication with other employees is not possible on the platform, since LiveAgent has no chat channels for employees.9

Complex user interface: While some of the users don’t agree, others think that there are too many buttons and options on one screen, making it difficult to modify tickets so that users become overwhelmed by the messages that pop up on the screen.10

Lack of reporting: LiveAgent does not have a detailed reporting system.11

Inefficient ticketing system: A ticket cannot have more than one predefined answer. Every time, the users attribute another predefined answer to a ticket, the system deletes the first selection.12

Limited integrations: LiveAgent could have more integration options.13

Limited knowledge base: LiveAgent could have a video explaining all the different features.14

Connection problems: Some users encountered internet connection issues, which limited the speed of the work system.15

API documentation: Some users state that API documentation is lacking, and updates are introduced regularly, making it impossible to maintain reliable integrations.16

User Ratings

  • Capterra: 4.7/5
  • G2: 4.5/5
  • Trustradius: 8.9/10

Pricing (per seat/month, billed annually)

  • Small: $9.00 (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter integrations can be accessed with additional costs) 17
  • Medium: $29.00 (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter integrations can be accessed with additional costs)18
  • Large: $49.0019
  • A 30-day free trial with a business email and a 7-day trial with a private email is available. Free trial users will have access to one phone number, email address, and chat window.

Top 5 LiveAgent alternatives

1- Zendesk Support Suite

Zendesk is customer support software that allows you to provide service through social media channels including Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. 

Zendesk Support Suite can convert each social media communication into a service ticket, which can be resolved from the universal inbox. Users who have access to the universal inbox can leverage analytics, customer data, and the case status of each ticket to manage inquiries.

Pros

Ticket management: Users gave positive credit to ticket management, stating that it is simple to categorize tickets by clients, industry, support package, and so on by creating reports.20

Integrations: Users claim that the software offers seamless integration with vital systems like Shopify, Dialpad, and Asana.21

User interface: Users said that Zendesk Suite has a modern and intuitive interface, its live chat widget is considered to be easy to use.23

Performance: Switching between chats is slow on the workspace.24

Reporting: The reporting and analytics capabilities of the platform are claimed to be limited by a few users.25

User Ratings

  • Capterra: 4.5/5
  • G2: 4.3/5
  • Trustradius: 7.9/10

Pricing (per seat/month, billed annually)

  • Suite team: $55.0026
  • Suite growth: $89.0027
  • Suite professional: $115.0028
  • Suite enterprise: Contact Zendesk
  • A 14-day free trial is available.

2- Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce, founded in 1999, has approximately 70,000+ employees and 150,000 product users worldwide.29Its Service Cloud product is a cloud-based social customer service solution designed to assist small, medium, and large companies during their digital transformation journey.

The software can sustain connections with customers across a range of communication channels, including email, messaging, real-time chat, and social media, allowing service agents to keep track of customer cases and answer customer requests.

Service Cloud also offers add-on features starting at $50 per user per month.30Service Cloud Einstein is one of the add-on products that can be integrated into a Salesforce setup for a monthly membership fee. Einstein uses real-time analytics, automated workflows, and artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline repetitive tasks and provide analytical insights for sales teams.

Service Cloud Einstein can process automated social customer service operations, including:

  • Data entry
  • Lead scoring
  • Make predictions
  • Suggest recommendations

Figure 1: Einstein lead scoring

Source: Salesforce31

Pros 

AI-based features: Users highlight that Service Cloud is equipped with functional artificial intelligence features helping them to provide customized customer service and enhance customer service team productivity.32

Multichannel communication channels: Based on users’ reviews, Service Cloud is ideal to centralize customer contact with multi-channel support, enabling them to monitor multiple lines of communication seamlessly.33

Ticket management: Users have the flexibility to route ticket cases based on statuses, escalations, and queues in the ticket management feature.34

Low code- no code: Salesforce’s platform is simple and flexible, allowing users to get started quickly with its low code – no code capabilities.35

Cons

Reporting: Service Cloud, has room for improvement in reporting, the platform offers no visibility for other departments to see detailed customer cases.36

Learning curve: Some users had difficulties understanding the product’s features, and required additional training.37

Pricing: Service Cloud can be expensive for tight-budget businesses.38

User Ratings

  • Capterra: 4.4/5
  • G2: 4.3/5
  • Trustradius: 8.8/10

Pricing (per seat/month, billed annually)

  • Starter: $25.0039
  • Professional: $80.0040
  • Enterprise: $165.0041
  • Unlimited: $330.0042
  • A 30-day free trial is available.

3- Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a customer service software with social media integration capabilities, allowing users to like, comment, and share on social media platforms directly from the Zoho interface.

The platform offers a social media integration tool Zoho Social that can respond to incoming messages, prioritize tickets, and provide customized customer profiling in real time based on social media customer data.

Pros

Functionality: Users claim that all queries received via email and social media, particularly Facebook, are collected and addressed on Zoho Desk accurately and precisely.43

Custom panel: Zoho Desk’s panel customization function is well appreciated by some users, enabling them to view on a panel what unsolved activities or troubles exist, allowing any authorized active member to follow up and fix the issue.44

Ticketing system: Zoho’s ticketing system has received positive feedback from users, allowing them to efficiently organize and prioritize social customer service while being able to quickly monitor, create, and respond to tickets.45

Cons

Social media functionality: Some users expected to have functionality with the social media integrations such as being able to auto-create tickets from a post comment.46

Functionality: Drag and drop functionality can be added.47

APIs: Their API functions are and are not configured in real time, disabling users to automate real-time workflows.48

User Ratings

  • Capterra: 4.5/5
  • G2: 4.4/5
  • Trustradius: 8.9/10

Pricing (per seat/month, billed annually)

  • Express: $7.0049
  • Standard: $14.0050
  • Professional: $23.0051
  • Enterprise: $40.0052
  • A 15-day free trial is available for up to 3 seats.

For more information about Zoho Desk and its alternatives please check out our data-driven and transparent article on Zoho Desk Alternatives.

4- Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a customer service platform with social customer service features with 60,000+ customers, serving companies of all sizes.53The software enables organizations to manage customer inquiries and complaints by automating ticket assignments and setting up automated notifications. 

Freshdesk allows you to communicate with social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook from one interface, reducing the need to switch between programs. Freshdesk turns all relevant brand mentions, comments, likes and replies from Twitter and Facebook Messenger into easily trackable and manageable tickets. Consumers receive responses in the same channel in which they express their queries.

Freshdesk can leverage social listening and help you monitor responses that are not aimed at you but contain references to your company. This way, you won’t miss out on competitor actions, consumer queries, concerns, or comments that would otherwise have to be found manually. 

Pros

Social customer service: It is simple to integrate with social media apps and transform social media calls, messages, and comments into tickets.54

Ticket management: The ticketing system properly organizes customer inquiries with simple-to-customize ticket types.55

Canned responses: Template features, especially the canned responses are appreciated by multiple users.565758

APIs: Users give credit to Freshdesk’s open API support and integration capabilities.59

Cons

Social media integrations: Some users noticed that the integration with social media sites may be improved. They stated more comprehensive social media monitoring and interaction tools in the software would be beneficial to manage and respond to customer questions.[/efn_note60

Reporting: Some users point out that the reporting feature needs additional customization in terms of modifying the design of the tickets page.61

User Ratings

  • Capterra: 4.5/5
  • G2: 4.4/5
  • Trustradius: 8.6/10

Pricing (per seat/month)

  • Growth: $15.0062
  • Omni-channel growth: $29.0063
  • Pro: $48.9964
  • Omni-channel pro: $59.0065
  • Enterprise: $69.0066
  • Omni-channel enterprise: $99.0067
  • A 14-day free trial is available.

5- Intercom

Intercom is a messenger-based customer service software with social media management capabilities that helps businesses interact with customers and users via in-app messages, chatbots, email, social media, and live chat. 

The software automatically sends messages and emails through social media channels to teams or customers so that users can manage all support inquiries from their inboxes.

Intercom also offers an intelligent chatbot Fin, powered by language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4.

Fin: Fin is an AI-powered chatbot tool. It does not require training or feature setup to be integrated with your desktop, it is a built-in tool included in the purchasing plan and can directly connect your Intercom Articles or any public URL containing your support information priced at $0.99 per AI Resolution.68

 Intercom can demonstrate detailed automated reporting with Fin such as:

  • List of chats for which Fin did not respond
  • Interaction response rate, deflection rate, and resolution rate
  • Emails collected
  • Leads disqualified
  • Conversations assigned to your team
  • Distinction between resolved and unresolved discussions

Pros

AI-powered ticketing system: Users appreciate how Intercom organizes their work, with its flexibility, automation, and ticket management functions.69

Knowledge base: Intercom is considered a strong community platform since users think that their knowledge base articles are intuitive and easy to learn.70

APIs: Most of the users agree that Intercom’s APIs are comfortable to use and useful in personalization.72

Cons

Social media integration bugs: Some users think that social media channels like Facebook need to be fixed and may create communication gaps with customers.73

Social network synchronization and emailing: Users claim that lack of social network synchronization and an insufficient email system are the two major drawbacks of Intercom.74

Pricing: Users claim that Intercom’s pricing is super steep and can get expensive for early-stage companies.75

APIs: A few of the users think that API interaction for getting info to intercom contacts is still too code-intensive.76

User Ratings

  • Capterra: 4.5/5
  • G2: 4.5/5
  • Trustradius: 8.8/10

Pricing (per seat/month, billed annually)

  • Essential: $39.00 (includes 2 seats up to 1,000 users)77
  • Advanced: $99.0078
  • Expert: $139.0079
  • A 14-day free trial is available, then costs $0.99 per resolution.80

For more information about Intercom and its alternatives please check out our data-driven and transparent article on Intercom Alternatives.

Key features of social customer service software

1- AI-powered self-service

In the United States, ~80% of CEOs are increasing their investments in customer self-service, allowing consumers to help themselves through AI-powered self-help portals and chatbots.81

Self-service solutions driven by AI allow customers to interact more naturally.

It implies a seamless, low-effort, frictionless experience delivered by documented material through brand or user database interactions on:

  • Social media forums      
  • Chatbots
  • Blog posts
  • FAQ base
  • Community forums

2- AI chatbots

~50% of customers hang up before customer support teams resolve their issues. Keeping your consumers waiting may decrease your sales. Chatbots can address 80% of consumer queries.82

The latest generation of AI chatbots, sometimes known as “intelligent virtual assistants” or “virtual agents,” can not only interpret open-ended communication but also perform automated actions using complex language models.

An AI chatbot is a computer software that reflects human communication with a user. Though not all chatbots use artificial intelligence (AI), current intelligent chatbots increasingly leverage conversational AI methods such as natural language processing (NLP) to interpret user requests and execute automated answers.

3- Low code – no code development

According to our research data collected from customer evaluations for low code – no code development platforms, “ease of use” is the most used (11%) positive term people use when characterizing low code – no code development platforms.

No-code AI enables the development of AI models without the need for highly trained technical people. With low-code or no-code, using the software can get as simple as using daily apps, enabling the average business user (“citizen developer“).

  • Low code: Low code is a technique for creating simple visual interfaces and integrated functionality that reduces the need for traditional coding.
  • No code: No code-comparable method that offers low-code capabilities, allowing non-technical users to construct or use apps without any coding.

4- Customer feedback

~50% of customers anticipate feedback within 24 hours to social media inquiries.83Customer feedback is the information provided by consumers regarding their experiences with your products or services.

Feedback can be either indirect or direct. Customers, for example, can publicly discuss your brand on social media without naming you (indirect), or they can post product evaluations and feedback on your company’s website (direct).

5- Social listening

Social listening is the process of finding and analyzing what is being said about a company, people, product, or brand on the internet.

Social media listening can:  

  • Monitor social media platforms for mentions of your company, product, service, brand, and competitor keywords.
  • Analyze collected mentions to create practical findings that will assist you in achieving your company goals (see below).

Figure 2: Social listening data visualization

Source: Sprout Social84

6- Omnichannel customer service

When communicating with organizations, shoppers utilize an average of ten channels, with telephone, email, in-person, and mobile at the top of the list.85Omni-channel customer service seeks to create a consistent customer experience spanning numerous channels by combining them into one platform. This provides support agents with a full perspective of a client’s transactions, allowing them to respond to inquiries more quickly and effectively.

In other words, if the customer writes a message on Tuesday, they want the phone conversation on Wednesday to follow up exactly where they left off. Thus, omnichannel service keeps all the customer information across all channels to allow service agents to offer a seamless customer experience.

Omnichannel service can help businesses to:

  • Increase sales: Omnichannel customers spend more than those exclusively using one channel.86
  • Improve digital engagement: ~50% of customers prefer digital channels when engaging with companies.87
  • Enhance customer experience: 60% of customers believe that experiences should organically flow between both online and offline places.88

7- Social media integrations

Social media integrations may assist both businesses and customers in creating and distributing online material such as reviews, ratings, and images. 

Social media integrations can help businesses to:

  • Enhance brand loyalty: ~95% of executives agree that social media data has a favorable influence on brand loyalty. Social media helps companies to interact with their customers on a more personal level, building meaningful and lasting relationships with customers.89
  • Build customer engagement: ~70% of customers believe that social media channels help them to communicate with companies.90
  • Gain a competitive advantage: ~90% of leaders think that social media has a positive impact on improving the competitive positioning of your company.91

8- Multilingual support 

~20% of the population in the United States does not speak English at home.92

Customers’ experiences improve significantly when they can contact a support representative who understands their native language: they can interact more easily and feel more at ease. As a result, multilingual customer service is not only capable of contributing to more favorable encounters, but it can also assist you in building a reputation for your brand.

Multilingual support can benefit organizations by:

  • Increasing sales: More than 75% of consumers are more likely to make another purchase if the service is available in their native language.93
  • Increasing customer loyalty: 70% of SAAS customers are more loyal to organizations that provide service in their native language.94
  • Enhancing customer experience: ~70% of worldwide shoppers preferred to read product evaluations in their native language.95

Other features to consider while selecting a social customer service software

9- Free trial

A free trial allows you to evaluate the software’s features, performance, and integrations, and decide whether it is a suitable product for your business needs.

10-Pricing 

Each software company has its pricing plan. It is critical to calculate and oversee all of your spending upfront so that you do not lose control over the budget.

Major Saas expenses include:

  • Setup costs
  • Subscription costs
  • Add-on costs
  • Maintenance costs

Transparency statement

AIMultiple cooperates with numerous tech companies, including Salesforce.

Further reading

Read our transparent, up-to-date articles to learn more about social customer service alternatives and customer engagement automation.

You can also check out our data-driven list of customer experience software.

Contact us to find out more about social customer service:

Find the Right Vendors
Access Cem's 2 decades of B2B tech experience as a tech consultant, enterprise leader, startup entrepreneur & industry analyst. Leverage insights informing top Fortune 500 every month.
Cem Dilmegani
Principal Analyst
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Cem Dilmegani
Principal Analyst

Cem has been the principal analyst at AIMultiple since 2017. AIMultiple informs hundreds of thousands of businesses (as per similarWeb) including 60% of Fortune 500 every month.

Cem's work has been cited by leading global publications including Business Insider, Forbes, Washington Post, global firms like Deloitte, HPE, NGOs like World Economic Forum and supranational organizations like European Commission. You can see more reputable companies and media that referenced AIMultiple.

Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised businesses on their enterprise software, automation, cloud, AI / ML and other technology related decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.

He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.

Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

To stay up-to-date on B2B tech & accelerate your enterprise:

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