Top 10 Live Chat platforms

Important news about Live Chat platforms

2022. Take Blip lands $70M to grow its omnichannel messaging service



Take Blip, an online messaging platform for businesses, has secured $70 million in a Series B round. Take Blip's clients, which include Coca-Cola and Nestlé, receive tools to automate interactions with chatbots that can escalate complex issues to customer service representatives. Like many other providers in the messaging sector, Take Blip also offers analytics to track representatives’ performance — a feature that some might criticize (especially since the company retains data for up to five years). This is deemed necessary to maintain a certain level of service. Take Blip competes with a growing number of rivals in the omnichannel messaging market: Glia, MessageBird and GupShup.


2022. Tidio raises $25M to automate customer service interactions



In a galaxy not so far away, on a tiny blue planet, a marvelously ambitious platform known as Tidio has set out on a quest to become the ultimate, all-encompassing communications hub for companies desperate to keep up with their chatty customers across countless channels—be it email, SMS, or perhaps the mind of a telepathic goldfish, given enough funding. And, speaking of funding, Tidio has just snagged a handsome $25 million to fuel its vision of transforming even the tiniest companies, those without so much as a human on customer service duty, into mighty conversational powerhouses. By combining live chat apps with AI-powered chatbots and a dash of analytics, Tidio looks to automate customer interactions in ways only slightly less mysterious than the question of life, the universe, and everything. Now, one might think Tidio's rivals—like Ultimate.ai, with its bot-building wizardry, or Ushur, with its AI-driven, conversation-flow solutions—might give Tidio pause. But in this vast digital cosmos, there's plenty of room to talk, whether you're powered by natural language engines like Ada or simply fueled by the eternal quest for understanding the cryptic whims of customers everywhere.

2021. Emotive raises $50M to make text marketing more conversational



In a universe where the humble SMS might actually have feelings, Emotive has emerged as the unlikely hero of conversational text marketing. In 2020, it achieved an astronomical 466% year-over-year revenue growth and recently pocketed a galactic $50 million in Series B funding. Imagine, if you will, marketing messages that feel less like spammy missives from an overly eager robot and more like a genuine tête-à-tête with a witty human being—this is Emotive’s grand design. While it happily caters to larger clients, its heart beats strongest for mid-sized e-commerce shops on Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. For these businesses, who often lack a dedicated sales team, Emotive steps in like a friendly neighborhood salesperson, sparking conversations about abandoned carts, sales, and shiny new products—boasting stellar 8% to 10% conversion rates. Starting with real human responders, the platform has grown increasingly automated, though one suspects it still dreams of being charmingly human.


2021. Glia raises $78M for its integrated AI-based customer service platform



In the far-flung galaxy of customer support, where confusion reigns supreme and users fumble helplessly through labyrinthine web pages, Glia emerges as the improbably ingenious Guide to the Support Galaxy. With a platform that doesn’t just herd disparate communication channels into one tidy bundle but also equips agents with the wizardry to leap directly into a customer’s app or web page, Glia has triumphantly landed a $78 million Series C. What sets Glia apart is its rather marvelous knack for turning the bewildering into the manageable. Not only can agents metaphorically and literally pop onto a user’s screen like interdimensional hitchhikers, guiding them and seeing what they’re seeing, but the platform also serves up tools that whisper sweet nothings to agents—offering suggested questions, ideal phrasing, and even links to answers. And just when you thought the future couldn’t get more peculiar, Glia also churns out virtual customer service assistants, diligently handling those pesky basic queries so humans can tackle the meatier dilemmas.


2020. Facebook Messenger's new chat plugin for business websites allows to reach non-Facebook users



Facebook is simplifying the process for businesses to utilize its Messenger service on their own websites. Previously, the customer chat plugin, which enables customers to interact directly with a business on the business’s website using Messenger, required website visitors to be logged into Facebook, which restricted adoption. The revamped plugin will now permit customers to communicate with businesses without needing to be logged in, according to Facebook. Instead, a “continue as guest” option will be offered. Nevertheless, businesses will still be able to use all their existing tools to manage their interactions with these online users, whether logged in or not.


2019. Salesforce brings AI and Quip to customer service chat



Salesforce Service Cloud customer service received some AI enhancements. For starters, Salesforce is utilizing machine learning to provide article suggestions, response recommendations and optimal next steps to the agent in real time as they engage with customers. The company is also leveraging similar technology to offer response suggestions, which the agent can quickly copy and paste into the chat to reduce response time. Before the interaction concludes, the company can suggest the next best action based on the conversation. Salesforce is also employing machine learning to help direct each individual to the most suitable customer service representative. Lastly, the company is integrating Quip, the platform it acquired in 2016 for $750 million, into the customer service console to enable agents to collaborate and find solutions to complex issues.


2017. LogMeIn launches livechat software Bold360



LogMeIn, a company most famously recognized for its collaboration and meeting tools (the sort of thing that makes it possible to have meetings without ever having to wear trousers), is now boldly aiming to fill the gaping "white space" in the chaotic universe of customer service and engagement. Its improbably named suite, Bold360, promises to bring together all the unruly threads of customer interaction—chat, video, text—into a singularly unified view, rather like a particularly attentive Babel fish for agents. With a sprinkle of automation wizardry, it aspires to let customers help themselves, while liberating human agents to focus on higher-order tasks like contemplating lunch. The question hovering like a spaceship above a prehistoric savanna is whether LogMeIn can navigate the perilous asteroid field of this crowded market and establish a thriving niche without crashing into existing customer engagement systems. On the bright side, Bold360 boasts no-code integrations with the likes of Salesforce and Zendesk, ensuring that agents can effortlessly summon customer data as if it were stored on the other end of a very polite infinite improbability drive.


2015. Live support chat Zopim goes Premium



Customer service software provider Zendesk introduced the Premium version of its live support chat Zopim, created to assist growing companies in expanding their live chat operations. Zopim Premium enables businesses to deliver outstanding customer support as they expand. The updated plan will feature workforce management tools, the ability to grow your operation and enhanced customizability. These functionalities will equip support team leaders with the resources they need to oversee customer expectations and agent efficiency. Zopim Premium is intended to give managers deeper insight into their operations so they can handle customer expectations and agent productivity while maintaining efficiency at scale. Real-Time Monitoring provides metrics on customer satisfaction, chat queue activity and agent workload—helping ensure you meet your SLAs and identify potential issues before they escalate.


2014. LivePerson buys co-browsing tool Synchronite



In an event that would doubtless send a ripple of mild interest through the galaxy of customer service solutions, LivePerson, a purveyor of chat solutions to the teeming masses, has rather sensibly decided to snap up the German startup Synchronite for its co-browsing and video-chat wizardry. This cunning acquisition, wrapped in a veil of mystery as far as price goes, is set to enhance LivePerson’s already highly industrious agents by bestowing upon them the god-like ability to see exactly what bewildered customers see. In theory, this will allow them to deftly nudge clients through such labyrinthine tasks as form-filling, purchase finalizing, and other digital contortions demanded by modern websites. As it turns out, there are other companies — Unblu, LiveLook, and Firefly among them — who have also embarked on this curious path, proving that seeing the customer’s screen is indeed the latest trend in the peculiar dance of online customer service.


2014. Zendesk buys Live Chat provider Zopim



In a move that might be described as both audacious and distinctly cloud-flavored, Zendesk, the plucky purveyor of helpdesk software, has leapt into the acquisition fray with the purchase of Zopim, a Singaporean startup whose claim to fame is a live chat product buzzing away on some 120,000 websites across 140 countries. The deal—estimated to cost up to $29.8 million, or roughly the price of a small planet in some corners of the galaxy—will see Zendesk gently nudging its own chat software out the proverbial airlock in favor of Zopim’s "far superior" model. For Zendesk, this isn’t just about the shiny new chat tool; it’s an intergalactic opportunity to charm its way into the hearts and wallets of the many websites that haven’t yet embraced the full Zendesk suite. And for their existing customers? Oh, the upselling possibilities are as infinite as the improbability of a perfectly buttered slice of toast landing butter-side up.