Best Conversational AI Platforms
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PRODUCTS
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BUYER'S GUIDE
Buyer's Guide
By Sylvia Marak, Technical Writer at SelectHub
Conversational AI platforms provide tools to design, build, test, deploy and manage chatbots. They allow businesses to automate customer service, marketing, and sales processes through natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI). Both conversational AI and live chat software provide quick and personalized customer support to improve customer engagement and satisfaction.
If your company has outgrown its conversational AI and live chat solutions, you’ve come to the right place. In this buyer’s guide, we’ll cover the benefits and features of a conversational AI platform to help you pick an ideal solution.
Executive Summary
- Conversational AI platforms automate conversations with customers via AI and NLP.
- It provides round-the-clock support without human intervention.
- Handle a large volume of customer queries simultaneously to increase scalability.
- Enhance customer relationships by providing personalized support.
- Be sure to ask potential vendors any questions you have about the software before committing to a purchase.
What Is a Conversational AI Platform?
A conversational AI platform is software that utilizes NLP and AI to automate customer conversations. It provides significant benefits for businesses of all sizes, such as multilingual support, 24/7 availability, efficiency and more.
It also offers analytics and reporting features to measure the effectiveness of conversational interfaces and optimize performance. Seamless customization and integration with systems like customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) streamlines multiple operations and supports informed decisions.
Some major factors fueling the growth of conversational AI platforms include the need for omnichannel deployment and increased demand for AI-powered customer services. According to Future Market Insights, the conversational AI market is predicted to rise by $40 billion in 2032 from $8.3 billion in 2022.
Primary Benefits
Implementing conversational AI in live chat solutions can lead to a more efficient, cost-effective and personalized customer support experience. Let’s take a look at some top AI platform benefits and how they can positively impact customer satisfaction.
Improve Customer Service
Instantly respond to customer inquiries to reduce wait times and improve customer satisfaction. Manage routine customer service tasks such as order tracking and returns. Provide round-the-clock customer support to solve incoming inquiries.
Increase Efficiency
Handle multiple customer conversations simultaneously to respond to more queries in less time. It increases efficiency by automating routine tasks like password reset or account updation. Resolve customer queries to reduce errors and improve customer support.
Boost Sales
Recommend products, cross-sell and upsell customers based on their preferences and purchase history to increase sales and revenue. Analyze customer data and provide personalized product recommendations through data analytics and machine learning (ML).
It optimizes sales strategy by identifying trends using customer insights.
Enhance Data Collection
- AI Chatbots
- Chatbot Platforms
- Chatbot
- Cloud CRM
- Complaint Management
- Computer Inventory
- Contact Management
- CRM For Commercial Real Estate
- CRM For Consulting
- CRM Insurance
- CRM
- CRM Software for Project Management
- Customer Database
- Customer Engagement Platforms
- Customer Profile
- Customer Retention
- Customer Service
- Customer Success
- Ecommerce CRM
- Email Ticketing Systems
- Email Tracking
- Financial Services CRM
- Fundraising CRM
- Help Desk
- Help Desk Software For Schools
- Hotel CRM
- Influencer Marketing
- Issue Tracking
- Knowledge Base
- Lead Management
- Live Chat
- Marketing Analytics Software Tools
- Marketing Attribution
- Mortgage CRM
- Remote Desktop
- Restaurant CRM
- Retail CRM
- Sales Force Automation
- Service Request
- Ticketing
- Travel Agency
- Venue Management
Collect data on customer interactions, preferences and behavior to improve business operations and identify current market trends. NLP and ML help extract contextual information such as customer intent to understand their needs.
Key Features & Functionality
A single conversational AI platform offers countless features to improve customer experiences and achieve the benefits discussed above. Here are some key features and functionalities to consider.
Integrations | Integrate with systems and applications such as CRMs, ERPs and databases to access and provide relevant information via preferred channels. Contextual information such as user history, location, and preferences help provide more personalized and relevant responses. |
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Omnichannel Experience | Provide seamless transitions between channels that help switch web chats to voice calls without losing context. It personalizes conversations based on user preferences, history and behavior. It routes the conversation to the right channel, agent or system based on context. |
Dashboard and Analytics | Identify trends and optimize omnichannel strategy using user analytics and insights. It provides real-time monitoring of chatbot performance, including response time, conversation length and user satisfaction. Provide metrics to track system performance and identify areas for improvement. |
Advanced AI Learning | Allow the system to continuously improve from user interactions and learn from behavior while adapting its responses. It understands the context of queries to provide more accurate and relevant responses. This information helps improve the overall user experience. |
No-code Visual Flow Builder | Create workflows via drag-and-drop interfaces. It manages conversational experiences without the need to write any code. Customizes flows to tailor chatbot behavior to specific business requirements or use cases. |
Natural Language Processing | Improve NLP capabilities by learning from user input and refining its understanding. Identify user objectives and provide relevant responses. It detects the language of the query to respond in the preferred language. |
Channel Proficiency | Support multiple interaction modes that include voice, text and touch. It allows users to switch between different interaction modes based on preferences and convenience. The system can transfer context and conversation history between different channels. |
Hybrid Chat | Interact with chatbots for simple, repetitive tasks to provide a seamless handoff to human agents for complex queries. It provides real-time suggestions and information agents during conversations. |
Software Comparison Strategy
When it comes to selecting a conversational AI platform, there are many factors, such as features, pricing, customer support and ease of use, to consider. While many conversational AI platforms have similar features, deciding which solution is best for your business can be overwhelming.
Here is a detailed guide on how to conduct a software comparison strategy.
- Define Business Needs: Identify your business requirements and use cases. Consider what channels you want to support, such as voice, messaging or social media. Determine what features you need (NLP, sentiment analysis and multilingual support). Establish your budget, timeline and team resources.
- Research Available Platforms: Research the available vendors in the market. Consider factors like the platform's reputation, market presence, customer reviews and ratings. Narrow down the list to a few platforms that best fit your needs.
- Feature Comparison: Conduct a feature comparison, create a spreadsheet and list each platform’s features.
- Pricing Comparison: Evaluate pricing plans for each option. Look at the subscription plans, licensing fees and additional charges for add-ons or customization. Consider the cost-effectiveness and scalability of each plan. Factor in your budget and projected ROI.
- Evaluation: Consider the level and availability (phone, email, chat or documentation) of customer support each platform offers. Evaluate response times, support quality and team expertise. Consider factors such as the learning curve, training requirements and documentation. Look at each system’s level of customization, flexibility and control.
- Make an Informed Decision: Evaluate all of these factors and consider whether the solution suits your organization and offers the most comprehensive features, cost-effective pricing, excellent customer support and ease of use.
You can also refer to our Lean Selection process.
Cost & Pricing Considerations
Many types of software in the same category share similar factors in terms of cost. You generally want to cover the most obvious factors, like if there's a paid subscription model vs. upfront cost, if there are charges associated with multiple users and what factors can contribute to the final cost (data migration, hosting and customization).
You can adjust your pricing strategy as your platform evolves and market conditions change.
The Most Popular Conversational AI Platform
Now that you know what conversational AI platforms can do, how do you decide which product is best for your needs? We’ve curated some of the most popular conversational AI solutions on the market. Check out our picks below!
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a CRM platform that offers a conversational AI solution for sales automation and customer support. Seamless integration with the system provides businesses with a chatbot to interact with customers and prospects. It understands customer queries and responds with relevant and personalized answers via NLP and ML.
Analyze and track lead numbers from a single location. Source
Tidio
Tidio is software that helps communicate with website visitors and customers in real time. It improves customer service and sales by providing quick and convenient communication. It offers a range of features like chatbots, visitor tracking and integrations with popular messaging platforms.
View what website visitors type before they hit send. Source
Userlike
Userlike provides solutions to improve customer service, sales and customer engagement by providing a platform for quick and convenient communication. Its co-browsing feature lets businesses see visitor browsing status and provide real-time guidance.
View visitor website location based on IP addresses. Source
Questions To Ask
To get a better understanding of your company’s requirements, ask yourself these guiding questions:
- What’s my budget?
- Will my employees need training to use the software?
- What are the key pain points I’m facing in our operations?
- What features do I need the most to address those pain points?
- What problems can this software help me solve?
Here are a few questions to ask potential vendors to help you learn more about them and their software:
- What is your software upgrade process?
- How many years of expertise do you have in the industry?
- Is the solution scalable?
- What percentage of queries will this solution automate?
- Does the solution support multiple languages?
Next Steps
Conversational AI has become an increasingly significant tool for businesses looking to provide better customer support, reduce costs and improve overall efficiency. This buyer’s guide highlights several important factors to consider when selecting a conversational AI platform.
Need more help? Get started today with our comparison report to gain insight into top software leaders.
Product Comparisons
Additional Resources
Products found for Conversational AI Platforms
Podium
Podium is an interaction management software that enables businesses to boost communication with customers, leads and teams. It includes messaging, listing management, reporting, customer sentiments and more. It enables online review management by combining customer interactions and online reviews from several websites (including Google, Facebook and Tripsor) into a single dashboard. Customizable surveys and follow-up options allow teams to gather real-time feedback across all touchpoints and initiate a two-way conversation for quick issue resolution. Users can streamline customer conversations by accessing remote connections and collaborating on leads from one inbox. SMS campaigns help teams foster better customer relationships and gain insights by delivering personalized content to segmented groups. Organizations can leverage the integrated Google Analytics module to gauge website performance and analyze customer interactions. It offers automated and smart responses to initiate leads and answer FAQs. It enhances business exposure to significant websites when searching for local SEOs. It is available on desktop, Android and iOS devices and serves industries like auto, entertainment, healthcare and more.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive supports sales professionals in managing every phase of the sales process, from lead generation to customer contact. Forecasting enables sales reps to close more deals, and visual pipelines clarify what stage a lead is in and what action is required. Users can simplify and streamline tasks with automation and AI capabilities. It offers integrations and an open API, so companies can plug in third-party apps to further extend its capabilities.
Nextiva
Nextiva allows users to combine customer service and internal business with VoIP phones, analytics and AI all located in a single platform creating a user-friendly, simplified experience. Accessible from anywhere, at any time, it includes video chat, email and message modules for communicating within the business and with customers. It’s equally suitable for small, medium and large companies.Analytics track sales pipelines, allowing for in-depth insights on how customers interact with the business and what they want and need. Keep customers satisfied with automated switching to direct them to the correct person to help with any questions they may have.
Brazen
Brazen is a self-serve, virtual career fair and hiring event platform that hosts networking events, webinars, interviews and more, especially geared towards colleges and universities. The third-generation interface delivers an easy-to-use, reliable space for users to administer fun and accessible events for potential employees.
ChatBot
ChatBot is a customer service management platform that offers features like machine learning, multimedia support, data security, reporting, widgets and more. Its drag-and-drop visual builder allows users to create chatbots from customizable templates for bookings, eCommerce, recruitment and sales. Built-in natural language processing (NLP) technology analyzes human speech and generates personalized responses. Businesses can develop, release and manage virtual assistants across websites, social media and messaging apps. It integrates with third-party providers such as WordPress, Zapier and Facebook.
Drift
Drift is a cloud-based conversational marketing platform that helps businesses acquire customers and streamline sales processes. It generates leads through customizable campaigns, intelligent reports and real-time engagement with website visitors. It offers AI chatbots, offline and mobile access, geo-tagging, conversation histories and more.
Intercom
Intercom is a conversational platform that personalizes messaging throughout the customer journey using customer, company and behavioral data. It offers chatbots, marketing campaigns, self-service functions, proactive tours and more. Collaborative inboxes, reporting and automated workflows help users interact with customers across all channels. It integrates with out-of-the-box modules to automate actions and sync data and allows users to build their setups based on business needs. Businesses can see who uses their products and communicate with customers via targeted, behavior-driven emails and in-app messages.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign provides cloud-based marketing services, with robust capabilities ranging from automation and reporting to lead scoring and contact segmentation. It’s ideal for businesses of any size, as it offers a flexible, device-agnostic deployment model. It also functions as a marketing-oriented CRM with different integrations and exporting options to assist sales. It provides machine learning that can be used on data including phone calls, emails and sales. Machine learning enables predicting win probability and using predictive sending. Customers can also take advantage of a consultant directory with certified consultants from different countries.
Bitrix24
Bitrix24 facilitates the execution of the customer journey. It supplies organizations with tools for marketing, sales and customer service activities such as lead generation, marketing automation, campaign management and call center support.It comes with a free edition for companies with less advanced needs or a smaller budget. Deployment is available in the cloud and on-premise. It’s suitable for smaller businesses as well as enterprises with up to 50,000 employees.
LiveChat
LiveChat is a customer service chat app that allows companies of all sizes to more easily connect with website visitors and supports the efforts of sales departments as well. It offers capabilities for complete communication and measurement via chat, agent monitoring, ticketing, e-commerce, engagement and reporting. It can be deployed across multiple websites and used on mobile, desktop and web-enabled devices.
Birdeye
Birdeye is a marketing and reputation management platform that helps businesses be discovered by new customers. It allows users to monitor, organize, respond to and track reviews and convert feedback into actionable insights. Users can leverage the built-in Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine to understand customer sentiment, analyze trends, assess competitor reviews, and compare and measure performance. It also includes open APIs, a unified communications inbox and a customizable CRM.
LivePerson
LivePerson is a cloud-based conversational platform that helps businesses improve customer relationships through real-time, intelligent engagement. Brands can use the omnichannel workspace to engage with customers at scale. It also helps benchmark, track and optimize sales, marketing and customer service KPIs. It’s accessible from desktops and iOS or Android devices, simplifying collaboration across distributed workforces.
Kayako
Kayako is a fully integrated, cloud-based customer service platform that helps simplify customer interactions. Agents can offer 24/7 support through various communication platforms, including email, Facebook and Twitter, and in multiple languages. It also offers self-service options, a visual timeline of customer interactions, integrations and more.
Rocket Chat
Rocket.Chat is an all-in-one open-source communication platform that centralizes collaboration and support to boost team productivity. Its omnichannel interface allows users to embed real-time chat widgets into any website or mobile app to derive more value from team chats and provide better customer service. It allows self-managed or cloud-based workspace adaptation, customization and unlimited integration, and centralizes data for stakeholders and teams. It is available on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and iOS devices, and supports CCPA, HIPAA, LGDP and GDPR compliance.
Olark
Olark is a cloud-based messaging platform that provides seamless interactions between businesses and customers. It offers real-time channels to communicate with customers and generate leads while improving customer support. It prioritizes chats that need follow-up and forwards them to the CRM. It provides instant screen sharing for agents to assist website visitors. It also offers modules to upload files, images and videos for immediate support. It supports over 100 languages.
LiveHelpNow
LiveHelpNow provides omnichannel support solutions to make customer interactions smooth and convenient for agents. It offers real-time customer service communications over email, Facebook messenger, live chat and SMS. Customers can benefit from its self-help knowledge base. Other notable attributes include ticketing support, instant language translation, analytics and reporting, tracking and more.
HappyFox
HappyFox is a ticket management and customer support software that integrates with the user's website and email accounts to collate customer requests. It helps agents organize, track and respond more effectively. They can also assign emails to appropriate persons. The ticketing lets agents solve customers' issues productively while streamlining the customer support workflow. It also has a built-in knowledge base, end-user support portal and community forum.
UJET
UJET is a cloud-based, AI-powered platform that consolidates and optimizes customer support for sales and marketing. Its major offerings include predictive, contextual communications routing, a conversational AI-based virtual agent, specialized bots and smooth integrations with CRM, WFM and QM.
LiveAgent
LiveAgent is an online communication platform that supports personalized, multilingual customer service. It provides in-suite and standalone offerings for live chat, online self-service portals, ticket management, change and license management, and more. It offers all-in-one helpdesk support by combining all communication channels, including email, live chat, phone calls and social media, in a single company inbox. LiveAgent offers additional services through third-party companies to provide CRM, including sales and marketing automation. Users can analyze helpdesk performance and generate multiple reports to reward high-performing support agents and track customer satisfaction.
Comm100
Comm100 is a live chat solution that offers real-time, personalized customer engagement. It supports multilingual services with a flexible ticketing and messaging system, automated chatbots, a self-serve knowledge base and security measures for data protection. The product connects via third-party integrations such as CRMs, eCommerce, social media and website content management channels with a systematic API. Live chat lets users engage with customers in real time using text, routing, audio, video, co-browsing, file transfer, auto-translation and more. Reports help evaluate team performance, chat expertise and overall service efficiency.
Genesys Cloud
Genesys Cloud is a consolidated, cloud-based contact center solution. It allows employees to field inbound and outbound communications, predict potential customer issues and collaborate efficiently using chat, voice, video and search functions.
EngageBay
EngageBay is a customer relationship management platform that helps businesses engage and convert leads, acquire customers and nurture existing relationships. Key features include SMS marketing, automation, web analytics and live chat.
Call SelectHub for a free 15-minute selection analysis: 1-855-850-3850
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