July 4, 2023

5 Freshchat Alternatives for Improved Digital Communication 

As the world moves towards innovation and digital solutions,  companies from different industries are adopting more technological tools that give them a competitive edge in the market.

These companies want excellent solutions to communicate with their customers in real-time even as digital communication increases globally. 

Digital communication has changed the way we bond, talk to each other, and share information. It is now an important part of both our personal and work lives, thanks to the rise of technology and the widespread availability of internet connections.

Many apps and platforms exist to make digital communication possible – one of such being FreshChat, a consumer messaging platform that is well-known for its features and functionality. 

However, there are various alternatives on the market that provide comparable or even greater capabilities for businesses and consumers.

In this article, we will look at 5 FreshChat alternatives that can help you improve and scale digital communication.

Chatway 

First up on the list is Chatway, a modern and intuitive live chat app that lets you offer amazing customer service, interact with customers and create memorable experiences using its live chat software. 

While it is a newer entrant to the live chat software market, it provides rich functionality that makes communication smoother and easier for your business. 

Its simple and easy-to-use interface allows you to easily communicate with your customers, assign agents to customer tickets and improve your customer experience. Basically, customer communication feels easy and breezy, leaving you with the more important task of promoting your business and cultivating customer loyalty with the chat box.

Pricing

Chatway is currently free to use. This means that you get all the benefits of adding a live chat button to your website at no cost. 

This is a great deal for small businesses, agencies and freelancers alike who are looking to upscale communication on their websites. 

Intercom

Do you want a comprehensive customer messaging platform that offers live chat, chatbots, and targeted messaging? Then you should consider this Freshchat alternative. 

This alternative is a favourite for many because it helps them eliminate the long response time that frustrates customers. 

No one wants to wait around for a whole day before they get a response from a chat box. That is extremely frustrating and can quickly lead to negative brand perception and customer disloyalty.

Intercom provides not just a single tool for one aspect of customer communication, they offer robust service that covers the customer lifecycle from lead generation to support.

From AI-powered chatbots that respond quickly to an interactive inbox that allows you to offer proactive support via various channels. Intercom can really help you step up your customer retention game using its tools and functionalities.

Pricing 

Intercom offers three pricing plans for a taste of its features and tools. These plans are suitable for both small teams and bigger companies as well. 

Starter: This plan is suitable for small businesses and starts at $74 per month. It includes essential features such as a shared inbox, a basic help centre for eliminating repetitive queries, a live chat option and ticket identification. It also supports chat, email interactions and one-on-one chats.

While this plan has a higher price tag than FreshChat – which has a free plan like Chatway – it offers an enviable feature set for conversation management.

Pro: The pro plan is designed for growing businesses and offers more features than the starter plan including Facebook & WhatsApp integration. It offers more options for chat data and reporting, integration, customisation and a multilingual help centre.  

Unlike the starter plan, this plan is based on a business’ customised needs and is calculated based on the number of people reached, the number of team members added and the number of resolutions. 

Premium: This plan comes with everything in the Pro plan including advanced features, reporting, and dedicated support. You’ll need to contact the support team to get the quote for this plan.

LiveChat

LiveChat is another robust customer messaging platform that boasts of creating enhanced personalised experiences for businesses and offering a sales boost with its live chat app. 

As a rule of thumb, lead generation plays a crucial role in the success and growth of a business, and this live chat tool facilitates lead generation, right inside the chatbox. 

This is especially important for businesses relying on communication to boost sales and ROI throughout the year. 

Its integration with AI makes it a great alternative and a worthy competitor for delivering excellent services powered by digital communication. 

Some of its features include: 

• Live chat dashboard 
• Canned responses 
• File sharing 
• Chat history
• Direct Chat Link
• Integrations
• Knowledge base

Pricing 

Livechat offers four plans for customers to choose from as shown above. These plans cater to both small and large businesses. 

Starter: This plan offers a 60-day chat history, widget customization, multiple channels for communication, daily summary and refined chat monitoring tools, all for the price of $20/month.

Team: For just $41/per month, this plan offers everything in the starter plan including traffic tracking for more customers, and more filters for routing chats based on countries and languages. 

Business: Starting at $59/per month, this plan includes unlimited chat history, full widget customisation, and report data on agent response time and activity. It’s a great addition to larger teams.

Enterprise: This plan targets the likes of Fortune 500 companies with unique communication needs. It’s billed annually and only available if you contact their team for an individual contract.

Drift

Drift is a conversational marketing and sales platform that focuses on building meaningful customer relationships. 

Similar to LiveChat, it focuses on helping companies build relationships and optimize leads through live chat.

This alternative enhances the customer experience at different stages of the journey. It also offers chatbots and email marketing capabilities to make this possible. 

For smaller businesses with limited budgets, this alternative might be a pricer option even though its states otherwise on its website.

Some features include: 

• Live chat
• Meetings 
• A/B testing 
• AI-Chatbots 
• Notifications 

Pricing

This alternative offers three pricing options including premium, advanced, and enterprise plans. The Premium plan starts at $2500 while the advanced and enterprise plans will require you to contact their sales department.

Crisp

Crisp is a feature-rich and powerful platform designed to enhance customer interactions over its easy-to-navigate user interface.

This alternative is great because it allows you to offer 24/7 customer support and centralise omnichannel support through a single platform. This means you can bring your live chat, emails, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter interactions under a single platform.

It also provides a robust help desk centre to reduce the number of customer queries that you get, making your customer service experience more efficient and streamlined.

Some features include: 

• Chatbot 
• Chat widget 
• CRM
• Ticketing system
• Knowledge base 
• Inbox

Pricing 

Conclusion

When it comes to customer messaging platforms, FreshChat is undoubtedly a popular choice. However, exploring alternative solutions is essential to finding the one that aligns with your business requirements. 

Each alternative mentioned in this article offers unique features and functionalities that can enhance your customer support efforts. Evaluate each option based on your business needs and choose the platform that provides the best value for your organization.

However, we recommend Chatway as a great alternative for your business.