Olark vs. Smith.ai Live Website Chat

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Olark
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Olark is a website live chat tool for engaging website visitors while they browse. It can be used to to track leads, drive sales, provide support.
$15
per month
Smith.ai Live Website Chat
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Smith.ai Live Website Chat is presented by the vendor as a fast & friendly way to capture, screen & convert website leads. The Smith.ai live chat agents answer questions, screen leads & schedule appointments 24/7. Custom AI chatbots can assist with screening basic questions to maximize meaningful interactions. Users pay for relevant chats only, and the vendor promises easy setup on all website platforms. Instant chat transcripts are available sent to an email, and CRM.
$1,407
per chat after 20
Pricing
OlarkSmith.ai Live Website Chat
Editions & Modules
Self Service
$19.00
Per Agent Per Month
Starter
$140 + $7
per chat after 20
Basic
$300 + $6
per chat after 50
Pro
$600 + $5
per chat after 120
Custom
Let us know what you need
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
OlarkSmith.ai Live Website Chat
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details—All Live Chat packages include: - Emailed chat transcripts - Custom branding - Mobile-optimized chat widget - Unlimited Smart Q&A - Unlimited Playbook: Program questions determined by previous answers to improve lead intake - Real-time Spanish-to-English translation - SMS/Text Answering - One-time chat custom programming (hours vary by package) - Web installation and set-up - Phone and e-mail support Additional features available: - Integration with CRM software (including Salesforce and Clio), Zapier, Slack and others - Appointment booking - Additional custom programming support
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
OlarkSmith.ai Live Website Chat
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
OlarkSmith.ai Live Website Chat
Small Businesses
Gist
Gist
Score 9.6 out of 10
Gist
Gist
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
OlarkSmith.ai Live Website Chat
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(17 ratings)
9.1
(15 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
9.8
(2 ratings)
9.0
(14 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
OlarkSmith.ai Live Website Chat
Likelihood to Recommend
Olark
Olark chat is easy to set up and use. You can have more than one user logged in to monitor the chat on different computers. This makes a fast response time more likely. Although you have to be sure to keep your volume up on the computer so you hear the sound letting you know there's a chat waiting. I like that you can see the customers path through the website and you can put clickable links while you are in a chat to guide the customer to a product or a help page. Plus you can see if they actually went there. This makes it easier to upsell
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Smith.ai
Smith.ai Website Chat is an excellent solution for law firm owners that want a cost-effective strategy to capture lead information from website visitors. Our website generates hundreds of visitors each day and over 7,000 visitors per month. I strategically have placed the online chat feature on the contact page on our website to engage with only those potential clients that are serious about retaining our services and making a purchasing decision. I have priced this type of online chat service with several other providers (Ngage, Apex Chat). Some of these providers charge as much as $35 or hire per qualified lead. Smith.ai comes in at approximately $8-$15 per chat session with a potential lead and even offers some flat rate options. There can be further cost savings if only the chatbot feature is used without live agent support. In this option, a website visitor can engage with a chatbot using Automated questions and answers without the need for live agent support. My firm beta tested this product in of it itself and it generated several thousands of dollars in revenue. The customer support has also been exceptional. All the representatives at Smith.ai have been responsive to customer service questions and implementation of the product. Capturing leads with the chatbot feature and the live agent support has even been more profitable. Based on our CRM data, website chat leads generated over $127,500 of revenue for our firm and engaged with 230 potential clients in just the past 12 months.
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Pros
Olark
  • Olark is user friendly for both sides of the CHAT conversation. If you are initiating the chat, or the one receiving the chat, it is extremely easy to follow and use. There are many different levels of computer use comprehension and Olark is for every level.
  • Olark has reporting features to allow you to check the quality of your employees chat abilities as well as their productivity. It provides feedback for the employee themselves to also see how they are doing and take any suggestions the customer may leave for them regarding their chat experience.
  • Olark is very affordable and offers you the option, at a low cost, to look bigger and more professional that you even are. We were a smaller company and has the chat option with Olark and now have grown tremendously and STILL have the Olark chat option. Olark allowed us to grow and provide professionalism to our customers .
  • The Olark program allows you to set up quick responses to keep your customer from waiting, and to allow your employees to not have to retype the same response over and over. It is a great program that the employees really enjoy as well. It reminds you if you forgot to log out when you left your desk and provides your customer a quick note giving them the option to send the chat as an email inquiry instead, so you don't miss a thing.
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Smith.ai
  • They set up and monitor your chat on your site, giving your prospects instant service.
  • I have spent so much time with their support team. I never felt more welcome to an SaaS.
  • Their phone monitoring system saves you time and will increase your profits by converting more leads into paying clients.
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Cons
Olark
  • Not really an area of improvement for Olark specifically, but I will offer that it is incredibly important to keep in mind your company's "shopping hours" or peak traffic times (there is a Reports feature on the software that allows you to analyze peak traffic times).
  • Transcript history can be a little tricky - if you're searching for a specific past conversation, sometimes you may get multiple search results and have to sift through them until you find exactly what you're looking for.
  • I'd also offer that you will occasionally come across folks that are on your site to cyberbully or say nonsensical things. While there isn't an absolute fullproof way to deal with this, Olark does offer a nice "block" feature to disregard any unwanted conversations.
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Smith.ai
  • Although you can close the chat message, the chat bubble can not be closed and it can cause issues being able to read website content.
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Likelihood to Renew
Olark
To be honest, renewal decisions are not currently within my power. Hypothetically speaking, I'm very comfortable with the platform, have used it daily for nearly a year, and would see no reason to switch to anything else. The small criticisms I had are not significant enough to deter me from using Olark. It's a user friendly, effective tool for our department.
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Smith.ai
No answers on this topic
Usability
Olark
No answers on this topic
Smith.ai
Smith.ai Live Website Chat allows you to provide a script for when they answer prospective clients. The script is customizable as your needs change. However, the script only goes so far, as they do not know your business personally. Once they do go through that script, they send you an email with the caller's contact information so you can reach out personally if they seem interested. They do so with efficiency.
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Support Rating
Olark
Our organization does not have any complaints about Olark's Support. Anytime we reached out to them for assistance, we received a prompt, helpful reply! As mentioned previously, we used Olark fairly basically so we didn't have too much need to work with their support team other than a few general questions here and there. They were always pleasant to work with.
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Smith.ai
Smith.ai pays for itself if we can help one site visitor move down our lead funnel to being a client. We have averaged over 50+ new leads each month since implementing the chat and with a close rate for becoming new clients that is double what our advertising PPC new client closing rate has been.
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Alternatives Considered
Olark
Olark has an easier implementation process and has better functionality such as the ability to send commands through the platform to either create a ticket in your CRM or push an opportunity to salesforce; you're even able to 'push' the end user to a web page. Implementing their SDK is a snap as well.
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Smith.ai
Came down to pricing. Smith.ai Live Website Chat did not have the same level of customization and support as other alternatives but there are enough customization and tools that it was clear it would solve the problems and at a good price.
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Return on Investment
Olark
  • Olark allows my customer support team to respond to inquiries much faster than before.
  • We have seen an uptick in sales as we are able to address more questions from website visitors.
  • We have changed the design of our website based on chat feedback and questions obtained through Olark.
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Smith.ai
  • Positive - Smith.ai has easily saved me $25k+ in receptionist costs. They probably helped me land another $50k in new business I would otherwise not have brought in the door because they immediately grabbed the client on our website so they didn't get away or have to wait 2 days for a call back. Great ROI (100 to 1 ROI is probably not an exaggeration for my law firm).
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ScreenShots

Smith.ai Live Website Chat Screenshots

Screenshot of Screen & schedule leads!Screenshot of Multilingual chat support (English and Spanish)Screenshot of Humans, AI Bots or both!Screenshot of Priced for every budgetScreenshot of Webchat and text answering