Atlassian Stride (discontinued) vs. Smith.ai Live Website Chat

Stride works well for those looking for just a communication tool. However, there are a lot of similar programs out there that offer more interesting features without being overwhelming. The simplicity works for and against Stride. Smaller groups would find Stride useful, especially if they are not concerned with the public rooms

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Stride is great as a chat tool with your team members online.
• Stride allows us to share documents and files with one another.

Incentivized

• 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.

• Dark theme would be nice
• Better integrations to 1 on 1 chats, some software only works in group/room chat
• Platform is going away in a few months, so letting it run longer would be nice.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Stride falls short in almost every regard. While Stride is affordable, Slack and Ryver offer vital integrations that increase efficiency and are more enjoyable for employees to use. The features of Slack and Ryver that add personalization of chat (private vs. public) also add a layer of efficiency and flexibility that are hard to pass up for the simplicity and affordability of Stride.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Stride helps with keeping your email inbox cleaner and more organized. More conversational messages can be done through Stride leaving our emails less cluttered and finding emails easier.
• Stride assists with keeping a record of all your past conversations with all team members. Referring to previous communications help us keep track of current statuses of projects.
• Stride helps us keep track of documents we've shared in the past with the team and retrieve them if we need to refer back to them later.

Incentivized

• 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).