ChatBeacon vs. LiveAgent

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ChatBeacon
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
ChatBeacon (formerly SightMax) is a live chat tool from SmartMax Software headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.N/A
LiveAgent
Score 8.5 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
LiveAgent is a help desk software designed to help users bring personalization to customer interactions. LiveAgent presents an omnichannel universal inbox, real-time live chat, built-in call center, and a customer service portal. It offers customer segmentation, automation, built-in CRM, and an analytics package, as well as gamification features, ultimately containing are over 180+ help desk features, and 200+ integrations. The solution boasts users among companies like BMW, Yamaha,…
$9
per month
Pricing
ChatBeaconLiveAgent
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
$0
per month
Small
$9
per month per seat
Medium
$29
per month per seat
Large
$49
per month per seat
Enterprise
$69
per month per seat
Downloadable licence
11,950
20 agents
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ChatBeaconLiveAgent
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ChatBeaconLiveAgent
Top Pros
Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
ChatBeaconLiveAgent
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
ChatBeacon
-
Ratings
LiveAgent
7.8
59 Ratings
1% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings8.056 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings7.947 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings6.942 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings6.838 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings8.558 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings8.559 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
ChatBeacon
-
Ratings
LiveAgent
9.7
52 Ratings
22% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings9.749 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings9.747 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
ChatBeacon
-
Ratings
LiveAgent
8.3
58 Ratings
8% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings9.753 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings6.728 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings8.050 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings7.754 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings9.546 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ChatBeaconLiveAgent
Small Businesses
Gist
Gist
Score 9.6 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Genesys DX (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ChatBeaconLiveAgent
Likelihood to Recommend
6.0
(1 ratings)
8.2
(117 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(4 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.3
(24 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
ChatBeaconLiveAgent
Likelihood to Recommend
SmartMax Software
ChatBeacon is a decent choice for on-premises chat support, but the clunky agent UI sparks no joy. If your organization can use a cloud-based solution, there are plenty of other fish in the sea
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QualityUnit, LLC
LiveAgent is great for companies that want to help customers with their issues. It is also great for getting sales for our company. During our chats, if a customer is interested, we like to ask for the sale. It is too easy for the customers to say no. So it is nice that with LiveAgent, they have an automatic process where the customer can enter their item and address information and it is easy for our agents to get the sale.
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Pros
SmartMax Software
  • Easy to install and configure.
  • Easy for customers to use.
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QualityUnit, LLC
  • Having the ability to transfer tickets or chats has proven useful when we are working with a customer who has a specific type of inquiry - perhaps a sales question or an employment request. We’ve found it helpful to have the ability to transfer the chat to the online agent best equipped to answer the inquiry so we are able to serve our customers to the highest standard and with an immediate response.
  • We find being able to add notes and labels to previous chats and tickets incredibly helpful in data collection and also in our ability to work as a dynamic team. By being able to sort our chats and tickets into an organized system that our company created, we can work cohesively to review old conversations for continuity, opportunities for growth, and with transparency between departments.
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Cons
SmartMax Software
  • ChatBeacon is just SightMax with a fresh coat of paint.
  • The entire agent UI is remarkably worse than SightMax.
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QualityUnit, LLC
  • LA doesn't provide you SMS integration.
  • You cannot divert your phone call from your local carrier to LA agent directly. You need to get a third party number which is way much costly. Also, if you get a third party number to divert your calls from a local carrier to LA, then the callers have to wait more than the usual time in order to get them connected with the Customer Support Team.
  • WhatsApp Integration also unavailable.
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Likelihood to Renew
SmartMax Software
No answers on this topic
QualityUnit, LLC
I am giving this rating as Live Agent is a very good software that is essential to any small or big business that provides customer support services. It gives you the possibility to manage any of your clients issues, answer questions and keep a good relationship with them by providing quick solutions.
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Usability
SmartMax Software
No answers on this topic
QualityUnit, LLC
The initial setup, onboarding and training is easy. The system provides 2 graphic version of interfaces in black or white default colors. I would appreciate, if there were more. Some of the setup forms are not correctly resized. Overall, I'm always able to find what I am looking for in LiveAgent.
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Support Rating
SmartMax Software
Support is a strong point for ChatBeacon - their support team is small, but you definitely get white-glove service. Zero complaints about ChatBeacon support!
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QualityUnit, LLC
The one time that I contacted the customer support at LiveAgent, they were very quick to help me out and the customer support representative walked me through every thing that I needed to know to set up what I needed. Over all, the support staff at LiveAgent were perfect.
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Implementation Rating
SmartMax Software
No answers on this topic
QualityUnit, LLC
Implementation was quick and when not counting a bug on our website, it took a couple hours. It was mostly done on our end or with the assistance of LiveAgent's live chat support team. We recommend to check out LiveAgent's tutorial videos on their youtube channel or browsing their knowledge base - we've almost always found answers to our queries there.
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Alternatives Considered
SmartMax Software
Before using SightMax (now ChatBeacon), we used AliveChat, which was an OK SaaS product, but the team operating the service would frequently restart the servers after maintenance and forget to start our instance back up. ChatBeacon(SightMax) as on-prem software eliminated this concern. We've been evaluating ChatBeacon vs. other products lately, and we really like how DeskPro stacks up vs. ChatBeacon - ChatBeacon is purely a chat product, and DeskPro does web chat/phone/email ticketing.
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QualityUnit, LLC
Before making the decision, we evaluated many tools, but none of them met all of our needs or the costs we could bear for them, until we found LiveAgent. The implementation process was super simple and supported by the LiveAgent support team, who are excellent!
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Return on Investment
SmartMax Software
  • Using website chat (often with an agent:customer ratio of up to 1:3 or more ) vs. phone support (with an agent ratio of 1:1) has greatly reduced support costs in every business unit.
  • Providing realtime feedback and links (vs. phone calls) has greatly improved the turnaround on the sales and customer inquiry processes.
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QualityUnit, LLC
  • Less expensive than having multiple individual email accounts.
  • LiveAgent has helped decrease our errors since it's more straightforward than sharing a traditional inbox with multiple team members.
  • Sometimes the emails sent from LiveAgent end up in our customer's spam/junk folder because the auto-generated alpha-numeric ticket looks suspicious.
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ScreenShots

LiveAgent Screenshots

Screenshot of Inside of TicketsScreenshot of Chat - Support ViewScreenshot of Chat - Customer ViewScreenshot of Chat - Fully Customizable