Gist vs. Olark

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Gist
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
Gist is a unified marketing, sales, and support platform. It includes live chat, a help desk, knowledge base, email marketing, marketing automation, opt-in forms, and more.
$29
per month
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
Pricing
GistOlark
Editions & Modules
Professional
$29.00
per month
Premium
$99.00
per month
Self Service
$19.00
Per Agent Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GistOlark
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GistOlark
Considered Both Products
Gist
Chose Gist
Having a support ticket system is good and will help you resolve issues but, having an all-in-one tool that can let you not only resolve an issue but also to go above and beyond with customer support that later on translates into sales is priceless. That is the kind of tool …
Olark

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
GistOlark
Chat Analytics and Reports
Comparison of Chat Analytics and Reports features of Product A and Product B
Gist
8.6
2 Ratings
3% above category average
Olark
-
Ratings
Chat history and transcripts8.62 Ratings00 Ratings
Chat reporting8.62 Ratings00 Ratings
Chat and web analytics8.62 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
GistOlark
Small Businesses
Olark
Olark
Score 9.5 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
GistOlark
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(112 ratings)
9.0
(17 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(2 ratings)
8.6
(5 ratings)
Usability
6.7
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(9 ratings)
9.8
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
GistOlark
Likelihood to Recommend
Gist
If your marketing model is selling products, services, or SAAS where you are doing inbound marketing and your website will do most of the lead generation and conversion, this is a great product. From live chat, support, event tracking, and automation, you could almost put your entire business on autopilot. If your marketing model is mostly outreach to cold leads and conversion, this software currently does not have any type of sales stages or task generation. I would still use Gist for website inbound but use another software for outreach and cold leads then when they become a lead put them into Gist for marketing automation.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Pros
Gist
  • Customer service via a unified inbox so you dont have to separately monitor your twitter, Facebook or IG account for consumer communication there. Gist unified all into one inbox, better than anyone else I've seen in the market. They archive all communications and tie them back to a single user so you get unified customer history / data.
  • Marketing segmentation and automation: they track user history and behavior across the site and have super detailed segmenting capability, on par with ActiveCampaign's, but better I'd say. Better UI for the marketing admin person, and more unified data than in AC.
  • Live chat and chatbot. Usually it's either one or the other but with Gist you can do both seamlessly.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Cons
Gist
  • Plan limits can be confusing. For example, there is a monthly charge for support and a monthly charge for "growth," plus there's a separate charge depending on how many contacts and seats you have. Perhaps this is normal in the industry, but it can make it a little challenging to understand the bill every month.
  • The vast amount of features means development will never be as fast as you'd like it to be (even though they release updates all the time). This may not actually be a valid concern, and it certainly isn't unique to Gist (who doesn't have a wishlist they're waiting on their favorite SaaS to get to?), but I do believe the likelihood of being stuck without your desired feature being developed goes up a lot as the product gets bigger and bigger.
  • Email deliverability has been less than perfect in the past, but it has improved drastically in the last year.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Gist
Gist is a quite reliable service with a lot of added values. We don't need to pay for different Saas for these important features. If I had an issue the team was super responsive and helpful, that is essential for every business. The email delivery is great, so virtually no email has landed into spam folder
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Usability
Gist
It’s pretty simple, but it does a lot so there are more complicated features which depend on an individuals ability for software implementation. I am not an IT expert and I’ve managed to implement everything myself, others that are more tech-minded may find everything easier.
Read full review
Olark
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Gist
Fantastic support. Ask a question, get an answer within 24 hours every time. And sometimes within a few minutes. They've always come through for me, helpful and, even when it's an issue on my end, they point me in the right direction.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Gist
Gist combines all our previous products into one application and adds many more features that would require more apps. Gist is excellent and a no-brainer all-in-one application when compared to having to manage multiple applications at higher cost. The support from the whole Gist team has been extremely responsive.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Gist
  • They are perfect for me as a someone who needs a lot of bang for the buck. The chat messenger device on my website alone has brought me new prospects that I did not have to spend money recruiting.
  • I am able to save hours of time with the automated emails that are GDPR compliant.
  • I don't have to pay for a designer to have excellent looking emails either.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Gist Screenshots

Screenshot of Live ChatScreenshot of Email MarketingScreenshot of Marketing Automation WorkflowsScreenshot of Knowledge BaseScreenshot of Meetings