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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    LiveAgent

    Score8.8 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,…

    $15

    per month per seat

    Podium

    Score7 out of 10
    N/APodium, formerly Repdrive, is a ratings and review management platform from the company of the same name in Provo, Utah.N/A
    Pricing
    LiveAgentPodium
    Editions & Modules
    Free
    $0
    per month
    Small
    $15
    per month per seat
    Medium
    $29
    per month per seat
    Large
    $49
    per month per seat
    Enterprise
    $69
    per month per seat
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    LiveAgentPodium
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    LiveAgentPodium
    Considered Both Products
    QualityUnit, LLC
    No answer on this topic
    Podium
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    36 Answers
    58%
    Would buy again
    19 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    33 Answers
    58%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    97%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    64%
    Happy with the feature set
    21 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    30 Answers
    52%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    15 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    31 Answers
    59%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    Features
    LiveAgentPodium
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of LiveAgent and Podium
    Feature
    LiveAgent
    7.7
    59 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Podium
    -
    Ratings
    Organize and prioritize service tickets7.956 Ratings00 Ratings
    Expert directory7.947 Ratings00 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications7.042 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation6.838 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission8.458 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket response8.459 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of LiveAgent and Podium
    Feature
    LiveAgent
    10.0
    52 Ratings
    22% above category average
    Podium
    -
    Ratings
    External knowledge base10.049 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base10.047 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of LiveAgent and Podium
    Feature
    LiveAgent
    8.5
    58 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Podium
    -
    Ratings
    Customer portal10.053 Ratings00 Ratings
    IVR7.028 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social integration8.150 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email support7.454 Ratings00 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration10.046 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    LiveAgentPodium
    Small Businesses
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Affinity CRM
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Hunter
    Score7.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    LiveAgentPodium
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (117 ratings)
    6.9
    (43 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.3
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.3
    (24 ratings)
    9.0
    (13 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    LiveAgentPodium
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    Podium is well suited for several types of businesses. If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, Podium would be a great way for you to ask that customers leave you a review online sharing their awesome experience. For medium to large businesses, Podium review invites can be automated through the company's customer management system, allowing the use of Podium to be simple and not timely, even with a large customer base. It may not be appropriate for a large company to manually send out individual review invites
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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.
    Read full review
    Podium
    • Maintains conversations indefinitely, so we are able to go back to confirm details from conversations.
    • Provides the ability for our company to have a 'team' messaging platform where we can communicate with one another via single person to a single person, groups where we can add/subtract members of the group... this is invaluable to our organization.
    • Until today(!), we could 'share' or forward a message to one another; oddly, that feature disappeared just today, so I'm hoping it's a glitch!
    Read full review
    Cons
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Podium
    • Account manager communications: I had been asking my Podium account manager for integration with our CRM tool for over 8 months before my account manager fell silent. After another 6 months, I proactively reached out only to find out that the integration had been in Beta for months and 8 other companies had already integrated. It was frustrating that my account manager did not remember a key request and make the Beta available to me the minute that it was open.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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.
    Read full review
    Podium
    Again, Podium has been so wonderful in the year and a half we have been using it, we are able to integrate it with our CRM and use alot of the available features. The most helpful has been getting TONS of reviews on MULTIPLE sites through Podium!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    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.
    Read full review
    Podium
    While giving our clients the ability to leave a review was there, we had much worse results and got fewer reviews through the Podium portal than we did by sending our clients simple email requests, or simply having our service staff ask for a review while still on the clients' job sites.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    QualityUnit, LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Podium
    We haven't had any outages or issues whenever we need it over the last few years of use
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    QualityUnit, LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Podium
    It moves quickly and has no issues with delays. Performance is good as it is a web-based tool
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    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.
    Read full review
    Podium
    I have to send an email to get information. They have a chat system but I end up having to go through my rep for account questions. It was a little frustrating to not have a direct phone number to call with questions. I would like to see a helpline added.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    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.
    Read full review
    Podium
    We only had a hard time getting our technicians to remember to send the review invites.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    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!
    Read full review
    Podium
    We use Digital Air Strike at our two GM dealerships because it is one of a small list of reputation management companies authorized by GM as part of their SFE program. Digital Air Strike surveys our customers and invites them to write a review about our dealership. It is not as effective or flexible as Podium so we have been using Podium at those dealerships alongside Digital Air Strike. We also recently started a trial use of ReplyPro which is a service that monitors review sites and writes customized responses to positive reviews and suggested responses to negative reviews. I'd like to see Podium add this as part of their service so we can consolidate 3rd party vendors and manage every aspect of online reputation management from one place.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    QualityUnit, LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Podium
    Its easy to scale to different departments as needed. We initially began using it to solve one problem and as new features became available it was easy to scale this and include other departments who could benefit from its tools
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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.
    Read full review
    Podium
    • I am glad there are card readers now, sales team members too often try to just send a request instead of taking payment onsite.
    • It's made capturing messaging leads much easier.
    • It's worth the cost but if it did a few more things it would be worth a lot more to us. Document signatures, surveying after jobs, even geotagging of photos/reviews for SEO
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    LiveAgent Screenshots

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