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LiveHelpNow vs. Sparkcentral (discontinued) vs. Sprout Social

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    LiveHelpNow

    Score8 out of 10
    N/ALiveHelpNow is a configurable live chat and/or help desk platform featuring ticket management, live chat and email support, call support, a knowledgebase, analytics, and more.

    $21

    per month

    Sparkcentral (discontinued)

    Score10 out of 10
    N/ASparkcentral was a social customer care solution and cloud-based customer engagement platform that catered specifically to customer care teams within large enterprises, enabling them to deliver real-time social customer service. Sparkcentral was acquired by Hootsuite in January 2021. The product has since been discontinued.N/A

    Sprout Social

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/ASprout Social provides social media management, marketing, customer care, data and intelligence, and employee advocacy solutions for brands and agencies, including Ticketmaster, Chipotle, Grubhub, Subaru, and Zendesk. Sprout’s platform is used to simplify social publishing, engagement, reviews, analytics and listening for customers. Sprout also provides customer success and technical support, to deliver consistent value to all users. Any organization, regardless of size or industry, receives…

    $249

    per month per user

    Pricing
    LiveHelpNowSparkcentral (discontinued)Sprout Social
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Essentials
    $79 per seat/per month annual / $99 per seat/per month monthly
    Standard
    $199 annual / $249 monthly
    per user/per month
    Professional
    $299 annual / $399 monthly
    per user/per month
    Advanced
    $399 annual / $499 monthly
    per user/per month
    Free Trial
    Free
    for 30 days
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    LiveHelpNowSparkcentral (discontinued)Sprout Social
    Free Trial
    YesNoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details———
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    LiveHelpNowSparkcentral (discontinued)Sprout Social
    Considered Multiple Products
    LiveHelpNow
    No answer on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    Chose Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    Sparkcentral is very organized and robust in terms of using it for customer service/tech support. It allows you to record detailed information about your customers, and provides thorough customer support histories which are very helpful as well.
    Incentivized
    Sprout Social
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Would buy again
    106 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    93 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    108 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    92 Answers
    Features
    LiveHelpNowSparkcentral (discontinued)Sprout Social
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    8.0
    1 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    -
    Ratings
    Organize and prioritize service tickets8.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Expert directory8.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications8.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation8.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    10.0
    1 Ratings
    22% above category average
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    -
    Ratings
    External knowledge base10.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base10.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    8.8
    2 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    -
    Ratings
    Customer portal8.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    IVR8.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social integration8.02 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email support10.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration10.01 Ratings00 Ratings00 Ratings
    Listening/monitoring
    Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    -
    Ratings
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    7.2
    114 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Boolean keyword searches00 Ratings00 Ratings6.980 Ratings
    Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings00 Ratings7.196 Ratings
    Sentiment analysis00 Ratings00 Ratings7.077 Ratings
    Broad channel coverage00 Ratings00 Ratings8.090 Ratings
    Publishing
    Comparison of Publishing features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    -
    Ratings
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    8.2
    145 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Content planning and scheduling00 Ratings00 Ratings9.2145 Ratings
    Audience targeting00 Ratings00 Ratings7.2110 Ratings
    Content optimization00 Ratings00 Ratings8.2126 Ratings
    Workflow management00 Ratings00 Ratings8.4126 Ratings
    Engagement
    Comparison of Engagement features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    -
    Ratings
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    7.9
    132 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings00 Ratings7.687 Ratings
    Customer interaction histories00 Ratings00 Ratings8.1116 Ratings
    Bulk actions00 Ratings00 Ratings8.1115 Ratings
    Marketing
    Comparison of Marketing features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    -
    Ratings
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    7.1
    96 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Lead generation00 Ratings00 Ratings6.869 Ratings
    Content marketing00 Ratings00 Ratings8.192 Ratings
    Paid media management00 Ratings00 Ratings6.23 Ratings
    Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings00 Ratings7.24 Ratings
    Channel coverage/integration
    Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    -
    Ratings
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    8.4
    144 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Twitter00 Ratings00 Ratings8.8126 Ratings
    Facebook00 Ratings00 Ratings8.7143 Ratings
    LinkedIn00 Ratings00 Ratings8.6130 Ratings
    Google+00 Ratings00 Ratings7.846 Ratings
    Instagram00 Ratings00 Ratings8.6132 Ratings
    Pinterest00 Ratings00 Ratings8.246 Ratings
    YouTube00 Ratings00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
    Reporting/analytics
    Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    -
    Ratings
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    8.2
    146 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Campaign success analytics00 Ratings00 Ratings8.6138 Ratings
    Real-time tracking00 Ratings00 Ratings8.1134 Ratings
    Competitor analysis00 Ratings00 Ratings7.8120 Ratings
    Account management
    Comparison of Account management features of LiveHelpNow and Sparkcentral (discontinued) and Sprout Social
    Feature
    LiveHelpNow
    -
    Ratings
    Sparkcentral (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Sprout Social
    8.0
    138 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Role-based user permissions & privileges00 Ratings00 Ratings8.7132 Ratings
    Mobile access00 Ratings00 Ratings7.3124 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    LiveHelpNowSparkcentral (discontinued)Sprout Social
    Small Businesses
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Sendible
    Score7.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Khoros Service
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Emplifi
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Brand Embassy (discontinued)
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (discontinued)
    Score8.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    LiveHelpNowSparkcentral (discontinued)Sprout Social
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (16 ratings)
    8.4
    (203 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.7
    (4 ratings)
    9.2
    (67 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.5
    (130 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.7
    (8 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (7 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    1.8
    (39 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    1.0
    (12 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (42 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    LiveHelpNowSparkcentral (discontinued)Sprout Social
    Likelihood to Recommend
    LiveHelpNow
    LiveHelpNow provides an easy way to provide youtube links, manual links and remote software links to customers in real time. There is no need for the cx to have to go check their email or go outside of LiveHelpNow to see the helpful information. Which is important as we prefer to keep customers engaged on our website!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    Sparkcentral has an extremely dedicated customer service team The platform UX is brilliant Reports are very detailed & easy to export The system is stable more than 98% of the time Queue management is extremely easy They need to work on a mobile app / making the website mobile friendly The ability to add more social media channels is essential
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    Sprout is typically the first platform that comes to mind when I think of social media content scheduling/platform management/social media management. However, Sprout is very pricey, and I don’t think there’s an obvious standout element that helps differentiate it from other scheduling platforms. For organizations with only a few social media profiles, I’d be more likely to recommend lower-cost or free platforms as opposed to Sprout. I’d probably only recommend Sprout for organizations with dozens or hundreds of social media accounts
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    LiveHelpNow
    • Easy for customers to reach out.
    • Best for short quick answers.
    • Easy for staff to use.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • The biggest advantage of the Sparkcentral platform is its "inbox zero" philosophy. With this, our customer support requests are queued within the app, and agents need to work down the queue to keep it empty.
    • The app is designed from the ground up for customer care - instead of taking a generic social platform, and sprinkling in some customer care tools. Everything about Sparkcental is designed for helping our customers.
    • Sparkcentral allows us to do much better CRM. We can make customer notes, see recent interactions, determine who helped the customer (and when).
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    • Social Scheduling: Sprout Social makes it easier than any platform I've used to schedule posts with each, and to batch-schedule the same post to run on multiple dates. The scheduling platform is intuitive and easy to understand.
    • Social Reporting: With just a few clicks of the button, you can easily export reports that are easy for both social media experts and complete novices to understand. I like how you can get a report within 60 seconds or so if needed.
    • Customer Service/Help: Whenever I've had a question, both my Sprout Social rep and the Help Center have been extremely easy to contact and quick to reply. Problems are solved very fast and it's made easy to understand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    LiveHelpNow
    • Needs better integration with Marketo
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • In the beginning our team had the option to see what another user was typing as they responded to a post. With the latest update, this was taken away. That feature was key for us to shadow agents remotely who are still in training to provide real time feedback.
    • Our company has a number of different brands that we manage. Having a truly unified queue would be a great addition for us!
    • The bulk resolve should allow the option to select on the posts that you wish to resolve instead of selecting a time frame for bulk resolve. Often we find that marketing posts generate more volume in the evening. However, there are sometimes posts where the customer needs assistance during that time. So, if we were to bulk resolve for a certain number of evening hours we would potentially miss a customer's concern through that option as it is currently. But, if the option was to go through and select on all marketing posts and then bulk resolve you would ensure that you are not missing a post where a customer needs assistance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    • I would like for Personal Instagram Accounts to be able to integrate with Sprout Social's Employee Advocacy platform. You are able to connect personally accounts to Sprout Social itself, which is great, but for employee re-sharing internal stories, this is not possible unless it is with a Business Instagram account.
    • I would like for the left hand tool bar to be more user friendly. There are so many tools and settings that are available, and I would like for it to be simplified in a way that makes it less cluttered.
    • An improvement can be made with the Sprout Social Mobile App. The user friendliness of the app does not allow as much autonomy as the regular webpage.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    LiveHelpNow
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    Sparkcentral has never given us a good reason to consider any other option. Aside from all the positive points I mentioned in previous areas of this review, something else that has really impressed us is their customer service (makes sense, they're a customer service company after all!). Any time we have a question or concern, we send them an email and we get a response almost instantly.
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    Sprout Social is the best platform out there for social-media management, and now that I have all my clients using Sprout Social, it would be sort of silly for me to walk away format at this juncture. The only cloud on the horizon would be if Salesforce bought it (as has been rumored) and put it inside its walled garden.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    LiveHelpNow
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    The system meets all my expectations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    Sprout Social is straightforward to use - built for anyone regardless of tech experience to be able to navigate. It integrates pretty seamlessly to the native platforms and brings a lot of things together to make a seamlessly experience for seasoned social media managers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    LiveHelpNow
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Sprout Social
    Uptime was OK, but given the fact that we are in Europe, there were some specific problems: They tended to take the system down for maintenance during the night in the US, which was during our workday. This was definitely problematic and hard to explain to our clients.
    Read full review
    Performance
    LiveHelpNow
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Sprout Social
    It is quick to post, however you have to refresh the page every time you add a new scheduled item.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    LiveHelpNow
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    Incredible customer service team that replies back very quickly, follows up on the reported issue till it's resolved in a very timely manner.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    The chat and online resources are great. The managers are too. They go through account reps pretty fast. Also, not a lot of onboarding once a product or service is sold. The ticket request system is terrible, they have too many people switching off roles, they take a long time to get back to you and don't plan on anything being fixed over a weekend - even if you have a problem. Their customer service via tickets is the worst.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Online Training
    LiveHelpNow
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Sprout Social
    Their training is good, but the promotion of it is even better. I don't need or have the time for training, but I was always happy to know it was there. They did a great job sending updates out and making me aware when there was a new feature that I may want training for. As for the training I never used it, so I can't comment on that
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    LiveHelpNow
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Sprout Social
    Make sure you do it all the way. Do not break it into phases. Pour yourself a coffee, start it in the morning and you'll be done before you finish that coffee.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    LiveHelpNow
    No answers on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    Sparkcentral does what it has offered to do, where other software made empty promises, Sparkcentral delivers. They also inform us, anytime they are undergoing maintenance or when Twitter or Facebook has an API change, where in previous cases we would have to discover this ourselves.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    We started this agency using Later and switched to Iconosqaure because we needed more in-depth reporting. We switched from Iconosquare to Sprout Social because of the continuous scheduling bugs/issues we were having with our account and our terrible experience with their Customer Service team. We are planning to close our Sprout Social account and move to HeyOrca because of cost, ease of use, and the basic scheduling features Sprout Social doesn't offer.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    LiveHelpNow
    • The most notable positive impact that we have experienced were during the pandemic. When the world as we know if shut down LiveHelpNow gave us a much needed way for us to stay in contact with our customers. Our hold times for phone support was at an all time high. Having LiveHelpNow allowed many many customers to receive assistance for minor issues without the frustration of calling in.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • Customers appreciate fast responses to the things they post on social media. This tool allows that to happen.
    • The dashboard allows us to keep up with how many are waiting in our queue so we can keep up with how busy we are during the day and manage it.
    • Customer satisfaction has seemed to increase while using this tool.
    • Being able to add notes with the customers address and phone info is awesome as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sprout Social
    • One positive impact has been a huge time saver for our team. Where we once had multiple systems and delays from producing content to approval to publishing, now everything is seamless.
    • Another positive impact is streamlining the onboarding process for new team members. Sprout Social is user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy to study even for someone completely new to social media.
    • One negative impact has been the time it takes to wade through irrelevant social listening posts. The filtering is not effective enough to eliminate the noise.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Sprout Social Screenshots

    Screenshot of Sprout’s social media publishing tools, used to schedule and post messages to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn simultaneously from a single Compose window.