Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Admin |
Messaging conversations persist. Live chat sessions end when the visitor leaves. That single difference decides which you want.
The difference
| Messaging | Live chat | |
|---|---|---|
| The visitor leaves | Conversation continues | Session ends |
| Nobody is online | Message waits, answered later | Chat unavailable |
| History | Visible to the customer | Gone when the window closes |
| Channels | Web, mobile, WhatsApp, social | Web only |
Why persistence changes everything
With live chat, an unanswered visitor is a lost one. With messaging, they send a message and get on with their day, and you answer within a reasonable time.
That removes the requirement to have somebody watching a widget at all times, which is what makes chat expensive to staff properly.
Which to choose
Messaging, for almost everyone starting now. It covers the live case and the asynchronous one, and it works on channels your customers already use.
Live chat remains reasonable where you genuinely have people watching during known hours and the conversations are short.
You cannot run both on one brand
The widget does one or the other. Moving from chat to messaging is a switch with consequences for your triggers and reporting, rather than a setting you toggle back and forth.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.