Live Chat and Messaging: What’s the Difference?

In our digital age, customers are increasingly connected and expect your business to be too. Being available online and able to reply to your customers across all channels is now a must.

If you’ve ever wondered about setting up online customer service, you’ve no doubt heard of two tools: Live Chat and standard messaging.

But what’s the difference between these two tools and which one is the best fit for your business? Here’s a closer look at the main differences to help you decide which tool to use. Follow our guide!

What is Live Chat?

Live Chat is that little bubble at the bottom corner of your screen that pops up and offers help when you’re on a company’s page. You’ve probably seen it before when browsing online.

As the name suggests, this type of online chat offers real-time customer support, directly from your website. The customer must click on the text or pictogram displayed on your site to start a conversation. Live Chat therefore reduces the time the customer must wait for help, providing them with a better user experience.

Customers like this tool as it’s speedy and easy to use. Live Chat is therefore the ideal tool to quickly answer customers’ questions during an online purchase, for example.

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When a user opens the chat, they can interact with a human advisor or an artificial intelligence agent AKA “chatbot”. The AI agent often replies first, as it can answer simple questions in a flash. If the request becomes more complex, the chat is handed over to an advisor who can deal with the issue in greater depth and provide a tailored solution.

Discover Partoo’s Live Chat

Partoo’s Live Chat lets  you communicate with your customers in real time, directly on your website. Whether you integrate a chatbot or not, our tool helps you to:

• Offer visitors to your site a unique experience.
• Boost customer engagement.
• Convert more leads into sales opportunities.

Partoo’s Live Chat lets  you communicate with your customers in real time, directly on your website. Whether you integrate a chatbot or not, our tool helps you to:

• Offer visitors to your site a unique experience.
• Boost customer engagement.
• Convert more leads into sales opportunities.

What is Messenging?

Messaging is not an instant conversation; messages are sent, read, and answered at any time. This includes all the messages we use every day on platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or via email.

Standard messaging services let prospects and customers message support services whenever they want, but they won’t get an immediate reply. Likewise, businesses can reply when it suits them.

When messaging, conversations are saved and stored in a thread, a handy format that lets you view every discussion in its entirety. You can therefore refer to previous conversations with your customers at any time and provide them with the best follow-up.

This type of communication is useful for less urgent questions or issues, ones where the customer can wait for an answer.

Webchat SMS, the best of both worlds?

Webchat SMS is integrated into your website and initially appears as a Live Chat. A chat bubble appears on the web pages so customers can message you. However, the discussion is not live, and you reply to the customer by sending them a text message.

Partoo Chat: receive contact requests via messages

• Embedded directly on your website
• Customised to feature your website’s colours
• Reply directly using the Partoo app

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What are the main differences between Live Chat and traditional messaging?

Live Chat and traditional messaging systems are both ways to communicate with customers, but they have important technical differences that you should bear in mind:

Chat history

Traditional messaging systems can store your company and customer chat histories while Live Chat tools typically don’t keep a trace of conversations.

With Live Chat, if the customer leaves the page or doesn’t reply quickly enough, the chat session ends and the customer must start from scratch the next time around.

With messaging, the conversation is asynchronous but continuous, so no one needs to repeat info and problems can be solved faster.

Cross-device (or cross-platform) functions

Since Live Chat doesn’t save conversations, they can’t be continued on multiple devices simultaneously. For example, if a customer starts a chat on a PC and then pops out, they won’t be able to reopen the conversation on their smartphone.

With messaging apps such as Messenger or Whatsapp, switching from one device to another is possible thanks to the synchronisation of messages between devices. It can be a game-changing feature depending on what your company does and your customers’ profile.

Chat tools and availability

Live Chat software requires human support, so if no one from your team is available, for example outside business hours, Live Chat won’t show up on your website.

On the other hand, customers can use Messaging whenever they choose. If an advisor is available, they’ll reply immediately. If not, the message will be sent to the company, and an advisor will reply later.

Using notifications

Live Chat requires immediate replies and customers must remain focused on the conversation to see answers. This may be a bit of pain for people visiting your website.

Messaging, on the other hand, notifies the user that they have received a reply, for example on their phone, allowing them to go about their day and get back to the conversation when it suits.

Live Chat or Messaging: Which one should you choose for your business?

To sum up, which of these two tools should you choose for your business?

Live Chat is best if your customers expect a speedy response from your business and your priority is to provide immediate support directly from your website. However, if you need to handle loads of messages, pairing it with an AI chatbot makes more sense. This leverages AI bots’ ability to filter simple queries, leaving your advisors to focus on trickier topics.

If, on the other hand, your customers can wait for a reply and prefer to resume the conversation later, a standard messaging service may be the best.

Both Live Chat and messaging are useful solutions for providing a service and communicating with your customers. Which one you choose depends on your business’s and your customers’ needs.