Chatbot
Chatbot Software and Chatbot Providers Compared
What's the best chatbot for my company? We compare the best chatbot providers. Discover top chatbot providers for efficient customer service and improved user experience.
In modern customer service, chatbots have a crucial role to play as they can increase efficiency and improve customer satisfaction. They are available 24/7, provide instant responses to customer queries, and enable significant cost savings by automating routine tasks.
However, finding the right chatbot for your business to benefit from its capabilities can be a tedious task that usually lacks time. In this guide, we compare chatbot providers.
Why is the choice of chatbot provider so important?
The quality of the chatbot provider has a direct impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of the chatbot in customer service. A suitable provider can facilitate the development of a powerful, customer-focused chatbot, while the wrong choice can lead to frustration, poor customer experience, and even financial loss.
The right provider will ensure that your chatbot uses advanced technologies such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to accurately understand and respond to customer queries. It also enables customizability and scalability to adapt to the changing needs of your business. Privacy and security are other crucial factors to ensure the trustworthiness of your chatbot. Overall, choosing the right chatbot provider has a significant impact on the success of your business and customer satisfaction.
Types of chatbot providers
There are different types of chatbots depending on their capabilities and focus. It is important to note that the selection of a chatbot provider depends on the specific requirements of the business.
- AI and NLP providers: These companies specialize in artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) and offer advanced language processing capabilities that can be integrated into chatbots.
- Open source chatbot frameworks: There are also open source frameworks and libraries that developers can use to create their own chatbots.
- Cloud-based chatbot providers: Companies that host and provide chatbot solutions and services in the cloud. This means that chatbots do not need to be installed on local servers or data centers, but are accessible via the Internet and can be used by customers via a web browser or API calls. These cloud platforms typically offer a variety of tools and features for developing, deploying, and managing chatbots.
- Industry-specific chatbot providers: Some companies offer industry-specific chatbot solutions tailored to the needs of specific industries. This can include healthcare, retail, banking, and more.
The different kinds of Chatbot providers.
What are the criteria for choosing a chatbot?
Various points should be considered when choosing a chatbot. The following criteria are very important:
- Functionality and customizability: The chatbot should provide the necessary functionality to achieve the company’s specific goals. It should also be customizable to adapt to changing requirements.
- Integration capabilities: The chatbot should be able to seamlessly integrate with existing systems, applications and communication channels to ensure smooth operations.
- Scalability: the ability of the chatbot to scale as the number of users and requests increases is important to maintain performance as customer engagement grows.
- Security and privacy: data security and privacy compliance are hugely important, especially when handling sensitive information.
- Usability: the chatbot should provide a user-friendly interface for management and configuration, and users should find interacting with the chatbot enjoyable and efficient.
- Out-of-the-box solution: If the chatbot is implemented “out-of-the-box”, it can be used directly after implementation and does not have to be trained first.
- Translation: An integrated translation tool enables smooth communication in different languages. There is no need to search laboriously for a language. Customers can simply write in their language in the chat and the chatbot responds.
- Analytics and reporting: it is important that the chatbot collects data on interactions and generates analytics and reports to gain insights into user performance and needs.
- Cost: The cost of developing, implementing and maintaining the chatbot must be within the company’s budget and in proportion to the expected benefits.
- Customer support across multiple channels: It may be useful to implement a solution where multiple channels can be automated to provide consistent customer service.
Taking these criteria into account, we have researched and compared a number of providers and listed them for you below:
OMQ
OMQ offers several solutions for customer service. In addition to automating the help page, contact form, email and ticket system, the chat is also equipped with AI. In addition to the regular AI chatbot, OMQ also offers a chatbot based on ChatGPT.
With the OMQ chatbot, customer service communication is optimized. Customers can submit their queries via chat and receive a response in seconds. The chatbot is already used by many companies from different industries. The e-commerce company EMP, for example, answers ⅓ of incoming inquiries automatically.
Customer Service via live chat or messengers provides 24/7 service and availability.
The chatbot based on ChatGPT is able to communicate even more naturally and respond appropriately even to complex customer requests. The in-depth understanding of language ensures that the chatbot can always provide individual answers. In addition, it always has up-to-date knowledge and can even complete tasks by requesting relevant data in the chat, then executing an action in the backend system and displaying it as an appropriate response (e.g. order status, name changes, etc.).
The OMQ chatbot asks the customer for data, checks it in the backend and solves the task.
As already mentioned, various communication channels can be automated with OMQ. This means that customers receive answers quickly and efficiently across all channels.
Service knowledge can be managed centrally and thus be used in every customer service channel.
other special features of OMQ…
- very easy to operate
- ready for immediate use thanks to out-of-the-box integration
- efficient customer service across multiple channels
- great customer support
Price: entry-level package from €150 for automated help page, with chatbot from €450
Advantages: easy integration and operation, good customer support, support for multiple channels, Pre-trained AI, central knowledge database, ChatGPT-level Chatbot
Disadvantages: creating individual requests can take some time
Languages: over 30 languages
Userlike
Userlike is a live chat provider from Cologne and one of the leading customer messaging softwares. Userlike’s customers include Nivea, Toyota and Lindt. The live chat uses both AI technology and human service employees, with the transition between the two components functioning seamlessly.
The chatbot can be integrated into Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram, for example. To automate customer support, self-learning chatbots, intelligent FAQ pages and dynamic contact forms can be created via the AI Automation Hub.
Userlike’s chatbot is used by Hermes, among others. The logistics service provider receives hundreds of tracking requests every day, which often cannot be processed in time by service employees. Chatbot “Bo” is available in the website chat and on WhatsApp and already had more than 600 conversations with positive feedback in the first week.
Price: various packages between 90-720€
Advantages: covers various channels, AI Automation Hub
Disadvantages: possibly more time required for initial integration due to numerous features, chatbot can only be booked with corporate package
Languages: over 30 languages
Userlike live chat system with chatbot or human takeover Source: Userlike
Zendesk
Zendesk offers various CRM solutions for the areas of service, support and sales. There are also over 1000 apps and integrations in the Zendesk Marketplace, allowing conversations to be conducted via various channels and platforms.
The Zendesk solution tends to be a more expensive option. The chatbot is mainly used by large companies such as Fender, for example, whereby interactions between customers and the company are increased via chat. Fender comments:
We were looking for a consolidated base that would bring all of our teams together and allow them to be able to communicate efficiently with each other and with customers to maintain that centralised knowledge.Darren Antram, Director of Sales Operations at Fender
Price: Basic €19/month; Suite Team €55 per customer service employee/month // €3,300/year for 5 customer service employees; Suite Growth €89 per customer service employee/month // €5,340/year for 5 customer service employees; Suite Professional €115 per customer service employee/month // €6,900/year for 5 customer service employees
Advantages: Multichannel support, efficient ticketing system
Disadvantages: very expensive, feedback is not taken into account as much
Languages: over 40 languages, but multilingual support only from Suite Grove onwards
Ticket system by Zendesk with chat. Source: Zendesk
melibo
melibo offers user-friendly conversational AI software with the option of human takeover (i.e. requests can be forwarded from the chatbot to service employees). The company also incorporates customer feedback into updates.
melibo’s chatbot is used by the Fachhochschule des Mittelstandes in Bielefeld, among others, where it is used for advising students, tutoring, mentoring and various blended learning scenarios. Both teachers and students quickly find their way around the tool and can quickly create and publish their own chatbots.
Price: requests always unlimited, from 750€ (topics: 300, integration: 2, users: 3, languages: 2), from 1250€ (topics: 500, integration: 3, users: 10, languages: 5), from 2500€ (topics: unlimited, integration: 5 users: 20, languages: 20)
Advantages: Bring feedback into updates, user-friendly
Disadvantages: Minor dashboard issues, usability etc.
Languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
Example chat by melibo Source: melibo
Tidio
Tidio is a platform for conversational marketing and customer communication that combines chatbots, live chats and email functions to help companies interact with customers on their website. It enables efficient and personalized customer care in real time.
As Tidio is based in Poland, its use may not be compliant with German data protection laws.
Haack Fachgroßhandel uses Tidio to provide customer support via website chat for customers, whereby the data can be analyzed very well. The tool is also easy to use and easy to customize.
Price: €0 (live chat 50 requests, chatbot 100 requests, ticket system, basic integrations, connections) , €19 per user (up to 5 users, unlimited live chat), from €19 (chatbot from 1000 requests, bookable with other packages), from €329 (everything, multiple websites, AI chatbots, etc.)
Advantages: Prior query of the mail in the chat, easy integration into Shopify
Disadvantages: Packages expensive, interface not customizable, push notification delayed
Languages: German, English, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish
Ticket system and live chat at Tidio. Source: Tidio
JivoChat
JivoChat is a communication platform for businesses that offers live chat, telephony, email and social media integrations. The platform enables businesses to engage in real-time communication with website visitors and manage multiple channels for customer support to ensure efficient and personalized interaction.
Based in the USA, however, this can also give rise to data protection issues. Minaycosmetics uses the live chat tool, which is intuitive to use and ensures that contact with the company can be established quickly.
Price: €12-31 per month per agent
Advantages: Simple creation of the chatbot
Disadvantages: no auto-message possible, customer inquiries cannot be viewed outside service hours
Languages: more than 20 languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Turkish, Indonesian, Nigerian and Russian
Customer service in JivoChat’s Contact Center. Source: JivoChat
Freshchat
Freshchat is a customer support platform with live chat functionality that enables businesses to interact with customers in real time through various channels such as website, app or social media. Through automated messages, chatbots and integrations, Freshchat offers an efficient solution for seamless and effective customer communication.
Here, too, the company is based in the USA. At Fantastic Services, the chatbot increases the conversion rate.
At Fantastic, we want to ensure that every customer receives a 5-star service. As a company, we believe that we don't sell services, we help people.Denitsa Dimitrova, Sales Lead, Fantastic Services
Price: 18-83€ per user/month (distinctions depending on the number of customer requests)
Advantages: Omnichannel, incoming messages all in one place
Disadvantages: Prices (as per user, number of inquiries)
Languages: n.a.
Team inbox with chat at Freshchat. Source: Freshchat
moinAI
moinaAI is an advanced AI platform that provides a wide range of natural language applications from text generation to problem solving. These features can be used in the form of chatbots in customer support.
For some changes, however, support must be contacted as they are not simply executed in the backend. Multimedia elements such as images and documents cannot yet be executed. In addition, users must formulate clear intentions in their requests, as the AI may not recognize what exactly it should play out.
Moin.ai automates Fressnapf’s customer service and takes care of the company’s first-level support.
Prices: from €790 (inquiries: unlimited, 1 AI chatbot on 1 website, 25 topics, 1 language, 1 user), from €1990 (1 AI chatbot multi-websites, 100 topics, 2 languages, 10 users), from €3990 (2 AI chatbots omni-channel, 300 topics, 5 languages, unlimited users) → Various service levels depending on price. Service level depending on price, plus on-boarding fee
Advantages: intuitive UI, customer service
Disadvantages: some changes cannot be made in the backend, multimedia elements cannot be inserted, clear intentions must be stated in the request, otherwise AI cannot interpret them correctly
moinAI Chat. Source: moinAI
Ultimate
ultimate.ai is a company that specializes in Conversational AI. The platform integrates machine learning and AI to enable automated, natural and efficient conversations in customer support and service applications, allowing companies to improve interactions with customers and automate repetitive tasks.
Ultimate AI can simplify many processes that would normally be handled by service agents. For example, the chatbot can be used to book luggage or activate tickets.
Price: n/a
Advantages: simple integration, support, “extension of team”
Disadvantages: complex chatbots are difficult to create and costly, customer service is difficult to reach
Languages: Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Irish, Galician, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional)
Ultimate AI with different options. Source: Ulitmate
ManyChat
The chatbot software from ManyChat is designed for messenger platforms. Messenger bots can therefore be easily created, with the option of being connected to employees.
The chatbot software makes it possible to automate interactive conversations in Instagram Direct Messages, Facebook Messenger and SMS. The platform offers user-friendly tools and interfaces that enable companies to carry out automated messages, interactions and marketing campaigns via chatbots.
ManyChat can be linked to the Facebook or Instagram account, for example, and then used as a marketing tool. This allows more sales to be realized directly.
Price: Chatbot incl. 1,000 contacts free of charge, paid plan from 15$/month
Advantages: easy to use, clearly laid out
Disadvantages: limited options
Languages: English, Spanish
ManyChat example for chat communication. Source: ManyChat
Conclusion Chatbot Provider
When choosing a chatbot or chatbot provider, it is crucial to recognize whether the respective provider offers the desired functions and is also adaptable to your own company. There should also be suitable integration options to ensure that the chatbot fits into existing systems.
Another important point to consider is scalability to cope with increasing customer interest and requests. Security and privacy should be top priorities, as well as the usability of the chatbot. The country of origin of the software should also be considered. Some chatbot providers are US-based, for example. It stands to reason that companies from Germany, such as OMQ and Userlike, offer EU privacy-compliant solutions.
Development and maintenance costs must be within budget, and sufficient support and training are an advantage. A positive user experience and other companies’ experiences with the vendor should also be considered.
The OMQ chatbot in use
The merchandising company EMP uses the OMQ chatbot in customer service, where it answers customer queries 24/7. Over ⅓ of inquiries are resolved in this way. The chatbot is also able to connect customers and employees and, of course, understand the intentions of messages. With a resolution rate of 38% (as of 2021-22), many customers can be helped immediately.
Holistic AI customer service with OMQ
The best way to ensure ideal customer support is to provide different tools for customers to choose from. While one customer may prefer self-service in the form of an automated help page, another may prefer live chat. We think so: It’s all in the mix! That’s why we rely on the automation of all communication channels.
Customer Service on every channel with the centralized OMQ knowledge base.
OMQ offers…
- speed
- efficiency
- simple integration options
- data protection-compliant solutions
… in every communication channel.
In addition to the typical AI chatbot, OMQ also has a chatbot at ChatGPT level, which makes communication between the company and its customers even more natural and fluid. If needed, you can schedule a no-obligation demo with us, where we can show you how to integrate a chatbot into your own customer service to improve your customer communication. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
