We Explored the 5 Best Tools for Chat Automation (2024)

Helpful Summary

• Overview: This article explores five chat automation tools that can help businesses streamline their conversations with customers.
• Why Trust Us: Chatling has helped thousands of businesses like Codiska and LXoffice automate millions of conversations.
• Why It Matters: Chat automation can save businesses time and resources, improve customer satisfaction, and increase sales.
• Action Points: Our top recommendations are Chatling, BotPenguin, ChatBot, Kommunicate, and Tidio.
• Further Research: For more in-depth analysis and reviews, check out our comprehensive guides.

You’re probably already aware of the transformative potential of automation—but did you know it can also revolutionize your customer conversations?

With the rise of chatbots and virtual assistants, businesses are now able to automate their interactions with customers. In this Chatling article, we’ll introduce you to five of the best chat automation tools that can help take your customer conversations to the next level.

What Are Chat Automation Tools?

As you can probably tell from the name, chat automation tools are designed to automate text-based communications with your customers.

But what exactly do we mean by “automate”?

Essentially, these tools use AI, ML, natural language processing, and pre-set rules to “understand” customer inquiries and either generate or suggest appropriate responses. This can save your team time and resources, while also providing quick and efficient support to your customers.

Chatling is a great example.

What Are Chat Automation Tools?

As you can probably tell from the name, chat automation tools are designed to automate text-based communications with your customers.

But what exactly do we mean by “automate”?

Essentially, these tools use AI, ML, natural language processing, and pre-set rules to “understand” customer inquiries and either generate or suggest appropriate responses. This can save your team time and resources, while also providing quick and efficient support to your customers.

Chatling is a great example.

Our AI chatbot trains on data from your websites, FAQs, knowledge bases, and uploaded documents to learn about your business and its products or services. This way, it can provide accurate and helpful responses to customer inquiries—all without any human intervention.

Why Listen to Us?

At Chatling, we’ve helped 2,000+ businesses implement AI chatbots that automate communications with customers, employees, and partners.

Our customers see significant improvements—post-implementation resolution rates improve by 53% on average and resolution times improve by 250% on average. That translates into happier customers, reduced workload for customer support teams, and a better overall experience for everyone.

Benefits of Chat Automation Tools

Here are some of the benefits you can expect from using chat automation tools:

Enhanced Efficiency and Productivity

Chat automation tools significantly improve efficiency by automating routine tasks and responses. They can handle a high volume of inquiries simultaneously, freeing up valuable time for human operators to focus on more complex and strategic aspects of their roles.

24/7 Availability

Chatbots and automation tools operate round the clock, ensuring 24/7 availability for customer interactions.

This instant response capability not only caters to global audiences in different time zones but also addresses customer queries quickly, leading to improved satisfaction and a positive user experience.

Insights & Analytics

Chat automation tools collect and analyze vast amounts of data from user interactions, which can offer valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and frequently asked questions.

By leveraging analytics, businesses can make informed decisions, refine their automation strategies, and continuously improve the overall effectiveness of their chatbots, contributing to more informed and data-driven decision-making processes.

Criteria To Consider When Choosing Chat Automation Tools

Here are some factors to consider when choosing chat automation tools:

Integration Capabilities

When selecting chat automation tools, it's important to assess their compatibility with your existing systems and platforms. Make sure that the tool you choose seamlessly integrates with your customer relationship management (CRM) software, messaging apps, and any other relevant applications.

For example, Chatling is easy to integrate with any website—just copy and paste the code snippet, customize the chatbot and widget, and start automating.

Customization

Speaking of customization, this is an important factor to consider when selecting chat automation tools. Your chatbot should be able to adapt to your brand and tone of voice, as well as the specific needs and preferences of your customers.

Chatling empowers users with comprehensive customization options. From the primary color palette to text color, and even chat icons and bot icons, every aspect can be fine-tuned to reflect your unique branding guidelines.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

NLP enables the chatbot to comprehend natural language and context, allowing for more meaningful interactions. Prioritize solutions that incorporate these technologies to make sure that your chat automation tool evolves with the changing dynamics of user conversations, providing a more human-like and engaging experience for your audience.

5 Best Tools for Chat Automation

1. Chatling
2. BotPenguin
3. ChatBot
4. Kommunicate
5. Tidio

1. Chatling

Chatling is a powerful chat automation tool designed to elevate your business communications with flexible, intuitive AI chatbots.

Chatling makes it easy to train and implement AI chatbots—no coding required. To train your chatbot, just add the data sources (websites, PDFs, FAQs, knowledge bases, etc.) you want your bot to learn from, and Chatling’s AI algorithm will do the rest.

With a user-friendly interface and customizable features, Chatling allows you to create personalized chat experiences for your customers.

Key Features

• Easy Training: Connect a wide range of data sources and watch your chatbot train itself in minutes.
• Multilingual: Communicate with customers in multiple languages for inclusive, global conversations.
• Customize Chatbot: Tailor the way your chatbot looks and behaves to match your brand and style.
• API Access: Integrate Chatling with your existing systems for a seamless experience.
• 24/7 Support: Our dedicated support team is available round the clock to assist you with any issues or questions.
• Engage Leads: Keep leads engages with access to information and collect important information from them.
• Analytics: Monitor and track chatbot performance with real-time analytics and insights.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Free plan
• Automatic setup
• Multilingual support
• 24/7 availability
• Full chatbot customization
• GPT-4 access
• No-code chatbot

Cons

• Live chat not available, but is on the team's roadmap

2. BotPenguin

BotPenguin revolutionizes appointment and demo bookings through intuitive chatbot conversations, ensuring seamless scheduling while keeping calendars synchronized.

With a user-friendly drag-and-drop builder, templates, and 2-click installation, implementing the chatbot is effortlessly straightforward.

Key Features

• Live Chat & Training: Add a live chat widget to your Squarespace site and train your bot how to answer FAQs instantly.
• Chatbot Builder: Create a no-code chatbot with its drag-and-drop builder and pre-made templates.
• Appointment Booking: Gather leads with your chatbot and let your customers book demos without human oversight.

Pricing

While BotPenguin has a free plan that provides you with 1 chatbot and 2,000 messages/month for 1 team member, you might want to check out their paid plans for up to 500,000 messages/month, unlimited chatbots, and 3+ team members.

• King Plan: $5/mo for 3,000 to 5,000 messages/mo
• Emperor Plan: custom

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Free plan
• 50+ templates
• 60+ native CRM integrations
• Unified inbox
• Customer segments

Cons

• Unlimited messages only available for Emperor plan
• Prices can get expensive

3. ChatBot

ChatBot is a chatbot-building platform with a wide range of automation features.

ChatBot's visual chatbot builder allows you to tailor bot responses and customize customer interactions by dragging and dropping conversation blocks. You can also build AI chatbots that don’t rely on third-party providers like OpenAI or Google Bard.

Key Features

• Personalized Recommendations: Use machine learning algorithms to analyze customer interactions and make personalized recommendations for better targeting.
• Visual Bot Builder: Design rule-based chatbots for a wide range of purposes using a drag-and-drop builder.
• Generate Leads: Automatically collect important information from leads without sending lead capture forms.

Pricing

Chatbot offers four different pricing plans:

• Starter ($52/mo)
• Team ($142/mo)
• Business ($424/mo)
• Enterprise (custom pricing)

Pros & Cons

Pros

• 14-day free trial
• Custom plan
• No-code chatbot
• Training history
• Customizable chat widget

Cons

• No free plan
• Limited conversations for every plan except Enterprise

4. Kommunicate

Kommunicate is an AI-powered chatbot tool that lets businesses build adaptable chatbots for their websites.

Kommunicate offers seamless integrations with third-party tools and services like AWS, Dialogflow, Zendesk, Google Analytics, and more to enhance the functionality of your chatbot. The no-code builder is intuitive, but powerful enough to create complex chatbot flows.

Key Features

• Integrations & API: Build complex, interconnected chatbot workflows with ease by integrating Kommunicate with various third-party tools and services.
• No-code Builder: Build complex chatbot flows without any programming background using the drag-and-drop builder.
• Generative AI: Generate quick, accurate answers using OpenAI’s GPT-4 model.

Pricing

Kommunicate offers three pricing subscriptions:

• Lite ($100/mo)
• Advanced ($200/mo)
• Business (custom)

Pros & Cons

Pros

• 30-day free trial
• Omnichannel support
• Generative AI
• Multilingual bots
• Chatbot templates

Cons

• No free plan
• Custom bots are only available on the Business plan

5. Tidio

Tidio is a customer service platform with a range of chat automate features under the hood.

Tidio gives live agents tools like Reply Assistant and Smart Views which help them handle more chats in less time using AI. You can also build both AI and rule-based chatbots to automate routine customer inquiries without involving your team.

Key Features

• Live Chat Tools: Support live agents with AI tools that generate responses, recommend solutions, and suggest next steps to save time and improve efficiency.
• Chatbots: Build both AI and rule-based chatbots that can handle routine customer inquiries 24/7.
• Analytics: Track both chatbot and team performance with detailed analytics and reports.

Pricing

Tidio offers a free plan and three paid subscriptions:

• Starter ($29/mo)
• Growth ($59/mo)
• Tidio+ (starts from $394/mo - custom pricing)

AI chatbots are available as an add-on for $39 per 50 conversations.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Free plan
• Custom pricing
• Analytics
• Unlimited tickets
• Canned responses
• Automated email marketing

Cons

• Costs extra to remove branding
• Limited seats for every plan except Tidio+
• Limited chatbot conversations & triggers for every plan except Tidio+

Conclusion

The efficiency, 24/7 availability, and personalized experiences offered by chat automation tools streamline interactions and contribute significantly to customer satisfaction. The tools on this list are a great jumping off point for businesses looking to incorporate chat automation into their sales, marketing, or support strategies.

At Chatling, we offer businesses an intuitive (but powerful) AI chatbot solution that can automate routine conversations and help increase customer engagement and retention. Whether you're trying to streamline support or engage leads at scale, Chatling can help.

Sign up for a free account and see for yourself.