> SOURCE: JD POWER

Organizations were mystery shopped over email and online chat.

We did not mystery shop organizations based on intangibles such as the speed of customer service or usability of the software.

We only mystery shopped organizations that offered a free forever plan. There are some impressive online chat apps out there like LiveChat, Zendesk Chat and Intercom that offer a free trial, but no free plan.

All five were scored and ranked according to how well they matched a small business owner profile.

> RAW SURVEY DATA

A small business owner profile is looking for an online chat that will allow the owner to directly approach each visitor to the website. The owner is never at his desk, so it is important they can talk to visitors on the go via an android phone.

To approach each visitor the owner needs to know the visitor’s country of origin, the pages the visitor has visited, and the visitor’s current page. The owner is busy so they need an audible alert to tell them a new visitor arrives.

To make replies to visitor questions fast, the owner will need canned responses. Canned responses are like scripts that can be stored and recalled with a single keystroke. This is useful for answering frequently asked questions.

Every online chat app we reviewed had an android chat app and a desktop admin portal to make customization easy. All five offered the ability to add an agent photo and customize the widget text. The deciding factors were the ability to track a visitor’s country of origin, page visits and whether an audible alert was offered each time a visitor arrived at the website.

Here are the results of the mystery shop.

Hands down, the best free online chat app was mylivechat. Mylivechat scored perfectly. Their free plan matched every requirement of our customer profile. It ticked every box.

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Pure Chat is the runner-up. It did almost everything our profile needed. It was only missing page tracking and the ability to store canned responses from the desktop admin app.

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Like Pure Chat, Freshchat was missing the page tracking. However, it was also missing the ability to see the visitor’s country of origin and offers no canned responses. Using a mobile device to reply to visitors is harder when you cannot call-up pre-written scripts.

Freshchat did not offer automated greeting responses. This is probably a feature our profile could live without.

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Now we arrive at smartsup and Chaport. While these two have great paid plans, their free plans are lacking in comparison to Mylivechat and Pure Chat. Smartsup has a few draw-backs. It does not offer customization of the widget color or automated greeting messages. These are not show-stoppers – our profile could live without these features.

However, what makes the application challenging to use is the lack of an audible alert whenever a visitor arrives. Not having an audible alert is a bit like trying to run a convenience shop without a door chime.

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Chaport like Smartsup offers terrific, affordable paid plans. However, like Chaport, there is no audible alert when a visitor arrives to the website. It has a few other missing bits and bobs, which makes its free plan the least ranking in our profiles buying decision.

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