Welcome to our JivoChat review.
JivoChat is live chat software that allows businesses to engage with their customers in real time.
The platform offers live chat functionality, customization, dedicated analytics, and file sharing.
The key question: is it worth your time?
By the end of this review, you’ll know the answer, including whether it suits your specific needs.
We’ll dive into JivoChat’s capabilities, explore the plans available, and detail what we think are the software’s main pros and cons.
What is JivoChat?
JivoChat is live chat software that allows brands to engage with their customers in real time. The software was founded in 2012 by a team of developers based in Kyiv, Ukraine.
The team wanted to create software that would help businesses around the world provide excellent customer service and engage with their customers effectively.
That said, with so many other live chat platforms out there, is it enough to become your tool of choice?
Continue reading for our full review of JivoChat. I’ll discuss the pros and cons and a few alternatives, too.
What features does JivoChat offer?
JivoChat is a helpful live chat tool. The key features worth knowing about include:
- Live chat widget
- File sharing
- Customization
- Analytics
- Customer support
- Integrations
We’ll explore these features and give you a first-hand look at the tool.
Please note: Some of JivoChat’s features are only available in specific pricing plans.
Getting started
When you first log into JivoChat, you’ll be taken to a screen that looks like this:
Here, we can choose our name, avatar, title or department, and the general color scheme of the chat widget.
You can also decide which proactive invitations you want to use, for example, “Hello” or “I have a question” when starting a chat.
Finally, input your site URL and choose what you (most) want to use the software for.
JivoChat is now ready to use.
Live chat widget
JivoChat’s live chat widget is the primary tool that allows you to communicate with your website visitors in real time. The widget is easily installed on your site and offers a range of customization options to match your website’s design and branding. We’ll take a look at the customization options later on in the review.
The JivoChat widget itself is designed to be user-friendly and easy to use, and from my time using it, it delivers in both areas. You can start a chat session by simply clicking on the chat icon and then start responding to customer queries from the JivoChat dashboard:
Note that new and incoming messages will appear here from your customers, allowing you to respond to them at any time.
The live chat widget is designed for speed and efficiency above all else. It’s optimized to work on all devices and platforms, ensuring your customers can access it quickly and easily.
JivoChat’s cloud-based infrastructure ensures that chats are delivered reliably, too, without any lag or delays. Although delays do still happen, JivoChat is known for its reliable uptime.
It’s worth mentioning that JivoChat offers a range of additional features, such as canned responses and chatbots, that can help you respond to customers even faster.
Canned responses are pre-written messages that can be sent to customers. They can save time and improve efficiency, especially when dealing with frequently asked questions or other common issues. You can create and customize your canned responses, which can then be (usefully) organized into categories for easy access.
You can also use chatbots to automate your responses, further reducing response times and improving the customer experience.
Your chatbots can provide product recommendations and even help customers place orders. However, I find the latter to still be in its infancy, mainly because the chatbot struggles to work out specific orders and the criteria for each. That said, it’s not something updates can’t solve down the line. Chatbots are certainly improving, as these chatbot stats show.
Overall, the JivoChat live chat widget is a powerful tool that’s easy to use and customizable and can help brands improve both their customer engagement and support.
File sharing
JivoChat offers file-sharing capabilities, which allow you to securely share files with your customers in a few clicks. This feature is especially useful for businesses that need to exchange important documents or files regularly with their customers, such as contracts, invoices, or project files.
You’re given the ability to upload and share files with your customers directly in the chat window itself, as well as the option to preview files before downloading them.
You can set permissions to restrict access to certain files or folders, ensuring that sensitive information is only shared with authorized individuals and there’s a file history, too, which allows you to keep track of all files that have been shared with customers. The latter is particularly useful as a point of reference, and it’s a smart feature that you won’t see everywhere.
Using the file-sharing feature is as simple as clicking the paperclip icon like so:
Perhaps most impressively, you can send videos to your customers as well. You simply upload the videos (directly) to the chat window and share them with customers in real time. This can be useful for those who need to share product demo videos or instructional videos with customers.
As you might expect, the size of the video will determine the time it takes for the upload to complete. The video size limit on JivoChat is 10MB, meaning most videos will be uploaded quickly.
It’s a solid option for businesses looking for a reliable and secure file-sharing solution, all within the chat widget itself.
Customization
JivoChat offers a variety of handy customization options that allow you to tailor the platform to your precise needs. In a nutshell: the options include branding, chat widget, and chatbot customization.
With branding, you can use your own logo, colors, and fonts to create a customized chat experience that matches your identity. If you have the materials ready to go, it takes no more than a few clicks to get up and running.
The chat widget customization allows you to choose from a variety of chat widget styles, sizes, and colors so you can customize the widget’s appearance and behavior to fit your site’s design. There aren’t a huge number of options here, but it gets the job done for the most part.
For the chatbot customization itself, the software provides a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy for businesses to build their chatbots and customize them without needing anything in the way of professional coding knowledge.
You can customize each by clicking the Manage Settings icon like so:
The customization options on offer here make it easy for businesses to create a chat experience that’s tailored to their brand identity, and there’s a healthy amount you can tweak as you go.
Analytics
The platform’s statistics feature allows you to track and analyze various metrics related to your site performance. You’ll be able to track important metrics like the number of website visitors, the duration of their visit, the pages they viewed, and the actions they took on the site.
In addition, Jivochat’s statistics allow you to monitor the performance of your live chat, including the number of chats initiated, the average chat duration, and the chat satisfaction rate. This information can then be used to optimize your live chat performance and improve customer engagement.
Of particular note are the customizable reports that can be generated on-demand or scheduled for regular delivery. These reports can be used to gain insights into site performance trends (over a set time) and can help you identify areas for improvement.
Getting started with the statistics is as simple as clicking the icon like so:
From there, you’ll be taken to a page that looks like this:
Further down the page, we’re also able to see a key statistics roundup:
We can choose the data period of reports like so:
The software provides detailed reports on an agent’s online time, too, which can help business owners analyze the performance of their customer support team in general. The reports can provide information such as the time spent by each agent online, the number of chats handled by each agent, the average response time, and more.
The reports can be used to quickly identify areas for improvement and how agents can best optimize their online time. It’s a valuable extra in an already comprehensive offering.
JivoChat additionally offers pipeline reports that help businesses track and analyze their customer interactions. The pipeline report provides a visual representation of your sales funnel, showing the number of visitors, chats, leads, deals, and sales at each stage.
Pipeline reports can be customized to match the business’s sales process, and they’re updated in real time, allowing you to track progress and make adjustments as and when needed.
All in all, JivoChat’s statistics are more than useful when you’re looking to optimize your website’s performance and improve customer engagement (and they come included in the first plan).
Customer support
JivoChat offers customer support through various channels, including live chat, phone, email, and across social media platforms. The platform has a dedicated customer support team that’s available 24/7 to assist you with any queries (or issues) you might face.
You can access the support by clicking the light bulb icon in the bottom right-hand corner like so:
Doing so will bring up a new window where you can message the team directly. In my case, the team responded in less than four minutes and was able to solve my query.
JivoChat’s knowledge base is your second option. It’s a resource center that provides helpful information on how to use the tool to its full potential.
The knowledge base contains various articles and tutorials on different aspects of JivoChat, such as how to set up the chat widget on your website, how to customize the chat window, how to create new chat rules (and triggers), how to use the mobile app, and even how to integrate JivoChat with other tools.
The knowledge base is designed to help you get the most out of the platform and improve your customer support and sales performance. It’s worth noting that it’s regularly updated with new content and features, and you can submit your own questions (and suggestions for future articles).
Integrations
JivoChat offers a wide range of integrations with other tools and platforms to help you streamline your workflow.
Some of the most popular integrations include CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, and Pipedrive, as well as eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and BigCommerce.
JivoChat also integrates with social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and X to help you manage your social media messages and conversations in one place.
Of course, that’s without mentioning email marketing platforms, such as Mailchimp, Sendinblue, and GetResponse, which help you automate your email campaigns and follow-up messages, too.
Overall, JivoChat’s integrations list is relatively extensive and offers a variety of options for users to integrate the tool with their preferred platforms.
How much does it cost?
JivoChat has three main tiers: Base, Pro, and VIP. Each plan includes differing features, benefits, and usage limits, with the key limits being the chat history storage period and number of agents.
Here’s an overview of JivoChat’s plans and prices:
Base: The first plan is free and, as such, doesn’t come with much in the way of advanced features. That being said, you do get access to basic messaging functionality and even daily performance emails.
It’s a good place to try out the tool for yourself before moving to higher plans.
Pro: The Pro plan starts at $14 per month and comes with advanced features such as targeted chats with smart triggers, advanced stats on chats and agents’ activity, and the canned responses (complete with an automatic helper).
It’s a good midway point, particularly if you require advanced analytics.
VIP: The Unlimited plan starts at $39 per month and naturally includes all of the most advanced features JivoChat can offer.
Notable mentions here are the 10 (and above) agent limit, chat logs, advanced chat support via customer support teams, and special marketing tools that can help you get ahead. There’s also help getting JivoChat installed and upgraded customer relationship management options.
JivoChat offers a 14-day free trial on the two paid tiers, so you can try out those advanced features and see which is worth having.
Jivochat’s pricing can be a good fit for businesses looking for a cost-effective live chat solution overall. The plans are more than reasonable compared to most live chat tools in the market.
Ultimately, the choice here depends on the specific needs of your business and the features you require.
Pros and cons
JivoChat is great live chat software, but it also has weaknesses. Here’s a brief round-up of what we thought were the biggest pros and cons.
Pros
- Affordable. JivoChat offers a free plan with limited features and paid plans that offer free 14-day trials.
- Customizable chat widget. The chat widget can be customized to match a business’s branding and website design in a few quick clicks.
- Advanced analytics. The software provides detailed analytics to help you track visitor behavior and identify areas for improvement.
- Automated chatbots. Pre-built chatbots that can help businesses answer common customer queries at a faster rate.
Cons
- App limitations. The mobile app doesn’t offer all the features available on the desktop version.
- Limited agent numbers. Restricted number of live agents online at the same time (on the lower plans).
JivoChat alternatives
Need to look at some alternatives? Check out our recommended live chat tools before we head to our JivoChat review conclusion:
- Chaport | Read review — Live chat conversations are managed from the built-in unified messaging app, which connects to other channels like Facebook Messenger and Viber. You can deploy chatbots to reply to messages around the clock, even when your operators are offline.
- LiveChat — Intelligent chat routing, chat supervision, message sneak-peek, a unified omnichannel inbox, and canned responses. You can even send product cards directly to your page visitors via the live chat box, with clickable buy buttons that take them straight to checkout.
- Freshchat — The best part is its inbox. As you reply to your chat messages, all the information about the customer is there on the right. You can see at a glance things like what page the customer is chatting from, what products they’re interested in, their purchase, and their conversation history. Empowers agents to provide better, more personalized support.
Final thoughts
That concludes our JivoChat review.
Overall, JivoChat offers an easy-to-use chat widget that does everything it needs to with the option to customize it as you see fit.
On top of that are advanced analytics that allow you to plan ahead, chatbots that can answer common queries, and a bevy of useful integrations that upgrade the tool further.
All that gets backed up by a professional support team, seamless file sharing, and all at a price to match.
Before doing anything else, we recommend you try one of the 14-day free trials to see if it’s the right tool for you.
Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. If you click on certain links we may make a commission.
