The in-app chat feature is rising because it enables businesses to connect with their customers, audiences, and prospects 24 by 7. Users also develop trust and loyalty to your business to ensure customer support is there when needed. However, developing and managing such systems because it takes a lot of input from the front-end and back-end development teams. Instead, you can just get an in-app chat solution from any of the following providers and focus on things that matter the most.
What Is In-App Chat?
In-app chat is a texting interface within mobile apps or web apps that allows consumers to interact with the customer experience team of the business. Just the difference is you are now chatting with customer service reps, and the interface shows branding from the respective businesses. But the overall theme is the same, a two-way conversation. Such systems already exist for the above apps to support users and customers by the respective businesses. These are practical examples of in-app chat.
The Difference Between In-App Chat and In-App Messaging
In-app messaging and in-app chats are fundamentally different services. But, both of them contribute to user engagement and brand-value creation.
Two-Way Communication
In-app chat is a 1:1 communication between the company and its clients, vendors, customers, delivery partners, customer care reps, and so on. Conversely, in-app messaging shows rich and one-sided information from the business to customers.
Group Communication
In-app chats may facilitate group messaging among the customer groups, community, work groups, etc. But, in-app messaging can not facilitate this service.
Informative
In-app messaging is an informative solution informing customers or users about actions like order status, promotions, discounts, upcoming sales, etc. On the contrary, in-app chat focus on resolving users’ queries and issues related to the products or services.
Why Is In-App Chat Highly Necessary for Apps?
Find below why in-app chat solution is becoming a need of the hour:
Perpetual User Experience
Customers can initiate chat or calls from the app they know better. If you route the user to a third-party interface, that may become challenging for them. Some may opt-out of your app too.
Personalized Customer Support
When the chat or phone support is within the app, your reps can easily customize the communication depending on the customer’s preferences for language, contact hours, priority, etc.
Detect Product/Services Issues
When you integrate the customer-facing app with an in-app chat feature, it becomes easier to detect ordering, service issues, or app issues directly from the service rep’s side.
Troubleshoot
Technical support or tier two support teams can easily guide the customer through remote support while staying connected with them via your app. Users are more likely to trust remote support requests from your app rather than third parties who can be scammers.
Integration With Business Apps
You can easily import support session conversations to CRMs and analyze data to improve your apps, products, or services.
Media Attachments
Customers can easily send screenshots, videos, images, documents, and more through in-app chat solutions.
Upselling Opportunities
As the reps can see user choices and preferences, they can pitch for upgrades, add-ons, and more. These were the basics of in-app messaging and chat to get you started. Now, find below some extraordinary tools to create unique customer experiences:
OneSignal
OneSignal is one of the most popular solutions for in-app messaging on web apps, mobile apps, etc. This solution can become your great friend when you need to onboard new customers, send promotional offers, explain upgraded product features, and more. The app comes with popular in-app messaging templates you can use on your mobile app. All the solutions are no-code, so anyone with basic knowledge of mobile app functionality from the backend can use most of the features of OneSignal. Key in-app messaging features are:
No-code in-app messaging implementationYou do not need to get approval from App Store or Google PlayIt comes with built-in data analytics for marketing and product improvement purposesSuitable for in-app messaging like eCommerce carts, offers, surveys, ratings, permission prompts, referrals, etc.
You can try the Free plan to get to know the service quickly. Try on your app and see how customers react. If you and your customers like it, you can go for paid plans like Growth, Professional, or Enterprise.
CometChat
Do you want to facilitate meaningful and fruitful one-to-one engagement and conversation in your business? Are you looking for an easy-to-use solution for in-app chat which must be scalable? Then, you must try out CometChat’s in-app communication solution. Its software development kit (SDK) comes for most of the popular mobile app development frameworks and languages. For example, your mobile app developers can use the SDK in projects built on Swift, Kotlin, React, React Native, Laravel, PHP, and more. Key features of this in-app chat SDK are:
Developers just need to install the SDK, connect with a single code line, and start building awesome experiences.One-to-one textingGroup textingVoice callsVideo callsMedia attachments
CometChat currently offers free building opportunities using core features, pre-built UI kits, and widgets. You can support up to 25 active users per month in the free plan. For scaling, you can get paid subscriptions.
Freshchat
Freshchat is not just a solution for convenient in-app chat systems. It is also a robust customer support solution. Apart from the chatting interface, it offers the following powerful features:
Chatbots cater to easy questions and regular queries from users and customers.WhatsApp Business account integration for the chatbot.Modern messaging through Web Widgets.You can customize the messenger language in 33+ languages.The Freshchat SDK lets you implement all the robust features for web apps into mobile apps.You can store canned responses and save time and effort for your customer service reps.For enterprise-level customer support, you can use the IntelliAssign feature to route chats to the right agent automatically.
The best thing is that Freshchat offers a Free plan to start with up to 100 agents. If you like the service, you can scale up by getting a suitable pricing plan.
PubNub
PubNub’s regular messaging features enable you to build one-to-one, group, and large-scale in-app chats for your audience and users. Furthermore, you do not need to maintain server infrastructure for the chat or the chat backend. Notable features of this in-app chat solutions provider are:
All kinds of media sharingUnread message countingReactions within in-app chatsTyping prompt and indicatorsUser, group, and channel metadataProfanity control, spam filters, user banning, etc.Message deleting and updatingPush in-app messagingUser preferences
PubNub is also offering a Free service plan that you can use to create the initial in-app chat concept for your app. It has most of the basic features for a limited number of MAUs. Its paid subscriptions include Starter and PRO packages.
In-App Chat
In-App Chat offers the next-generation solutions for mobile and web app customer service conversations. It offers chatbots to manage the complete customer service and support wing. You can use one chatbot to cater to simple inquiries available to your knowledge base. You can assign multiple chatbots to one case when you need a robust system to cater to complex queries. These chatbots perform machine-to-machine communication and machine-to-customer communication to resolve inbound questions. And, for those moments when machines can not resolve the inquiries, you can bring your customer service rep to the scene. Using the Free plan, you can try its in-app chat features for up to 5,000 users. When you are ready to upgrade the subscription plan, you can choose Premium Starter or Professional.
Chat From Twilio
Chat by Twilio is an essential application programming interface (API) that enables you to add one-to-one chat functions to your web or mobile app. Apart from the chat, it also empowers you to build an in-app messaging system. The Conversations API handles the messaging service, while the Programmable Messaging API caters to in-app messaging services. Also, you can integrate these features into your WhatsApp Business account if you are currently catering to customers using WhatsApp. And not just WhatsApp, you can also manage your customer service for business on other channels like Facebook Messenger for Business, Google’s Business Messages, conventional chats, MMS, and mobile short messaging service (SMS).
Firebase by Google
How about Google helping you build a state-of-the-art in-app messaging solution for your Google Play app? You heard it right! Google Firebase is the tool to create powerful in-app messaging systems that get more hits and clicks. You can deliver contextual and targeted messages using Google Firebase. For example, when a user completes a specific level, you can thank the user or show a one-time discount as a pop-up. Most of the setup process is visual. Hence, you can check it out before discussing customer experience building with any developer.
MirrorFly
MirrorFly is a robust in-app API solution that you can integrate into any application for a better user experience. It lets you add more than 150 contemporary messaging features to your current app. While doing so, you can have total control over the user experience and data. Key features of the MirrorFly app are:
Encrypted messaging to empower the businessesText messaging Video calling for global usersOffline messages Push notificationsLive streaming and broadcastingMulti-device compatibilityMultiple channelsBuilt-in moderation toolSecure file sharingAnalytics data
You can try it for free if you want to see how this platform works before opting for any of its paid subscription plans.
Stream
Stream is one of the top in-app chat APIs for custom messaging apps. Using its dependable chat infrastructure and feature-rich SDKs, you can build real-time chat messaging at a rapid speed. Its highlighted features include:
Helps to create a secure messaging infrastructure compliant with HIPAA, Soc2, and GDPR5 million+ concurrent connections without any issue in a single channelOptions to add features like reactions, URL enrichment, threads, typing indicators, read state, etc.Multi-tenancy support to build SaaS applications
Stream offers a 30-day free trial for everyone with features like chat messaging and flexible APIs. You can also choose from any of its paid plans.
ZEGOCLOUD
If you want to build a scalable and real-time in-app chat, ZEGOCLOUD is the perfect option. Its customizable chat SDK enables you to quickly build a powerful chat experience into web and mobile apps. The best features of ZEGOCLOUD are:
Unread message count to get back users on the chatPrivate one-on-one chatPrivate group chatRich media attachmentsOffline messagePublic channelMessage historyPush notification
Every month, ZEGOCLOUD gives the first 10,000 minutes for free, and after that, you need to pay as you go. You can check the pricing of each service on this platform.
Intercom
Intercom lets you establish a direct communication channel between you and the customers from your app or website. This engagement channel can be used for sales, marketing, and support. Businesses can get more conversions with ABM, chatbots, and automated meeting setups. It also lets you perform in-product and multi-channel campaigns and surveys to increase engagement across every touchpoint. You can even provide personalized and proactive support to your customers.
Final Words
So far, you have discovered some awesome tools, SDKs, and APIs that offer outstanding in-app chat solutions at an affordable price. Most of the features are also available in front of you, and you may not need to invest more time researching. You may also be interested in the best open-source live chat software to support your global customers.
