LiveAgent vs. Salesforce Service Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
LiveAgent
Score 9.7 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
LiveAgent is a help desk software designed to help users bring personalization to customer interactions. LiveAgent presents an omnichannel universal inbox, real-time live chat, built-in call center, and a customer service portal. It offers customer segmentation, automation, built-in CRM, and an analytics package, as well as gamification features, ultimately containing are over 180+ help desk features, and 200+ integrations. The solution boasts users among companies like BMW, Yamaha,…
$0
per month
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Service Cloud is a customer service platform that helps businesses manage and resolve customer inquiries and issues. It provides tools for case management, knowledge base, omni-channel support, automation, and analytics, enabling companies to deliver exceptional customer service experiences.
$25
per month
Pricing
LiveAgentSalesforce Service Cloud
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
per month
Small
$15
per month per seat
Medium
$29
per month per seat
Large
$49
per month per seat
Enterprise
$69
per month per seat
Starter Suite
$25
per month
Pro Suite
$100
per month per user
Enterprise
$165
per month per user
Unlimited
$330
per month per user
Agentforce 1
$550
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LiveAgentSalesforce Service Cloud
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
LiveAgentSalesforce Service Cloud
Considered Both Products
LiveAgent
Chose LiveAgent
I did a demo with Zendesk which was fine, but the customer service and system for LiveAgent was a better choice for me. The demo with LiveAgent was wonderful and very informational, any concerns were answered immediately, extremely accommodating with the free trial, better …
Chose LiveAgent
Bold360 worked for our basic purposes but it was pretty bare bones. It didn't give us the option to get sales or to translate from Spanish to English and it made things a bit more difficult. LiveAgent has the features that we needed and it has many of the similar options that …
Chose LiveAgent
Night and Day, Zendesk is very very basic, We also faced multiple technical and connection issues when using zendesk which resulted in loss of customers due to the chat randomly disconnecting now this is a thing of the past thanks to LiveAgent, the connection is always stable …
Chose LiveAgent
I haven’t used any other software
Chose LiveAgent
LiveAgent was way easier to configure and setup initially and was more customizable (branding, signatures, directory, notifications, etc.).

Chose LiveAgent
We have 5 brands and had to have different solutions for these. But with LiveAgent we could use 1 software to operate all brands!
Chose LiveAgent
We use 3PL as well as LiveAgent to complete our daily work. Using them together seems to be a good combination for what we need the programs to do.
Chose LiveAgent
We have used some other systems for a very brief period of time but they did not offer us the specific functions we needed.
Chose LiveAgent
I hated Zendesk we used them for 2 years and found them very unreliable and [unprofessional]. The system was laggy, bugged and beyond basic. It is nowhere near as good as LiveAgent and I am over the moon that we found them and decided to make the switch.
Chose LiveAgent
After testing a few web-based CRM I found LiveAgent to be the overall best. Manage email, chat and calls plus respond to social media posts and messages.
Chose LiveAgent
The price that LiveAgent has is just outstanding even with the features and helps us save money rather than spending loads of cash on other systems. It has also helped us better support our customers.
Chose LiveAgent
LiveAgent is much easier and it's well designed to keep great work organization. Separate boxes provide a great view so one is aware of what every single member of the team is working on.
Chose LiveAgent
LiveAgent is clearer and offers all forms of communication in one app.
Chose LiveAgent
Ability to call chat and email from the same spot.
Chose LiveAgent
LiveAgent is much more complete and all the channels are available at the same place. The way customers get an answer is friendlier than Zendesk.
Overall, LiveAgent is much more user friendly and simple to understand. It has knowledge base section.
Chose LiveAgent

My initial experience with LiveAgent was when the company I work for, Bus2alps, was reviewing an assortment of chatting platforms to use. My responsibility was to compare and contrast various features of them all and select the one which we would implement on our website to …

Salesforce Service Cloud
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
I honestly prefer Zendesk to Salesforce Service Cloud. I find that Zendesk is easier to manage both on the support ticket side, as well as the knowledge center side. It looks and feels easier to use than Salesforce Service Cloud. Salesforce Service Cloud is fine, but it is …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Zoho is not very real-time, it has limited integration capabilities, and the UI is not very satisfactory for any incoming customer. The performance is slow and impacts the overall customer journey. The data stored in the backend is slightly scattered and needs to be cleaned …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce is a really great case management tool. Made things a lot easier for our team. Wanted something fairly simple that had a variety of capabilities we could customize.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
We used Salesforce for years, Left for Hubspot, and then came back to Salesforce (SF). As they say, don't fix it if it's not broken. Salesforce and customizing were better for us.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud offers deep integration with our current and expanding CRM data, along with numerous pre-built features that didn't exist in Kayako when we used it. (We used to use an instance Kayako installed in a private cloud environment.) Salesforce Service Cloud …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Because it has good ratings and it is easy to setup .it also has good word of mouth.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Zendesk has it's own challenges in terms of Administrator difficulties and a completely different back-end than Salesforce Service Cloud. I would recommend Salesforce Service Cloud if you need a clean database of Companies and Contacts. Zendesk does not excel in overall CRM …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Insightly, Buildium and Hootsuite
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud has more unique customization features that benefit the organization as a whole.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
I'm not at the level where I would be part of the decision making process for choosing a vendor or product for the organization. Every position I've held, I've come into a company that has already implemented or is in the process of implementing Salesforce. Honestly I would not …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
All of the software's are well established and good, but what gave the edge to us its easy integration capability with other systems, experience cloud integration and Einstein analytics which made us move forward Salesforce. Salesforce also have better service and industry …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
The major value proposition is that service cloud offers integrated services. That covers a multitude of lacking features. All of our agents preferred Freshdesk. Salesforce service cloud was lacking so many basic features compared to it that it was frustrating to switch. Simple …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
We have been using Salesforce Service Cloud for well over ten years.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce service cloud is more configurable than Zendesk and Freshdesk. It has its own inbuilt AI chatbot also which further improves service agent efficiency. Salesforce is more integration agnostic and has pre-built connectors with multiple 3rd party systems. However, in …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
We were after a robust and very scalable solution, which could be rapidly implemented. Salesforce Service Cloud not only fitted the bill, but it was much easier to source skills and find on-line learning to help achieve our goals. Although the other technologies could have …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce allows a lot more visibility and allows us to build better reporting. It is initially trickier to set up and learn, however, comprehensive training and processes have lead to increased customer satisfaction and retention.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
This solution provided our organization a flexible platform. The other solutions were rigid or required complex integrations.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce is lightyears behind Zendesk. You have to be trained as a Salesforce admin to do anything, while Zendesk takes minutes to set up and is actually customer friendly. There are not native telephony options within Salesforce and the tools you use to integrate are …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
We previously used a home grown, proprietary system for our needs. This started to get costly and clunky as our database grew. We ended up going with Salesforce because they are purely cloud based. They also have a large footprint and very robust solution so they help us …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Well, I worked with SAP in the past when I was in other companies. It was way more complex and not user-friendly. You had to take a lot of steps in order to accomplish simple tasks and not everyone could work at the same time in the same program. I would 100% recommend …
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
Zendesk changed their agreements making us unable to continue with them due to our agreements with our customers. SalesForce allowed us to maintain our customer agreements.
Chose Salesforce Service Cloud
I used other products in another company as a database and can say that Salesforce Service Cloud is much more user friendly for customer service needs and makes work faster to process than the named program before. Integration between departments is more clear and simple to …
Features
LiveAgentSalesforce Service Cloud
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
LiveAgent
7.7
Ratings
4% below category average
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.8
Ratings
9% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets7.90 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Expert directory7.90 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications7.00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation6.80 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission8.40 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Ticket response8.40 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
LiveAgent
10.0
Ratings
24% above category average
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.7
Ratings
11% above category average
External knowledge base10.00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Internal knowledge base10.00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
LiveAgent
8.5
Ratings
9% above category average
Salesforce Service Cloud
8.7
Ratings
11% above category average
Customer portal10.00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
IVR7.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Social integration8.10 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Email support7.40 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration10.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Best Alternatives
LiveAgentSalesforce Service Cloud
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
LiveAgentSalesforce Service Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.3
(0 ratings)
6.2
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.3
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
LiveAgentSalesforce Service Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
I think [LiveAgent] is great from a customer service perspective, though I don't know that I would recommend it for B2B purposes. It has so many features that are fantastic as far as creating a great customer experience goes, I just think it is far more geared toward B2C than B2B.
Read full review
This cloud is a good option for attracting large numbers of customers for mid-scale and large-scale organizations. However, it’s not suitable for small companies or startups due to its high cost. For use cases where real-time input from customers is taken and then processed on the cloud to give them output, this platform is a must.
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Pros
  • It's a complete OMNI channel. You can configure all communication medium for your customer with LiveAgent i.e. Ticketing, Social Media, Phone, and Chat.
  • Low on pricing.
  • You can easily setup LiveAgent for your organization. You don't need to be a technical expert to implement this.
  • The user-friendly application.
Read full review
  • Super fast set-up of the service from design through to production.
  • Robust method of release management from sandbox, to test, to production.
  • User access controls can be fine grain, which is great for GDPR requirements, limiting access to only necessary data.
  • Simple api integrations with other third party systems
  • Broad range of features and functionality
  • Einstein search features provides faster information mining for our agents as they help to resolve customer requests.
Read full review
Cons
  • Occasionally when "resolving" a ticket, the page will not load the full list of remaining tickets. However, the moment you scroll, the tickets appear so it's not too big of a deal, but I'd like to see that cleaned up. It does not always happen.
  • When dialing a phone number, the format needs to be specific, i.e. +15125555555. We often receive phone numbers in the more traditional format, i.e. (512) 555-5555. The outgoing call will not work when pasted this way. I think it will get fixed. These little things seem to get sorted out after enough people complain about it.
  • The mobile version has a few bugs, but when on the run, it at least allows you to read and respond to email. Examples of bugs include not being able to transfer the ticket to another department (on iOS the drop down menu functions like a text field for some reason so clicking into it selects the text as if you are going to copy and paste it). Also, the ability to add an admin note would be nice on the mobile version.
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  • A free trial would be extremely valuable to customers who are not able to commit to a full plan.
  • The pricing of this program is not priced competitively with other similar services.
  • Can be quite time consuming to maintain.
  • Not user friendly if you aren’t tech savvy/familiar with software.
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Likelihood to Renew
I am giving this rating as Live Agent is a very good software that is essential to any small or big business that provides customer support services. It gives you the possibility to manage any of your clients issues, answer questions and keep a good relationship with them by providing quick solutions.
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Professional edition works best for a small company with lower call volumes and is very useful but as you grow exponetially I think it has limited ability to do all the things we want to - SLA management, defect, release management to name a few. Reports and dashboards being available in real time.
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Usability
The initial setup, onboarding and training is easy. The system provides 2 graphic version of interfaces in black or white default colors. I would appreciate, if there were more. Some of the setup forms are not correctly resized. Overall, I'm always able to find what I am looking for in LiveAgent.
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I love that the Salesforce Service cloud provides all of the functionality that I need when implementing business processes for our customer support representatives. It even has enough functions and features that allow us to customize and expand upon our current processes, giving us the ability to go above and beyond what we've thought we could ever do. Using cases coupled with Salesforce's automation tools help ease the workload and keeps our data integrity intact.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
Salesforce's Trust Center clearly communicates occasional issues to anyone who subscribes, down to an organization's cloud instance. Bundled sandboxes ease updates, and seasonal upgrades are seamless, scheduled well in advance with plenty of information about what's coming. Support agents have noticed intermittent Omni-Channel disconnects due to internet connections, and these are clearly notified.
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Performance
No answers on this topic
Load times can be slow, but this is also based on how much customization you have done. We added a lot of custom fields which could cause additional slowness in loading. This was never anything that affected our overall efficiency. I did not notice that Service Cloud slowed down any of the systems we had it integrated with
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Support Rating
The one time that I contacted the customer support at LiveAgent, they were very quick to help me out and the customer support representative walked me through every thing that I needed to know to set up what I needed. Over all, the support staff at LiveAgent were perfect.
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Salesforce offers support, although it generally gets routed to overseas support teams first, and once they are unable to help, it gets escalated up the chain to higher tiers. Frequently, the answer back from support is that there is no native solution, and we either have to turn to the AppExchange for some solution provided by another developer, or custom build our own solution.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
Our in-person training was provided by our implementation partner and it was quite good. This was in part because we were already working with them and so it naturally leant itself to a good training relationship. And because they were building our customizations and configuring things, they could then provide training on those things naturally.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
Trailheads are great but it was often unclear what actually applied to our organization. This made it difficult to get a whole lot out of it. Part of it is that because the basic Salesforce features didn't quite work for us, we had to add customizations, which then nullified a lot of the training.
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Implementation Rating
Implementation was quick and when not counting a bug on our website, it took a couple hours. It was mostly done on our end or with the assistance of LiveAgent's live chat support team. We recommend to check out LiveAgent's tutorial videos on their youtube channel or browsing their knowledge base - we've almost always found answers to our queries there.
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I would go through an implementation very differently knowing what I know now. It was difficult coming from systems we liked in post-sales service and having to adapt to the clunky and underwhelming feature set in Salesforce. I would trim back our expectations
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Alternatives Considered
bold360 worked for our basic purposes but it was pretty bare bones. It didn't give us the option to get sales or to translate from Spanish to English and it made things a bit more difficult. LiveAgent has the features that we needed and it has many of the similar options that we also still use.
Read full review
I honestly prefer Zendesk to Salesforce Service Cloud. I find that Zendesk is easier to manage both on the support ticket side, as well as the knowledge center side. It looks and feels easier to use than Salesforce Service Cloud. Salesforce Service Cloud is fine, but it is expensive as well.
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
The product has scaled up with our company growth just fine. No issues here other than slowness in clicking around and running reports
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • We are generating more sales by having sales representatives online chatting with customers.
  • The customer service team is able to avoid answering the same guest on a number of platforms (ie. when a guest emails in, fills out a "contact form," and chats with a representative in live time in the span of ten minutes) because LiveAgent enables us to have all of our communication in one platform.
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  • We have cut our service team in half over the past 5 years due to the efficiency of the tool
  • The amount of direct inquiries to our technical team is less than 10% compared to the number support tickets that get entered in the system for them to work in a more organized manner
  • Responses are 100% more timely because tickets can be responded to by any individual in the queue or on the team, as opposed to direct emails to just one person
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ScreenShots

LiveAgent Screenshots

Screenshot of Inside of TicketsScreenshot of Chat - Support ViewScreenshot of Chat - Customer ViewScreenshot of Chat - Fully Customizable

Salesforce Service Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Workflows and OrchestrationScreenshot of Service CatalogScreenshot of Contact Center