Are All Live Chat Agents Real Humans?

If you’ve visited a couple of websites in recent years, you’ve most likely seen it.

A box pops up looking to engage in conversation or help you with what you need.

Yes, this is about live chat.

If you've tried responding to the greetings, you’ve probably noticed that you get an immediate response. And you’ve also probably wondered if there’s a real live human agent on the other end.

Well, is there?

Are All Live Chat Agents Real Live Humans? Understanding the Live Chat Ecosystem

In order to fully answer the question of whether all live chat agents are real humans or not, we will have first of all have to understand a few things about live chat.

What is live chat?

 Live chat is an online method of communicating with your customers. Using a live chat platform, like Smith.ai, you are able to interact with your customers in real-time. Because of its real-time nature, live chat has fast become the most preferred method of communication by consumers.

What is a chatbot?

Chatbots, on the other hand, a part of your live chat ecosystem. These are programs designed to converse with your customers in the same way your customer service reps would. Today’s AI-powered chatbots are so advanced it can actually be difficult to tell if you’re talking to a bot or an agent. 

Understanding live chat agents

As for live chat agents, these are the real live human beings manning a website’s live chat service. Contrary to popular belief, not just anyone can be a live chat agent. If you want to increase your customer satisfaction rates (leading to business growth), you will have to invest in well-trained live chat agents.  

Now that we’ve established these 3 most important elements of live web chat, let’s get back to our question.

Are All Live Chat Agents Real Humans? - The Simple Answer

So how can you tell if you’re chatting with a real human agent or a chatbot? Here are a few tips:

Human agents will identify themselves

Because live chat agents know that customers prefer chatting to a human agent, they immediately identify themselves. Not only will they tell you their name, but they’ll also assure you that you’re chatting to a human agent.

Check how the responses come

The third way in which you can tell if you are chatting to a live agent or a chatbot is by checking the way the responses come. If it’s a chatbot, responses will be instant as they are pre-populated. On the other hand, if you’re chatting to a human agent, the message will take a bit longer as the agent will be typing. You can also tell it’s a human agent chatting to you as the chatbox will show you that the respondent is typing.

Try Smith.ai Live Chat risk-free

It's time to try live chat on your website. Just one new client captured via chat can pay for a year (or more) of Smith.ai's live web chat service. We provide fully staffed live website chat with professional agents. Outsourced live chat is best for small businesses like law firms, e-commerce businesses, IT consultants, financial planners, property managers, realtors, and marketing agencies (to name just a few!).

Our live agents are highly skilled and can answer common questions about your business, qualify new leads, schedule appointments, take payments, and more. You stay in the loop when chat transcripts are sent to you after each conversation and logged in your CRM. There's no setup fee, services are month-to-month, and there's no annual contract. Plans start at just $140/month and are risk-free with our 14-day money-back guarantee.