24/7 Live Chat Answering Services with Smith.ai

Increased marketing ROI

Website visitors who use web chat are 2.8x more likely to convert than those that don’t. Capture more web leads and get more from your marketing with 24/7 live chat.

Scheduled appointments

We don’t just take contact information from your web chat leads. We’ll screen, intake, and schedule prospects on the calendar you already use. Take the conversation offline with qualified leads.

Website visitors who use web chat are 2.8x more likely to convert than those who don’t.

Integrates with your CRM

Chat transcripts and contact information are automatically logged in your CRM. Follow up with new leads faster and easier when your systems are synced.

Live agents backed by AI chat

The agents who staff your website chat are assisted by AI technology for faster, more accurate responses and streamlined lead qualification. Plus, we offer real-time English-Spanish translation.

Complete Human Coverage When You Need It

Prefer 100% live agents? We've got you covered.

While our AI Receptionist with human support delivers exceptional results for most businesses, we understand that some situations require dedicated human coverage. That's why Smith.ai also offers comprehensive virtual receptionist plans with 100% live, North America-based agents answering your calls 24/7.

Our virtual receptionist plans provide:

Dedicated human agents trained specifically on your business and industry.
True 24/7 coverage with live professionals, never voicemail or automated systems.
Complete call handling including complex scheduling, detailed note-taking, and sensitive conversations.
Seamless CRM integration with the same advanced features as our AI plans.
Custom call instructions tailored to your exact preferences and procedures.
Professional representation that sounds like an extension of your in-house team.

Smith.ai is trusted by 3,000+ businesses

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4.9 stars

5.0 stars

4.7 stars

“A solo lawyer thrives by embracing technology. We say we’re open 24 hours and, functionally, we are.”

Alexis Austin

Right Law Group

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TALK TO OUR TEAM OF EXPERTS

Book a consultation

Improve customer experiences with 24/7 AI-powered engagement built specifically for your business. Unlike basic AI competitors that offer one-size-fits-all solutions, Smith.ai delivers infinite customization with white-glove implementation tailored to your exact needs and goals.

Custom AI prompts engineered for your industry, terminology, and workflows.
Intelligent call handling with seamless human escalation.
Native CRM integration with your existing tech stack.
Dedicated implementation team that ensures perfect setup from day one.

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END-TO-END INTEGRATIONS

We play well with your software

Calls, appointments, and payments are automatically logged in your systems by our AI. Real-time syncing with over 7,000 integrations.

View all integrations

Frequently asked questions

An answering service, like Smith.ai, can offer your business 24/7 website chat answering. In doing so, answering services can take over your online communications and respond quickly and efficiently to clients who contact your business through your website. This frees your staff from regular call handling and live chat duties to focus on their specific job duties without having to worry about interrupting work to pick up the phone or respond to an online client. Our virtual receptionists will be able to assist, screen, and schedule website leads so your business won’t ever miss out on an online lead again. Chat transcripts and contact information will be automatically logged in your CRM so your team will have all the information they need to push online leads through your sales funnel. With 24/7 website chat answering, your business can exude professionalism at all times and grow more successful by the hour.

By enabling 24/7 live website chat through an answering service, your business can:

Minimize distractions & protect team’s time: With clients being answered and leads being screened online, your team will be able to save time that is normally spent on answering calls and dedicate it to more important tasks.
Reduce response times: Around-the-clock live website chat allows clients to be answered immediately so clients no longer have to be stuck on hold, go straight to voicemail, or be left unanswered. With more clients contacting your business online, workers will be able to respond faster to inquiries made in-person, via email, or over the phone.
Improve productivity: Live website chat allows your staff to answer client questions and inquiries at a much faster rate, allowing for more sales to be made in less time.
Boost client satisfaction & business reputation: With 24/7 live website chat, your client will be immediately answered, displaying the illusion of a larger business. With callers feeling valued, your business will exude professionalism and your company’s reputation will be stronger than ever.
Enhance lead conversions: By providing more ways for leads to connect with your business, 24/7 live website chat can connect with a larger pools of potential prospects in a shorter amount of time, which allows your team to convert leads at a faster rate.

A great 24/7 website chat answering can make all the difference for your business. It's important for businesses to respond to online inquiries quickly to capture web leads before they slip away. Smith.ai can provide a professional frontline so that your business can turn each and every web lead into a loyal client. We are your web chat guardians and can deliver exceptional service so that even if your team isn’t online, clients and leads can still have a great experience with your business, thanks to Smith.ai’s answering service.

Around-the-clock website chat answering is invaluable to your business’s success. Without having to dedicate time to responding to web chats and screening online potential prospects, you can improve your team’s responsiveness and productivity and put your business well ahead of your competitors. Whether your business needs lead screening assistance, customer service support, or just help off-setting web chat pressure on your team, a 24/7 live website chat service can transform your business into the best version of itself.

As far as live website chat is concerned, call centers and in-house staff can’t perform as well as an answering service. While they may be able to answer calls more frequently and consistently than employees with other duties, call centers and in-house receptionists don’t regularly offer web chat assistance and if they do, they tend to deliver sub-par quality.

Responding to website chats isn’t rocket science, yet still call centers often fail to offer it as a service, despite many leads preferring to use web chat to contact businesses. If they do offer it, call centers fail to perform web chats in a manner that prioritizes your teams’ time and your clients’ satisfaction. Call centers and in-house staff alike are often not equipped to answer common questions online clients have and frequently come with long response times as well as basic web knowledge, leaving online leads understandably annoyed.

Answering services like Smith.ai offer thoughtful accommodations, like AI chatbots that can help online leads receive faster, more accurate responses. By paying attention to the details, Smith.ai’s answering service can relieve your busy team of web chat pressures, provide your clients with outstanding customer service, and help your business thrive. Hiring a call center or an in-house staff rather than outsourcing 24/7 live website chat to an answering service may risk your reputation, your productivity, and your customer satisfaction.

If you’re a small business, this rings especially true for you. Over 46% of clients prefer to contact a business through live chat, call center agents and in-house staff isolate a huge portion of your clientele. This can destroy any initial impression a client may have and erode any trust they may have in your business, which is critical to establish in the initial conversation with a client.

It’s well known that call centers customarily:

Engage in poor web chat etiquette
Leave online clients unanswered for extended periods of time
Provide impersonal, robotic responses
Fail to integrate with teams’ CRM or calendars
Have trouble screening and qualifying web leads
Fail to provide accurate information to prepare web leads

With over 41% of customers expecting live web chat as an option, call centers fall short of providing an expected service to clients. If they do offer web chat answering, call centers rarely offer satisfactory service. Although over 96% of online clients expect an answer to their web chat inquiry within five minutes, call center agents can take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, whereas web chats answered by an answering service usually only take anywhere from 1 to 2 minutes. And with only 44% of clients reporting call centers to be helpful compared to nearly 76% of client reporting non-call centers, like answering service, to be helpful, it’s clear to see that hiring a call center will result in longer response times and unsatisfactory customer service.

In-house staff also regularly:

Come unequipped to address customer service concerns
Have limited availability
Lack web chat knowledge
Cost companies more than they bring in
Have little to no ability to nurture online leads
Fail to provide timely answers to web chat inquiries

If in-house staff can provide website chat answering, they still fail to provide coverage outside of normal business hours, which may cost you clients and leads as over 79% of clients use website chat to get an immediate answer to their question. During normal business hours, in-house staff may neglect their call handling duties to respond to the web leads they neglected overnight, resulting in over 62% of calls going to voicemail or being left unanswered. Despite being their sole purpose, in-house staff still fail to answer phone calls, which can cost your business potential customers, as up to 50% of sales go to businesses that answer first. Hiring an in-house staff to answer website chats and phone calls is arguably counterintuitive to your business’s success.

All of these common issues with call centers and in-house staff can lead to clients and potential prospects taking their business elsewhere, resulting in your company losing leads, customer loyalty, money, and time. By hiring an answering service, such as Smith.ai, instead, your team can avoid losing out on clients by having a knowledgeable and friendly representative available at all times to answer clients’ questions, screen leads, and schedule appointments online.

If that isn’t enough, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that on average, answering services cost only about 20% of what an in-house staff or call center costs despite offering more features and better quality services.

As a matter of fact, Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can:

Provide reliable, 24/7 online availability
Demonstrate website chat answering expertise
Answer online inquiries immediately and consistently
Utilize AI chatbots to provide faster, more accurate responses
Foster online leads with personalized, friendly customer service
Schedule appointments and consultations with your calendar
Build a foundation of trust between you and your clients

Outsourcing 24/7 live website chat to an answering service like Smith.ai instead of a call center or in-house staff can save your business from overextended budgets, embarrassing client interactions, missed lead-capturing opportunities, and frustrating online complications. Rather than risk your revenue and client relationships on inexperienced or ineffective call center agents or in-house staff, trust Smith.ai’s reliable service to nurture online clients, capture web leads, and take the pressure off of your busy staff.

Keeping a business up and running is no simple task. That’s why it’s easy to see how quickly businesses can run into problems they struggle to resolve themselves. Common problems that indicate your business may benefit from a website chat answering are:

My team struggles to keep up with phone calls and remain productive

If your business offers phone calls as your one and only form of communication with clients, your team may easily be overwhelmed. Calls don’t just come in when your team is ready and available. For teams that already have enough on their plate, the amount of phone calls that need to be properly answered can be overwhelming to say the least. Connecting with clients consistently and correctly is crucial for your business’s success, but team members might have to neglect more important work to answer the phone, leaving your staff with a growing list of tasks they can’t seem to get done.

I can’t afford to hire front desk support

Front desk support, whether it’s in-house receptionists or call centers, can cost tens of thousands of dollars and with slimmer budgets set in place, business can often be left desperate for website answering assistance. Paying more than you can afford for services you need can put your business in a dangerous position and trying out free or cheap services can be just as detrimental to a business as having nothing at all. Without web chat support in some way, shape, or form, your business can lose out on online leads and dismantle client relationships.

My staff has difficulty finding and capturing online leads

Staff members may not have the time or expertise to convert web leads consistently. When a representative can’t accommodate clients with 24/7 online availability, fails to respond to web chats in a timely manner, or struggles to answer questions accurately, online clients may lose interest quickly and feel less secure about entering into a relationship with your business, costing you not only your revenue, but your reputation as well.

Clients are frustrated with our slow response times

The only way a business can succeed is when clients are happy so when clients inevitably have questions about their services or concerns about their products, businesses need to be prepared to answer them. Businesses regularly struggle to find the time to answer clients’ questions in a quick and efficient manner. Whether staff members have limited availability and either can’t get to the phone in time or can’t answer website chats that come in after-hours, clients can get irritated and head straight to the next company they find in their search results.

If your business is facing one or any of these challenges, an answering service that offers 24/7 website chat answering can help you convert more leads and deliver excellent services to online clients and leads. An answering service, such as Smith.ai, can take the pressure off of your team and allow your business more flexibility in time and in budget without compromising your client relationships. Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can assist your clients by getting them the answers they need quickly with no hassle and help your team connect with online leads without any additional effort from them. Smith.ai’s answering service offers the fastest, easiest, and most affordable way to resolve your business’s issues and leave your clients with a smile on their face.

Businesses of every size can benefit from outsourcing website chat answering, whether it helps to take the load off of a small, family owned business or to increase efficiency in a large corporation. For example:

For small businesses, 24/7 website chat answering means a professional “big company” presence and not having to reply to every chat

Small businesses are often up to their necks in tasks that need to be done. They don’t need to spend more of their restricted responding to web chats or their narrow budget on hiring front desk support. Website chat answering gives small businesses the opportunity to provide around-the-clock assistance to clients and leads online without any added effort. This allows small businesses to maximize their productivity without sacrificing their much-needed time, money, or outreach towards current and potential clients. No more wasted days spent attempting to respond to each and every website chat.

For medium businesses, 24/7 website chat answering means quality customer service and clients’ questions answered anytime

With an endless amount of projects that need to be done, medium sized businesses often lack the time to respond to every online inquiry, resulting in missed leads and frustrated clients. Balancing daily tasks with website chat answering is difficult for any company, let alone a company with limited staff, availability, and resources. Outsourcing website chat answering enables medium sized businesses to place the responsibility of online customer service and lead screening into the hands of a trustworthy agent so that their team can get back to running daily operations without worrying about neglecting web leads.

For large businesses, 24/7 website chat answering means personalized client interactions and not having to capture every website leads

Many larger businesses have staff that are far too busy to answer calls themselves. It can be tedious for sizable staff to focus on the smaller details, like providing personalized one-on-one customer service, when there are such vast operations to run. It’s also very costly to hire in-house staff and, for companies at the enterprise level, scaling at lower cost is a core objective. 24/7 website chat answering can make it easier for large businesses to function at a high volume without neglecting the details that can separate a good company from a great one. By allowing answering services like Smith.ai to answer website chats and qualify online leads for them, larger businesses no longer have to choose between interrupting work to reply to web chats or abandoning website chat answering altogether.

Having a well-informed team of virtual receptionists who are trained in customer service represent your company well online can transform your business’s efficiency for the better, no matter what size your business is. Whether you want to improve your company’s virtual outreach or increase your business’s web lead conversion rate, an answering service that delivers 24/7 live website chat can help accomplish your company’s goals and get your team back to focusing on their work.

CAPTURE MORE WEBSITE LEADS

Live chat answering services 24/7

Increased marketing ROI

Scheduled appointments

Integrates with your CRM

Live agents backed by AI chat

Complete Human Coverage When You Need It

Smith.ai is trusted by 3,000+ businesses

Alexis Austin

TALK TO OUR TEAM OF EXPERTS

Book a consultation

END-TO-END INTEGRATIONS

We play well with your software

Frequently asked questions

How can a great 24/7 website chat answering service help my business grow?

Why should my business hire an outsourced answering service for 24/7 live website chat instead of a call center or in-house staff?

How do I estimate the cost of a 24/7 website chat answering service for my business?

What common business problems indicate that I need 24/7 website chat answering?

What are the ways 24/7 website chat answering can help small, medium, and large businesses?

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Take the faster path to growth.
Get Smith.ai today.