Smith.ai vs. Podium Webchat

Chatbots and live website chat are becoming a critical part of operations for many modern businesses. These tools give you the chance to communicate with people in their preferred format and reach out to them proactively so that you never miss a lead again. Of course, there’s a lot that goes into choosing the right tool.

Considering that 90% of customers expect your business to offer a self-service portal online, you don’t even need to ask if a chatbot is a worthwhile investment. Whether you choose a customized, fully-automated solution like the Smith.ai Chatbot or any other service, it’s a tool that your business needs.

Podium Webchat and the Smith.ai Chatbot offer a host of communication solutions for brands looking to change the conversation, quite literally. They each have their pros and cons to consider and taking a look at the details will help you better see which one is the right fit for your brand.

Let’s start with Podium. Podium doesn’t offer a chatbot. You’ve got to have agents there to field the messages as they come in. There's some automation and AI available, but human interaction will be a must. And that will cost you.

Podium does offer a customizable, brandable webchat widget and has internal company messaging tools that you can use. This service is offered at an additional cost to the rest of the podium suite. When you engage the webchat app, your customers will be able to click the “chat” button, enter their phone number, and start chatting.

Smith.ai, on the other hand, offers a free 100% automated, 24/7 chatbot with unlimited chats, proactive messaging, integrated scheduling and lead generation features, and so much more. Thus, it’s the obvious choice here when you need a reliable chatbot.