Forms of communication between customer and company
When a customer needs help with a matter related to a product or service, they can usually write an email or use a contact form on the website (which is essentially the same thing). Companies often also provide a phone number that the customer can call to speak with a consultant. These – already traditional – forms of communication have significant drawbacks, however, of which perhaps the most acute is the waiting time for a response and for a solution to be obtained.
In recent years, alternatives have therefore gained popularity, among which live chat services and chatbots are worth highlighting.
What is live chat?
Thanks to live chat, a customer can connect directly with a consultant and seek answers to the questions on their mind. Live chat means that the conversation between the customer and the consultant takes a written form. Of course, during the exchange of messages, the customer or a representative of the support department may suggest switching to a phone call – the first contact, however, takes place in writing.
The live chat functionality can be implemented on a website, but also in the company’s mobile application or in instant messaging apps (Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram).
Companies that provide live chat technology often emphasize its uninterrupted availability (24/7), the possibility of obtaining instant support for customers, and the importance of chats in the context of building customer relationships. Reality, however, requires some of these assurances to be verified. Learn about the advantages and disadvantages of live chats.
What benefits does the live chat function bring?
Solving problems in real time
This is a powerful advantage of chats with a consultant. Attempts to deal with technical problems or understand the nuances of an offer, undertaken via email communication, would often break down due to the need to exchange dozens of messages spread out over time – frequently over many days.
Phone calls should in theory eliminate this problem, however for many consumers this is not the preferred form of contact with a consultant.
Multiple conversations simultaneously
For support specialists, a phone call with a customer means having to reserve their full attention for one person and one problem – often for many minutes.
Text chat serves in this context as an excellent bridge between a phone call and an email – it enables customers to get answers to important questions, while allowing consultants to conduct several conversations with customers simultaneously – without neglecting the needs of any of them.
The ability to describe the problem straight away
While waiting on hold for a phone connection, the customer has to keep repeating the problem they came with or write it down somewhere in order to then faithfully describe the situation to the consultant. With live chat, this problem does not occur. It is enough to open the chat window and immediately, even before contact is made, describe the problem. As a result, the consultant, as soon as they open the chat window, will have access to the description and will be able to start taking action – without unnecessary delays.
Message archiving
Compared to traditional forms of contact, live chat has one more advantage: it enables the saving and archiving of conversations conducted with customers. This is a powerful tool that can be used to create a detailed database filled with specialist knowledge, as well as to shorten the time it takes to process customer requests.
Building customer relationships: tailored and personalized
If your company cares about building authentic relationships with customers, live chat can be one of the ways to achieve this goal. Creating consultant profiles (containing a name, position, and photo) will allow customers to choose which one they want to contact. Access to the archive will enable consultants to prepare adequately for conversations and ensure they do not repeatedly suggest the same ineffective solutions to customers.
In contact with a customer, using their name and referring to past interactions are manifestations of personalization that can facilitate the building of business-customer relationships and contribute to increased customer satisfaction.
Use of attachments
In a phone call, it is necessary to skillfully and in detail describe the problem that is occurring. In the case of live chat, the customer can paste an appropriate screenshot, link, or recording into the conversation window, showing exactly what is happening. This is a significant convenience that helps consultants solve problems reported by customers more quickly and accurately.
Disadvantages of live chat with a consultant
The consultant is not always available
Did a problem occur on a Saturday at 11 PM or early in the morning and require an immediate response? Much depends on the company, but in most cases the customer may be met with a cold message stating that “our consultants are currently unavailable.” This, instead of helping, only amplifies frustration.
Of course, there are companies where the support department works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – but we are usually talking here about banks, electricity providers, and similar institutions, as well as global corporations.
The cost of maintaining a support department
The reason for this state of affairs is simple – maintaining a support department is costly, and not insignificantly so. Smaller companies often simply cannot afford to have employees accepting requests and answering calls around the clock.
The situation is different for global corporations – these invest in support departments that operate around the clock in order to provide service to customers worldwide, in every time zone. This also generates high costs, but is crucial for retaining customers and demonstrating that the company cares about consumers from every market.
Time from submission to problem resolution
Relying one hundred percent on people carries the risk of extending the average request processing time. Although this can be attributed to employee sluggishness or human imperfection, very often the causes also include employers’ desire to cut costs (hiring an insufficiently large number of staff).
Finally, some days may be quiet, while others may be filled with complex, multi-threaded problems to solve. This in turn will extend the time it takes to close a thread, which will affect customer satisfaction as well as employee performance.
How do chatbots work?
An increasingly popular alternative to conversations with consultants are chatbots. These are programs written in such a way that they can interact with customers and respond to selected topics, using the knowledge they have previously been “fed.”
Chatbots as a tool are nothing new – they have been functioning in the online space for many years. Recently, however, they have become significantly more competent – thanks, of course, to the use of LLMs (large language models) and NLP (neuro-linguistic programming).
Chatbots can also be easily implemented on a website, in an app, or in a messaging platform – and this brings specific benefits. However, this does not mean that deploying a bot is the ultimate solution that will send all customer support specialists to the unemployment office. Learn about the advantages and disadvantages of chatbots.
How can a chatbot help your company?
Uninterrupted availability
This is the obvious and at the same time greatest advantage of chatbots. Customers who are trying to solve their problems at unusual hours or on days off work can – thanks to chatbots – attempt to make contact and obtain the answers they are looking for, instead of receiving a message informing them of the need to get in touch on Monday morning.
More requests? The servers can handle it
Three consultants on the line tasked with handling a hundred requests is a support department’s nightmare. A hundred requests for a chatbot is a breeze – provided the servers can handle a higher than usual load.
During periods of heightened customer activity (e.g. during holiday sales in online stores or during the summer season at travel agencies), chatbot support can prove invaluable. The bot will ease the heaviest traffic by handling simpler matters that do not require a consultant’s intervention, while simultaneously passing particularly complex ones on to experts.
Automation of simple tasks
At the current stage, chatbots are capable of carrying out many simple, repetitive tasks – precisely those that take up the most of consultants’ time and represent an unpleasant necessity in their work. Reservations, placing orders, accepting complaint submissions, canceling scheduled appointments, or changing dates. All of this – thanks to bots having access to company databases – can be carried out without the involvement of a specialist. The consultant can use this time to solve more complex problems or to update the knowledge base.
Archiving data and conversation history
The configuration of a chatbot enables the collection and processing of data – thanks to this, after a conversation that ended with a problem being solved, the chatbot is able to enter the solution that proved correct into the database. In this way, subsequent similar cases can be resolved even more efficiently. This also works in the other direction – if the solution proposed by the bot did not bring the expected results, the bot can reduce the frequency of suggesting that answer or disable it entirely.
Consistent messages – artificial intelligence in action
A major advantage of chatbots is providing consistent, repeatable answers to asked questions. A situation in which a chatbot suggests one solution one time, only to advise something completely different another time (in a similar situation), should not occur. We are talking here, of course, about a situation in which the bot has been properly prepared for action “in the field” beforehand – i.e. it has been fed appropriate knowledge, given access to the company’s knowledge base, and tested under conversational conditions.
Fast problem solving
A query directed at a chatbot should receive a response within just a few seconds. This is a powerful advantage that is particularly significant in an era of ever-shortening user attention spans. Having to wait a minute, two, or even longer for a response only leads to frustration. A chatbot does not keep you waiting.
Disadvantages of chatbots
Limitations in handling complex tasks
Customers who decide to contact the support department often have a specific problem to solve – one that requires not only the analysis of a screenshot or submitted logs, but also a deep understanding of the product or application it concerns. In such situations, chatbots do not (yet?) always cope.
When a customer who knows what they need tries to obtain an answer from a chatbot and it does not come (or is not satisfactory), frustration grows – amplified further when the chatbot refuses to transfer to a conversation with a real consultant.
Lack of emotional intelligence
Although we have placed this point in the “disadvantages of chatbots” category, the absence of emotions is not always a problem. After all, a bot will not get annoyed at a customer who does not describe their problem accurately enough or persistently sends the wrong attachment. On the other hand, chatbots lack emotional intelligence – they are unable to accurately read the consumer’s emotions, which are often hidden in subtle changes in the tone of communication.
A professional consultant will easily detect a change in the customer’s mood and try to respond to it appropriately, while a chatbot – regardless of the situation – will remain naively positive and “supportive,” responding to the customer’s concerns with pleasantly sounding and meaningless platitudes. And this – as one can easily imagine – can bring the customer to boiling point. Again – in the context of building long-term customer relationships – this is definitely an undesirable effect.
Managing a chatbot is an increasingly absorbing task
A chatbot is a program that must be regularly updated and checked. It is not just a matter of adding more information to its dataset, but also checking response patterns, eliminating undesirable reactions, and taking customer feedback into account.
It is not enough to install a bot and configure it initially – regular work with a chatbot is a task that must be added to the list of responsibilities of the employees accountable for its proper functioning.
Chatbot vs live chat? How to choose well?
When making a decision regarding the organization of support in your company, it is worth taking many factors into account, such as:
- Query complexity – analyze the history of customer queries. Assess the complexity of the submissions and verify how many of them a bot can handle without difficulty, and what proportion requires the intervention of an experienced consultant.
- Budget – an analysis of costs related to employee maintenance, training, but also chatbot subscription and management is necessary.
- Customer profile – knowing your customers’ habits and preferences, you are able to determine whether they prefer to contact a real consultant or a chatbot.
- Need for availability – not every company needs 24/7 support. If your customers expect this and maintaining employees in a shift system exceeds your budget, a chatbot will be a better solution – but perhaps customers do not need support outside your company’s working hours at all? In such a situation, providing consultant support may prove cheaper and more effective.
- Current and potential support load – check how many customer requests you have now, but also take into account how many may appear in the future. Factor in the company’s development plans, the expected number of customers, and check how many requests the support team will potentially have to handle in the coming months.
The ideal solution? Implementing both live chat and a chatbot
The most effective solution appears to be a combination of both:
- implementing a chatbot that will handle repetitive, simple tasks and take the load off the human support department team,
- launching live chat, through which customers will receive a more convenient form of contact with the company than email or phone, and a chance to resolve the most complex issues with the help of a trained consultant.
Standing in the way of using both options is – of course – money. Both live chat software and chatbots generate monthly costs. To this must be added the costs of hiring, training, and salaries for support department employees, which are virtually impossible to do without.
Chatbots may prove to be good and competent support for the support team’s work, but they will not eliminate the need to employ support department staff – although they may reduce the number required.
Combining live chat and a chatbot has one more advantage – a consultant can be available during the company’s working hours, while the chatbot takes over communication at weekends, on public holidays, and during nighttime hours. It is worth, however – if you care about building customer relationships – clearly indicating when and with whom the customer can conduct a conversation. Independently discovering that one is talking to a bot pretending to be a consultant is an unpleasant experience that can worsen the customer’s experience with your brand.
Summary
In 2026, abandoning consultants in favor of a chatbot alone is a road to nowhere. The functionality of bots, although very advanced (especially when compared to the primitive bots operating just a few years ago), is still unable to meet the needs of many customers who come to support departments with specific problems.
Chatbots can, however, be a relatively inexpensive solution for companies that are just beginning their journey in the market, cannot afford to hire additional employees, and at the same time want to provide customers with some form of help with the problems that arise.
Remember, however, that even a bot requires continuous maintenance and updates – of data and action patterns. Thinking of a chatbot as an autonomous machine that will resolve all problems without the company’s involvement can only lead to disappointment.
Finally, I will leave you with a thought that perhaps has not been sufficiently emphasized throughout all of this. The main task of support is to provide high-quality assistance to your company’s customers.
With this in mind, check the available options and, if necessary, test them – after all, you do not have to immediately sign a contract with a live chat or chatbot solution provider for many years ahead.
