You’re probably on this blog because you’re looking for a powerful and reliable software like respond.io to manage customer conversations. This respond.io alternative blog post will first give you an overview of respond.io to help you understand its capabilities. Then, we’ll explore some respond.io alternatives you can consider and help you decide which platform is the best for your business.

Respond.io Alternative: What is Respond.io?

Respond.io is a customer conversation management software, built for large businesses that want to deliver great customer experiences through messaging.

It centralizes all your messaging channels so you can reply to messages from a shared inbox, supports automation for complex business processes and delivers a stable platform with reliable customer support, among others.

Businesses of any industry can use it for multiple use cases including marketing, sales, support and transactional notifications. Now that you have an idea of what respond.io does, let’s discover how it can benefit businesses with complex processes.

Respond.io Overview: How it Benefits Your Business

Respond.io is a versatile software that has brought significant benefits to its global customers. From streamlining communication across channels to improving customer engagement, respond.io has proven itself to be invaluable to businesses worldwide.

Let’s run through how you can achieve similar success on respond.io.

Centralize All Messaging Channels for a True Omnichannel Experience

Respond.io allows you to connect all the communication channels your customers use. You can connect traditional channels like email, webchat and SMS along with instant messaging channels like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and Google Business Messages.

You can also manage multiple channel accounts like individual WhatsApp accounts or numbers for each branch or outlet. Plus, it lets you connect custom channels, like your business' own messaging apps or e-commerce platform native chat inboxes like Lazada chat.

By centralizing all channels, you can reply to messages from a single omnichannel inbox via a browser or mobile app. Now that all the channels are centralized, let’s look at a powerful tool to identify returning contacts across these channels.

Merge Conversations from WhatsApp, Instagram and Other Channels in a Single Thread

Having the same person contact you on two different channels is inevitable, especially when you have a presence on multiple channels. This makes providing an omnichannel experience difficult as siloed conversations are created.

Luckily, respond.io can easily recognize returning customers on any channel. Businesses can identify duplicated contacts and unify customer profiles by merging conversations with the same customer from different channels into a single thread.

If a customer messaged you previously on WhatsApp but decides to message you on Instagram next, you can effortlessly merge the conversations to get context. This will also help you spot recurring issues and make informed decisions when assisting them. Next, we’ll look at how respond.io enables sales and marketing.

Send Promotional Messages on Multiple Channels

With respond.io, businesses can send broadcast messages on multiple channels, including SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, LINE and Viber. It also allows sending broadcasts on the last channel a customer has interacted with.

Businesses can confirm which channels their target audience is on and tailor messages to each channel's unique features. They can then schedule and send broadcast messages to target audiences easily and measure marketing campaign success through broadcast analytics.

If click to WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook ads is part of your marketing strategy, you can utilize respond.io to efficiently manage all resulting conversations. Respond.io identifies which ad prompted a lead's message, giving agents critical context for more effective responses.

Besides that, businesses can trigger promotional messages based on customer actions on e-commerce platforms like Shopify. For example, you can send an abandoned cart message with a discount or other incentives to customers who add items to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase.

Next, we’ll look at how automation can help you handle inbound conversations from multiple channels.

Streamline Processes in One Visual AI-Powered Automation Builder

Respond.io’s Workflows allow you to automate complex business processes in a visual automation builder. You can plan, design and implement a Workflow with any amount of complexity from scratch or via templates.

For instance, you can design specific automation journeys for customers depending on their messages or responses in pre-chat surveys. Then automatically route and assign them to the right team and agent quickly.

Best of all, you can add an AI Agent (respond.io’s AI-powered chatbot) to your Workflow and configure it to answer customer questions and collect lead information before passing the conversation to a human agent.

In addition to automating conversations, businesses can automate complicated sales and support agents’ tasks. Let’s explore how below.

Automate and Execute Complicated Tasks with a Click

Managers can create automation for complicated tasks like customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys, shift transfers and case escalation and enable agents to launch them at a click with the Shortcut Trigger button while chatting with customers.

You can even escalate cases to external platforms like Slack and exchange information between CRMs and respond.io to retrieve updated contact profiles or create deals and tickets in external CRMs.

For internal collaboration, agents can tag teammates for support, leave internal comments for handovers and add conversation summaries to provide context at a glance when closing a conversation.

Managers can monitor and guide live conversations from the Supervisor Dashboard and keep track of agent workload and productivity via the Reports and Analytics Module. Next, let's discover how agents can respond effectively with advanced AI features.

Respond Quickly, Accurately and Professionally with AI

With respond.io, agents can leverage AI capabilities to answer inquiries promptly and efficiently. Respond AI Prompts allow agents to refine their messages, ensuring clarity and precision in communication. They can also translate messages into different languages, reducing potential language barriers.

AI Assist, on the other hand, is a game-changer for providing agents with quick replies based on customer context. This rapid access to information allows agents to respond quickly and accurately to customer inquiries, enhancing response times and contributing to a more satisfying customer experience.

With a comprehensive understanding of respond.io's capabilities, it's time to explore the most important qualities platforms like respond.io should have – robust platform reliability and stability.

Reliable Platform and Customer Support

Reliable services and excellent customer support from solution providers like respond.io are crucial as businesses rely heavily on the platform to manage their business operations and communicate with customers.

Respond.io offers a dependable platform that is designed to handle high volumes of messages without interruption. It gives businesses the ability to maintain consistent operations and focus on chatting with customers.

In addition to maintaining a stable platform, providing responsive and efficient customer support is crucial.

Respond.io’s support team is available from Monday to Friday, around the clock, and can assist you in English, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic. You can also reach them on multiple channels, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, LINE and more.

Now that you know what respond.io has to offer, let's look at some of its alternatives.

Respond.io Alternative: 4 Alternatives to Consider

In this section, we’ll go over four respond.io alternatives, including WATI, Trengo, Sleekflow and MessageBird. When comparing these platforms, we'll evaluate six important factors.

This includes the number of channels they support, the ability to identify returning contacts across channels to prevent siloed conversations, ease of setting up automation, promotional messaging capabilities, platform reliability and customer support availability.

Let’s dive into the details below.

Respond.io Alternatives: Wati

Wati, short for WhatsApp Team Inbox, is a solution that is built specifically for the WhatsApp Business API.

It allows you to use WhatsApp with multiple users while enjoying all the features available for WhatsApp API, like broadcasts and interactive messages. You can also set up automation without any coding to automate WhatsApp conversations and agents’ tasks.

Wati may seem sufficient for businesses that only use WhatsApp for customer communication. However, relying on a single messaging channel comes with various potential issues.

This includes losing the ability to communicate with customers if the channel goes down, limiting access to customers who are only active on that channel and constraining customers to a single channel to reach you.

Additionally, Wati has redundant automation features, which make setting up automation very confusing. Plus, it currently has no AI features available as its Knowbot beta testing is closed. The platform also tends to slow down when it receives high volumes of messages.

To add fuel to the fire, their customer support is known for its below-average customer support with availability from Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm Indian Standard Time GMT +5.30.

It only provides support via email or WhatsApp and its WhatsApp support is frustrating as the automation doesn’t let you connect to an agent easily.

Wati’s pricing starts at $39 a month for 5 users, which is fair if your team is small. But your bill can rack up quickly if you have a lot of users or as your team grows. For medium to large businesses, respond.io is a better alternative to Wati.

Respond.io Alternatives: Trengo

Trengo is a platform that helps businesses manage customer interactions across multiple channels. It is designed for small businesses with simple business processes.

It supports multiple channels, including voice calls, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, WeChat, Google Business messages and custom channels. Plus, it allows businesses to merge conversations from the same channel.

Businesses can send broadcasts on SMS and WhatsApp. As for automation, it equips you with rule-based automation to automate conversations.

While Trengo supports most of the popular channels, it does not support LINE and Viber. If your business is located in regions where LINE and Viber are popular, you cannot create a total omnichannel experience on this platform.

Unlike respond.io, Trengo doesn’t allow merging conversations from two different channels. It only allows conversation merges from the same channel.

When setting up automation, businesses have to work on multiple modules, which can lead to confusion or redundancy. If you set up similar automation in both spaces, it may be difficult to determine which is responsible for a particular action or event when something goes wrong.

Additionally, the platform often crashes whenever it receives high volumes of messages. If you need help from its customer support, you can only reach them on Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5.30 pm Central European Time GMT +1.

Trengo’s cheapest plan starts at $113 a month for 10 users. It does not include WhatsApp and broadcasts on SMS and WhatsApp. If you’re a medium to large business with complex needs, then respond.io is more suitable than Trengo.

Respond.io Alternatives: Sleekflow

SleekFlow is an omnichannel communication platform that helps brands manage multiple channels from a single platform. Similar to Trengo, it is built for small companies with simple business processes.

Businesses can connect SMS, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, LINE, Telegram, WeChat and Viber to its platform to receive messages in one place. It allows broadcasts broadcast on SMS, WhatsApp, WeChat and LINE and offers broadcast analytics.

Businesses can use Sleekflow’s rule-based automation, available in Sleekflow 1.0 or its Flow Builder, available in Sleekflow 2.0, to automate conversations from these channels.

Although Sleekflow is an omnichannel platform, it does not support email, Google Business Messages and custom channels. Additionally, it does not support merging duplicate contacts across channels, which is a must-have feature for businesses that want to provide a complete omnichannel experience.

It also cannot support high volumes of messages as it tends to slow down and crash when processing them. Its customer support is also only reachable on Mondays to Fridays, 9 am to 6 pm Hong Kong Time GMT +8. So, if there are critical issues outside these hours, businesses cannot contact them.

Finally, although Sleekflow takes pride in its free plan, it does not include WhatsApp, which is the most popular messaging channel. Its cheapest plan costs $79, which is similar to the respond.io pricing plan, but it's limited to 3 users, 5 messaging channels and 5,000 broadcasts.

If your business is growing and needs a platform with advanced capabilities, respond.io is a more scalable solution than Sleekflow.

Respond.io Alternatives: MessageBird

MessageBird was initially developed for SMS, so it excels in that area and is often used for SMS messaging. However, it supports all popular communication channels while providing omnichannel features like contact merging.

Businesses can also send SMS and WhatsApp broadcasts and create automation to automate tasks and conversations.

While MessageBird supports all popular channels, it does not support custom channels, which can affect businesses that have their own messaging channel or app, or want to integrate additional channels with the platform.

Unlike respond.io which prompts businesses to merge duplicate contacts, businesses have to manually search for the contacts they want to merge and merges can’t be undone on MessageBird.

Despite supporting all the popular channels, it only supports broadcasts on SMS and WhatsApp. Plus, setting up WhatsApp broadcasts requires technical knowledge as it is not a native feature. This makes it clear that it cannot fully support instant messaging channel capabilities.

Similar to Trengo, Messagebird has two different spaces to set up automation, leaving room for mistakes or redundant automation. The platform also experiences downtime 2-3 times a month, disrupting the ability to send and receive messages for several hours.

Additionally, its customer support is only reachable from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm via email with an estimated first response time of 12 hours to 48 hours. For better support, you need to subscribe to a dedicated support plan that ranges from $500 to $5000 per month.

Lastly, MessageBird’s pay-as-you-go pricing has a total of 17 different charges, which is confusing and lacks transparency. If you need a powerful software that fully supports instant messaging channel features, respond.io is a better alternative to MessageBird.

Respond.io Alternative: Which Alternative is the Best for Your Business

As you can see, some of the alternatives were built for small businesses with simple needs, while others were for specific channels. Although it may seem like a good idea to use any of their platforms based on your current needs, this will be a problem once you start to grow.

For instance, shifting to a new platform requires a lot of work like data migration, staff training and process reconfiguration. It can disrupt your operations and lead to a temporary decrease in productivity. Therefore, it’s best to select a scalable solution from the start or one with superior customer support to help you with the process.

Respond.io is one of the most versatile customer conversation management software in the market. It supports all the popular channels, automatically identifies duplicated contacts across channels and provides powerful AI and automation features for you to set up all the processes you want to automate in one place.

Best of all, compared to its alternatives, respond.io has the highest uptime and customer support availability to ensure your business operations run smoothly, and you can get assistance whenever you need it.

With this, businesses can create superior customer experiences and build customer loyalty, ultimately increasing their revenue. Ready to experience the power of respond.io? Sign up for a free trial and witness its benefits firsthand.

Further Reading

Want to explore respond.io further? Here are some readings that might interest you.

• Inbound Conversation Workflows: A How-To Guide
• Chat Routing: Contact Routing with the respond.io Workflows Module
• Auto Assignment: Automatic Assignment with respond.io