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IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs LiveChat comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
660
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (33rd)
LiveChat
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (23rd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (21st), Live Chat (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
KM
Computer System Engineer at Informatika d.d.
Has centralization and asset management features, and a helpful and knowledgeable technical support team
What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.
Vikas Kejriwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineering Manager at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Clean chat interface has supported basic AI handoffs but now needs omnichannel and a free plan
LiveChat did not support omnichannel messaging or multi-channel inbox, and it was not offering any free plan. These limitations made me switch to another solution. I believe LiveChat should support at least a basic free plan so that potential customers can try out their features before paying for the full suite.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We automated one process that was running with 109 people and reduced it down to 69 with automation."
"What Automation Anywhere does exceptionally well is allowing users—especially those without a technical background—to navigate easily, and if you know how to work with Excel or Word, you can simply type commands in plain English like 'save Excel' or 'open Excel' to find the corresponding actions."
"None of the commands are unique to Automation Anywhere, which allows beginners to leverage external knowledge."
"It's easy to use, and with less experience, anyone with the business knowledge can automate easily."
"The best features of Automation Anywhere are having a user-friendly interface and the ability to integrate AI, and APIs and services like OpenAI's ChatGPT can be integrated, enhancing its functionality."
"Having no restriction for any single programming language is very useful."
"IQ Bot is a valuable feature. It processes unstructured data to structured data. It helps me by making tasks less time consuming. It reduces the effort it takes versus manually."
"Automation Anywhere receives high marks for its ease of use."
"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."
"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."
"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized, you have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them, so you have one big package and nothing is lost."
"The solution has been stable."
"Overall, it's a good product that I would recommend."
"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"In general, it's been pretty stable."
"It truly does what I need it to do and anything else I would say, I would be making it up."
"The best feature of LiveChat in my evaluation is the AI chatbot module that I prefer most."
"Through the capabilities of LiveChat we are able to fully customise each live chat implementation to suit the goals of our clients."
"Customer Service: Top notch! The support team is available all the time and have been able to solve all our questions instantly."
"Since we started to use LC we managed to increase our customer satisfaction level, increase sales and most important thing to speed up our interaction with our customers because it's all in real time."
"In my experience, the best features LiveChat offers include a clean interface, robust analytics, and the ability to provide human-to-human website chat."
"I majorly love the ticket and knowledge base features, which allow us to save automated answers to the most popular customer queries."
"We can attribute most of our high ticket sales to this software."
 

Cons

"For assisted automation, the AA bot needs the facility to be triggered through an application interface after collecting input from the user."
"The implementation process is complex, as there is integration with other applications."
"Automation Anywhere should implement this feature. They should also decrease their cost."
"It is negative right now. What we are expecting, for one bot creation, is a six-month turnaround for getting ROI, but that is only the developer man-hour versus actual time saved."
"What we currently have with Fortress IQ needs to mature more, and I say this since people spend weeks creating PDDs documentation."
"I would like to see a global error handler introduced, which will explicitly handle errors over the entire project."
"Queues are great but need improvement. They are helpful because most of the automations are transaction-based."
"Automation Anywhere could benefit from more in-person support, as they currently maintain only a virtual presence."
"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."
"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"The product is kind of clunky to use."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us."
"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."
"Technical support can be slow in terms of resolving issues."
"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."
"The service needs to be more popular than it currently is."
"I'd like to be able to create teams and filter the reports by team, in addition to the ability to currently filter by group, date, agent, tag etc."
"The biggest friction point I have experienced with LiveChat so far is the lack of a free plan."
"There have been times where Live Chat's servers have had DDOS attacks and have made communication difficult."
"LiveChat did not support omnichannel messaging or multi-channel inbox, and it was not offering any free plan."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you are looking into Automation Anywhere, get the Community Edition and play with it."
"It's the best RPA tool, but the pricing could be improved."
"This is a value for the money product."
"I would rate the price of Automation Anywhere a six out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"It's fine. However, I'm concerned with the credits in terms of the pricing for the AI models. It is understandable that the new ones are more expensive, but the base models, after doing the pricing conversion, cost about four to ten times as much as paying directly."
"In terms of monetary savings, we automated a bot in three days that has saved us $30,000 in costs."
"Despite being less expensive than UiPath, Automation Anywhere remains cost-prohibitive for many small and medium-sized businesses."
"It is the most economically friendly and it provides you with a lot of functions."
"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."
"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."
"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Performing Arts
14%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
17%
Construction Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise558
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with LiveChat?
LiveChat did not support omnichannel messaging or multi-channel inbox, and it was not offering any free plan. These l...
What is your primary use case for LiveChat?
I started using LiveChat six months ago when we explored it. My main use case for LiveChat was to implement it as an ...
What advice do you have for others considering LiveChat?
We conducted a demo with LiveChat during our evaluation period. When I opened LiveChat during my evaluation, I checke...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
SmartCloud Control Desk
chat.io
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
Our product is used by over 29,000 companies in 140 countries worldwide. List of our customers includes brands such as: ASUS, Samsung, ING, Roku, LG Electronics, Better Business Bureau, Kaspersky Lab, Daimler, Air Asia, Tele2, Adobe, Orange, Zalora, HarveyNorman, Bombardier and many more.
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. LiveChat and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.