No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs LiveAgent comparison

Why PeerSpot?
Sponsored
 

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
661
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 (2nd), 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 (32nd)
LiveAgent
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (38th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (35th), Knowledge Management Software (12th)
 

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.
it_user1729971 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant customer support manager
Prioritizes tasks and easily organizes messages and responses
I've not really noticed anything that needs to be improved with the solution. Generally, I enjoyed everything. Every feature LiveAgent has was a seamless journey for me. Maybe there are others who might notice one or two flaws on LiveAgent. I use LiveAgent, but based on my position in the company as a live chat professional, there is a level that I am restricted to. There are other products that are more popular and effective than LiveAgent, like Zendesk and HubSpot. They are among the most popular live chat products, and they have more users. I will advise that LiveAgent should look at what these other people are doing and use it to improve themselves. LiveAgent should add more functionalities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It eliminates redundant work from our offshore team to free up FTEs."
"Based on my experience, I have found Automation Anywhere to be more stable and accessible."
"If anyone is looking for an efficient automation tool, I definitely recommend Automation Anywhere because it is very helpful, even for non-technical people."
"With this innovative tool's automation, it is very dynamic, easy to develop, and deliver results quickly."
"In terms of approximate time savings, traditionally processing an invoice took twenty minutes, but with all of this—not just Document Automation, but with all the other features—we are able to cut it down to less than five minutes, achieving almost a seventy-five to eighty percent efficiency gain."
"The interface is a lot better than a lot of other tools which are out there."
"The most valuable features of this solution are its scalability, security using the credential vault, and ease of use for business."
"For people looking for my recommendation for an automation product, I definitely would recommend Automation Anywhere instead of going for a more orthodox or older technology."
"The solution has been stable."
"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."
"In general, it's been pretty stable."
"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."
"Overall, it's a good product that I would recommend."
"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."
"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 is very easy to work with."
"I like that this solution provides the history and control over every process connected to a building so we can see everything that's happened since we started using this solution."
"Provides service level optimization."
"The most valuable feature was how the solution helped us to prioritize tasks."
"My experience with LiveAgent so far has been a seamless one."
 

Cons

"In the debugging mode, it writes all the logs to text files, but it doesn't ever clean them up. We had one that got to 200K, and it bogged our whole machine down. We couldn't figure out what was going on until we found out that we had a 200K file sitting out there. We would like some sort of maintenance on the log files going forward."
"Our tool is a bit slow, as it's a legacy tool. Automation Anywhere is having some issues when running back."
"I would like to see more bots available right out-of-the-box in the SAP area. For example, if you take the overall OTC in our organization, we have to contact 15 teams. Even if we provide one big bot for the OTC, it won't work. It will not be used by one person. So if there could be more specific bots out-of-the-box, that would be really helpful."
"In A2019 it does not display the exact running status, but rather it displays the previous one."
"It takes a lot of effort to build up the internal infrastructure/topics like Virtual Machine/Security/development-Governance/Usecase-Management."
"Citrix is only in the development stage. Automation Anywhere could put some time into improving this more."
"It is frustrating at times to experience this instability, but we do find a solution and we are working on it to be better."
"They want to get more accuracy in handwritten forms, which might take some time."
"The user interface is not very interesting."
"Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"The product is kind of clunky to use."
"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."
"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."
"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."
"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."
"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."
"There are other products that are more popular."
"Connection to other softwares could be improved."
"I'd like to see an improved API to the system, rather than other softwares having to trigger everything."
"There are other products that are more popular and effective than LiveAgent, like Zendesk and HubSpot."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Automation Anywhere is a little higher than some of the competition, such as UiPath. However, depending on the use case and other factors we are able to receive some discounts."
"Its cost is good."
"We brought onshore a lot of what we were doing offshore, saving our company close to $20 million."
"Automation Anywhere's price is considerably better than UiPath's."
"The pricing is fair. My company is part of a big organization, so the pricing is very advantageous."
"If you are looking into Automation Anywhere, get the Community Edition and play with it."
"This solution costs approximately $3,500 USD per license."
"From my experience, I can say that the initial setup cost is easily recovered over a period of time once the bots start running in production."
"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 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."
"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."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Help Desk Software solutions are best for your needs.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Performing Arts
12%
Construction Company
11%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business161
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise558
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise3
No data available
 

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
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
SmartCloud Control Desk
No data available
 

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
Orange, Huawei, T Mobile, eOn, Solid Trust Pay, G4S, Oxford University
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. LiveAgent and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.