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IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs LiveChat comparison

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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
662
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

"With Automation Anywhere, they receive their financial statements while still on the call."
"We are getting approximately two hundred percent return on investment from Automation Anywhere throughout our automation journey, including RPA and our current Agentic Process Automation implementation, which is definitely a very good ROI we are receiving from Automation Anywhere."
"The integration of RPA bots with other processes and documents is good. We don't have any issues there. We could have more connectors, but it's fine. I have used it for SAP and for direct API-to-API, and that went well."
"There is a very accelerated learning curve on the platform."
"The best part about A2019 is its ease of use. You don't need to be a coding champ or an expert to use and implement A2019 in automating tasks. It's very easy to learn, tweak, and implement in your day-to-day tasks, especially features like capture/record is completely marvelous."
"I like Automation Anywhere's document automation. It can distill or scan documents and convert the information into a structured format."
"I have been using Automation Anywhere for the past five years and it is one of the best tools to automate manual tasks."
"Not all tools give us the clear utilization of the infrastructure in place but this does and trust me, this has been proved far better than other RPA tools and that is why I see AA booming day by day."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution has been stable."
"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."
"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."
"In general, it's been pretty stable."
"Overall, it has helped us continuously improve our business processes."
"Customer Service: Top notch! The support team is available all the time and have been able to solve all our questions instantly."
"It truly does what I need it to do and anything else I would say, I would be making it up."
"Through the capabilities of LiveChat we are able to fully customise each live chat implementation to suit the goals of our clients."
"The best feature of LiveChat in my evaluation is the AI chatbot module that I prefer most."
"I majorly love the ticket and knowledge base features, which allow us to save automated answers to the most popular customer queries."
"In my experience, the best features LiveChat offers include a clean interface, robust analytics, and the ability to provide human-to-human website chat."
"We can attribute most of our high ticket sales to this software."
"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."
 

Cons

"The only reason I wouldn't rate it higher is because a COE Manager still not getting the full benefit from it and because the premium is a little bit expensive."
"I would like more cognitive abilities, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. E.g., if I see you, your facial recognition has to be there. If I send your picture, it should tell me your name, where you are from, and when I met you because we forget people. It should have these type of capabilities."
"I would wish for a greater focus on citizen development, which is a priority for our company."
"The setup process is not easy compared to the competition, and this can be a barrier to entry."
"One thing with the bot that we are always struggling with is the memory management."
"A2019 should have more improvement for developers, as it was in v11.x."
"I would like to see a lot around API integration going forward, like the ability for other systems to talk to the AI better by opening it up. I would like to see more chatbots or anything in the journey of making it truly immersive for human workers working with these bots."
"The main request I have for Automation Anywhere is to focus more on technical demonstrations."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us."
"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."
"Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"Technical support can be slow in terms of resolving issues."
"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 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."
"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."
"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."
"There have been times where Live Chat's servers have had DDOS attacks and have made communication difficult."
"The biggest friction point I have experienced with LiveChat so far is the lack of a free plan."
"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 service needs to be more popular than it currently is."
"LiveChat did not support omnichannel messaging or multi-channel inbox, and it was not offering any free plan."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's cheaper than other similar solutions."
"I would rate the cost of Automation Anywhere as a six out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"Our pricing a year ago was $600 per license."
"We have seen a return of investment because it takes less time to market in our current process. I would estimate a times savings between 20 to 30 percent."
"The licensing cost is approximately $4,000 USD, which is a seed license."
"We have a few licenses. They cost roughly $10,000 each."
"In terms of pricing, this is a good product."
"The licensing needs to be made simpler or shortened."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise81
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

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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.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.