Smith.ai Answering and Web Chat Services Review | Top Services USA
Table of contents
What is Smith.ai?
Smith.ai answering services combines live agents with chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI). They offer both inbound call answering and live chat services to help businesses keep their customers in the loop without having to pay a full-time receptionist.
The goal behind all of Smith.ai’s products is to simplify your business. This means less time worrying about running your business and more time doing business.
Highly-trained live agents answer calls and make outbound calls. The chatbot tool is powerful. Smtih.ai uses a special method called “human-in-the-loop” training to make their bots stand out against the competition.
Each bot is supported and trained by human agents. The chatbots learn from humans and do the brunt of the work. Agents sit by ready to make corrections or escalations. Through this cooperation, Smith.ai provides industry-leading customer service without a steep price.
So, how does Smith.ai stack up against its competition? What are its features, benefits, and prices? To help you make the best decision for your business, we’ll answer these questions to give you an unbiased review.
Quick Facts
5 Years of Experience | U.S. Based Agents | Live Calls Starting at $140/mo | Web Chat Starting at $0/mo | Integrates with most software | Top-Rated Company |
History and Experience
The company’s leadership brings expertise from experience at Google, Apple, Intuit, and Home Depot. Since 2015 they have been working to create solutions for small businesses.
Smith.ai has been in operation since 2015. Its team has handled over 1 million conversations.
Call agents are selected based on their communication skills which are vetted meticulously during their training. Chatbots are finely tuned with a combination of algorithms and human guidance.
Who is Smith.ai for?
Smith.ai is made especially for use by small businesses. Law firms are exceptionally fond of Smith’s services, but their clients include companies in digital marketing, IT consulting, e-commerce, financial services, and more.
The platform is especially useful for smaller teams who can’t justify the costs of a full-time receptionist or call center, but still want to offer outstanding customer service and efficiently gather leads from them. Smith.ai has shown to help these businesses boost online marketing results.
Because of its long list of integrations, Smith.ai can be used by almost any company regardless of existing communication or marketing software and practices.
What Services Does They Offer?
Smith.ai currently offers two services: live receptionists and AI chatbots. Let’s check out what each one offers and how they can help your business.
Smith.ai Live Receptionists
U.S.-based agents are available to answer your calls, make appointments, and follow up on leads. These virtual assistants are available weekdays from 5 am to 9 pm PT and weekends 6 am to 4 pm PT. These hours can be restrictive for businesses in other time zones.
Smith.ai’s proprietary software manages your incoming calls, screening and prioritizing them accordingly. This means you get info up-front and give personalized attention to your customers.
Afterward, a summary of each call is delivered via text. Voicemails are transcribed and emailed to you every day.
They offers many perks for their virtual receptionist service, including:
- U.S.-based receptionists on duty 7 days a week
- Lead qualification & intake with CRM integration for complete workflows
- Payment collection, with integration to your credit card processing software
- Appointment & call-back scheduling, with calendar software integration
- Outbound calls, including web-form follow-ups, work status updates & appointment reminders
- Spam & sales call blocking, call screening & prioritization, plus VIP pass-throughs
Smith.ai Website Chat
Smith.ai has a one-of-a-kind messenger bot service.
Using machine learning, bots adapt to your needs and improve over time. What the AI can’t do, live agents help with. All paid versions of the web chat use a “human in the loop” method in which a person guides the bots and fills in the gaps.
This service can help you to capture website leads, screen potential clients, and improve conversion rates. Bots are available 24 hours a day.
Curious about the feature? You can get a chatbot on your website FOR FREE. Anyone can try out the standalone AI bot before deciding if they want to pay for AI+agents.
Here’s a breakdown of the Web Chat service:
- Live chat agents on duty 24/7
- Appointment & call-back scheduling with calendar integration
- Payment collection with billing software integration
- Lead qualification & intake with CRM integration
- AI technology powers automatic responses, real-time English-Spanish translation, and more
- Instant chat transcripts via email with contacts and conversations logged in your CRM
How Can Answering Service Help My Small Business?
Small business owners are often looking to expand operations while keeping expenses down. The price of small business marketing success can be an influx of new customers. This can overwhelm your customer service systems.
This is where paying for a third-party answering service like Smith.ai to answer your calls pays off. Without the cost of call centers or other live answering services, you can be ready for any number of calls or inquiries.
Smith.ai even offers a free chat widget that can improve customer support. Simple questions can be answered by chatbots at no cost to you.
Does They Offer a Free Trial?
Yes. Smith.ai’s 14-day free trial includes 20 calls. You don’t need a credit card to start your trial. Throughout your trial, you have full access to Smith’s phone answering services. Use our Smith.ai promo code TOPSERVICES100 to get up to 20% off.
You just sign up, learn a bit about the service, get a phone number, and then Smith.ai starts taking your calls immediately. At the end of your trial, you can add a payment method and continue, or stop altogether, no strings attached.
Do I Need to Sign a Contract?
No. Smith.ai is a pay-as-you-go service.
You don’t need to sign anything. You simply pay for what you need each month. If you want to change your plan there is no penalty. If you cancel in the middle of a month, you will be billed for the whole month. But also you
Integrations
To make sure your work goes on uninterrupted, Smith.ai includes a long list of integrations.
This way, no matter your infrastructure or workflow is, you can pick up their services with ease. Live agents and chatbots can make appointments in virtually any calendar applications you use, and all major CRM software is supported.
Chances are, Smith.ai integrates with your applications. This includes automation, billing, CRM, scheduling, and chat.
What Does Smith.ai Cost?
Smith.ai offers competitive pricing packages great for businesses of any size or call volume. Not only do they tailor their basic packages to meet customer demand, but they offer custom pricing plans too.
Virtual Receptionists Pricing
The cost of Smith.ai’s live agents is broken into 3 tiers, Starter, Basic, and Pro. The differences between them are monthly cost, the maximum number of calls per month, number of transfer destinations, and price per call above the limit.
Here is a chart showing you what each plan has to offer:
Starter | Basic | Pro |
$140 per month | $300 per month | $600 per month |
20 Receptionist Calls | 50 Receptionist Calls | 120 Receptionist Calls |
1 Transfer Destination | 2 Transfer Destinations | 5 Transfer Destinations |
$7/Call after 20 | $6/Call after 50 | $5/Call after 120 |
Custom pricing is also available. Smith.ai can work with you to create a flexible plan.
Web Chat Pricing
Web Chat with Smith.ai is affordable. They even offer a free option for customers who only need a standard AI chatbot.
The paid web chat packages offer human support. These agents enhance the chatbot’s abilities using “human in the loop” training. When customer’s needs go beyond the capabilities of the bot, a human can quickly step in to help or escalate.
The price of the paid AI chat goes up depending on how many chats you need each month.
Let’s check out the Smith.ai Web Chat packages:
Free | Starter | Basic | Pro | Custom |
AI Bot only | Staffed + AI Bot | Staffed + AI Bot | Staffed + AI Bot | Staffed + AI Bot |
$0 per month | $140 per month | $300 per month | $600 per month | Custom Pricing |
Unlimited Chats | 20 Live Chats | 50 Live Chats | 120 Live Chats | Custom |
– | $7/Chat after 20 | $6/Chat after 50 | $5/Chat after 120 | Flexible |
Ratings
Both the Virtual Receptionist and Web Chat services are highly rated. Overall, Smith.ai has proven its quality and customer service across multiple rating sources, reviews, and testimonials.
Here is how Smith.ai is rated across 3 reputable sources:
Trustpilot | Capterra | |
4.5 out of 5 | 5 out of 5 | 4.9 out of 5 |
Additionally, Smith.ai has received favorable reviews from major publications like Lawyerist and Law Technology Today. Both recognize Smith.ai’s value, customer service, and features.
Final Word
All of our research and testing has led to the definitive conclusion that Smith.ai is an exceptional provider of both live receptionist and AI web chat services.
In terms of pricing, there isn’t another reputable company on the market that offers what Smith.ai does for a better price.
We like that they charge per call instead of per minute or second, offer a 14-day free trial without needing your credit card info, and charge no setup fee. All taxes and fees are included in their low starting price. With Smith.ai, what you see is what you get.
Smith.ai offers comparable live agent services to other industry leaders like Ruby and PATLive. However, Smith.ai manages to edge out its competition in terms of pricing, transparency, and features.
In our research, there isn’t another AI-driven chatbot service like Smith.ai’s Web Chat. The unique service of agent-guided chatbots that learn over time is remarkable, especially for the price.
What won us over was the level of connection and transparency Smith.ai offers its customers.
The Smith.ai website has extensive information on its products, prices, and history. It offers an ease-of-access and straightforwardness that is indicative of their company culture. This clarity and honesty are seen throughout their products.
For anyone looking to grow their business with live call agents or chatbots on their website, Smith.ai is an outstanding choice.