Best Dental Software 2021

Best Live Chat Software for Dental Practices

Are you on the hunt for a live chat tool for your dental practice? We’ve tested and reviewed the top solutions based on the features that dentists value most.

Having a live chat and virtual receptionist software has become indispensable for many dental practices. Live chat can help organizations of all types capture new patient information, remind patients of appointments, and allow patients to get in touch after hours.

There are many live chat tools on the market today, which makes choosing the best solution difficult. This article will walk you through our list of top live chat solutions for dental practices. We’ll discuss pricing, pros and cons, and any notable features to help you pick the best solution.

Table of Contents

What Features Matter Most to Dental Practices?

Live chat software includes features that streamline the communication between patients and the dental practice. We’ve listed some of the most important features found in live chat solutions.

FeatureDescription
After-Hours Patient ContactThere are many reasons a patient will need to contact your practice after hours: a dental emergency, a billing concern, or for other urgent questions. Installing live chat software on your website will ensure that patients can contact the practice at all hours. Some solutions also have chatbots, which handle after-hours communication.
Lead Capture & QualificationLive chat tools can improve patient acquisition rates by capturing the contact information for potential patients.
Industry-Trained Chat AgentsSome solutions will allow you to hire chat agents who will communicate on your practice’s behalf. Tools that offer chat agents that are well-versed in the dental space will be particularly advantageous — some such tools are listed below.
Appointment SchedulingCalendar integrations are often included in live chat widgets, which lets patients schedule appointments without having to call your practice. There are a myriad of these calendar tools that integrate with live chat solutions, so you’ll likely be able to find a pre-built integration with whichever tool you already use.
Practice Management System IntegrationsSome live chat tools integrate with dental practice management systems. This allows for data to flow easily between your different systems, ensuring a simpler process for your entire practice.

A live chat window on your practice’s website will look something like this. Patients will use the widget to enter information and get in contact with your team.

BirdEye Webchat Tool

How Much Does Live Chat Software Cost for Dental Practices?

The dental-specific software we’ve included on this list tends to cost $400 per month. This software comes with a broad set of features for live chat, and also appointment reminders, patient reviews, payment processing and customer surveys.

We’ve also included two industry-agnostic live chat solutions, HelpCrunch and Gist. These solutions are priced for less than $100 per month, and come with live chat and email features.

There are a few solutions that are either entirely free or offer free plans, though we found that these likely don’t have the features required to support most dental practices. If you’re on the hunt for free options, however, you can check out our list of best free live chat solutions.

Does Live Chat Software Integrate With My Practice Management Software?

Some live chat solutions have pre-built integrations with dental practice management software like Eaglesoft and Open Dental. Pre-built integrations are particularly helpful for those who want data to be shared between different platforms. Some live chat solutions don’t integrate with dental practice management tools, but will have integrations with other helpful scheduling tools. Here is a list of live chat tools that integrate with practice management solutions:

Live Chat SoftwarePractice Management Integrations
Podium
Simplifeye
  • Curve Dental
  • Dentrix
  • Open Dental
  • Eaglesoft
Weave
  • Dentrix
  • Open Dental
  • SoftDent
  • Eaglesoft
Birdeye
  • SoftDent
  • Open Dental
  • Dentrix
  • Planet DDS
  • Easy Dental
  • Curve Dental
Smith.ai

The Best Live Chat Software for Dental Practices

Our top 7 live chat solutions were chosen with dental practices in mind. These choices can boost your connection with patients and make office practices more efficient.

Podium

Podium is a unique chatting solution that allows texting between dental practices and their patients, which is especially helpful for managing conversations on-the-go. Podium has pre-built integrations with popular dental practice management solutions like Eaglesoft and OpenDental. The tool also includes payment processing, analytics, and customer feedback capabilities.

Podium is priced at $399 per month, which is standard for the tools on this list. While this is a great tool and one that we’ve highly recommended in our reviews, it lacks chat agents for hire. If you want to hire chat agents to staff your live chat, check out the next solution on this list.

Podium
Rating: 90
Starting Price: $399 per month

Podium is an Interaction Management™ Platform used to generate and manage online reviews, streamline customer interactions through messaging, and monitor customer sentiment. The company has over 45,000 customers in healthcare, home services, retail, auto services, professional services, and hospitality.

Pros:
  • Customers can leave Google reviews in two clicks
  • Highly-rated mobile app allows you to manage customer conversations on-the-go
  • Includes a team chat tool for individual and group conversations
  • Each account gets a client success manager
Cons:
  • Does not include a business directory listings tool
  • Customer survey feature is more limited than some competitors
  • Conversations that start with webchat must be handled via text message

Simplifeye

Simplifeye is a HIPAA-compliant software tool that’s built for dental practices. It includes live chat, 24/7 chat agents, appointment scheduling capabilities, and pre-built practice management system integrations. It also has a feature called Simplifeye Connect, a telehealth platform that allows you to video conference with patients.

Simplifeye pricing begins at $349 per month per practice. There are no startup or cancellation fees. You can sign up for a free demo and then test the software free for 60 days, which will ensure that you like the tool before committing to it.

Simplifeye
Rating: 87
Starting Price: $349 per month

Simplifeye is a 24/7 live web chat service with a dedicated chat team trained to improve your website conversion rate.

Pros:
  • Simplifeye's webchat is powered by an expert chat team that responds to any inquiry on your website in less than 8 seconds
  • Simplifeye's tool converts 2-4% of website visitors into appointments, which translates to an average of 7-10 new appointments per month
  • Simplifeye’s analytics dashboard with detailed information about Simplifeye's activity and impact
Cons:
  • Product integrates with four top practice management systems, but if you don't use these you won't be able to schedule directly into your PMS
  • Simplifeye is laser-focused on web chat, scheduling, and telehealth, which means it does not have as broad of a range of features found in different type of tools
  • All web chats are managed by Simplifeye's team, which means you give up some control of customer engagement

Weave

Weave is a patient communication system for dental practices. Its key features include two-way texting, appointment reminders, patient reviews, payments, and phone line integrations. We rated Weave very highly in our dental reviews category due to its broad range of features and the unique VoIP phone integration.

Weave costs $399 per month, making it the same price as the first four choices on the list. However, there’s a hefty $750 setup fee, which makes this slightly more expensive overall than some of the other tools on this list. Dental practices who want to do a run-through of the product can sign up for a free demo and someone on the Weave team will walk you through the product.

Weave

Weave

VoIP Integration
Rating: 90
Starting Price: $399 per month

Weave is a complete dental patient communication software system that helps to increase your staff's production on the phone, and to provide an exceptional patient experience.

Pros:
  • Results in an exceptional patient experience, and a more productive front office
  • Enables measurement of team effectiveness on the phone & the identification of improvement opportunities
  • Phone syncs with practice management software to display patient information on call pops
  • Includes appointment reminders, recall, two-way texting & reputation management
Cons:
  • Must use phones provided by Weave, which involves a learning curve
  • Requires a strong Internet connection -- otherwise Internet issues can result in dropped phone calls
  • Appointment reminder emails not fully customizable

BirdEye

BirdEye is a reputation management platform that includes an inbox that will allow your practice to converse with patients. Both text messages and website chat messages will go to the same inbox, which streamlines the communication process.

You’ll be able to send attachments and images, track unread messages, and mark conversations as complete when you’ve finished helping your patients. The widget is customizable and you can set automated forms that will capture patient contact information, respond to FAQs, and accept appointments. This tool also integrates with many dental practice management systems.

BirdEye pricing is $399 per month for the plan that includes live chat. This price is just for a single location, and if you add features or more locations, the price will go up.

Birdeye
Rating: 92
Starting Price: $299 per month

BirdEye is a popular reputation management platform used by thousands of businesses to improve their online presences and attract new customers. The platform includes several tools that help you reach and engage customers including business listing management, online review generation, two-way text messaging, customer surveys and a mobile application.

Pros:
  • Listing management tool ensures your business information is accurate & consistent across online directories
  • Online reviews tool allows you to generate hundreds of customer reviews that improve your online presence
  • Unified inbox tool streamlines two-way text message conversations with customers
Cons:
  • Platform does not include tool for payment processing
  • Does not include team chat feature for your team to communicate inside BirdEye
  • Surveys, insights, benchmarking & ticketing applications are not included in the $399 Professional Plan

Smith.ai

Smith.ai is a live chat and 24/7 virtual receptionist service. While the solution isn’t built specifically for dental practices, there are some features that can support your practice. Smith.ai offers live chat agents who can schedule appointments and perform patient intake.

Smith.ai’s Basic Plan costs $140 for 20 chats and charges $6 per additional chat, making this solution less affordable for dental practices with high traffic.

Smith.ai
Rating: 83
Starting Price: $140 per month

Smith.ai is a virtual receptionist and chat agent service that is used by companies across industries like finance, legal, and real estate. With features like a smart chatbot and customizable playbooks that gather visitor information, Smith.ai is ideal for small companies looking to outsource customer support services.

Pros:
  • Ideal for companies looking for external agents to handle customer support
  • Chatbots are "smart" and can be trained to learn correct answers over time
  • Smith.ai's customer service was exceptionally helpful and proactive
Cons:
  • We ran into a significant software issue while testing the product
  • Because there are call and chat limits, it can become costly if you have a high-traffic site
  • Outsourcing your live chat is convenient, but means you'll have less control over your customer experience

HelpCrunch

HelpCrunch is a tool that’s not built specifically for dental practices but can still serve your patient communication purposes. It offers live chat, automated and manual messages, and a knowledge base that you can set up as an FAQ page for clients. This tool is powerful yet easy to set up.

HelpCrunch starts at $29 per team member per month on the chat and email plan. If you want just live chat, the price is just $15 per team member per month. Though this choice is not an all-in-one dental practice solution like Simplifeye, it’s one of our top live chat choices.

HelpCrunch
Rating: 93
Starting Price: $15 per month

HelpCrunch is a modern and powerful customer communication platform. With features that help streamline customer support and marketing, it’s a solution that will benefit most teams, ecommerce organizations in particular.

Pros:
  • One of the most powerful and intuitive tools we tested
  • Includes website pop-ups, which few live chat solutions offer
  • Helpful and detailed metrics regarding campaigns and knowledge base
Cons:
  • The Chat + Email plan can get expensive if you have a large team
  • The chat widget was somewhat slow to load during our testing
  • Slightly limited integrations list and doesn't integrate with Zapier

Gist

Gist is a live chat tool with chatbots, which can handle client communication after hours. Other notable features include outbound messages and an events tracker, which may be helpful for understanding how your patients are interacting with your website.

Gist is the most affordable option on this list, with pricing starting at $29 per month for five seats and a knowledge base. The price can get quite high—up to $548 per month—but you can certainly use this tool for less than $50 per month.

Gist
Rating: 88
Starting Price: $29 per month

Gist is a customer messaging software with over 10,000 customers. Its notable features include event tracking and cross-channel campaigns. It is ideal for anyone looking for an affordable mid-tier customer messaging solution.

Pros:
  • Free plans are more robust than competitors' free plans
  • Advanced cross-channel messaging capabilities
  • Buildable forms and popups to capture and convert leads
Cons:
  • Chat history feature is not designed practically
  • Customer support wait times can be long
  • Limited integrations list
Katelyn Anderson

Katelyn is a Junior Research Analyst at SoftwarePundit, where she conducts in-depth analyses of technology markets & products and writes software-related content. She graduated summa cum laude with degrees in English and Psychology. Her main areas of interest are content creation, user experience, and search engine optimization. You can connect with Katelyn on LinkedIn.

Katelyn is an expert in several software categories including:

  • Accounting software
  • Integration software
  • Live chat software
  • Vacation rental software
  • Video conferencing software

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