eGain

Overview

eGain makes knowledge management and AI agent software for customer service. Its Conversation Hub handles chat, messaging, email, social, cobrowse, video and phone. The eGain Messaging Hub runs web chat, in-app messaging, Apple Business Chat (now Apple Messages for Business), Facebook Messenger, SMS and WhatsApp, with eGain's virtual assistant or a third-party bot and escalation to agents.

Key features

• Apple Messages rich links, list pickers, date and time pickers, Apple Pay, images and iMessage extensions
• Bring-your-own-bot architecture with escalation to human chat
• Advisor Desktop with one chronological conversation stream per customer
• Proactive notifications over SMS, email, push, messaging and voice
• Published APIs to add new channels

Pricing

List prices: AI Knowledge Hub $25 per user a month, AI Agent $0.50 per resolution or $25 per user a month, and Connectors $249 a month. Messaging and Conversation Hub prices are not listed. A free trial and a 30-day pilot are offered.

How it compares to Linq

Apple Messages for Business is Apple's business chat channel in the Messages app, not iMessage from a phone number: customers chat with a verified brand and usually start the conversation. Linq sends iMessage, RCS and SMS from real phone numbers through an API, for a flat fee from $260 a month. eGain is a knowledge and contact center suite rather than a messaging API.

Best for

Enterprise service teams that want messaging channels tied to a central knowledge base.

Sources

• egain.com/egain-messaging-hub
• egain.com/egain-solve-for-apple-business-chat
• egain.com/conversation-hub
• egain.com/pricing