UK live-chat tech, reviewed for SME sales teams
Most live-chat demos are forty minutes of features you will never switch on. Here is the shortlist test we would hand a UK sales lead with three platforms on the table and a week to choose — twelve capabilities that pay for themselves, five that quietly inflate the invoice, and a scoring sheet to keep the conversation honest.
Black Friday falls on 27 November 2026, and most SME chat setups have never been tested beyond a quiet Tuesday. Here's a seven-day audit covering load testing, canned replies, rosters across UK hours and the mobile checkout handoff — plus the red flags worth fixing this week.
A chatbot that answers instantly isn't the same as a conversation. We mystery-shopped 45 UK SME websites running 15 different live-chat platforms and timed how long it took to reach an actual human — including at 8pm on a weekday and on a Sunday.