What is Tidio? | Tidio Review

Tidio is an intuitive online chat software that allows you to connect with your customers, handle visitors’ queries in real-time, and improve your live chat with automation that you can control.

The customisable chat widget seamlessly integrates with multiple websites and combines them into a unified agent interface that lets you deal with all customer messages at the same time. This saves you time without sacrificing your personal touch.

Live chats are a good way for small and medium-sized businesses to engage with customers while they browse through your site.

You don’t have to be online 24/7 to use Tidio – the software comes with bots that can engage your visitors, generate leads, answer FAQs, and save abandoned carts. It only transfers to an operator when faced with an issue.

This comprehensive Tidio review will walk you through how the software works, its features, pros and cons, how it stacks up against its competitors, and all the info you need to evaluate if it’s the right fit for you.

The Tidio story

Tidio’s story dates back to 2013 when Tytus Golas (current CEO) and Marcin Wiktor launched a tool for converting web pages into mobile versions.

The initial product idea failed to take off, but Golas noted the increasing interest of their users for live chat solutions. Barely two weeks after making the discovery, he wrote an application that later turned out to be Tidio’s flagship product (Tidio Live Chat).

After the tool gained traction, the duo decided to pivot and make it their focus.

Shortly after, Tidio grew exponentially on both fronts – users and product development. This prompted the company to launch two complementary products – email marketing and chatbots.

Who owns Tidio?

Tidio was founded by two dedicated individuals (Golas and Wiktor) who wanted to create an easy-to-build, highly customisable platform that would become a one-stop-shop for businesses corresponding with customers across multiple channels.

In May 2021, Tidio received $25 million in a Series B round led by PeakSpan Capital with participation from InPost CEO Rafał Brzoska and Inovo Venture Partners.

Other Tidio investors include Mariusz Fyrstenberg (Angel Investor) and bValue (VC firm).

The new capital was meant to go toward marketing and growing its 140-person workforce.

Tidio is currently headquartered in Szczecin, Poland, but has offices in London and San Francisco.

How to create a Tidio account

To use Tidio, you first have to create an account.

You can do this by clicking the “Get started” or “Try it out” button on their website.

You will be directed to a sign-up page where you will be required to provide your website URL, email address and password. You can also create a Tidio account via one of the available platforms.

After signing up, the next step involves configuring your live chat.

• You can start with the customer service agent’s name and avatar
• Pick the colour of your chat window to match that of your brand
• Select a language
• Input your account info, web address, country, and industry
• Read through the T&Cs, then click “Continue” to move to the next step
• Select an option for greeting your customers
• Edit your welcome message
• Set your offline hours

The last step involves setting up the widget on your site if hosted by WordPress, Wix or Shopify. You’ll then receive a distinctive JavaScript code to insert into the header file of your site.

Congratulations, Tidio live chat is fully functioning! You can now proceed to chat with your visitors!

How does Tidio work? How do they make money?

What makes Tidio stand out is its software’s simplicity in terms of structure and implementation.

Leveraging a combination of live chat apps, AI-powered chatbots, and analytics, Tidio aims to scale customer service operations even in small businesses that lack the benefit of dedicated staff.

To access Tidio, you can get the desktop app, download the mobile app on your iOS/Android device, or open Tidio on your browser.

Tidio makes money when you subscribe to one of their premium plans.

Tidio Statistics

Over 300,000 businesses worldwide use Tidio to connect with their customers.

More than 3 million businesses have generated 20M+ leads and $400M+ in sales after using Tidio’s chatbots.

Products | Tidio Review

Tidio offers 3 main products:  a live chat feature, unlimited chatbots, and email marketing functionality.

Let’s have a closer look at what these products are and how they can support your business’s customer engagement requirements.

Live Chat

Apart from your contact form, phone number and email for support, there is one more thing your customers love – live chat!

This messaging tool pops up as a chat window and allows for proactive customer interaction straight from your social media or website.

The live chat feature allows you (the site owner) or other operators the opportunity to chat with visitors as they browse your site in real-time. This is a great way for visitors to reach out to you directly, which, in turn, can improve your conversion rates.

Tidio’s live chat capabilities are fairly intuitive. Tidio lets you customise live chat and boost it with limitless chatbots for market automation. Anyone can add live chat software to their site in a few clicks.

You can:

• Manage chat pages as standalone or multichannel views
• Show live chat on specific web pages
• Receive notifications when offline
• Tailor chat widget based on colour and placement according to site aesthetics

Live typing lets you see what visitors are typing in real-time, but they can’t see whatever you type. Using the live typing feature, you can answer any questions your customers might have or even upsell products faster.

When you’re always available for every customer that wants to engage with you, you reduce bounce rates. The Tidio live chat widget adapts to your visitors’ screens, so they can write to you on mobile devices.

Visitor ban helps you block trolls so they won’t be able to use the live chat feature of your site.

Chatbots

Chatbots have proved to be reliable lead machines.

These computer programs are capable of simulating human communication via text chats.

Tidio lets you choose from 35+ pre-designed chatbot templates, including:

• Product recommendations
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Automatic discounts
• Order placement
• Upsales
• Lead generation
• Operator not responding
• Customer satisfaction survey, etc.

If you don’t find a template that fits your needs, you can create and active multiple sales chatbots to capture leads, thanks to the Visual Flow Builder. You can name each bot and test it before publishing to ensure it works properly.

You do not need any coding skills to create a chatbot from scratch. Use the drag-and-drop visual editor to set up smart triggers, conditions, and actions for the chatbots to act when prompted.

Trigger options include a site visitor visiting the site for the first time, returning to the site after a previous visit, spending a certain amount of time on a single page, and opening a new page.

The actions that can be triggered include sending emails or chat messages, collecting info by asking a question, and adding tags to or getting rid of tags from customer profiles.

You can instruct your chatbot to only act when a visitor uses a specific language/browser or comes to your site during a specific timeframe.

Chatbots handle repetitive actions and notify you regarding the user intent. For instance, whenever a visitor returns to your site, you can have your chatbot automatically send a message like, “Hi again! We’re so happy to have you back.”

The “Visitor Says” function utilises natural language processing technology that identifies commonly used terms.

Email Marketing

With Tidio, you can send customised emails to your subscribers. The software features dozens of pre-designed email templates for you to pick from.

However, if none of the pre-designed templates matches your design idea, you can use the “Mailing Editor” to create your own templates.

The editor lets you add all the elements you want (images, videos, logo, CTA buttons, social media icons) and customise everything so your emails look great, feel personal, and grab your subscribers’ attention.

In addition, Tidio offers vital metrics like the number of unsubscribes, click rate, open rate and recipient volume. For advanced metrics, you can integrate with Mailchimp or use Zapier to integrate with other email marketing tools.

For protection, Tidio’s anti-spam system shields your customers and your reputation by ensuring the emails you send are free of spam and phishing attempts. The emails won’t be sent if your campaign fails to pass the spam check.

Features | Tidio Review

Let’s have a look at some of Tidio’s features and how they can help you improve your customer service effectiveness.

Integrations

You can streamline your workflow by integrating your favourite platforms and tools with Tidio.

To set integrations, head to integrations and select from any of the integrations Tidio has made available.

Tidio’s integration list includes:

• Your mailbox
• Shopify
• Adobe Commerce
• Facebook Messenger
• Instagram
• Google Analytics
• Agile CRM
• Zoho CRM
• BigCommerce
• Zendesk
• Mailchimp
• Nimble
• Pipedrive
• Wix
• WordPress
• Hubspot, etc.

While it lacks a native integration for Slack, you can connect it using Zapier.

Pre-Chat Survey

Before your visitors initiate a live chat conversation with you, you can have them answer a few questions.

You could ask them for their contact information or request they agree with your privacy policy to keep the conversation going even after they have left your website.

Live Visitors List

Thanks to the accessible sidebar, you can easily track and monitor visitor activity in real-time.

Asking for details when initiating a conversation is not necessary. Also, when you know the pages the visitor is looking at, you will be better positioned to determine their interest in a particular product or service.

You can segment visitors based on their location and browsing history, and customise conversations by sending greetings in accordance with the customer’s location.

Tidio saves the contact details of previous chat participants, so there’s no need for anyone to re-introduce themselves.

App Customisation

Tidio allows you to customise the app to match your unique needs.

When it comes to notifications, you can test different sounds for new messages, incoming visitors, and new chat requests.

For email preferences, you can select to receive an email when a customer contacts you outside working hours. This will help you see that you do not lose any customers by leaving them unattended.

You can edit your preferences, such as enabling and setting the frequency of reports and changing your shop’s region.

Canned (Quick) Responses

Like some of its competitors, Tidio had canned responses – predetermined chat shortcuts that save you time when interacting with visitors.

By letting you save quick responses like greetings or closing messages, Tidio saves you time that you’d spend typing them up as you chat with your customers.

This feature is particularly invaluable for ecommerce businesses that have to repeatedly answer similar questions about product description, shipping costs, payment options, and refund policies.

To set up quick responses, pick from any of the premade ones in the chat window. If you wish, you can also change the quick responses to ones that fit your brand.

Multi-Language Bots

If you cater to international customers, you’ll be glad to learn that Tidio’s widgets are multilingual.

Tidio can take a peek at your visitor’s browser’s default settings and then chat with them in their language of choice.

The software allows you to set up as many languages as you wish.

As of this writing, Tidio supports over 140 languages, including English, Dutch, French, Italian, Russian, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Team Management

It’s common for visitors to reach out to the wrong departments.

As the project owner, you can assign roles to your team according to the permissions you want them to have – chat agents (conversations only), moderator (limited access), or admin (full access).

The “Reassign Operator” feature lets you pass a chat to another agent. You can use this feature when you know another team member is better equipped to answer a visitor’s questions.

The new operator can see the previous messages without asking the customer to repeat themselves, which frequently happens in phone calls.

Shared Inbox for teams

Tidio allows you to manage chats from multiple websites and collaborate from a centralised channel.

Your team members can easily view complete information like previous conversations, viewed pages, location, and customer contact details for future references.

You can set up canned responses to answer recurring questions automatically, add or eliminate tags from visitors based on recent website behaviour.

Offline Mode

Tidio has your back whenever you’re offline. What this means is that you do not have to be available 24/7/365 to attend to customers’ queries.

You can either configure operating hours for the Tidio chat widget or change your status automatically.

Tidio can hide the live chat widget once you have logged off and send you email notifications if it’s something urgent. If the query is urgent, you can always log in and resolve the issue.

To reach out to your non-operating hours’ customers, Tidio can request their contact info and let them know you will get back to them.

Reporting and Analytics

A key factor in running your business is to analyse its performance.

Tidio’s real-time website traffic monitoring function helps you gain a deeper insight into the behaviour of your website’s visitors. You can track their numbers, where they’re visiting from, and what pages they’re visiting. You can also view the reaction time (how quickly your operators respond).

The software lists anyone who has your site open in your real-time visitor list. It does this even if this person hasn’t clicked anywhere on it in the last 5 minutes.

You can set up monthly, weekly, or daily reports to get info such as how many operators were active in that period and how many messages they sent on how many chats.

Tidio Plans and Fees | Tidio Review

Tidio has 4 plans – the free-forever plan and 3 premium subscriptions, each with a 7-day free trial. After the trial, you can either continue using the free plan or upgrade to a premium plan.

The free plan has limited features that are suited to small teams. For 0$ per month, you get up to 2 users for a lifetime and a 100 monthly chatbot limit.

Unlike its competitors, Tidio premium plans each have different features, i.e., they do not have similar features as the previous tire plus something else.

Starter plan costs $32.50/month, billed annually. It includes 3 operators, but you can add $2.50/month for each extra operator (5 limit). The monthly chatbot limit is 2,000, but you can pay $4.17/month for every 1,000 more.

Team plan costs $65.83/month, billed annually. It includes 5 operators, but you can add 4.17/month for each extra operator (10 limit). The monthly chatbot limit is 15,000, but you can pay $12.50/month for every 5,000 more.

Scale plan costs $332.50/month, billed annually. It includes unlimited operators and no monthly chatbot limit.

To remove the “Powered by Tidio” branding in the chat widget, expect to cough up $15.83/month for each of the 3 premium plans.

Tidio Pros and Cons | Tidio Review

Now let’s have a look at the pros and cons of Tidio so that you can decide about the software quickly.

Pros

• Modern and user-friendly interface
• Customisable widgets
• Flexible pricing plans that operate on a mix-and-match basis
• Several integrations with other platforms and tools
• Real-time message preview
• Instant response to customer queries
• Offline messenger mode
• Full mobile device support as well as a mobile app for iOS and Android
• You can collect customer data via chat conversations, chatbots and pre-chat surveys to increase potential leads

Cons

• Limited reporting and analytics
• The admin interface is a little buggy
• Tidio doesn’t offer growth tools for Facebook Messenger
• No WhatsApp integration

Is Tidio Legit? | Tidio Review

300,000+ websites trust and use Tidio. The company has a rating of 4.8/5 on Capterra, 4.7/5 on G2, 4.8/5 on GetApp, and 4.75 on Software Advice.

Tidio is transparent about its pricing and even includes a free plan that features basic live chat/chatbot and supports email marketing.

Is Tidio Safe? | Tidio Review

Tidio takes your data security and privacy very seriously. You can rest assured that Tidio will not share, distribute, review, or reference your data.

The company has implemented a multi-layered infrastructure that guarantees that the data they receive from your browser is securely transferred to their servers.

All connections are encrypted using the 256bit SSL protocol and all of Tidio’s domains are hosted on a secure HTTPS address.

The software has been fully compliant with GDPR since 2018. GDPR gives you control over how your data is used. This averts any data leakage, guaranteeing that your information is fully secure.

There’s no expiration date on the stored data. Your data will remain on Tidio’s servers even if you don’t extend your subscription.

Is Tidio Regulated? | Tidio Review

Tidio Poland (Tidio Poland Sp. z o.o.) has a registered office in Wojska Polskiego 81, 70-481 Szczecin, Poland with Tax Identification Number 5842770474 and National Court Register number 0000725583.

Tidio LLC operates in the United States with its registered office in 160 Spear Street, #1000, San Francisco, CA 94105.

Tidio Customer Support | Tidio Review

There’s no Tidio phone support.

If you have any issues with Tidio, you can live chat them during the week or email them at [email protected] during the weekends.

As expected, the company’s customer support is robust over live chat since it’s powered by its own tool.

Tidio’s help centre has tons of info and tutorials covering everything from getting started with the program to creating a multilingual bot.

Who Are Tidio’s Competitors? | Tidio Review

Tidio ranks high among the best live chat tools, but it’s not the only one.

Tidio’s competitors include Tawk.to – a cloud-based free live chat and messaging solution that allows you to monitor and chat with visitors on your site or from a free customisable page.

Tawk.to offers a wide range of features, including chat alerts, chat history, chat transcripts, message translations into over 45 languages, and more. The downside to Tawk.to is that you can’t configure chatbots.

Another alternative is Intercom – a messaging and customer relationship management tool for web businesses. Standout features include 300+ integrations, ticketing, help centre, Service Level Agreements, live chat conversation ratings, and custom API.

Downsides to Intercom include the inability to merge conversations and expensive pricing, which starts from $67/month

Tidio Review Verdict:  Should I Use Tidio? | Tidio Review

Tidio is a cutting-edge live chat and chatbot messaging system that helps businesses slash customer service costs, boost customer engagement, convert leads, and boost sales.

The free plan suffices many businesses, and if that’s not the case with you, it still allows you to test drive the software’s capabilities at no cost, for as long as you wish, before you commit to a subscription.

If your business has more than 40 employees, a premium subscription will let you enjoy features such as more operators, bigger monthly chatbot limits, viewed pages, custom roles, and 1on1 onboarding. All features, including automations, are user-friendly.

I hope you found this detailed Tidio review useful!