What is Real-Time Messaging and What are the Best Platforms?

When people want answers, they want them right away. Today’s fast-paced world doesn’t have time for delays—and a business that doesn’t respond quickly will be one that loses important leads and conversions.

Fortunately, real-time messaging is a helpful tool you can use to respond to leads and customers on their time. Real-time messaging is best explained as instant communication between two or more people. For example, you might have real-time communication with a chatroom that hosts multiple users.

Real-time messaging helps you connect to your customers in an instant, preventing lag and delays in messaging.

Definition of Real-Time Messaging

Real-time messaging is a form of instant communication—sending and receiving messages instantly between two or more people. Real-time messaging platforms can send as many as hundreds, thousands, or even millions of messages to clients in real time.

Real-Time Messaging vs Traditional Messaging?

Real-time messaging is designed to be received immediately, so customers or users have access to information right away. Both synchronous and asynchronous forms are available today, with synchronous messaging happening in real-time while users are online, and asynchronous messaging allowing for a conversation to continue whether someone is online or offline.

Traditional messaging, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily get seen right away. For instance, an email isn’t a real-time message since it may not be seen for minutes, hours, days, or even weeks.

Both types of messaging are likely necessary for your business as customers have different preferences; however, in today’s world, people are busy and want answers quickly. All in all, working to ensure you stay connected with your audience is the most important thing.

What is real-time messaging?

Real-time messaging describes instant communication between two or more parties. Good examples of real-time messaging include live chats and messenger services, such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

Real-time messaging can help eliminate any communication delays. A customer browsing on your website can ask you a question via the chat agent, for example, and get an immediate response. That immediate response keeps them on the website and increases the likelihood that they’ll end up converting.

But, how does real-time messaging work so quickly? It uses a push mechanism. When a message is sent by a user, it’s pushed to the other users through the messaging platform. The app refreshes constantly, allowing the message to come through quickly and, when working appropriately on a mobile or wifi connection, in real-time. Users can then chat or interact simultaneously, allowing them to have a normal conversation without unnecessary time delays.

Real-time messaging is used consistently every day. From immediate-response chatbots to connecting with friends or colleagues with tools such as WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, or Slack, all of these platforms are prime examples of how real-time messaging keeps you connected.

3 Benefits of Real-Time Messaging for Businesses

Businesses can reap the benefits of real-time messaging in multiple ways— from improved collaboration within their organization to improved customer service. Here are some ways you can improve your communications with real-time messaging:

Improved Collaboration

Have you ever needed an answer and wanted it right away? Or, after sending an email, have you ever thought “I should have called, because they might not check their email until tomorrow…”? These are both examples of times when real-time communication works better than traditional methods.

Instant messaging is a type of real-time messaging and can help you get what you need by sending a push notification to the party you want to contact.

Using instant messaging in-house allows you to communicate with other departments, freelancers, and others in real time. A good example of this is Slack, which lets you communicate with other users synchronously or asynchronously. For teams needing to stay connected on demand, this type of tool is extremely valuable.

The real benefit of real-time messaging is that it doesn’t matter where people are geographically. Messages go through immediately via cellular or wifi service, enhancing your ability to connect with everyone regardless of location, time of day, or other factors.

Enhanced Customer Service

Imagine that a potential customer wants to know a small detail about a product they might be interested in purchasing. After visiting your website, they don’t see the information they need. They send a message via your website’s chat, but it says no one is online until tomorrow.

The potential customer will likely navigate away from your page, and may even turn to a competitor’s product to save time. Not ideal, right?

You can improve your customer service with live chat and real-time messaging to avoid this scenario. Using a live chat, combined with a chatbot, ensures customers get immediate answers and support from your team any time of day or night, significantly enhancing the customer experience. And, because chatbots can be trained to answer commonly asked questions with standard answers, they’re a great tool for businesses that get a large influx of questions from customers.

You can also enhance collaboration with your customers. If they’re on your website and have a question about your services or products, being able to respond immediately to inquiries can help you convert those leads into sales when they may otherwise walk away.

Podium’s AI Employee is an excellent example of this process in action. It responds to leads in real time, helping you get 30% more sales by communicating with customers day and night.

Increased Productivity

Having real-time messaging in place can also improve your productivity. It not only helps with real-time collaboration, but it also gives you an opportunity to enhance your data for better data-driven decisions.

With real-time messaging, you get instant access to the information you need, such as immediate feedback from prospects, leads, or collaborators. In a fast-moving marketplace, having this kind of rapid access is ideal for staying ahead of your competition.

9 Best Real-Time Messaging Services, Platforms, and APIs (2024)

There are numerous factors to consider when choosing a real-time messaging platform. You should think about the features you need, security concerns, the integrations you want to use, and the overall cost.

The following are real-time messaging platforms you may want to consider:

Ably

Ably is a real-time service that supports major companies including Riff and HubSpot. Its API is designed to set up live chats the way you want: with 1:1 or group chat settings and information on when someone’s responding to you.

It has core features such as contact books and a donation option during live-stream events. It offers a free service as well as pay-as-you-go pricing starting at $2.50 per million messages.

Back4App

If you want to store your data in real time, Back4App is a good choice. Its platform performs email verification and has features such as real-time message integration, user authentication, and others.

Pricing is affordable thanks to a free plan or paid plan services that start at just $25.

Firebase

Firebase is an app development platform that is backed by industry giant, Google. It’s designed to remove the need for a backend and gives developers support services including a database called Cloud Firestore. Cloud Firestore both saves and manages chat messages, and it’s able to send out real-time messages to consumers.

PubNub

PubNub is among the top-recognized data-stream platforms on the market today. It offers scalable features and real-time databases. It is designed to be used on the web or with mobile devices.

Top features of PubNub include its In Chat App, data-streaming options, 24/7 support, and geolocation tools. You can try it for free or choose the paid services that begin at $49 per month.

Pusher

If you’re hoping for a bidirectional API, Pusher is one to try. It, like several others, is scalable and flexible, but what sets it apart is its real-time database with hosting and push notification features. With Pusher, you get 24/7 support, too, so you can get help with alerts, in-app chats, and other services on demand.

Pusher has flexible pricing. Its Sandbox is free, and the first-tier subscription starts at $49 per month.

Scaledrone

If you’re interested in building applications and sending real-time data to users through your infrastructure, Scaledrone can help you. Some of its top features include enhanced WebSockets, cloud hosting, and a real-time database.

Scaledrone does offer a free tier if you want to try it out, but you can get the Pro version for only $9 (or more) per month. It’s an affordable solution if you’re hoping for more advanced features as you scale your business.

Sendbird

Sendbird is an AI-driven platform that has APIs for chatbots, SMS messaging, chats, and more. Like many other companies on this list, Sendbird does offer a free trial, and the Developer plan has all pro features at no cost on the website. The paid plan, Starter5K, is the lowest-cost subscription and starts at $399 per month with modern messaging essentials, ticketed support, and basic moderation.

Stream

You may recognize Stream as GetStream, which is what it used to be known as. This company is known for its UI and API. With it, you can integrate live chat features into your mobile or website applications.

The base plan is free at Stream, but you will want to pay for at least the “Start” plan if you want more advanced features. Paid plans start at $399 a month when you pay annually.

Twilio

Twilio is an omnichannel communication provider that has a suite of tools that include video, chat, email, and SMS. The chat, known as Conversations API, is designed to work between apps. For example, your customer can start a chat in the app and then move to another, such as WhatsApp. That omnichannel arrangement helps keep the customer journey free of hiccups.

Twilio doesn’t have a one-time pricing structure. You can pay for each feature separately, but Conversations API starts at $0.05 per active user each month for usage and $0.25 per month for each gigabyte of storage.

Do More With Texting and SMS Marketing With Podium’s AI Employee

Your customers want to know you’re on their side and waiting to answer their questions or respond to their concerns. Real-time messaging lets you connect with them immediately, improving the customer experience and helping you make the most of your inbound leads. And, texting and SMS marketing help you get your message in front of the right people at the right time, so you can increase sales.

It’s time to launch text marketing campaigns in just minutes and see nearly instant results. With Podium, your AI marketing texts are personalized and have a 98% open rate. And, you can use Podium’s AI Employee for instant responses that improve lead management and customer service to turn messages into sales. Ready to learn more? Watch a demo.