Below we'll show you 3 of the best co-browsing software solutions in the
market and how they're different. We cover HelloScreen,
Surfly and Acquire.
Related: See slides on every key feature of a co-browsing
service
Why do cobrowsing solutions differ? Aren't they all the same?
Not even close.
Co-browsing is fundamentally different to traditional screen sharing because it involves passing the code rather than streaming a video.
If you're passing code and all the changes to that code, you have to deal
with all the different scripts, frameworks and technologies out there.
It takes a long time to get co-browsing to work across these technologies.
The way each company passes code is different.
The way you install co-browsing is different.
The way co-browsing is initiated is also different.
That's why we cover 3 different types of co-browsing solutions below.
What is the best co-browsing solution?
The 3 companies below have all been through the tough phase of getting the
technology right.
There are some fundamental differences between them and the right solution
depends on the type of customer you service, what sort of integration you need and whether you need live chat and more on top of co-browsing.
If you already have a live chat or phone system you're happy with and just
want to add co-browsing then choose HelloScreen or
Surfly.
If you need live chat, video chat, bots, co-browsing and more for an all in
one solution then try Acquire.
Upscope
What does it do?
Upscope's core features are:
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Secure enterprise grade co-browsing for guiding users through an app.
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Secure API for integrations and white-labelling.
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Provides both code based and code-less universal co-browsing.
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Ready to go integrations with Intercom, Zendesk, Salesforce and others.
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Simple 'read out pin code' process to use co-browsing with customers who
call you.
Who is it for? Who is it not for?
We know who uses HelloScreen Co-Browsing and who does not
need it.
It's for companies supporting less tech-savvy customers or for doing financial sales over the phone or desktop for important products where you need to build trust with a customer.
Industries that use Upscope include payroll & HR software, CRMs, over the
phone financial sales, healthcare, legal services and a wide variety of SaaS
companies.
Upscope's customers include companies like JG Wentworth, Calendly, Square, Delta Dental.
Who does not need Upscope?
It's not for apps where the app interface is relatively simple and the users
are technically proficient. You won't need co-browsing for this, it won't get used much and you'll likely cancel after a while.
It's also not for native iPhone or android apps as Upscope does not support those. Upscope does work with native apps using webview.
Upscope's main benefits
Upscope has focused on getting the core co-browsing right for those who need
secure co-browsing that is ISO27001 and SOC 2 certified.
Consequently, Upscope has attracted finance, health, SaaS, legal, payroll / HR, education and legal companies
Upscope has enterprise features like a on-premise, role based access control, full audit logs, usage reporting, multi-team options and a full REST API for integrations.
HelloScreen integrates with most of the major live chat tools and CRMs like
Salesforce, Intercom,
LiveChat, Zendesk and more.
What can Upscope improve on?
Upscope has in-browser calling but does not have live chat or video chat.
Would it be nice if Upscope had its own live chat system?
Yes.
Are we likely to build it any time soon?
Not necessarily.
We believe there's an incredible amount to build just on the core co-browsing experience and so we're solving other key related support, sales, and onboarding problems companies have.
Surfly
Surfly has a feature that we at Upscope like and that's the ability to
cobrowse without needing to install code to begin using it.
It's a little trickier with apps that require logins but for websites and
e-commerce sites, it's a great feature.
What does it do?
Both you and your customer can browse your website without any downloads and
also without any installs of code (which is unusual as most co-browsing tools need a one time install).
Surfly does this by providing a link that both user and agent browse on
together. They also have an 'install code' option for companies that don't
want to go to a third party link.
I think we'd like to add this feature at Upscope just for e-commerce and sales teams in the future.
Surfly's main benefits
You can cobrowse without installs and this makes getting started with Surfly
very fast.
Surfly's main focus is co-browsing but they also have chat, video chat and
further live chat integrations. Their Intercom integration looks cool. You
type ^Surfly to start the screen share and off it goes.
The co-browsing is smoother than both Upscope and Acquire because both the
user and the agent go to a surfly.com link and browse together.
What can Surfly improve on?
I think Upscope core users picked Upscope over Surfly because of the
differences in the way they work with logged in users.
When Surfly starts a screen share it's a proxied browser so it asks them to
login again. That's because they proxy everything and so they don't hold the
user session.
There are workarounds but that would require some technical changes by each
user's dev team.
Acquire
Acquire appears to be on a path of challenging companies like Intercom and
Drift directly.
Initially their product, under the name Tagove, centered on co-browsing but
now they have an entire suite of tools.
They have some heavy hitter clients and maybe their feature set reflects that.
What does it do?
It's an all in one solution.
While Upscope's focus is on post-sign up onboarding, Acquire's features cover several areas including sales, support and marketing.
Like Drift and Intercom, they are investing time into automation via bots and that's something we've seen spread rapidly in just the last 6 months.
Acquires main benefits
They do chat, video chat, bots and co-browsing together and their system works on mobile apps (which I'm assuming means native apps as they have an SDK for it though at time of writing I need to confirm that).
They have a great list of customers like Samsung, Lexus and TATA.
Great design and well documented.
If you're looking for a replacement to Intercom, Drift with co-browsing built in, these are the guys to talk to. They don't have onboarding email sequences yet but they certainly do everything else.
What can be improved?
While Upscope and Surfly primarily focus on getting co-browsing right, Acquire is an all in one solution that is a competitor to companies like Intercom. As a result, they don't have integrations to Intercom and other major live chat providers. As it's not their primary focus, you'll find both Upscope and Surfly to be faster and more secure within that core co-browsing functionality as well as providing better support and integration resources.
Learn more about how cobrowsing works in our ultimate guide.
Pardeep overlooks growth at Upscope and loves writing about SaaS companies, customer success and customer experience.
