The Best Surfly Alternatives

When it comes to cobrowing software, there are a number of options on the market. 

And there's good reason for the wealth of options on offer — cobrowsing provides a level of interactivity that is unmatched. 

Cobrowsing can help your company’s customer support department go from a cost-center to an engine for growth. 

And who doesn’t want that? 

Why are more businesses using cobrowsing software?

The benefits of cobrowsing software are obvious. 

It allows businesses to provide interactive, personalized and efficient customer support with less friction. 

Support agents can see exactly what a customer is seeing during a cobrowsing session and can therefore guide them in a very hands-on way. 

Cobrowsing software also has a number of other benefits.

• It allows businesses to resolve customer issues efficiently by seeing exactly what the customer is seeing. 
• It gives developers and agents a way to quickly diagnose bugs and other issues.
• It reduces customer support costs and average time-to-resolution by making the support process quicker and more efficient. 
• It improves customer satisfaction metrics because customers can get their issues resolved painlessly. 
• It increases sales because personalization makes it easier to upsell and cross-sell other products, features and services. 

One of the most well-known cobrowsing platforms is Surfly, so we thought we’d do a little deep dive. 

In this article, we’ll explore its pros, cons and competitors, so you can make an informed decision about which cobrowsing solution is right for you.  

Whar is Surfly?

Surfly is a cobrowsing platform that allows businesses to provide a more personalized service, by being able to see exactly what the customer is seeing on their screen. 

This means that businesses can quickly and easily resolve customer issues. 

What are the features of Surfly?

Let's take a look at some of the features of Surfly.

• Universal cobrowsing: With Surfly you can begin a cobrowsing session from any URL and then browse the web together.
• Multi-person video chat: Surfly has a great multi-person chat functionality, which allows for face-to-face interactions.
• Screen sharing: You can also share your screen with others in the session.
• File sharing: You are able to share files with others who are in the session.
• E-signing: Surfly also offers e-signing capabilities, which allows for businesses to get documents signed electronically.

What are the benefits of Surfly?

• It's fast: Surfly is a fast and reliable cobrowsing platform. It uses an advanced technique to set up cobrowsing sessions, which means sessions are run completely online. There are no software downloads involved.
• It's safe: Surfly is a secure cobrowsing platform. All data that is transferred between the business and the customer is encrypted. 
• It's easy to use: Surfly is an easy-to-use cobrowsing platform. It has a simple, user-friendly interface.
• It's affordable: The platform is affordable, with a pay-as-you-go pricing model which means that businesses only pay for the sessions that they use.

How much is Surfly's pricing?

The pricing model for Surfly is dependent on a few factors. You'll have to reach out to them to get a quote, which is a little frustrating.

How does Surfly's implementation work?

The platform is cloud-based, which means that businesses don't have to worry about hosting or maintaining the software. 

What are the pros and cons of surfly? 

When it comes to the pros and cons of Surfly, there are a few things to consider.

Pros

• The platform is fast and reliable.
• It's easy to use.
• It's secure.

Cons

• The pricing model can be a little confusing.
• You have to contact them to get a quote.
• You need to set up a remote session five to ten minutes before the appointment time.
• Its inability to view applications.
• They have recently raised their prices.

Alternatives to Surfly

While Surfly may be popular, it's not always the only option to consider. There are plenty of alternatives to Surfly that we recommend you take a look at. Let's start with Fullview.

Fullview: End-to-end technical support solution; best suited to support and product teams

Fullview is an end-to-end solution for support and product teams. It includes features such as session recording, remote screen control, screen sharing, and more.

What sets Fullview apart?

Here’s just some of what we believe clearly differentiates us from other vendors.

Customer support 

• Fullview is designed specifically for customer support, product and development teams. It destroys silos between them, meaning no customer feedback or issue is ever lost in translation.
• It provides an end-to-end technical support solution. 
• Easy implementation: get started in as little as ten minutes. 
• Designed to be extremely lightweight, so it won’t affect your app load times. 
• It easily integrates with your existing support stack. 
• Fully cloud-based, so neither you nor your customers will ever have to download anything.
• It increases scores like CSAT and time-to-resolution by helping you create frictionless support experiences. 
• With our API integration, all your user data — including name, status, email, latest activity and more — is pulled straight into your Fullview dashboard, so you can provide support in as little as a few clicks. 

Cobrowsing with Fullview Cobrowsing 

• Allows you to cobrowse with your users at the touch of a button. 
• No need to send a meeting link or leave your product. 
• Your users see the call request from within your app, which has demonstrably increased user engagement rates 2x. 
• Fully GDPR compliant and all data is stored within the EU. 
• The smoothest cobrowsing experience ever. Your user will not have to deal with the added confusion of choosing which tab or window to share. Cobrowsing starts straight away in your app. 
• You can draw, highlight or annotate on the screen. 
• You can also remotely control your customer’s screen — but only within your app. 
• We also have the option to screen share if you need to look at something outside of your app. 

Session replays with Fullview Replays

• The only session replay solution designed exclusively for customer support, product and development teams. 
• In contrast to other session replay tools, users are identifiable within a session in Fullview Replays, making it uniquely suited to technical support.  
• Support agents or developers watching a Fullview Replays session can immediately see what issues a user faced, which user it was, know the browser and device used, and reach out to them to offer proactive support or start a Fullview Cobrowsing session. 
• With Fullview Replays, you can watch video-like recordings of user sessions in your product to see how they’re actually using it. This makes identifying pain points a breeze.
• See bugs in context, identify issues and deploy fixes that actually make a difference. 
• You can also navigate to a specific customer’s page within Fullview to see a log of their recent activity and watch past user sessions. 
• Fully GDPR compliant, with customizable controls to blur out sensitive information. 

Console information with Fullview Console

• Side panel with console logs include network, device and user journey info. 
• View a user’s metadata (including OS, browser, IP and location) and meta events, (including console, network, DOM events, button clicks, script errors, unhandled rejections and more) to help give developers a more complete picture of technical issues.
• Full context for recreating and troubleshooting bugs for both support and engineering teams.
• Conveniently filter by errors, warnings and logs, depending on your customer's issue.
• ​​Available both on session replays and on live cobrowsing sessions.
• Automated bug report creation. Never deal with the manual legwork of making bug reports again. 

A solution specifically designed for customer support and product teams

Fullview is a solution specifically designed for customer support and product teams. It gives them all the tools they need to deliver outstanding technical support.

This means that it has all the features that you need to provide great customer service, which enables organizations to deliver a smooth customer support experience for their end-users through cobrowsing, session replays and console logs.

One of the main benefits of Fullview is that it eliminates silos between product and customer-facing teams. 

This means that no customer feedback or issue is ever lost in translation and can be turned into actionable insights and product improvements instead. 

Improve customer support metrics like CSAT and time-to-resolution

Improves customer support metrics such as CSAT, NPS and time to resolution, all of which are important components of customer service.

A great alternative to Surfly

Fullview is a great alternative to Surfly. 

• It's an end-to-end technical support solution specifically designed for customer support, product and development teams. 
• It easily integrates into your existing support stack. 
• It features a robust product lineup, with both Fullview Cobrowsing, Fullview Replays (for session replays) and Fullview Console (for console logs and troubleshooting). 
• It's the only solution that is based in Europe, making it fully GDPR compliant, with all data stored in the EU. It’s often the preferred option for European companies for this reason. 

How does Fullview Outperform Surfly?

Fullview outperforms Surfly in a number of ways.

• Fullview is an end-to-end solution specifically designed for customer support and product teams, while Surfly is a cobrowsing platform that is more generally targeted. 
• Fullview has a more robust set of products and features, while Surfly is somewhat limited as they don’t offer session replays or console logs. 
• Fullview is based in Europe and is fully GDPR compliant, unlike Surfly.
• Fullview's plans are affordable (we offer an unlimited free plan and a 30-day trial on all pro plans) and customizable (choose exactly which Fullview Cobrowsing and Fullview Replays plan you want to be on).

What is Fullview's pricing?

Fullview's plans are split across Fullview Cobrowsing and Fullview Replays, making them highly customizable.

Each product has three separate tiers: free, pro and enterprise. You can mix and match depending on your needs. So, for example, you can choose to be on the pro tier for Fullview Cobrowsing and you'll automatically have access to the free tier for Fullview Replays. You can also choose to be on the pro tiers for both products.

If you're an enterprise customer, we offer custom plans and volume discounts, so get in touch!

There's also a 14-day free trial on all pro plans.

Zoom

When it comes to cobrowsing software, many people look towards Zoom. This is because Zoom offers a variety of features that businesses need, such as:

• Annotations: You can annotate on the screen to quickly and easily show the customer what they need to do.
• Highlighting: With highlighting, you can draw attention to specific elements on the page.
• Whiteboarding: The whiteboarding feature allows you to brainstorm with customers or share ideas.
• Call recording: Zoom offers the ability to record calls, which is great for training or quality assurance purposes.

What are the pros and cons of Zoom?

It’s a mixed bag as far as pros and cons are concerned. 

Pros

• Zoom is a widely used platform with a variety of features
• It's easy to use and understand
• The annotations, highlighting and whiteboarding features are great for customer support
• Session recording is useful for training and quality assurance

Cons

• Zoom doesn't have all the features that some other cobrowsing software platforms have
• It isn’t designed specifically for customer support
• Some people find the interface to be confusing
• It can get expensive when you need to add large numbers to meetings
• It’s quite limited in its functionality
• You have to download a desktop application or mobile app for the best experience
• No session replays or console information available during calls

How much does Zoom cost? 

There is a free version of Zoom as well as a paid pro version.

Anydesk

Anydesk is a remote desktop application that allows you to access and control another computer from your own device. It's available on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android.

Anydesk offers a variety of features, including:

• Cross-platform compatibility: Anydesk can be used on any platform, which is great for businesses with employees who use different operating systems.
• File transfer: With Anydesk, you can easily transfer files between devices.
• Session recording: You can record sessions for training or quality assurance purposes.

What are the pros and cons of Anydesk?

Here are some of the pros and cons of using Anydesk:

Pros

• It's an easy-to-use tool
• It has an inbuilt Wake-on-LAN feature
• It offers a free trial

Cons

• There are occasions of fluctuations in the resolution on remote desktop
• It's mandatory to complete an installation to access system files
• There are, at times, issues if the device that you are connecting to does not have the same resolution

How much does Anydesk cost?

There is a 14-day free trial that you can try out. Otherwise, you have three pricing options starting from $9.90 per month.

BlueJeans

Bluejeans Meetings is an online video conferencing tool that makes it easy to connect with coworkers, clients, and customers. With Bluejeans Meetings, you can hold face-to-face meetings with up to 25 people. You can also share your screen to show presentations or collaborate on documents in real time.

Plus, Bluejeans Meetings integrates with popular productivity tools like Slack, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook so you can easily schedule and join meetings.

What are the pros and cons of Bluejeans Meetings

This may be too limited a tool for most use cases, but it does have some pros as well as some cons. 

Pros

• Easy to use
• Integrates with popular productivity tools
• Can hold face-to-face meetings with up to 25 people

Cons

• Some features require a paid subscription
• Does not have a mobile app
• We find the functionality a bit clunky at times
• Limited features
• No proper cobrowsing functionality
• No screen control functionality

How much does Bluejeans cost?

There are three levels of subscription offered, starting at $9.99 per month.

Wrapping things up

Cobrowsing is a great way to increase sales, provide customer support and improve product development by providing real-time help to your customers and real-world insights to your company.

There are many great alternatives to Surfly, each suited to different needs and use cases. We've outlined the main features, pricing plans, and pros and cons, so you can make an informed decision about which one is right for your business.

Have you tried cobrowsing yet? If not, what are you waiting for? It could be the difference between making a sale and losing a customer.

If you have any questions about choosing the best cobrowsing app for your business, contact us today, and we'd be happy to help.