There\'s no denying that the Covid-19 pandemic has totally changed the ways businesses operate. Be it e-commerce, healthcare, hospitality, or any other business, almost everyone is switching to digital communications for strengthening their customer relations and enhancing business growth. And one of the best ways to establish a strong virtual communication strategy is the leveraging of new-age chat apps. They help you connect with your customers instantly. Have you been planning to utilize a chat app too? Looking forward to building it with the help of Messaging SDK tools? We can help! In this article, we shall discuss the 5 best chat SDK features that you should definitely get for your chat app. Stay with us and read on.
Meaning of Real-time Chat SDK
SDK stands for Software Development Kit. A chat SDK allows you to integrate top-performing modern features into your communication system. To put it clearly, a chat SDK can be described as a set of modern software tools that can be leveraged to build a chat app. Real-time chat SDKs are advanced packages that facilitate chat app development that allows live transmission of messages virtually.
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Chat SDK includes a compiler, debugger, and highly-efficient chat APIs. It also tends to contain well-defined documentation, libraries, code editors, development environment, analysis tools, and much more. There are some real-time chat SDKs in the market that provide you with a basic test project that allows developers to get started with the app development as quickly as possible.
Have you been planning to use real-time chat SDK to build a chat app? Let us help you ace your strategies. We shall further discuss 5 best instant messaging SDK features that you must include in your chat application. If you invest in a chat SDK having these essential features, you will be able to develop a real-time chat app. Sounds interesting?
Let us have a look at each feature one by one. Keep reading.
1. Server control of chat SDK
A good real-time chat SDK will offer server and deployment control options to both you and the SDK provider.
Now, in the first case, the SDK and the application that you develop are hosted on your on-premises servers. First, the chat SDK will be installed on your system. With this, you get access to the source code for building chat applications as per your business requirements.
In the second option , the SDK provider has the server control. The SDK provider company\'s server tends to host the SDK. With this, you need not worry about making updates. In fact, the entire responsibility of the kit has to be taken by the SDK provider. All you need to do is to build your chat app.
You can opt for either of the two options depending on your time and budget.
2. Varieties in Chat features offered by the real-time Chat SDK
If you want the best chat SDK for your chat application development, you need to make sure that the chat SDK provides you with a suite of comprehensive chat features.
With digital advancements gaining popularity at a fast pace, people are expecting more than just texting features from a chat app. Functionalities like stickers, gifs, and others add the fun element to chat apps and most of the customers are looking forward to such features.
Hence, it becomes essential for your chat application to provide more than just the texting functionality to your audience. It should have features like audio calling, video conferencing, live broadcasting, media file sharing, end-to-end chat encryption, and others to enhance the communication experience of your customers.
Not only will these features help you connect with your customers better but also boost your internal team interactions. You would be able to hold smooth collaborations, transparent virtual meetings, and much more.
3. Customizable UI option by instant messaging SDK
This is one of the best features that any good chat SDK can provide. You should focus on building a chat application that offers a visual appeal to your customers. It should be completely user-friendly. A good chat SDK provides customizable options to both you and your chat app users.
As you will be using the chat SDK for creating your chat app, it should provide you with personalization options. This way you can customize the icons, graphics, and feel of your app in accordance with your brand values. The chat SDK should enable you to add new features and discard some that you don\'t require.
The real-time chat SDK that you choose should also offer basic customizable options to your customers. Some of them being online status, typing indicators, read receipts, and others.
4. Smooth integration between different chat SDK features
A good chat SDK allows the integration between different chat features. For instance, your app user is having an audio call but then needs to switch to a video call. In this case, your app should have an option icon to instantly switch to video interaction. This way, your user will not have to leave the existing chat window and his/her user experience will be enhanced. Customers will engage more with your application.
5. Push notifications for building a Chat App
Push notification feature is another great function that you should look forward to integrating in your application. It helps your customers stay updated about their conversations and enhances their chat experience.
Push notifications also provide the users with useful information such as weather, news, discount offers, and much more. These notifications help you reach your audience at all important points of time, be it informing them about a special sale on your product or service, new product/service update, payout alerts, and much more.
Conclusion
We hope our article helped you gain a fair idea about the top 5 real-time chat SDK features that you should integrate into your chat application. In today\'s fast-paced communication age, it is important to incorporate modern and advanced chat features in your application. So, what are you waiting for? Start building your chat application with the best chat SDK today!