Live chat is an intelligent method to engage and provide support to website visitors. As a part of customer service software, live chat helps businesses efficiently resolve a significant percentage of customer issues by integrating conversational AI with real-time user tracking and helpdesk tools. According to a study, 79% of businesses that implemented live chat software on their WordPress site experienced an increase in sales, revenue, and customer loyalty.
However, with a plethora of live chat widgets available, choosing the right chat widget for your WordPress website can be challenging. To assist you, we have thoroughly reviewed six of the top live chat plugins currently on the market, testing them across various websites we have developed for our clients.
What is Live Chat Software?
Live chat software is a powerful customer service tool designed to facilitate real-time communication between businesses and their website visitors. By integrating a chat widget directly into your website, this software allows customers to initiate conversations with your support team instantly. This direct line of communication helps businesses manage customer relationships more effectively, providing immediate assistance and resolving queries on the spot. Live chat software is essential for any business looking to enhance customer engagement, streamline support processes, and boost overall satisfaction.
Benefits of Live Chat
Live chat software offers a multitude of benefits that can significantly enhance your business operations:
Improved Customer Satisfaction: By providing quick and efficient support, live chat ensures that customers receive the help they need without delay, leading to higher satisfaction rates.
Increased Sales: Real-time assistance can help close more sales by addressing customer queries and concerns instantly, reducing the chances of cart abandonment.
Reduced Support Costs: Live chat can handle multiple inquiries simultaneously, reducing the need for extensive phone or email support and lowering overall support costs.
Valuable Insights: The analytics and reporting features of live chat software provide valuable insights into customer behavior and support performance, helping businesses refine their strategies and make informed decisions.
Key Features to Look for in Live Chat Software
When choosing live chat software, it’s crucial to consider the following key features to ensure it meets your business needs:
Real-Time Support: The ability to provide instant, real-time assistance to customers is fundamental for effective live chat.
Chat Widget Customization: Customizing the chat widget to match your brand’s identity helps create a cohesive and professional appearance on your website.
Multiple Chat Windows: Managing multiple chat windows simultaneously allows your support team to assist several customers at once, improving efficiency.
Customer Data Integration: Integrating customer data, such as chat history and previous interactions, enables personalized support and better customer relationship management.
Live Chat Features: Essential features like chat routing, escalation, and detailed reporting help manage and analyze live chat sessions effectively.
Integration with Customer Service Tools: Seamless integration with other customer service tools, such as CRM and helpdesk software, ensures a smooth and comprehensive support experience.
WordPress Live Chat: Compatibility with WordPress websites is vital for easy integration and functionality on your site.
Chat Plugins: Support for various chat plugins allows you to extend the functionality of your live chat software to meet specific needs.
Live Chat Support: Access to live chat support from the software provider ensures you can get help whenever you need it, maintaining smooth operations.
By focusing on these features, businesses can select a live chat solution that not only meets their immediate needs but also supports long-term growth and customer satisfaction.
Tidio Live Chat: Enhancing Your Website's Customer Interactions
Tidio is a versatile live chat solution that offers a range of features to enhance customer interactions on your WordPress website. With its custom branding options, you can easily match the live chat widget settings with your company logo and website aesthetics.
Tidio provides valuable visitor analytics, allowing you to monitor website visitors, including their browser and language preferences, and track how long they stay on your site. This live chat software also features AI chat automation, reducing the workload on your support team during peak shopping periods and off hours by using automated messages and predefined questions.
Seamless Setup and Integration with Tidio
Setting up Tidio is a breeze, taking only five minutes to integrate into your WordPress site using a small JavaScript snippet, WordPress plugin, or Shopify store app. Tidio’s extensive integration capabilities include platforms like WordPress, Shopify, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Magento, and Pipedrive, among others. This flexibility ensures that your live chat support can seamlessly connect with other platforms and customer service tools for a comprehensive customer experience.
Tidio Pricing Plans: Options for Every Business
Tidio offers four pricing plans, including a free plan, a completely free version that provides access to all the features necessary for effective live chat and chatbot functionality. The paid tiers include the Chatbots plan at $18 per month, the Communicator plan at $18 per month, and the Email Marketing plan at $10 per month. Existing customers can contact us for free assistance with integrating Tidio into their website, ensuring a smooth installation process.
Addressing Limitations and Enhancing Performance
While Tidio excels in many areas, it does have a few limitations. For instance, it is not possible to delete contact properties, although this does not hinder the software’s overall performance. Despite this, Tidio remains a game changer for businesses looking to manage customer relationships, boost sales, and provide instant support through real-time conversations and personalized messages. With its user-friendly interface and robust reporting features, Tidio empowers both your team and website visitors for a more engaging and efficient customer service experience.
LiveChat.com: Comprehensive Live Chat Software Solution
LiveChat.com is a full-service chat solution that offers a robust live chat feature, seamlessly integrating with a wide array of platforms to enhance customer interactions. By setting up LiveChat on your WordPress website, you gain rapid access to critical information and instant responses to queries, thanks to their expert support team.
Advantages of LiveChat.com
Social Media Integration: LiveChat.com effortlessly integrates with social media accounts, allowing users to initiate live chat sessions directly from platforms like Facebook without leaving the native interface.
Real-Time Visitor Insights: Gain real-time visibility of website visitors, enabling you to engage with customers precisely when they are browsing your site.
Product Showcasing: Effortlessly display products within the chat window, allowing customers to view specific items without exiting the chat session.
Limitations to Consider
Mobile App Restrictions: The LiveChat.com mobile app has limited functionality, making tasks like changing user profiles and handling support tickets unavailable on mobile devices.
Google Analytics Integration: While integrated with Google Analytics, there is room for improvement to enhance the reporting features.
Unique Integrations and Pricing
LiveChat.com boasts integrations with over 170 tools and platforms, including Shopify, Slack, GetResponse, Mailchimp, and Campaign Monitor. Pricing tiers are flexible, with options such as:
Starter: $16/month
Team: $33/month
Business: $50/month
Enterprise: Custom pricing
For assistance with integrating LiveChat into your online store or WordPress website, feel free to reach out for support. This comprehensive live chat software is designed to provide instant support, generate leads, boost sales, and enhance customer satisfaction, making it a valuable addition to your customer service tools.
Zendesk: A Versatile Live Chat and Customer Management Suite
Zendesk stands out as a comprehensive live chat and customer management suite, trusted by over 150,000 customers worldwide. Currently, Zendesk offers a free six-month trial, granting access to tailored resources and a growing community of customer experience leaders. This is an excellent opportunity for startups to leverage a powerful tool.
Advanced Analytics and Efficiency Tools
Zendesk provides detailed analytics, offering insights into agent performance, client satisfaction levels personalized service call, and resolution progress. The platform’s shortcuts and canned messages streamline the workload for customer support agents, making it easier to handle high volumes of customer queries and frequently asked questions effectively.
Flexible Pricing and Free Trial
Zendesk offers a flexible pricing structure to accommodate businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises. The pricing tiers range from a free version to a premium package at $55 per month. Additionally, Zendesk provides a free trial version, allowing businesses to experience the platform’s capabilities before committing to a purchase.
Seamless Integration and Customization
Zendesk integrates effortlessly with leading e-commerce solutions like Magento, WooCommerce, and Shopify. The platform offers four pricing tiers for its live chat functionality: Lite (Free), Team ($14 per agent per month), Professional ($29 per agent per month), and Enterprise ($59 per agent per month). Businesses planning to scale their online sales teams can contact Zendesk for custom integration solutions, ensuring a tailored fit for their team performance specific needs.
ManyChat: User-Friendly and Flexible Chat Solution
ManyChat is renowned for being one of the most user-friendly and adaptable chat solutions available today. Launched in 2016, it has been adopted by hundreds of thousands of businesses, specifically designed to enhance the Facebook Messenger experience for Facebook pages.
Pros of Using ManyChat
ManyChat boasts a highly intuitive interface, simplifying the complex design of responsive chatboxes. It also allows you to manage multiple Facebook pages through a single account, making it an ideal choice for businesses and web design agencies managing multiple websites.
Cons and Limitations
Despite its many advantages, ManyChat does not support CSV export. Instead, data must be transferred to Google Sheets before it can be utilized. This limitation may be seen as a drawback, especially for those who prefer direct data handling.
Extensions and Pricing
The Google Sheets extension offered by ManyChat is particularly beneficial, allowing seamless data exchange without additional coding. ManyChat also integrates with Shopify, Zapier, WordPress, and more. Its pricing structure includes a free tier and pro packages starting at $10 per month, with a customizable pricing scale to fit specific needs. WDD.MY utilizes ManyChat for our Facebook pages, and we’re available to assist with integration into your website.
Olark: A Versatile Live Chat Solution
Olark is an excellent choice for businesses seeking a user-friendly yet feature-rich live chat option. Established in 2009, Olark has become one of the most popular live chat solutions, serving over twelve thousand customers worldwide.
Advantages of Using Olark
One of Olark’s standout features is its wide range of template designs, allowing businesses to customize the chat widget to match their website’s aesthetics. The CSS edits feature further enables the creation of custom templates. Setting up add widgets for Olark is straightforward; simply add the code snippet to your website, and you’re ready to go. Olark also offers a free version, allowing up to twenty individual live chat conversations. Additionally, the platform provides shortcuts and canned messages, enabling quick responses to customer queries.
Limitations to Consider
While Olark boasts many strengths, it lacks a native ticketing system. However, businesses can integrate Olark with other customer service tools like Help Scout or Zendesk for comprehensive support ticket management. This integration ensures that customer queries are efficiently handled, despite the absence of an in-built ticketing system.
Extensions and Integrations
Olark seamlessly integrates with popular platforms such as Salesforce, Zendesk, and Highrise. This integration enables businesses to send live chat transcripts directly into their CRM systems, enhancing customer data management and providing valuable insights into customer interactions.
Flexible Pricing Options
Olark offers flexible pricing plans to suit different business needs. Customers can choose between monthly payments at $17 per month, yearly payments at $15 per month, or bi-yearly payments at $12 per month. While setting up Olark may require a few extra steps compared to other solutions, businesses can rely on their preferred web design company for installation assistance, ensuring a smooth integration process.
Chaport: Simple Yet Feature-Rich Live Chat Support
Chaport is a user-friendly live chat support solution designed for easy setup and operation. Despite its simplicity, Chaport offers a range of advanced features comparable to other live chat solutions. This tool may not be as well-known, but it certainly holds its own in the market for multi channel support.
Pros of Chaport
Chaport excels in providing offline support, allowing website visitors to send messages even when you are not online. It also has multi language support and offers a free tier, making it an ideal choice for solopreneurs and startups looking to implement live chat on their website without incurring costs.
Cons of Chaport
While Chaport includes a mobile app, users often report challenges with its functionality, noting that it is more limited compared to the desktop version. This can be a drawback for those relying heavily on mobile devices for customer interactions.
Chaport Integrations and Pricing
Chaport integrates seamlessly with social media and messaging platforms like Telegram, Facebook, and Viber. With Zapier integration, it provides access to over 1500 tools, enhancing its versatility. Chaport offers a free version, with paid packages starting at $9.80 per month. This competitive pricing makes it an attractive option for businesses. If you need assistance with installation, we are currently offering free setup services for this live chat solution.
