Looking to add live chat functionality to a WordPress website? Then read on, as we’re taking a look at some of the best live chat plugins available

Customers with queries or complaints used to have to directly visit a store but when the telephone was invented, customers were able to call the businesses. Although at one point this was an innovation, people quickly grew tired of the problems it also invented in relation to receiving customer service.

Next came the internet. Email and social media made it so that agents could address more concerns at one time, making response times quicker, but apparently not quick enough. Both email and social media have their downsides when it comes to addressing customer service issues.

The latest attempt to resolve customer questions and issues in a timely manner is a live chat, which brings together the best of both the telephone and internet-enabled world.

Live chat has been around since the late 1980’s, when Quantum Link created On-Line Messages (OLM) for the Commodore 64, paving the way for instant messaging. Q-Link later became known as AOL—a company name you’re probably better acquainted with.

Many think of live chat as just another way for customers to reach a seller, but since there are other mediums available for providing customer service support, haven’t given much thought to its implementation. Truly, this is a mistake, as live chat helps increase customer satisfaction, which can increase sales.

Why Live Chats?

Many see live chat as yet another technology to master and implement, as well as an additional budgeting/staffing concern. Those that think this way are ignoring the many benefits that come with setting up a live chat on WordPress.

First, live chat is convenient for customers. They don’t have to exit the website to create inquiries, and if they have questions, help is just a click away. 51% of consumers say that they like live-chat because they can multitask and shop online while at work.

Live chat support agents are able to multitask as well, allowing the company to cut costs by not hiring as many agents as they would need when operating a call centre.

Live chat improves the customer service experience by offering timely responses. A study found that 93% of businesses don’t follow the “5-minute rule”—just 7% of companies respond to inquiries made in 5 minutes or less!

This is noteworthy because just a 5-minute delay in response results in a 400% decrease in odds to qualify that person as a lead. In the same survey, the one thing held in common between the 7% of companies who respond to inquiries in a timely manner is the fact that they make use of live chat.

Good customer service leads to sales, with 38% of customers saying that they made a purchase as a result of a live chat session. An eMarketer study also found that 63% of customers return to websites that have live chat.

Most importantly, online customers prefer this method of customer support. 92% of customers feel most satisfied when using live chat compared to any other customer service communication mediums, including voice, email, web forms, or social media.

The bottom line: it isn’t hard or costly to use live chat on WordPress. Here are some of the best plugins to set up a live chat on WordPress:

Live Chat WordPress Plugins

LiveChat

LiveChat, as straightforward as its name, takes a no-nonsense approach to business. It is the industry leader in live chat support software and offers a free plugin that enables website owners to communicate with their website visitors even while on the go, as you don’t have to be logged into the WordPress dashboard to use the tool. The LiveChat application allows you or your chat operators to access LiveChat from laptop, tablet or mobile.

LiveChat comes with a feature that allows chat agents to send chat invitations to users, based on certain criteria, like how many pages they’ve visited or how long they’ve spent on a site. Other features include real-time monitoring, file sharing, and a built-in ticketing system that provides 24/7 support to customers. The latter mentioned feature makes it so that even if you’re offline, your website’s visitors can still contact you for support.

LiveChat also seamlessly integrates with third-party software solutions such as Zendesk, Google Analytics, popular CRM Hubspot, Salesforce, and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

but the use of LiveChat isn’t. Basic plans start at $16/month/agent when billed annually.

Zendesk Chat

Coming from the top customer service platform, Zendesk Chat (formerly known as Zopim) is one of the leading live chat services and is easy to add to WordPress via the free plugin.

Besides being one of the most popular customer service tool providers, Zendesk has the most stylish live chat box interface on this list of plugins that enable live chat on WordPress, with customizable layouts and themes.

ZenDesk Chat also offers chat triggers (which open chat boxes when visitors stay on a page for a certain amount of time or visit a certain number of pages), a mobile-optimized widget, and an advanced analytics dashboard.

There is a free Zendesk Chat plan available but it only allows for one agent to handle chats—and you can only chat with customers one at a time. If you’re the sole owner and operator of your website (and business), this may be ideal for you. For everyone else, premium pricing for Zendesk Chat starts at $14/agent/month

Olark

Olark is one of the best live chat solutions on the market and you can set it up on your WordPress site using a widget (just add the snippet of code to your child theme) or the Olark for WP plugin.

Olark’s features are powerful and include:

Chat reports

CRM and help desk integration with many popular software solutions including Salesforce, Zendesk, and Groove

Ability to sort operators into teams according to function (like sales or support)

Ability to search chat history—each chat conversation box gets a detailed breakdown of the customer’s activity on your website. After the conversation is done, customers can leave ratings

White label feature

Ability to see what’s in the customer’s shopping cart

Olark’s pricing is fairly straightforward, starting at $17/agent/month.

WP Live Chat Support

WP Live Chats Support is geared towards businesses looking for a cost-effective solution for a live chat on WordPress.

It comes in 6 pre-defined chat box themes, the ability to drag and drop the chat anywhere on your page, the ability to have unlimited simultaneous chats, offline message storage, Google Analytics integration, no advertising or links, and the ability to ban visitors from chatting you based on their IP address.

The plugin is technically free but you can upgrade to their Premium version for a one-time payment of $39.95 for a one site license. Premium features include unlimited live-chat agents, predefined responses, customer satisfaction rating, and the ability to add agent photos to the live-chat window.

Tidio Live Chat

The Tidio Live Chats plugin is the easiest live chat plugin to set up—simply activate it and you’re ready to go! It comes in 3 different designs and you can adjust the colour scheme to suit your company’s branding.

Tidio offers a dedicated app for mobile and desktop devices where you can manage your live chats, as well as an integrated widget that supports live-chat in over 140 languages.

If you aren’t available online, visitors will be able to send you questions via email, and you will be able to contact them back via email as well. Furthermore, Tidio Live-Chat integrates with Zendesk, GetResponse, SalesForce, and MailChimp.

Tidio offers a free plan that supports one agent and one open chat. The premium plan starts at $15/month for 3 operators, with the ability to add additional operators at $10/month/person. Alternatively, you can choose a plan that costs $15/month for every 5000 unique site visitors.

Setup Live Chats on WordPress

Live chats are must for many websites today—especially e-commerce sites where people often have questions before completing purchases. Live-chat on WordPress improve the customer service experience by offering timely responses, which can have a positive effect on the business: increasing brand loyalty and sales.

Using plugins, it’s easy to set up a live-chat on WordPress. The only other thing you have to worry about is making sure that your live chats are staffed by customer service agents trained to handle customer service inquiries!







