With 41% of customers preferring live chat support over all other communication channels, businesses have to implement effective live chat tools to be able to engage with customers and stay competitive.
But how can you add live chat to website to interact with your visitors instantly, answer their questions, and guide them through the buying process?
This blog will guide you on how to add live chat to your website, customize the chat widget to fit your brand, share the benefits you stand to gain from the tool, and suggest some of the best live chat software.
What is live chat software?
Live chat is a communication tool for customers to interact directly with support agents via a website or app.
Live chat support includes a small chat window on websites usually labelled Chat Now or Help.
Business add live chat to websites to provide instant communication and real-time help to customers.
By adding chat to websites, support agents can manage multiple chats simultaneously, save conversations for easy reference and follow-up, making the customer support process more efficient.
Detailed steps to add live chat to your website
Adding live chat to your website enhances customer interaction and support. You might be wondering: How do I add chat to my website? Here is an easy guide to help you get started:
1. Pick the right live chat software
The type of software you pick can make or break your live chat support efforts. It is important to carefully select tools that you can use to add live chat to your website.
There are features you have to consider to make sure you pick the best software that fits your business needs. Here are some of the features:
- Omnichannel support: Live chat software can be embedded with multiple channels, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp; these conversations can be managed through a single omnichannel inbox.
Integrate your tool with a chatbot to provide customer service when agents are not available.
- Reports and analytics: The software should be able to provide insights about the performance of every support agent and how satisfied your customers are with your company’s customer support.
- Customizable chat widgets: Choose software that allows you to tailor the look and feel of the live chat widget and user interface to match your brand. Automate personalized welcome notes to delight your customers, and tailor the tone of your voice with the brand.
- Chat transcripts: The software should be able to record all the conversations in live chat.
- Automated chat routing: Live chat software includes automation features that allow you to assign chats to appropriate agents automatically based on area of specialization.
- Multilingual support: Choose a tool that enables you to provide support through multiple languages for customers to communicate in their preferred languages.
- Canned responses: Live chat software tool should enable you to create and save responses to answer commonly asked questions.
Additionally, look out for other elements, including pricing, integration options, and value for money. Choose software that is simple to set up, scalable, easy to use, and budget-friendly to get started.
We will provide a list of the best live chat software later in the blog.
2. Add live chat to website
Once you have picked the right live chat software provider, installation should be your next step.
Embed a single line of code at the back end of your website to install the tool and make it compatible with your website.
3. Customize your live chat
After adding live chat to website, customize the look, functionality, and features of the live chat widgets to match your website branding. Some aspects of your live chat to customize include:
- Setting up welcome messages.
- Configuring the language options.
- Adjusting the chat button styles.
- Decide on the strategic location of your live chat.
- Use teams’ real names and photos for customers to see and feel they are talking to agents one-on-one.
4. Integrate live chat with other tools
Connect your live chat with other productivity tools you use on a daily basis and social media platforms. This will ensure you interact with customers across multiple channels.
Add chat to your website and integrate it with tools such as:
- A comprehensive knowledge base to help customers get answers independently and give support agents easy access to relevant information required to address customer inquiries.
- Artificial intelligence tool to help support teams summarize customer responses, correct grammar, automate processes, and analyze customer sentiments.
- The contact management (CRM) contains customer profiles, including name, addresses, purchasing history, and preferences.
5. Create canned responses
Prepare and save answers to commonly asked questions to enable support agents quickly resolve customer queries.
Canned responses can make support teams more efficient; they won’t have to type the same answer time and again. This saves time so they can focus on more complex issues.
6. Set up automatic routing
Customer inquiries can be automatically transferred to the right support agent with the appropriate knowledge to handle the task.
Automatic chat routing ensures that no agent is overloaded with tasks, maximizing agents’ productivity.
7. Train your team
Give lessons to your agents on how to use live chat on your website effectively.
Equip your support team with good communication skills on how to handle customer complaints, manage different customer scenarios, and escalate issues.
Ensure they can handle multiple issues simultaneously, save canned responses, and work with live chat integrations.
8. Set your chat availability
Specify the working days and hours during which your support team will cater to customer requests.
If possible, you can assign them different shifts to eliminate employee exhaustion and allow on-going service provision. If agents are not present, leave a message that indicates when they will return.
9. Verify live chat functionality and go live
Before launching, check to confirm that all features are working seamlessly.
You can use different devices to test and browse to check the user experience on the web and mobile, then launch the chat feature.
10. Collect feedback and analyze live chat performance
Once it’s live, keep an eye on chat interactions and collect feedback to enhance the effectiveness of the tool.
Employ live chat metrics like first response time, average handling time, chat volume, among others, to find out customer behavior, agent performance, and overall effectiveness of the live chat tool.
This data can help you improve your live chat strategy as required.
Advantages of adding chat to website
Adding live chat to website is beneficial to businesses and customers in the following ways:
Strengthens customer support
Adding live chat to websites ensures support teams provide customers with real-time help, ensuring they resolve issues quickly and efficiently.
Support teams are able to access relevant information quickly from the self-service tool embedded in live chat software to provide comprehensive solutions to customers.
Live chat tool can be integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) systems to allow agents access customer data for personalized responses.
Boosts sales
Adding live chat to websites can guide customers during the purchasing process, manage queries about products, and decrease the likelihood of cart abandonment.
Also, companies make announcements on promotions and discounts available on their products through live chat. This pushes customers to make a purchase there by boosting sales.
Enhances customer loyalty
Customers expecting quick and personalized experience are likely to engage with businesses offering live chat support.
They can keep purchasing from businesses that provide customized responses and solutions.
Saves on time
Live chat tools offer canned responses that support agents can quickly send to manage a customer’s inquiry, reducing time spent typing responses.
It can be integrated with chatbots to provide support for basic issues whenever agents are away, preventing delays in customer service
Adding live chat to websites reduces customer wait times, as opposed to other communication methods such as email support, where each response can take hours or even days.
The tool enables agents to manage various inquiries simultaneously, thereby saving time compared to other channels like phone and email, where an agent attends to one inquiry at a time.
Competitive advantage
When businesses add live chat to website, their agents can provide real-time support to customers anytime they need help. This can set them apart from competitors who do not provide the same level of instant customer support.
Integrating live chat with chatbots ensures 24/7 customer support, enabling end users to interact and solve issues anytime from anywhere.
Customers will be looking for the provider who can serve them at the most convenient times of need.
Cost efficiency
Live chat operates online, eliminating the need for on-premises hardware, software, and maintenance costs.
Adding live chat to website does not require physical space for offices, equipment, and agents; it can be accessed remotely, reducing the need for office space.
7 Best live chat software tools for businesses
Picking the best live chat software for your business can be quite challenging. We are going to provide the best live chat tools for customer service to help you choose the one that best aligns with your business needs.
1. BoldDesk
BoldDesk is a cloud-based platform that provides live chat software as part of its customer service suite for customers to conveniently seek help directly from the website.
BoldDesk tracks the website pages customers visit before starting a chat, allowing agents to understand customer needs and tailor their support accordingly.
Complex issues can be converted into tickets, ensuring detailed tracking and allowing agents to escalate requests to the most appropriate team for resolution.
Chat transcripts can be saved and sent via email, providing both the agents and customers with a record of the conversation.
This fosters transparency enabling teams to personalize responses based on previous conversations.
Requests from all channels can be accessed on a single platform, with the omnichannel support ensuring no customer request is overlooked.
Customers are guaranteed the 24/7 service to reach out for support any time need arises, ensuring that customer communication is complete.
BoldDesk offers a fairly straightforward method for adding live chat to your website. Check out this video to learn more.
Features
- Live chat software provides real-time chat functionality via website to ensure timely resolution of customer queries.
- Ticketing system tracks, prioritizes, and resolves support tickets.
- The AI and automation feature automate repetitive tasks and help agents provide error-free responses.
- Knowledge base stores and manages information in a structured way, allowing end users to access and handle issues independently.
- Omnichannel inbox help support teams manage all customer requests from a unified platform.
- Reporting and analytics generate reports related to support performance, resolution times, and customer satisfaction, and the report is analyzed to make improvements.
- Customization tailor the look of your chat feature to match with your business needs.
- Integration options enable you add chat to websites and embed it with your favorite apps to increase productivity.
- Mobile app help support agents receive notifications, tickets, and respond to customer inquiries at any given time, from anywhere.
- Multilingual support that enables live chat to support multiple languages, avoiding difficulty in communication across a diverse customer base.
- Task management breaks down complex customer issues into smaller tasks and be handled by different support agents.
- Security allows for access control that ensures only authorized personnel can view and respond to support tickets.
Pricing
BoldDesk has three pricing categories; the scale and essential plans do not include adding live chat to websites.
- Scale: $12 per agent/month
- Momentum: $25 per agent/month
- Enterprise: $39 per agent/month
- Scale: $49/month for 10 agents
- Momentum: $129/month for 10 agents
- Enterprise: $199/month for 10 agents
- Essential: $799 per month
- Pro: $1499 per month ($1999)
- Business: Contact us
You can do a 15-day free trial and schedule a live demo.
2. Zendesk
Zendesk’s live chat software offers a user-friendly interface, enabling businesses to smoothly add live chat to website to communicate with customers.
Features
- AI and automations
- Integration
- Reporting and analytics
- Ticketing
Pricing
Starts at $19/month/agent
30-day free trial available
3. Tidio
Tidio is a live chat software helping all-size businesses to add chat to websites to communicate with their customers in real-time.
Features
- Customization
- AI assist features
- Integration with favorite apps
- Automation
Pricing
Start at $29/month
7-day free trial available
4. Olark
Olark’s live chat software provides on-time support enabling companies to add chat to websites, interact with customers, and offer instant help.
Features
- Customization
- Automation
- Reporting
- Live chat
Pricing
Starting at $29/month
14-day free trial available
5. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is live chat software that combines its features in a single platform. Users can add chat to websites for efficient customer support and tracking of customer issues across various channels.
Features
- Ticketing system
- Reporting
- Multilingual
- Mobile app
Pricing
Starts at: $9/user/month
14-day free trial available
6. HubSpot
HubSpot allows businesses to add live chat to websites to communicate with customers in real-time.
Features
- Contact management
- Artificial intelligence
- Report and performance management
- Automations
Pricing
Starts at $15/month/user
15-day free trial available
7. Intercom
Intercom is a customer communication tool that users to add live chat to websites to send customized messages to customers based on their information and history.
Features
- Automated workflows
- Workload management
- Help center customization
- Custom reports
Pricing
Starts at $29/user/month
14-day free trial available
Elevate your customer service by adding live chat to website
Live chat is an essential component for businesses as it enhances customer satisfaction, boosts sales, and reduces response times. Add chat to websites and watch your customer communication flourish.
We hope you found this blog helpful. Please share your comments on how you add live chat to your website in the provided section below.
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