Are you managing an e-commerce business and struggling with cart abandonment?
Do you frequently receive messages, emails, or comments that your response time is so slow?
Is your e-commerce business having a hard time converting interest to revenues?
Are you having problems encouraging repeat purchases?
Are you dissatisfied with the results of your digital marketing campaign?
If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, then maybe it’s time to add a chat plugin to your website.
What Is A Chat Plugin?
A chat plugin is a program that can be built into your website as an added feature for the purpose of enhancing the customer experience. These plugins are more popularly referred to as chat support services or Live Chat.
No doubt, you’ve come across or have experienced what it’s like dealing with chat plugins.
For example, Facebook Messenger has its own chat plugin.
If you have a Facebook Business Page, you can install the Facebook chat plugin on your website. With the plugin installed, customers who land on your website can chat with you simply by clicking on the Messenger logo.
Having a chat plugin installed on your website can help enhance User Experience or UX by extending personalized customer service.
Some of you might be shaking your heads in disagreement because of your individual experiences with a website’s chat support.
You might be referring to A.I. technology or chatbots that offer default responses based on a set of frequently asked questions.
Yes, chatbot technology can be an inconvenience especially if the program isn’t designed with features that allow the customer to provide more detailed information.
The chat plugins we’re referring to provide Live Chat services where the customer is in direct contact with a human, not A.I.
And it’s not just Facebook and large-scale companies that use chat plugins.
Likewise, many small and medium-sized businesses that have websites and are active on social media use chat plugins.
The question is: “Why?”
Does your business website need a chat plugin?
What Are The Benefits Of A Chat Plugin?
As the old saying goes, “If Google sneezes, everyone on the Internet catches a cold.”
The search engine giant is big on UX. The ranking factors of its search algorithm widely consider features that enhance UX such as site speed, site security, and mobile responsiveness.
To move up the search results page, you must find ways to make your site visitors happier and more satisfied with the experience.
Chat plugins might do the trick. Here are 5 benefits of having a chat plugin for your website.
1. Build Strong, Long-lasting, and Sustainable Relationships
Better than nothing, right?
Not when it comes to chat support.
For businesses, chatbots are convenient because they can provide 24/7 customer support. It might not be the same case with customers who want to get more answers but can’t provide the needed information.
Live chat services through chat plugins have the advantage of the human touch. Customers are transacting with a live person and are actively interacting via a feedback-response cycle.
Frustrated customers will appreciate live chat because they feel like things are moving along. They’ll have a better idea of what courses of action the business will take and a timeline to resolve the issue.
Once the issue is resolved, the confidence in your business will be renewed. Your customers know they can depend on your company for assistance if they need help with your products or services.
2. Attend to and Try to Resolve Issues in Real-time
An irate customer does not want to wait for answers. Chatbots might not have the right answers to the customer’s questions. Or if they do, the answers aren’t satisfactory.
With a human attending to the customer, there will be a more proactive approach to problem-solving. The live chat agent can get more information about the issue and attend to it in real-time.
In some cases, such as in tech support, the live agent will take the customer to a step-by-step troubleshooting procedure to fix the problem at their end. The sooner the issue is resolved, the happier the customer.
3. Enhance Your Brand and Reputation
In this age of social media where everyone has a platform to share an opinion, the last thing you want is to have a bad reputation for your customer service.
A bad customer service experience will almost certainly trigger a customer to go on his/her social media account and post about the experience to the community.
Having live chat support on your website will make the experience easier and more convenient for your customer. It’s more accessible. All the customer has to do is click on the chat support box and he’ll be attended to by an agent.
Chat plugins will show your customers that you care about their happiness and satisfaction. Live chat support is a sign that you’re 100% confident about your product and will go the extra mile to make sure customers get 110% of their money’s worth.
4. Improve Sales Conversion Rate
When it comes to chat plugins, it’s not all about resolving customer disputes. You can use chat plugins to send out information on special promotions, discount packages, and new products available to your customers.
Your customer will appreciate that you want to give them first-hand information that could make them save more money and have a chance to buy new items before the rest of the market does.
The customer might feel more encouraged and motivated to buy your products or avail of your latest promotions because you made him/her feel more special.
5. Create a More Accurate Customer Profile
Chat plugins can provide you detailed information about your customers through the recorded transcripts or the chat logs. You can create a more accurate profile for your customer.
Review the logs and find out how each customer reacts and expresses his/her complaint, what the most common issues are with your products, where they come from, why they chose your product over the competitors and other valuable information that can help you get a better understanding of customer behavior.
Having a more accurate customer profile can help fine-tune your marketing strategy, enhance your customer service, and identify ways to improve your products.
The Best Chat Plugins For Your Website
Now that you know why your website needs a chat plugin, the next question is: “What’s the best chat plugin for my business website?”
There are many good chat plugins that you can consider for your business website. We’ve taken away some of the guesswork by sharing what we believe are the best chat plugins on the market today.
1. Live Chat
When it comes to choosing your chat plugin, start with the program that’s widely recognized as the market leader – LiveChat.
What makes LiveChat a good choice for your website?
- Easy to set up and loads quite quickly.
- The app can be used on mobile devices – smartphones, laptops, and tablets.
- Personalize your chat support service by providing survey forms before and after a chat session.
- Create a workflow so that during off-hours your users can send out a trouble ticket.
- The app can be integrated with other programs including MailChimp, Hubspot, ZenDesk, and Google Analytics.
Unlike the other chat plugins featured in this article, Live Chat isn’t free.
The app can be availed of under different pricing packages that range from US$16/month for a small, home-based business to US$50/month for a large-sized business that has a full-time customer service department.
However, the monthly subscription cost is made worthwhile by the chat plugin’s sheer number of features:
- Connect multiple websites to your app.
- Integrate with Facebook Messenger.
- Personalize service by emailing customers a link to a scheduled direct chat session.
- Include default answers to FAQs.
- Customize the appearance of the chat plugin widget.
- Resolve disputes or issues faster by sending and receiving files via chat.
- Grade the performance of your chat support agents by asking your customers to rate them.
- Review conversations via the chat log and chat transcripts.
- Assign chats to specific agents.
- LiveChat provides its customers with analytics tools to keep track of and improve their performance.
And there’s more!
If you want to know for sure that LiveChat is for your business, the company gives a 14-day free trial.
2. Tawk To
Tawk.To is a live chat plugin app that allows you to interact with your customers on your website without having to deal with annoying ads and spam content.
No wonder that more than 3.8 million businesses have Tawk.To installed on their websites.
Why should you have Tawk.To on YOUR website?
- It’s FREE!
- Accessible via smartphone, laptop, and tablet.
- Get valuable data about your customers every time they access chat support.
- The app can be used on multiple websites.
- Tawk.To’s interface can accommodate multiple agents at one time.
- Compatible with various browsers.
- Versions available for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac.
With Tawk.To installed on your website, you can provide real-time support to your customers and potentially increase your sales conversion rate.
At the same time, you’ll get valuable information about your customers so you can fine-tune your digital marketing strategy and customer support service.
3. HubSpot
Hubspot’s live chat plugin app was designed to make customer service more effective AND efficient for any type of business. It was developed to provide solutions to common customer service pain points experienced by businesses that have websites.
First, let’s start off with how the chat plugin will appear on your site. Hubspot allows you to customize the look and feel of the widget so it can best represent your brand and complement the design of your website.
Second, all of your agents’ interactions will be saved and stored automatically in a file and organized according to the customer. This way, it will be easier for your agents to retrieve customer cases and re-orient themselves about the particulars of the situation.
What other reasons are there for you to choose Hubspot live chat plugin for your website?
- Manage your leads and contacts easily.
- User-friendly and highly navigable CRM feature.
- Retrieve and analyze insights about your customers/clients.
- Track the status of the emails that you send out.
- Can be integrated with Gmail, GSuite, Outlook, and Windows Office 365.
- Create forms, pop-up ads, and slide-ins that are mobile-friendly.
And yes, this live chat plugin is free!
4. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is marketed as a web-based solution that helps businesses track and improve sales by effectively managing the relationships with their customers.
Pipedrive offers a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform with features designed to allow you to stay on top of the status of every prospective sale that moves along the pipeline.
It’s more than just a chat plugin! Check out Pipedrive’s features:
- Customize your chat support system to secure leads and then organize them into the CRM.
- Visual sales pipeline enables you to see how and where leads are moving along in the sales conversion process.
- Accessible by mobile devices; allows you to schedule tasks and identify the clients that are within proximity.
- Integrate Pipedrive with Google Contacts; manage leads and send out emails to your contacts.
- Pipedrive’s reporting system gives you valuable insights on the activities with the highest conversion rates, the tasks that have been completed and identify factors on why some deals were lost.
The company claims that Pipedrive is used by more than 95,000 companies in 179 countries and that on average, their clients have increased sales by 28%.
5. LiveAgent
LiveAgent started in 2004 as a tool designed to help improve customer service by offering live chat, ticketing capabilities, and other standard HelpDesk features. Today, LiveAgent is used by more than 150 million users and 40,000 companies all over the world.
Here some of the defining features of LiveAgent:
- Your customer service agents can manage all inquiries and concerns from the HelpDesk.
- Customize and organize your leads into categories such as companies.
- Customize your tickets by adding new fields so you can get more information about your customers.
- You can add notes to the tickets that will only be visible to you.
- Track and monitor the time your agents spend per ticket.
- Assign tickets to specific agents or departments.
- Review email communication and chat information from the Universal Inbox.
- Respond to your customers from various social media networks.
The free version of LiveAgent doesn’t have many features but might be ideal for a solopreneur running a small business from home. The paid versions range from US$15/agent/month to US$39/agent/month.
Conclusion
What’s your reaction when you visit a website and a chatbox opens up in the lower right-hand corner?
Chances are, you’re made to feel important, much like when you walk into a department store and a salesperson asks you if you need any help.
Even if you’re just browsing through, you’re confident knowing there’s a person who can attend to your needs at any time.
That’s why a business website with a built-in chat plugin will more than likely outperform competitors without chat support. Prospective customers will feel more confident and comfortable at your website because you have an agent who’s ready to help at any time.
All the customer has to do is click on the chatbox.
According to a study made by J.D. Power, live chat services is the preferred support channel by 42% of customers. Likewise, 73% of customers are happy with their experience engaging with live chat.
If your business website doesn’t have a chat plugin, give us a call and let us do it for you. Integrating live chat services will help increase sales, build better customer relationships, and improve the performance of your sales team.
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