Live chat is an excellent way to interact with customers on your ecommerce website. According to a Kayako survey, 52% of customers are likely to stay loyal to small businesses offering live chat support.

With such a lucrative opportunity to retain customers, which live chat plugin should you use for your ecommerce website?

Here, we explore some excellent options you can try out. We’ll also explore the features to look out for and the other benefits of using live chat for ecommerce.

Let’s dive in.

Live Chat Software for Ecommerce: Features To Look Out For

Here’s what to look for in good live chat apps for ecommerce:

Mobile Optimization

According to Statista, over 173 million U.S. users made at least one online purchase from their mobile browser or phone app in 2021.

Keeping these numbers in mind, always choose live chat tools that optimize for mobile users. Ensure you opt for software that enables you to offer assistance to any website visitor, regardless of the device they access your websites with.

Chat Monitoring

Opt for a live chat solution that gives you real-time information on your active support team. The more your customer support agents engage with potential buyers on your ecommerce store, the more they improve their knowledge and expertise.

Besides that, you can monitor the effects of active chatting on your overall sales and conversions. Kayako’s study found that 38% of consumers who visit a WooCommerce store are more likely to convert if it offers live chat support.

Can your live chat plugin monitor your site, collect analytics and generate reports? This data can be pretty valuable for you and your business. You can use it to optimize the customer experience and increase sales.

Visitor Tracking

Visitor tracking is a remarkable feature to look out for in your ecommerce live chat software. Choose live chat options that track visitors across your website and collect useful information on their behaviors. Such data gives you deep insights into actions like:

• Conversion rates
• Live chat transcript reports
• Agent activities
• Visitor chat times and responses

Automation

Can you automate your plugin to respond to common queries simply and efficiently? Automation cuts down the time agents need to respond to common queries. In fact, automation can help most customers serve themselves while facing common challenges on your ecommerce website.

Also, opt for a plugin that supports integrations and APIs.

Such functionality makes automation easier since it helps your agents contact your customers via email, SMS, WhatsApp, or Messenger if live chat fails. Adding APIs to your live chat for ecommerce can help you translate languages and engage with customers worldwide.

Advantages of Using Live Chat

Live chat apps come with certain perks. Here are some of them.

Makes You Stand Out

Using live chat software makes you stand out from other online businesses. That has several effects:

• Live chat increases your sales and bottom line on checkout. The Kayako study supports it, showing that 79% of the businesses surveyed reported that using live chat buttons increased revenues, sales, and customer loyalty.
• Younger customers engage more with your business. Live chat makes the interaction feel intuitive, much like chatting and getting notifications from friends on social media apps.

Provides an Enhanced Customer Experience

Offering instant assistance to your customers via live chat enhances the customer experience and makes them want to return for more.

Exceptional live chat experiences will increase your customer engagement, loyalty, and recommendations by word of mouth, boosting sales.

Cost Effectiveness

Using live chat for your ecommerce business to connect with customers helps cut down other business costs. For example:

• Helping customers navigate your online store and make purchases increases customer satisfaction and reduces returns and refunds.
• Live chat can reduce cart abandonment by opening a chat box when a customer attempts to exit the site with a full shopping cart.
• Live chat reduces your help desk budget since it’s cheaper than phone calls. Also, it cuts your need for service agents since one agent can serve several clients simultaneously.

Increases Market Reach

Exceptional live chat services can help you break into new markets. Having live chat features that can solve customers’ pain points in multiple languages will help you get into new markets worldwide, increasing your sales, revenues and customers.

Live Chat for Ecommerce

1. LiveChat

2. Olark

3. Live Chat by Formilla

4. Tawk.To

These are the best live chat plugins for ecommerce. Let’s see what they’re about.

1. LiveChat

LiveChat is an all-in-one customer service plugin that enables you to communicate with customers across multiple platforms, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and SMS.

You can download the LiveChat plugin for your WooCommerce store to increase customer interactions.

Key Features:

• Supports automation and third-party integrations
• Easy to set up and use
• Supports multiple ecommerce site builders and WordPress themes
• Offers reports and analytics

Best Ecommerce Live Chat Plugin For:

Managing live chats, social media, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, email marketing, and SMS from one platform.

Pricing:

Each paid plan is billed per agent per month annually:

• Starter Plan: $16
• Team Member Plan: $33
• Business Plan: $50

2. Olark

Olark is a real-time live chat software with an intuitive and customizable chat window interface. Once you install this plugin on WordPress, you can refresh your site template and begin to use the chat widget instantly.

You can automate it to communicate with customers before an agent gets to them.

Key Features

• Offers custom reports and metrics
• Supports offline messaging and ticket systems
• Uses integrations and APIs
• Supports multiple languages

Best Ecommerce Live Chat Plugin For:

Live language translation.

Pricing:

Plans start at $29/month/agent.

3. Formilla

With Formilla, you get a plugin that supports canned responses for common queries, leaving more time for your agents to focus on tougher customer issues.

It also supports multiple languages, which helps you reach a wider audience across the globe.

Key Features:

• Supports AI chatbots for FAQs
• Can use third-party integrations
• Multilingual support
• Unlimited live chats

Best Ecommerce Live Chat Plugin For:

Real-time pop-ups and live chats.

Pricing:

• The monthly plan starts at $24.99
• The yearly plan starts at $19.99
• The two-year plan starts at $17.49

4. Tawk.To

Tawk.To is a free-to-use plugin that enables you to monitor live chats on your ecommerce platform with ease. It works excellently across platforms and uses a multipurpose workflow dashboard that coordinates multiple websites and customer agents.

Key Features

• Real-time language translation
• Supports integrations
• Easy to use by chat agents
• Supports pre-chat surveys, reports, and analytics

Best Ecommerce Live Chat Plugin For:

Connecting with customers across devices and platforms.

Pricing:

Free.

Final Thoughts: 4 Plugins That Support Live Chat for Ecommerce

Using these ecommerce live chat plugins, you can increase conversions, offer instant support, and enhance the customer experience.

Need a WordPress platform readily available to install live chat plugins? Get started with Hostdedi StoreBuilder and grow your business online. This easy-to-use ecommerce store builder helps you avoid starting from scratch, especially if you have no coding experience.

Check out StoreBuilder to get started today.

This blog was originally published in March 2013. It has since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.