Let’s be honest Nobody wants to send a support email only to get a (possibly automated) response 48 hours later. Likewise, nobody wants to be put on hold for more than 30 minutes while being told that they are the next caller in line.
We live in a world of instant gratification. Your customers are busy and want to speak to you on their terms and get the help they need for their time.
Live chat enables you to provide instant, personalized and efficient support to your customers and prospects.
So, if you are among the 37% of internet users with a WordPress website and you need live chat functionality, this guide will help you. We’re going to cover 12 WordPress live chat plugins to keep visitors motivated and provide effective and fast support.
Best WordPress Live Chat Plugins
- HubSpot WordPress plugin
- Tawk.To Live Chat
- Zendesk Chat
- Pure chat
- drift
- Tidio Live Chat
- Live chat
- Live Chat (Messenger API) + PolyLang
- Live chat from Formilla
- WP-Live Chat
- JivoChat
- Crisp
1. HubSpot WordPress Plugin
With HubSpot’s WordPress plugin, you get more than just live chat – you also get forms and popups, CRM and contact management, email marketing, marketing automation, and reports and analytics. Plus HubSpot integrates with over 500 other tools.
In addition to the features just mentioned, the plugin allows you to add chatbots to your site that work around the clock. This allows you to automate some of your support (e.g. use chatbots instead of repetitions to answer frequently asked questions) and provide assistance to visitors when your team is offline (aka when the reps are asleep). HubSpot’s WordPress plugin is easy to install and applies to all plans and products.
2. Tawk.To Live Chat
Tawk.To allows you to monitor live chat and engage users on your website in real time for free. Interact with visitors from anywhere, whether on the desktop or on the phone. You can also use any of the free iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac OSX apps to connect with customers.
The plugin has a single, multi-purpose dashboard that allows employees to access multiple websites and collaborate with other employees while answering live chat requests. All you need to do to get started Tawk.To is create a free account.
3. Zendesk Chat
With Zendesk Chat, you can manage multiple live chat conversations from a single dashboard. The live chat widget is customizable and you can add mobile functionality to allow visitors to speak to representatives using the mobile device.
The plugin has triggers that you can use to automate actions when certain conditions are met by visitors who report via live chat. That way you can achieve everyone Visitor who wants support. You can add information about your customers, improve workflow routing and also handle spam requests.
Use the analytics dashboard to keep an eye on the flow of visitors to your website and identifiable usage patterns to determine when a customer needs assistance.
4. Pure chat
With Pure Chat, your live chat widget is fully customizable. Get full transcripts of conversations between representatives and customers, and automatically create triggers for actions that visitors take to increase the effectiveness of the support you provide.
Decide if you want your widget to show an offline ad when no staff are available. This signals to customers that they should send email support instead or check back later. Finally, your website has analytics and visitor tracking on your website that can help you better understand your customers’ behavior and needs.
5. Drift
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Drift makes it easy to add free live chat to your WordPress site. The plugin allows you to receive real-time notifications (via Slack) so your team knows when a customer is making contact. You can also set the expectation that your support team will not be available 24/7 in live chat by adding an offline / out of office mode to your chat widget.
The drift plugin allows you to capture and save visitor email addresses as soon as they start the live chat conversation. You can also set up browser targeting to identify and set rules for a customer’s actions. This feature gives you the information you need to reach a particular visitor and involve them in a personalized way.
6. Tidio Live Chat
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When you add the Tidio plugin to your WordPress site, you get more than just live chat – you also get access to other communication channels like chatbots, email marketing and messengers.
Email your visitors when they leave your website and / or live chat and send them campaign content using the plugin’s email automation feature. Also, customize the look of your widget to match your branding.
7. LiveChat
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LiveChat has proactive chat invitations so your team can automatically send personalized messages to visitors. Work as efficiently as possible by managing multiple chat sessions at the same time and using predefined answers for frequently asked questions. Employees can also send links to visitors via live chat. This allows them to share knowledge base articles, directions, product information, and more.
LiveChat integrates seamlessly with services and apps like HubSpot CRM and you can choose which pages of your website have live chat widgets. In fact, you can add a live chat widget all Pages of your website, including the checkout page if you wish.
8. Live Chat (Messenger API) + PolyLang
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This plugin adds Facebook Messenger to your website and is integrated with PolyLang, another WordPress plugin that allows you to create bilingual or multilingual websites.
The chat widget is customizable – you can customize the color, location, language, etc. to complement your branding. You can hide or delay the chat widget so that it only appears when support is online or a few seconds after visitors land on your website.
9. Live Chat from Formilla
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In addition to using this plugin for live chat, you can add chatbots with AI support to your website to manage frequently asked questions that do not require human-to-human interaction. You can also create predefined responses and share them with website visitors to save staff time and focus on more complex customer challenges. Sign in to your live chat account through an app on an iPhone, iPad, or Android device to chat with visitors from anywhere.
There is a language assist feature that allows you to customize the text of your widget to suit a wide audience. The live chat widget is also responsive, meaning it resizes to fit the device your website visitors are viewing it from (desktop, mobile, etc.).
10. WP-Live Chat from 3CX
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With WP-Live Chat, customize your website’s live chat by adding animations, polls and polls to make the support more attractive to visitors. Create a custom message that will appear when the retries are offline and save for your records any messages received while the retries are offline.
Make the chat anonymous to provide more privacy for visitors if needed. In addition, WP live chat is compatible with multiple translation plugins, so you can effectively help customers from different parts of the world.
11. JivoChat
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In addition to providing live chat for your WordPress site, JivoChat also provides communication capabilities for phone, email, and social media support so you can manage all conversations with a single tool.
If your company does not provide 24/7 support, visitor inquiries that occur with offline representatives will be held back in an inbox. These requests are paired with the visitor’s contact information so your team can contact them during work hours. Employees can also transfer chats to other team members. For example, an employee can send a customer’s request to another employee who has more expertise than he or she in the customer’s specific problem area.
12. Crisp
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With the Crisp plugin you get inboxes for marketing, sales and support. Use Marketing Live Chat to get visitor contact information and tag specific conversations to build a qualified contact list for your team. Use the Sales Live Chat to answer questions from potential customers about your product or service. Use the support live chat to assist customers in overcoming the challenges and obstacles that arise.
You can also share a schedule of live chat availability on your website so visitors know when the staff are online and ready to assist.
Install a live chat plugin
Live chat plugins offer a variety of features and helpful features that you can use to support your team and make employees work more efficiently. This saves employees valuable time that they can use to support customers with more complex problems. Start by installing a plugin on your WordPress site to streamline the process of supporting your visitors and customers.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2019 and has been updated for completeness.