How to Choose Live Chat Plugin for WordPress Website
While looking for a perfect live chat plugin for your WordPress website, you need to take into consideration the following facts here
In the modern world, people value their time and cannot wait for a long time to get assistance by phone. They look for communication channels that offer immediate or rather fast response. Thus they tend to use live chat and social media to get in touch with a company. For WordPress users, there is a wide range of live chat plugins either free or paid available on the https://wordpress.org/. While looking for a perfect live chat plugin for your website, you need to take into consideration the following facts:
Choose Live Chat Plugin for WordPress Website
- How easy it is to set up the plugin and running on your website
- Available chat window customization opportunities
- Whether the chat plugin slows down website loading
- Availability of native operator console, which makes the communication process more stable and convenient for live chat agents
- Live chat features which facilitate customer service workflow
In this blog post, we will overview several live chat plugins worth installing on your WordPress website.
Provide Support
Provide Support’s live chat plugin can be configured directly from the WordPress settings after installation:
- You can register a live chat account or log into your existing one
- You can choose chat button type (text chat link, chat icon or custom chat icon)
- Configure pages you would like to display your chat button at
- If you choose not to display a chat button on specific pages, you can enable an option to monitor your website no matter whether your chat button is displayed or not
- Chat plugin does not slow down the website performance as the chat window starts loading only after a website visitor clicks the chat button. And the chat window itself loads quite fast at the same time.
Provide Support Chat
Provide Support offers both embedded and pop up chat windows. You can customize its type, look and feel from your live chat account admin:
- Change chat window size
- Upload company logo
- Define chat button position (any fixed position on the website page)
- Choose theme and color
- Upload operator picture
- Choose the chat button image
- Update chat window titles and greeting messages
- Add / Remove pre-chat form fields
- Customize post-chat survey
- Hide icons on the chat window toolbar
Provide Support offers truly native operator consoles for Windows, macOS, and Linux as well as separate browser-based applications. For Android and iOS users, mobile console apps that support chatting and website monitoring are available as well. The chatting process for live chat plugin for WordPress agent is smooth and convenient:
- In case of connectivity issues, native operator console restores chat session and tries to find the best connection rout to chat servers
- If the computer is shared between several operators, the console’s profile manager allows saving operator credentials and will launch the needed profile with proper settings
- Canned responses are created on several levels – company, department, and operator and can be additionally grouped
- Visitors and preview screenshots and media files in their chat window before downloading
- An account administrator can export and import canned responses through a CSV file
- Operator console and chat window support RTL layout
There are many more features that you can test with a free fully-functional trial. Provide Support’s subscription packages have the same set of features and differ only by a number of operator profiles and billing period. This live chat tool will become an integral part of your website and your customers will enjoy their chatting experience.
JivoChat
JivoChat offers a WordPress plugin that simply inserts chat button code after its installation. All live chat settings can be configured from the live chat account. In terms of website performance, it loads a chat window while loading the website. They have a modern chat window and offer the following customization opportunities:
- Change chat icon color while position and image cannot be changed
- Chat window color customization
- Possibility to customize chat window per website within one account
While chat window customization opportunities are quite limited, JivoChat offers various features which facilitate and enhance customer service workflow:
- Eye-catcher for new chats alerts
- Separate area for notes/comments about chat or visitor
- Auto translator for messages typed by an agent
- Integration with CRM systems
- Possibility to view messages being typed by a visitor.
JivoChat is a very convenient and user-friendly tool. It will work great on your website.
Tawk.to live chat plugin for WordPress
Tawk.to offers its live chat tool for free with recurring charges for optional add-ons such as removing their brand label, etc. Their WordPress plugin is quite popular. All live chat settings are customized from the live chat admin, rather than from the WP admin. Tawk.to offers powerful and convenient in usage live chat software. Here is a short overview of available live chat software features, a more detailed overview is available on their website:
- Firstly, visitor messages typing preview
- Secondly, an unlimited number of concurrent chats
- Shortcuts for canned responses, but lack of responses grouping
- Chat admin access level
- Detailed visitor monitoring
- IP blocking and country access restriction
- Separate solution for chatbots
- Possibility to create tickets based on chats
- Finally, the possibility to view the chats of other agents in real-time
It is important to have the live chat plugin for WordPress tool which will blend with your website design, will stay visible and unobtrusive at the same time. Tawk.to can be easily customized to match website look and feel:
- Firstly, you can place the chat button to your website left/right corners or to the sidebar
- Secondly, in plugin’s WP admin you can create the list of pages where you would like to have your chat button displayed
- Hiding the chat button on mobile devices
- Multiple chat window customizations
- Adjust the chat window color to match website scheme
- Finally, the possibility to hide the live help button when the chat is offline
Tawk.to is a great tool to assist your customers, you can use it for free or purchase a subscription package if you need more features than are available with a free plan.
3CX Live Chat
This plugin is part of the 3CX phone system. It supports both
live chat plugin for WordPress
and talk features. 3CX live chat plugin is available for free and customized directly from WP admin after installation. It is fully GDPR compliant as no chats and calls history is stored on WordPress. It supports basic live chat features and becomes a great tool for 3CX software users:
- Unlimited chats and calls
- Desktop and mobile apps for operators
- IP blocking
- Automated chat invitations
- Leave a message form
The plugin can be also customized to match your WordPress website look and feel:
- Firstly, flexible chat button positions
- Secondly, the possibility to set pages where the chat button is.
- Chat window color customization
- Possibility to hide chat icon on mobile devices
- Finally, uploading custom live chat image and company logo to chat window
As a conclusion we can say, this tool is great if being used as part of 3CX software. Additionally, if you need assistance, you can use self-service options and support for their forum.
Formilla live chat plugin for WordPress
Formilla live chat software is one of the players on the market of chat AI bots. They offer quite limited live chat features but turned their attention to developing live chat AI bots. Together with AI bots, they offer targeted marketing platforms for sales automation. For those customers who require only live chat tools, they offer separate packages without AI bots. Their WordPress plugin works great and has lots of positive reviews. In this blog post, we will cover the main features available with Formilla live chat.
- Firstly, grouping operators into departments
- Shortcuts for canned responses
- Detailed real-time visitor monitoring
- IP blocking
- Automated proactive chats
- Possibility to set online/offline chat time
- Manual chats routing
- Possibility to connect from multiple devices
- Finally, 30-minutes timeout to close the inactive chat
In terms of customizations, the live chat plugin for WordPress window is quite neat and will blend with any type of website. Formilla offers the following customization opportunities:
- Firstly, bottom right/left corner position for the live chat button
- Secondly. custom CSS position for the live chat button
- Possibility to set different pages to display live chat plugin
- Separate chat icons for desktop and mobile
- Multiple chat window customizations within one account
- Finally, ich set of available color schemes for the chat window
The live chat plugin for WordPress bottom line
In conclusion, all listed in the post live chat plugins works great on WordPress websites and will help you offer your customers superior customer service. If you decide to use paid live chat service, we recommend testing it with a free trial before purchasing. This will help you see how it works on your website and if there are any features you are missing. Finally, which is available with other vendors.