A proper customer support channel is vital to maintaining and growing a successful website. For many years business owners would allow their customers to contact them via email when they encountered issues with their purchase. Times have changed, and now it’s more important than ever to have a chat service on your website to help customers.
According to FurstPerson, 63 percent of customers were likely to return to a website if it offered a live chat function for questions or concerns. If you could attract more customers, convert more leads, or otherwise deliver excellent user experience, you would, right? These tools are capable of giving you immediate access to your customers so you can answer all of their questions in seconds.
Live chat plugins are now the norm across many different eCommerce websites. If you’re looking to add this feature to your website, but unsure of where to start or want to try something for free, these five plugins allow you to add a chat function to your WordPress site for free.
1. FreshChat
The first plugin we’re going to look at is called FreshChat. This tool is excellent for companies that already have multiple customer support agents ready to work. Every account can support up to 10 different chat agents.
All of those agents can integrate FreshChat with their favorite messenger program like Slack, and connect their chat support tickets directly to an individual–depending on the issue. Business owners like the fact that you can use this program to message your customers first when they land on your page. Combine the messenger feature with the ability to implement AI bots next to your real agents, and it’s easy to see why this plugin is our first pick.
2. Userlike
Next, Userlike is a plugin that is based out of Germany with European servers. They allow WordPress users to download their plugin and add it to their website for free.
The most notable feature of this plugin is the clean and user-friendly dashboard. You’ll have no problem accessing a suite of professional-level tools like chatbots, access to detailed analytic reports, widgets, and more. All of these features are available for one live agent.
If you want to add multiple agents, there is a premium version. However, if you’re new to the world of live chat plugins and want to take a test drive of the software by yourself, Userlike is an excellent choice.
3. SmartSupp
SmartSupp at its core is a chat plugin designed to give you insight the pain points of your customer. Once you install this program on your eCommerce website, your chat sessions and customers behavior is observed and put into reports that you can look through at your own pace.
The goal of this chat service, outside of delivering a great user experience, is to help business owners learn how to improve their products or customer service. You can look through the trends and conversations in Google Analytics to figure out what you can do to navigate future customers down your sales funnel while retaining current customers.
SmartSupp offers a “free forever,” plan as well as a premium version that will run you eight dollars per extra chat support agent.
4. Pure Chat
Pure Chat is what we would call a ‘middle ground,’ chat software. This software has a free version for businesses who are happy with up to three agents. If you have a couple of people working on your support line, but not a huge team, Pure Chat is an excellent choice for your website.
All three agents have an unlimited amount of chat conversation space, so you can rest easy knowing that you’ll have all the data you need to make helpful tweaks to your products or service due to customer feedback.
All of your chat conversations and the plugin features are available for your mobile device, which makes helping customers on the go easier than ever before.
5. Chaport
Our final plugin, Chaport, is another excellent free chat service you can install on your WordPress site. The unique thing about this plugin is that they have a free forever plan that gives you access to unlimited chat support users, their history, customer notes, and canned responses.
The only drawback to the free version is only five support agents can be online at one time. If you have multiple people working for you, but they operate during different shifts, Chaport is the perfect choice for your website.
You can also integrate this software with other plugins to gain valuable insight into your chat history, as well as detailed reports showing why a user messaged your company.
A chat feature is no longer a luxury for eCommerce websites–it’s mandatory. In fact, almost every website that offers a product, service, or advice can benefit from the use of a free or premium live chat service. Now is the perfect time to jump in and give customers the option to contact you through live chat.
It may take some getting used to, but all five of these plugins can help you expand your audience, address customer concerns, and build products that truly benefit your customers.
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