CentrioHost Blog

Think of the last time you called a customer support line. Let me guess, one of the following occurred:

• You were placed on hold for a while.
• The person sounded like they were reading from a script.
• The rep was hard to understand because of background noise, a bad connection or a language barrier.
• You ended up on the phone for a long time.

Phone support personalizes the customer assistance experience, but it’s tough to implement and pricey to get good people on a support team. The big companies simply outsource, making a terrible experience for all customers. Small businesses are typically better with phone support, but once again, it’s difficult for companies to maintain such a high measure of success.

One way to satisfy a large chunk of your customers, while also decreasing the number of phone calls, is by finding a WordPress live chat plugin. Then, install it on your site to provide quick online chats for your customers. Drift was able to increase their inbound leads by 200% simply by putting live chat on their website.

Benefits of Having a WordPress Live Chat Plugin

Besides the fact that the majority of WordPress live chat plugins are free, you have several other reasons to install one:

• Options – Customers want options. If they pay for a product or service, people assume that part of that payment goes to your customer service department. If you only have a forum or email support module, that’s not giving your users many choices. Some folks like to talk on the phone, while others would rather bring up a live chat module. There are also people who love email support or researching through forums and blog posts. Give every type of preference to your customers, then you’ll make everyone happy.
• Instant service – A big problem with online commerce is that consumers can’t walk five steps to tap a salesperson on the shoulder. Your site users are generally left to fend for themselves or scour the internet for answers to their questions. A live chat box serves as your instant form of customer communication. It’s for those quick questions right before a sale. It’s for following up with customers immediately after a sale. You’ll have trouble converting and keeping customers if you expect people to wait for an email or through a phone queue.
• Quality branding – The next time someone thinks about buying a piece of clothing they’ll wonder about the best place to purchase from. They may have several companies in mind, but yours comes to the forefront because the customer had a great experience with a live chat rep.
• Log feedback and customer interactions – Some of the WordPress live chat plugins allow you to log what customers have done on your site and what was said to the customer rep. This helps with target marketing in the future. Furthermore, the customer interactions can usually be logged in customer relationship management tools like Salesforce and ZenDesk.
• Professionalism – Having a live chat module on your website makes it look like you have your act together. You’ve clearly studied what customers want and realize that your industry is filled with people interested in live chat. Some of the most forward-thinking companies in the world have live chat, while the ones who forget it are often newer, unorganized companies.

The Best WordPress Live Chat Plugins in 2019

In this WordPress live chat plugin roundup, we’ll uncover the pros and cons of each solution. Then, we’ll explore things like pricing, feature-sets and which types of companies should consider each plugin.

If you want a quick reference to our recommendations, here’s a list to get you started:

1. Tawk.To Live Chat
2. WP Live Chat Support
3. Live Chat by Formilla
4. HubSpot All-In-One Marketing
5. Facebook Messenger Live Chat
6. Tidio Live Chat
7. Chat by Flyzoo
8. Chat – Live Chat, Support, Sales
9. YITH Live Chat
10. Zendesk Chat
11. Userlike
12. Drift
13. Intercom Live Chat
14. LiveChat

1. Tawk.To Live Chat

Tawk.To Live Chat is not only a highly-rated chat plugin, but it looks so darn sleek once you install it on your website. The first benefit you’ll notice is how the plugin is completely free. There aren’t any ads or spam elements that make the live chat box less pleasant to work with. Real-time monitoring is available for checking in on your customers, and the actual live chat module is fully customizable.

The customer support team also sticks around at all times for you to interact with them. The support is only through live chat and email, but they respond quickly.

Go With This WordPress Live Chat Plugin If You…

• Like a highly-customizable chat module with tools for adjusting items like colors, sizes, fonts, languages, and positions.
• Require support for an unlimited number of agents.
• Want a widget scheduler for setting exactly when the live chat widget appears.
• Need a WordPress live chat plugin that does not, and will never, cost a dime.
• Would like a chat plugin with ticketing built-in.
• Interested in canned shortcut messages.

Skip This WordPress Live Chat Plugin If You…

• Are not interested in signing up for a Tawk account. Although it seems like a great development team, you’re pretty much trading your information for the free plugin.
• Want more premium support options.
• Need additional customization tools. Tawk has several, but some competitors deliver advanced branding tools.

2. WP Live Chat Support

The WP Live Chat Support plugin delivers an outstanding combination of features, with support for dozens of languages, a beautiful chat box and the freedom to chat with your customers without having to pay anything. The plugin has a unique feature that lets you know anytime you’ve missed a chat. This serves as quality control and a way to potentially follow up with customers. There’s also a default value that uses cookies to stop the chat from appearing for 24 hours if the user hits the “X” button.

Although the free version includes features like unlimited simultaneous live chats, multiple chat box themes, offline messages and the option for users to drag the chat box around their own page, there’s also a paid add-on for additional functionality. With the premium version, you’ll get unlimited live chat agents, the ability to initiate the chats with your online visitors, ROI tracking and more.

Go With This WordPress Live Chat Plugin If You…

• Would like a cost-effective way to run a live chat on your website. Even the premium add-on is affordable.
• Have an interest in adding effects and animations to your chat box.
• Like to integrate your live chat with translation and analytics tools.
• Need a way to add surveys, quizzes or polls before or after your live chat.
• Want a live WordPress live chat plugin without any branding from the developer.

Skip This WordPress Live Chat Plugin If You…

• Would rather not pay to get support for unlimited agents. Many other plugins offer this for free.
• Rely on prompt responses to support tickets. Many users have complained about troublesome support.

3. Live Chat by Formilla – Real-time Chat Plugin

Live Chat by Formilla has professional-looking chat boxes, making it ideal for more serious companies like law or engineering firms. This is one of the best chat plugins if you’re looking for great support. It’s more of a premium plugin than anything, but it does provide a free plan for one customer support agent. That also only includes one concurrent chat, making the free plan somewhat useless for the average business.

The premium plans charge on a recurring basis, so you’ll have to start by paying at least $11.99 per month, and that’s only for one agent. Every agent after that gets a discount. Although the pricing isn’t ideal, Formilla backs it up with real-time visitor monitoring, mobile apps for you to chat with customers on the go, custom languages, custom appearance, support for WordPress multisite and more.

Go With This WordPress Live Chat Plugin If You…

• Are willing to pay a monthly fee for tons of features.
• Have a need for mobile app support.
• Looking for real-time visitor monitoring.
• Want to integrate with tools like MailChimp, Pipedrive or Zendesk.
• Need canned messages to speed up the communication process.
• Need an SSL with your live chat module. This is ideal for securing an online store.

Skip This WordPress Live Chat Plugin If You…

• Want a free live chat plugin. The free version isn’t worth your time, so it’s almost required to pay.
• Would like a more creative design. It’s somewhat boring, but this could work for more traditional businesses.

4. HubSpot All-In-One Marketing

HubSpot’s All-In-One Marketing plugin offers many marketing tools for your website, including live chat.

HubSpot Live Chat lets you set up targeted messages for different pages or segments of your audience. If no one can respond immediately, you can enable an email capture form so your visitors can still get in touch. You can also set up a chatbot to personalize your conversations at scale.

Because it’s built on top of the free HubSpot CRM, you’ll know exactly who you’re chatting with and what pages they viewed on your website, be it a prospect, long time customer, or new contact. This makes for an excellent customer experience. You can take notes, send emails, make calls, schedule follow-up tasks, and create support tickets in one place, making following up an absolute breeze for your team

Live Chat is included with the free HubSpot CRM. However, you can upgrade to a paid account to get access to more advanced functionalities such as if/then workflows and transferring chats to different team members.

Go With This WordPress Live Chat Plugin If You…

• Want a free live chat plugin.
• Want to sync and integrate all your conversations in a CRM.
• Are looking for an integrated marketing solution.
• Need to use chatbots.

Skip This WordPress Live Chat Plugin If You…

• Don’t want to sign up for a HubSpot account.
• Want to manage your chats directly from your WordPress dashboard.

5. Facebook Messenger Live Chat

If you’re trying to find a social alternative to regular live chatting, the Facebook Messenger Live Chat plugin should serve you rather well. Facebook is breaking into the customer service game by offering companies a way to connect with customers in the social environment. Since consumers spend more time on social media than on shopping sites, it makes sense to connect with them through Facebook.