The Complete Guide: Best Live Chat Software for eCommerce
In our article about the best software solutions for e-commerce, we have discussed cloud solutions that will help you grow your sales online. One of them was a live chat and today we will look more deeply into the best available live chat apps and discuss their specific features that could be worth implementing in your e-commerce business.
Okay, but…
…how can a live chat help your e-commerce business?
Quick communication
Live chats are outstanding in minimizing the time needed to contact your current or potential customer. 79% of customers say that they prefer live chat from any other channel of support because of the immediacy it offers. Instead of writing an e-mail, a visitor browsing through your store can reach out to you directly with his question about delivery, specification or alternative products.
This, however, does not have to be a one-sided initiated conversation. You can also set specific triggers which can help you quickly address most frequent questions your customer has on the particular sub-page.
Want to ask the customer if he has any question about the estimated delivery cost as long as he stays at your product page more than 10 seconds? No problem. Just set the trigger and he will see the chat message pop up at the right moment.
Gathering data
Another important area, where you can benefit from a chat installed on your website is all the analytical engine it provides in the package.
You can actually start gathering the observations on how visitors behave at your website. For example, CartHook, one of the live chat users in this video tells about his story of his customers leaving his website as soon as they saw the “About us” page. This has helped him see that he should focus more on building the credibility of his website and has enabled him to increase the number of purchases his visitors make each time they visit his store.
Live chats are not only about analyzing the behavior of your visitors. They also give you instant access to the data who your visitors are and let you store them. You can imagine that it might be quite important whether you’re talking to a customer who has already done multiple purchases at your store or you speak to a visitor who’s seeing your landing page for the first time.
Optimization
Gathering and analyzing the data is not enough. You have to take advantage of it and take actions which are going to turn useful information into additional sales.
There are numerous ways in which you can optimize your store using the gathered information. What are the examples?
- Do you tend to get the same question from every 2nd customer who’s chatting with you? Maybe you should optimize the information on your product page or add this question to your FAQ to save your and your customer’s time?
- A visitor abandons your website as soon as he checks the availability of other color options? Maybe you should extend your offer with new colors?
- A visitor abandons the cart after visiting your “About me page”? Maybe you haven’t paid enough attention to building the credibility of your brand? Why don’t you put the photo of your team to the “About me” page so that your visitors know there are real people behind the store?
Increase in customer’s loyalty and satisfaction
The studies investigating the impact of the live chat software on the visitors’ behavior indicates that it has the major impact on the customer’s actions, loyalty, and satisfaction. Live chats tend to bring the highest satisfaction with the customer support, with 73% of live chat users satisfied with the service, comparing to 61% with e-mail and 44% with phone support. Nothing surprising, as probably all of us prefer our questions to be answered quickly.
What is even more interesting, live chat support might impact the customers’ actual willingness to buy the product as the study indicates that 47% of online shoppers are more likely to make a purchase if they are able to speak to the live online assistant. 63% of respondents indicate that they are more likely to visit the website one more time if it offers a live chat support so it might be a great way to increase the loyalty of your visitors.
5 best live chat solutions for ecommerce businesses
Now that you know that setting up a live chat might be very beneficial for your business, you need to find the right software that will match your needs. Spoiler alert: there’s plenty of them.
But we’re here to help you! Our team chose 5 best live chat software solutions that will be most helpful in growing your online store. But what makes them great for an e-commerce business? We’ve looked at these following aspects:
- Integration with e-commerce platforms, like Shopify, BigCommerce
- Additional features applicable for e-commerce businesses, like sales tracking
- Reviews, opinions and user-base among e-commerce businesses
1. LiveChat — a great live chat for e-commerce, with goals/sales tracking, ticketing system, and automated greetings
LiveChat is one of the major live chat solutions with a high focus on delivering value-added for e-commerce store owners. With its ticketing system, advanced data analytics and goals tracking it’s designed to meet the requirements of all sized businesses. It integrates natively with most of the well-established e-commerce platforms, including Shopify or BigCommerce. It’s also the only live chat solution with the official Magento technological partnership, with a solution tailored specially to this platform’s users.
LiveChat e-commerce integrations
LiveChat integrates easily with most common e-commerce platforms including:
- Shopify
- BigCommerce
- Volusion — native Volusion’s live chat
- Magento — technology partnership with Magento
- Ecwid
LiveChat features for e-commerce
There are a bunch of LiveChat’s features which are especially useful for e-commerce businesses. Some of them include:
- Ticketing system — for a large number of requests, save cases to be resolved later, via email
- Visitor’s analytics — an insight into visitor’s data when chatting, e.g. the product pages they visited earlier, what keyword they entered in Google to find your website, their demographics and time on site
- Sales/goals tracking — setting up the goals you want to obtain using live chat conversations, e.g. sale of a product and tracking the impact of your conversations on meeting these goals
- “Customers” list — a list of customers currently browsing through your website which can be easily filtered, depending on their on-site behavior, e.g. the time they spend on site
- Sneak peak into messages writing — a real-time view on the message typed by the visitor, before he/she sends the message (TIP! use it to prepare an answer before a customer asks a question 👍)
- Eye-catchers — an option to set-up eye catchers and grab an additional attention of visitors browsing through your store
LiveChat e-commerce users’ base and opinions
Currently, more than 25,000 customers are using LiveChat worldwide. Out of this, it is estimated that about 25% is from e-commerce space.
LiveChat tends to get good opinions from its users, with the below ratings in the particular marketplaces (state as of 7th August 2018):
E-commerce marketplaces:
- Magento: 4.4/5.0
- BigCommerce: 5.0/5.0
- Shopify: 4.0/5.0
- WIX: 4.5/5.0
- Weebly: 4.8/5.0
Review marketplaces:
- G2Crowd: 4.5/5.0
- GetApp/Capterra: 4.8/5.0
Click here to check out our full review of LiveChat.
2. Tidio Chat — a freemium solution, with great WIX/Weebly integrations and native Shopify chatbot solution
Tidio is a well-designed freemium live chat solution, focused on the quality of integration with other platforms you are already using. While using WIX or Weebly, you will be able to easily customize the chat window and monitor the chats within WIX panel/dashboard. Tidio has recently introduced a major update to its popular Shopify integration with a bot that automatically checks the order status, delivery location, and product availability. This is done through a chat’s native integrations with your store’s database in Shopify.
Tidio e-commerce integrations
Tidio integrates easily with most of the popular e-commerce platforms:
- Shopify — native integration with an automated bot functionality, e.g. letting your customers check the delivery, order status
- WIX/Weebly — native integration letting you customize chat window and monitor your chats within WIX/Weebly e-commerce platforms
- BigCommerce
- Presta Shop
- 3DCart
Tidio features for e-commerce
Tidio provides a bunch of features which might be especially useful for e-commerce businesses:
- Easy-to-set automations, letting you target your visitors with automated messages based on their type of activity, e.g. by sending special invitations to people re-visiting your store
- Sending responses via email when you’re not available for an instant chat
- Setting up an automated bot handling requests concerning products’ availability or delivery options if you’re using Shopify
- Integration with Facebook Messenger, letting you handle requests at your Facebook Fanpage
- Live visitors’ list, letting you monitor people browsing through your website
Tidio e-commerce users’ base and opinions
Currently, there are 302,000 companies worldwide using a free version of Tidio Chat, with 7,000 paying for Tidio’s premium features. A significant part of this is from the e-commerce segment with Tidio being one of the most popular live chat solutions for Shopify.
Tidio’s users’ opinions from some of the marketplaces
- Shopify 5.0/5/0
- BigCommerce 3.5/5.0
- WIX 5.0/5.0
- Weebly 3.8/5.0
Review sites
- G2Crowd 4.4/5.0
- Capterra 4.5/5.0
3. LivePerson — a premium enterprise-grade live chat software with a focus on mobile messaging and more advanced data tracking
LivePerson is the most popular live chat solution among the largest e-commerce companies from Fortune Global 500. It is designed for larger businesses, focused on delivering more advanced functionalities for more demanding customers. It delivers a variety of opportunities for integrating your business chat with mobile communication channels, by integrating with Facebook Messenger, SMS or allowing for easy implementation of chat at your business’s mobile application.
LivePerson e-commerce integrations
LivePerson is targeted at medium and larger businesses which in most cases means the necessity for custom software’s implementation and integration. As a result, it doesn’t offer native integration with major and most popular e-commerce platforms like Magento or Shopify.
LivePerson features for e-commerce businesses
Some of the LivePerson’s benefits for e-commerce businesses include:
- Co-browsing functionality, allowing for guiding a visitor remotely through your store, while chatting
- Integration with mobile applications letting you set up a live chat option at your company’s Android or iOS application
- Integrating with your phone’s SMS system, letting you reply to chats quicker, using simple SMS messages
- Connecting your chat with iOS interface, letting Apple Maps users chat directly when they find your business on their iPhones [currently in beta mode]
- Adding a chat button to your AdWords campaigns increasing the chances of contact from the customer
LivePerson users’ base and opinions
LivePerson is most popular among larger enterprises, with its clients including major e-commerce brands like Gearbest or Home Depot.
Review sites
- G2Crowd 3.6/5.0
- Capterra 4.5/5.0
4. UserEngage — a proactive live chat solution driving engagement and sales
UserEngage is an all-in-one CRM, live chat and marketing automation software that works for all sized businesses. Its easy-to-use drag & drop editor provides you with a variety of creative templates and allows you to design your own customized chat boxes. If team members fill their short biography, visitors can have insight whom they really talk to, what makes conversations a bit more friend-like.
UserEngage e-commerce integrations
UserEngage plays nicely with:
- Magento
- SquareSpace
- tumblr.
- Weebly
- BigCommerce
UserEngages features for e-commerce businesses
Features useful for e-commerce businesses provided by UserEngage include:
- Catching hot leads by analyzing visitor’s behavior, building customer profiles and sending required details to an assigned agent who contacts the visitor with a personalized inviting message
- Creating a visual pipeline canvas that gives you a clear view of your current situation and organizes the sales team and their activities
- Analytical tools that later create reports monitoring the progress of your business
- User tracking — UserEngage creates a profile of each user that includes all information about the events performed on a given website and provides a timeline of all interactions + later stores this data in one location in pre-selected logical units
- Sending follow-up email campaigns — requests for review or reminders to those who have added products to their cart but have not bought them
UserEngage reviews
- G2Crowd 4,1/5
- Capterra 4.5/5
5. Chatra — a simple and intuitive live chat software designed for small and medium e-commerce businesses
Chatra is a rather simple but user-friendly live chat solution with a free plan for individuals and a paid version for those who need more than one agent. A bunch of useful features provided by Chatra will work best for small and medium businesses. It offers a set of integrations (Slack, Google Analytics) and allows you to respond to your customers on the go with the use of a mobile iOS and Android app.
Chatra e-commerce integrations
- BigCommerce
- Magento
- Shopify
- WIX
- WooCommerce
- Ecwid
Chatra features for e-commerce businesses
Among features useful for e-commerce offered by Chatra you will find:
- Event and goal tracking with Google Analytics automatic integration
- Insights of what visitors are typing — it allows the agent to prepare answers in advance and provide faster help
- Screensharing via Median app — a real-time view of what your customers are doing on your website
- Group chats — in case of a more complicated issue many agents will be able to simultaneously chat with one client
- “Cart saver” option available with Shopify integration — helps closing deals by sending automatic messages to those who have put products in the cart and left without completing the order
- Conversation history is kept forever both for you and your customers — a visitor can continue the conversation even if they go to a different page while chatting or if they leave your website and come back later
Chatra users’ base and opinions
Chatra has over 100k registered users and about 7k premium version customers.
Chatra’s users’ opinions from some of the marketplaces
- Shopify 4.86/5
- BigCommerce 3/5
Review sites
- Capterra 5/5
- G2Crowd 4,5/5
Final verdict
As you can see, there is plenty of live chat software to choose from. Define your business needs and decide which solution matches your requirements. Decide whether you need advanced features of LivePerson, or if basic functionalities of Chatra is all you need. Some of them offer a free trial, so why don’t you give one of them a try?
Originally published at picksaas.com on August 27, 2018.
