How to Add Live Chat to Website: A Quick Guide

With 41% of customers preferring live chat support over all other communication channels, businesses have to implement effective live chat tools to be able to engage with customers and stay competitive.

But how can you add live chat to website to interact with your visitors instantly, answer their questions, and guide them through the buying process?

This blog will guide you on how to add live chat to your website, customize the chat widget to fit your brand, share the benefits you stand to gain from the tool, and suggest some of the best live chat software.

What is live chat software?

Live chat is a communication tool for customers to interact directly with support agents via a website or app.

Live chat support manifests a small chat window on websites usually labelled Chat Now or Help.

Businesses add live chat to websites to provide instant help and communication to customers.

By adding chat to websites, support agents can manage multiple chats simultaneously, save conversations for easy reference and follow-up, making the customer support process more efficient.

Detailed steps to add live chat to your website

Adding live chat to your website enhances customer interaction and support. You might be wondering: How do I add chat to my website? Here is an easy guide to help you get started:

1. Pick the right live chat software

The type of software you pick can make or break your live chat support efforts. It is important to carefully select tools that you can use to add live chat to your website.

Consider these features when shopping for suitable software:

• Omnichannel support: Live chat software can be embedded with multiple channels, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. These conversations can be managed through a single omnichannel inbox.
• Chatbots: The software should allow you integrate with chatbot to provide customer service when agents are not available.

• Reports and analytics: The software should be able to track metrics about the performance of support agents and how satisfied your customers are with your company’s customer support.

• Customizable widgets: Choose software that allows you to tailor the look and feel of the live chat user interface to match your brand. Automate welcome notes and tailor the tone of your voice to your brand.
• Chat transcripts: The software should be able to record all the conversations in the live chat.

• Automated chat routing: Live chat software often includes automation features that allow you to assign chats to appropriate agents automatically based on area of specialization.
• Multilingual support: Choose a tool that enables you to provide support through multiple languages if your customer base is global.
• Canned responses: Live chat software tool should enable you to create and save responses to answer commonly asked questions.

Of course, look out for other elements, including pricing, integration options, and value for money. Choose software that is simple to set up, scalable, easy to use, and budget friendly.

2. Install and set up the live chat on your website

Once you have picked the live chat software provider, installation should be your next step.

Embed a single line of code at the back end of your website to install the tool and make it compatible with your website.

3. Customize your live chat

After adding live chat to website, customize the look, functionality, and features of live chat widget to match your website branding. Some aspects of your live chat to customize include:

• Welcome messages.
• Language options.
• Chat button styles.
• Location of your live chat.
• Agent profiles.

4. Integrate live chat with other tools

Connect your live chat with other productivity tools you use on a daily basis and your social media accounts. This will let you interact with customers across multiple channels in one place.

Add chat to your website and integrate it with tools such as:

• A comprehensive knowledge base to help customers get answers independently and give support agents easy access to relevant information required to address customer inquiries.
• An Artificial intelligence tool to help support teams summarize customer histories, correct grammar, automate processes, and analyze customer sentiments.
• A contact management (CRM) containing customer profiles, including name, addresses, purchasing history, and preferences.

5. Create canned responses

Prepare and save answers to commonly asked questions to enable support agents quickly resolve customer queries.

Canned responses save support teams’ time so they can focus on more complex issues.

6. Set up automatic routing

Customer inquiries can be automatically transferred to the right support agent with the appropriate knowledge to handle the task.

Automatic chat routing ensures that no agent is overloaded with tasks, maximizing agents’ productivity.

7. Train your team

Give lessons to your agents on how to use the live chat on your website effectively.

Equip your support team with good communication skills to handle customer complaints, manage different customer scenarios, and escalate issues.

Ensure they can handle multiple issues simultaneously, save canned responses, and work with live chat integrations.

8. Set your chat availability

Specify the working days and hours during which your support team will cater to customer requests.

If possible, arrange different shifts to ease employee exhaustion and allow ongoing service provision. If agents are not present, leave a message that indicates when they will return.

9. Verify live chat functionality and go live

Before launching, check to confirm that all features are working seamlessly.

You can use different devices to test the user experience on the web and via your mobile app. Then launch the chat feature.

10. Collect feedback and analyze live chat performance

Once it’s live, keep an eye on chat interactions and collect feedback to learn how to enhance the effectiveness of the tool.

Employ live chat metrics like first response time, average handling time, and chat volume to study customer behavior, agent performance, and the overall effectiveness of the live chat tool.

This data can help you improve your live chat strategy too.

Advantages of adding chat to website

Adding live chat in website is beneficial to businesses and customers in the following ways.

Strengthens customer support

Adding live chat to websites let support teams provide customers with real-time help, allowing them to resolve issues efficiently.

Support teams are able to access relevant information quickly from the self-service tool embedded in live chat software to provide fast solutions to customers.

Live chat tool can be integrated with CRM systems to allow agents access customer data for personalized responses.

Boosts sales

Adding live chat to websites can guide customers during the purchasing process. Agents can manage questions about products and decrease the likelihood of cart abandonment.

Also, companies make announcements to inform customers of promotions and discounts available on their products through live chat. This pushes customers to make a purchase, thereby boosting sales.

Enhances customer loyalty

Customers expecting quick and personalized experience are likely to engage with businesses offering live chat support.

They prefer to keep purchasing from businesses they know will provide customized responses and solutions.

Saves on time

Adding live chat to websites reduces customer wait times, as opposed to email support, where each response can take hours or even days.

Live chat tools store canned responses that support agents can quickly send to manage a customer’s inquiry, reducing time spent typing responses

The tool also enables agents to manage multiple inquiries simultaneously, thereby saving time compared to phone support, where an agent attends to one inquiry at a time.

Gives competitive advantage

When businesses add live chat to website, their agents can provide real-time support to customers anytime they need help. This can set them apart from competitors who do not provide the same instant customer support.

Integrating live chat with chatbots ensures 24/7 customer service, enabling end users to get issues solved anytime from anywhere.

Customers will be looking for a provider who can serve them when they need service.

Improves cost efficiency

Live chat operates online, eliminating the need for on-premises hardware, software, and maintenance costs.

Adding live chat to website does not require physical space for offices, equipment, and agents; it can be accessed remotely, reducing the need for office space.

6 best live chat software tools for businesses

Picking the best live chat software for your business can be quite challenging. Here are some of the best live chat tools for customer service.

1. BoldDesk

BoldDesk is a cloud-based platform that provides live chat software as part of its customer service suite for customers to conveniently seek help directly from the website.

BoldDesk tracks the webpages customers visit before starting a chat, allowing agents to understand better what the customer needs and tailor their support accordingly.

Requests from all channels can be accessed on a single platform, with the omnichannel support ensuring no customer request is overlooked.

Complex issues can be converted into tickets, ensuring detailed tracking and allowing agents to escalate requests to the most appropriate team for resolution.

Chat transcripts can be saved and sent via email, providing both the agents and customers with a record of the conversation.

This fosters transparency, enabling future agents to personalize responses based on previous conversations.

Customers are guaranteed the 24/7 service to reach out for support any time need arises, ensuring that customer communication is complete.

BoldDesk offers a fairly straightforward method for adding live chat to your website. Check out this video to learn more.

Features

• Live chat software provides real-time chat functionality via website to ensure timely resolution of customer queries.
• An omnichannel inbox help support teams manage all customer requests from a unified platform.
• Customize the look of your chat feature to match your website.
• Integration options enable you add chat to websites and embed it with your apps.
• Multilingual support that enables live chat to support multiple languages, avoiding difficulty in communication across a diverse customer base.

Pricing

BoldDesk has two pricing categories that include adding live chat to websites.

Agent-Based Plans

• Momentum: $25/agent/month
• Enterprise: $39/agent/month

Team-based plans

• Momentum: $129/month for 10 agents
• Enterprise: $199/month for 10 agents

Unlimited Agents Plans

• Pro: $1999/month
• Business: Contact us

You can do a 15-day free trial and schedule a live demo.

2. Zendesk

Zendesk’s live chat software offers a user-friendly interface, enabling businesses to smoothly add live chat to website to communicate with customers.

Features

• AI and automations
• Integrations
• Chatbots
• Centralized workspace

Pricing

Starts at $55/month/agent

There is a 30-day free trial available

3. Tidio

Tidio is live chat software helping businesses to add chat to websites to communicate with their customers in real-time.

Features

• Customization
• AI assist features
• Integration with favorite apps
• Automation

Pricing

Starts at $29/month

There is a 7-day free trial available

4. Olark

Olark’s live chat software provides on-time support enabling companies to add chat to websites, interact with customers, and offer instant help.

Features

• Customization
• Automation
• Chatbots

Pricing

Starting at $29/month

There is a 14-day free trial available

5. LiveAgent

LiveAgent offers live chat software in its helpdesk platform. Users can add chat to websites for efficient customer support and tracking of customer issues across various channels.

Features

• Automation
• Reporting
• Internal chat
• Website tracking

Pricing

Starts at: $15/user/month

There is a 14-day free trial available

6. HubSpot

HubSpot allows businesses to add live chat to websites to communicate with customers in real-time. It comes as part of its large commerce software package.

Features

• Chat routing
• Artificial intelligence
• Branding and customization
• Automations

Pricing

Starts at $15/month/user

There is a 15-day free trial available

Elevate your customer service by adding live chat to website

Live chat is an essential component for businesses as it enhances customer satisfaction, boosts sales, and reduces response times. Add chat to websites and watch your customer communication flourish.

We hope you found this blog helpful. Please share your comments on how you add live chat to your website in the provided section below.

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