As a company progresses through its natural lifespan, the focus shifts to nurturing customers, making support services a crucial battleground.
Live chat plugins provide customers with almost instant access to your support team, allowing them to communicate with either a real person or an intelligent ‘bot’ that guides them to the appropriate destination.
In this post, we will examine several live chat plugins and provide guidance on selecting the one that may be most suitable for you.
7 Top Live Chat Plugins for Your WordPress Website
Now, let’s proceed to the plugins. The seven plugins presented here are not arranged in any specific order, but we recommend that you assess them based on your individual needs.
1. LiveChat
The first plugin we will discuss is LiveChat, which is also known as the WordPress Live Chat Plugin by LiveChat. This particular plugin is highly regarded and is used by prestigious companies such as McDonalds, Adobe, and PayPal. Therefore, it is an excellent choice for larger organizations.
LiveChat offers a range of solutions to cater to various needs, including the WooCommerce Live Chat plugin for WordPress.
LiveChat has various efficiency features, including canned responses, which allow you to send personalized messages and files automatically within the chat window.
The most advantageous aspect of LiveChat is also its biggest disadvantage. It is a comprehensive live chat platform that includes nearly everything necessary for customer support. Consequently, it may be excessive for a smaller website.
LiveChat is an excellent solution for businesses that require extensive support, particularly if maintaining a personalized approach to customer support is crucial.
2. Tidio Live Chat
Coming up next, Tidio is a company that provides a live chat plugin with excellent user feedback. It is specifically designed for WordPress site owners and includes integration with email marketing services and a chatbot within its package.
Once the installation is complete, you can quickly set up multiple chat windows on various pages. The plugin has built-in support for nearly 200 languages, and provides customization options to ensure that Tidio’s chat windows align with your branding.
With the inclusion of integrated email marketing, you can effectively engage with users after they exit your website, thereby utilizing your support channels as an entry point for sales funnel. Additionally, there are various third-party integrations accessible.
If you have a WordPress website, we believe that Tidio is the top choice for your live chat requirements. It is a modern solution with a well-designed set of features. Additionally, our research confirms that it is one of the plugins that is regularly updated and maintained.
3. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is primarily recognized for its excellent email marketing services, even though the live chat feature is equally effective.
You have the option to utilize the design tools available in order to create a personalized chat box that aligns with your brand. This attention to detail also extends to the interactions between agents and users. For instance, you have the ability to monitor the specific page where a user sought support and assign conversations to different agents. As a result, you can keep users actively engaged with your team as you address their inquiries.
The abundance of integrations offered by Sendinblue is arguably its greatest advantage. There are various ways in which WordPress users can be accommodated. You have the option to install a specific plugin, incorporate live chat using the Elementor Page Builder plugin, include it through WooCommerce, and many more alternatives.
If you are already part of the Sendinblue ecosystem, you will benefit the most. Existing users are best suited to use Sendinblue. Nonetheless, the functionality is excellent for all users, particularly considering the price in comparison to other freemium tools.
4. Crisp Live Chat
Crisp Live Chat is a component of a comprehensive marketing and support solution and includes features such as a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) and email marketing. Though comparable to Tidio and Sendinblue at first glance, there are distinct variations between them.
Crisp promotes its service as a solution called a ‘shared inbox’. This signifies that, regardless of the support channel, a user is managed from a central location. This feature is beneficial for teams that require support escalation among themselves. Additionally, it allows for the integration of a knowledge base, enabling users to resolve their queries independently.
Crisp Live Chat is focused on linking users with support teams and attempting to make the typically impersonal digital experience more human. In our viewpoint, it is mostly successful due to its excellent features like ‘MagicBrowse,’ which enables a support agent to co-browse a website alongside a user.
Therefore, Crisp is well-suited for teams who prefer guiding users or providing assistance for complex products with an inherent need for support.
5. HubSpot Live Chat
HubSpot is a prominent player in the marketing field, known to almost everyone. Their offerings include a Content Management System (CMS), CRM, and live chat functionality.
The dedicated WordPress plugin offers the Service Hub package which includes various features such as live chat, support ticketing, automated bots, and more, all for free. By utilizing this package, you can enhance your support provision and streamline your processes, enabling them to be successful.
Similar to other extensive offerings, HubSpot only faces problems if you do not require all of its features. However, if you are already utilizing HubSpot’s other services, it may be logical to remain within the ecosystem.
6. Olark
Olark is frequently mentioned as a solution for a valid reason. It stands out among other live chat plugins due to its visually appealing appearance and its equivalent functionality.
You are able to organize the information gathered from your users in either Olark or your preferred CRM. Additionally, you can create ‘pre-chat’ forms to qualify the user and facilitate assigning them correctly to an agent.
We appreciate your ability to utilize the knowledge gained from your interactions to improve your support service in the future. Creating thorough user profiles could offer advantages such as improved targeted support, potential sales opportunities, and more.
Olark will be beneficial for teams that depend on support interactions to enhance their sales strategy due to the contents of the box. Small teams aiming to optimize their support provision or medium businesses seeking expansion will also find value in Olark’s services.
BONUS: 3CX Free Live Chat, Calls & WhatsApp
You can establish a connection with your website visitors free of charge by using the 3CX Live Chat plugin. This plugin, which has over 30,000 active installations, is a dependable and proven live chat solution for WordPress. Unlike other options, 3CX provides free integrated voice, video, and team collaboration capabilities without sacrificing any of the advantages for your business.
You can begin to manage your communications effectively and conveniently in one hub, all for free each year. If your chats aren’t efficient enough, you can easily switch to making free audio and video calls directly from your browser. Additionally, besides live chat, customers also have the option to connect with you through Whatsapp, Facebook, and Text. This opportunity is just waiting for a sale to happen!
No matter if it’s a million chats or a 10-agent team, 3CX Free will always remain completely free.
AND NOT JUST CHATS – VOICE, WHATSAPP TOO!
- Deliver WhatsApp business messages direct to your Web Client, Desktop and Smartphone Apps
- If you need it – there’s Facebook and Text messaging too!
- Free live calls – allowing voice calls direct from the browser
- Team Messaging – to answer, transfer and resolve customer queries on one platform across multiple agents
- And replace your old phone system with a new cloud one – free
- Get 3CX free forever …and benefit forever!
WHY 3CX IS YOUR #1 LIVE CHAT SOLUTION
- Live Chat
- Inbound WhatsApp, FB, Text
- Video Conferencing x 25
- 3CX Talk / Meet Links
- Mobile & Desktop Apps
- Hosted on Cloud
- Choose your SIP Trunk
- Ring Group
- Auto Attendant
How do I get 3CX StartUP Free?
To begin, register for a 3CX account by clicking here. Next, install the WordPress Plugin onto your website. After that, use the login details provided to access the Web Client. Then, navigate to Office Settings > Voice & Chat > Add Live Chat. Lastly, simply copy and paste the 3CX Live Chat URL.
Will 3CX Live Chat plugin remain free forever?
The 3CX Live Chat plugin will always be free. If you have a 3CX StartUP edition, you can use the live chat feature for free, but there is a limit of 10 users. However, with 3CX Dedicated (whether hosted or self-managed), you can use the live chat feature for unlimited users and it is also free.
The chat is not responsive for mobile devices, resulting in half of the conversation being cut off.
Even if you choose to use standalone storage on your own WP server, this plugin still uses WebSockets to communicate with 3CX servers for real-time operations. As a result, all of your confidential information, including visitor details like name and email address, as well as every message from you or your visitors, is transmitted through this channel and received by 3CX servers without encryption. The option to enable encryption within the WP plugin does not have any impact on this. Although the data is encrypted during transit using the WSS protocol, it can still be accessed on 3CX servers. The mention of chat message content not being logged in the “external party services” section is not clear, especially when considering that these external services are used even in the standalone setup. This raises significant privacy concerns, undermines compliance with GDPR, and overall reduces the trustworthiness of a solution that is promoted as standalone.
The functionality ceased abruptly. It is not possible to establish a connection with the server. There has been no communication from the developers or their live chat support.
If the concept actually functioned, it would be excellent. The plug-in consistently displays agents as offline, regardless of who is using it or if a queue is involved. Offline messages are not delivered to anyone, and although the plug-in can appear for greeting purposes, it fails to open in a new box when initiating a chat. The phone system operates admirably, whereas the chat plug-in is incredibly subpar.
The current system is functional, but it needs additional flexibility for customization, specifically for the Mobile and Desktop versions. This customization should include the ability to adjust position, opacity, size, etc. Furthermore, it should also provide a choice between windowed mode and embedded mode for the pop-up chat feature.
