Do you use a live chat feature on your blog? Not everyone feels that a live chat box on their blog is important or even necessary, but it can actually benefit your blog in more ways than you may think.
Contact forms are great for receiving comments and feedback, but a live chat lets you provide support right on the spot. Your visitors, customers, or potential customers won’t have to wait hours, days or even weeks for an email response back from you; they can get the answers that they need immediately. It’s definitely a huge convenience to them and it also helps to keep your Inbox a little cleaner.
If you have an eCommerce blog (online store) or sell products like eBooks on your blog, then it’s even more important to use live chat; it can help to greatly increase your product sales – especially during big holidays like Christmas.
These are just a few reasons why having a live chat feature on your blog is so beneficial. Now let’s take a look at a few plugins that you can use to add live chat to your blog.
ClickDesk Live Support
Not only does ClickDesk add a live text chat service to your blog, but it also adds live voice chat. This way your visitors can talk to you directly from their Web browser. ClickDesk integrates with your regular IM service and can also be used on your mobile device. So no matter where you are, your visitors can reach you and you can give them the support they need right on the spot.
ClickDesk will show whether you’re online to chat or offline; if offline, your visitors will still be able to leave a message.
Live Chat by UserPulse
This plugin adds a Live Chat toolbar to the bottom right corner of your blog. From the toolbar, visitors can chat with you live or leave a message. In order to use the live chat feature, you’ll need to have an account at ContactUsPlus.com; the live chat feature will only work when you’re logged into that website.
With Live Chat by UserPulse you can chat from your browser or smart phone. You can also chat with multiple visitors at once, attach files to a chat message, compile a list of canned responses to use during a chat, include a call-me form, and much more.
Unfortunately, all of these features do come at a price; the service is $29.99/month after a 30-day free trial.
ActiveHelper LiveHelp
ActiveHelper adds a professional-looking live chat service to your blog that also lets you monitor your visitors in real-time. You can see things like: how many visitors are on your website, where visitors are being referred from, where they’re located (based on IP address), and what keywords were used to find your website.
With ActiveHelper, you can have more than one chat operator helping your visitors; it allows for unlimited operators, unlimited departments, and unlimited domains. Chats can be done in the browser or from a smart phone. As you can see, ActiveHelper is really great for large businesses and corporations.
There’s a huge list of features that you can enjoy with ActiveHelper, but like Live Chat by UserPulse, the service is not free. This plugin can be purchased for a the flat rate of $74.95 and it also comes with a 30-day free trial.
Live Chat Software by HelpOnClick
HelpOnClick’s software is just a simple copy-and-paste live chat box that you can add to your blog in under 5 minutes. If you’re not looking for all the bells and whistles offered by the other plugins on this list, then Live Chat Software by HelpOnClick is perfect for you.
It also includes themes for the chat window and a real-time traffic monitor. With the traffic monitor, you can see what your visitors are doing and how long they’ve been on the site.
Final Thoughts
What is your preferred method of providing support on your blog? Do you like to receive messages via a contact form or do you prefer using live chat? If you’re using a live chat plugin, which one are you using and why?
Creative Commons image courtesy of nidhug
Natasha Puri
This is a great list! Can you please look at Zestim .com and let me know your feedback?
Betty Linn
Live Chat, Support, Sales plugin on WordPress is simply awesome.It has a live support, web analytics and online marketing application. Single users can also use it for personal communication. There is Layout customization like client-chat colours, and other coloured features and you can Change the colour of your chat widget (colour of chat theme). Check it @ https://wordpress.org/plugins/chats/
Piper
Personally I think that another Live Chat service that it’s worth mentioning is Visilead.com.
I am actually testing it and I am pretty happy about the results. It is easy to set up and to use, and also very fast. What I really like about it is that it is not only limited to Live Chat but it has also some interesting extra features and real time analytics that allow me to monitor my visitors in real time.
Here you can find a comparison of Visitlead with other Live Chat providers: https://visitlead.com/alternative/
Klaus
Thanks for mentioning. Visitlead is a Enterprise On-Site Marketing Solution with a bunch of awesome and unique features. Things like unlimited VOICE and VIDEO CHAT (VisitorUser and UserUser). That is included in every plan.
To see all features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwq5Xbz1ncU
Remark: There is also a FreePlan available! With core Live Chat (no monthly chat limit!).
Zoey Richardson
I accidentally came across inside , and after looking through their site http://www.inside.tm/magento-chat, it morphs a business website into a virtual storefront so business personnel can see and help their site visitors in real-time using chat.
Zoey Richardson
I accidentally came across inside , and after looking through their site http://www.inside.tm/magento-chat, it morphs a business website into a virtual storefront so business personnel can see and help their site visitors in real-time using chat.
Hyder
Banckle Chat is another live chat app for small business, you can signup for free here:
https://apps.banckle.com/action/signup
Live Chat
Quick customer support increases customer satisfaction. Live chat tool makes it easy. Many Entrepreneurs are using Live2Support on their websites. Live2Support is fast, secure and affordable live chat software.
Matthew Stibbe (@TurbineHQ)
We use Olark on TurbineHQ.com and it works really well. I have a Pidgin chat client on my PC and there’s also a web-based chat system too. It took about five minutes to set up on the site (which is WordPress-based). It costs $15 a month. I’ve got no connection with Olark except as a happy customer.
Graham
IMsupporting.com is another great live chat provider.
-G