What is Live Chat?

Live chat is an online communication method that allows businesses to communicate with their website visitors in real-time in a chat box. Having live chat software installed on your website can let you interact live with your customers in the chat box instead of having to speak to them over the phone or via email.

Live Chat Software Installation

Live chat software is very easy to install and operate. In order to use live chat, you should first choose a live chat software provider (we have listed a number of live chat software providers below) that you would like to use for live chat on your website. 

Live chat has two views

 

1. Operator view

2. Customer view
    

Only the operator side installation is required on your website. Install a simple plug and play code provided by the live chat software company on your website and you are ready to go. 

In order to test the service, open two browsers or use two computers; act as a visitor on one computer and act as an operator on the other computer (open your live chat dashboard for operator) and start communicating.

Why Live Chat is required?

Emails take time to answer, and phone calls may cost more and also may not work well if you are living in another country with a different time zone. In such cases, live chat software is a very useful tool to help businesses communicate with their clients.

Live chat is required because website visitors look for a quick response to their queries, and if businesses fail to respond quickly they could end up losing a lead because customers jump to their competitors’ websites.

If website visitors are not happy about business products or services, they would simply quit the website and jump to another website, with the business owner never getting to know the reason why the website visitor quit the website. Live chat helps the business operator to initiate a conversation to check with the website visitor whether everything is ok and if they have found what they are looking for on the website.

Does Live Chat Help SEO of the Website?

Live chat plays an indirect role in search engine optimisation of your website. If your website has a higher bounce rate it means visitors are leaving your website quickly without exploring your website or buying your products and services. A higher bounce rate gives a signal to Google that the website is less important, which could result in lower rankings for the website. The bounce rate can be checked through Google analytics or some other 3rd party tracking software. On the other hand, if your website has a lower bounce rate it means visitors are spending more time on your website, and they are interested in your website, products or services. This phenomena encourages Google algorithms to sense that the website is important and should be ranked higher on the search interface. Google wants to display quality results to its users on its SERP’s. 

Live chat helps to reduce your website bounce rate because when visitors land on your website, live chat is there to help with their queries in real-time. When visitors have any questions about your products or services they choose to chat live through the chat box while your website is open. While the business operator is communicating with the website visitor through live chat, the website stays open and allows visitors to stay on the website for longer, which in turn helps to reduce the website overall bounce rate and improves SEO rankings of the website on search engines.

Another important SEO advantage of using live chat on your website is that the majority of live chat dashboards keep track of visitors’ keywords. If that data is used professionally it could dramatically help the business owner to improve their SEO campaign based on real customers’ data.

23 Key Benefits of Live Chat Software:

 

1. Instead of delayed response on the phone or via email, live chat lets customers and businesses interact in real-time.

2. High conversion rate.

3. Live chat is very easy to use; the visitor simply opens the live chat box and starts typing to communicate with the business’s customer service.

4. Live chat is very personal and the fastest way of communication.

5. Studies conducted by many live chat software providers shows that over 50% of customers return to businesses that used live chat software on their website in the past.

6. It is very cost effective for both customers and businesses.

7. Ease of use for customers as they do not need to install anything on their side.

8. Allows time for the operator (business) to think and respond to the customer professionally.

9. Huge SEO benefit as live chat engages your customers on your website; the more time they spend on your website, the lower your website bounce rate will be, which helps SEO of your website.

10. Using live chat software, businesses can gather real-time feedback from visitors/customers without annoying them with phone call or emails.

11. Prepare predetermined responses to common questions that allows businesses to respond quickly to customer queries.

12. Live chat helps businesses to study their visitors’ online behaviour which could be used to improve the businesses’ services.

13. Extracting visitors’ keywords from the live chat dashboard could help to improve SEO campaigns.

14. Live chat is inexpensive for businesses because free versions offered by the majority of live chat software providers allow 1 operator to use the service for free, and the premium version with multiple operators is also not expensive to use.

15. Live chat provides a better shopping experience to the website visitors.

16. Using live chat software, businesses can talk to their customers on the go using features such as mobile app.

17. Most live chat software allows businesses to see through their dashboard what the customer is typing in real-time.

18. Live chat allows businesses to track their customers, to see what they are looking for and understand them so that they can be served better.

19. More leads and sales for your business.

20. Higher customer satisfaction.

21. Customers can request live chat conversation script as proof which they can keep as future evidence of the conversation that happened with the business operator.

22. Using live chat software your customers can send extra information in real-time such as files, images, web-links to help the business operator understand and solve the problem.

23. Visitors may leave the website if they are unhappy with the website’s products or services and the website owner never gets to know the reason. Live chat helps to solve this problem as the chat operator can initiate a chat in real-time to ask the website visitor if they have found what they are looking for on the website.

50 Best Live Chat Software for Websites

There are numerous live chat software provider companies in the market. We have compiled a list of the most popular live chat software providers below. The majority of them offer free live chat for a limited number of operators (e.g. 1 operator), and if your business has more requirements or you want to use premium live chat with additional features you can subscribe to their paid monthly or yearly services.

 

1. Tawk

2. Tidio

3. Chaport

4. Crisp

5. Drift

6. Live Chat

7. LiveHelpNow

8. ClickDesk

9. PureChat

10. Zendesk

11. LiveAgent

12. Olark

13. WebsiteAlive

14. Comm100

15. Jivochat

16. SmartSupp

17. SnapEngage

18. Bitrix24

19. iAdvize

20. Nextiva

21. Kayako

22. Nextiva

23. Bold360

24. Freshchat

25. LivePerson

26. EngageBay

27. Velaro

28. Reve Chat

29. Avochato

30. Formilla

31. Podium

32. Trengo

33. HelpCrunch

34. Chatra

35. Userlike

36. LiveZilla

37. Sparkcentral

38. Sendinblue

39. Rocket Chat

40. ChatBeacon

41. Rocketbots

42. onWebChat

43. Helpshift

44. SnapEngage

45. ChatBot

46. SnapEngage

47. Zoho Desk

48. LiveSupporti

49. HappyFox

50. Intercom

If you are unsure about using live chat on your website, you can always try a free limited version of live chat on your website to measure its effectiveness. If you find the tool useful then you can use it on your website otherwise remove it from your website; there is no harm in trying live chat on your website.

Conclusion

Communication is key. In today’s times digital world connectivity is growing and bringing us closer to each other.  Live chat is becoming more and more famous amongst people and businesses because customers need not install anything on their side, nor do they need to sign up to use this service. Customers simply click on the live chat box visible on the website and start communicating with the business’s customer representatives to ask about anything e.g. more information on the business’s products and services or any other questions they have. Live chat is a very useful tool for both customers and businesses and can have a significant positive impact on your business conversion rate and sales.

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