Woocommerce Live Chat Plugins [Benefits & Best Practices]

Woocommerce is a popular WordPress plugin that owes its success to the unmatched flexibility it gives business owners. It is a versatile and buildable plugin that allows you to mimic the seamless customer experience of a custom-built website at half the cost and with no hassle. 

With or without the tech-savvy of your favorite IT guy, you can use Woocommerce to test out various themes and product catalogs, set up secure payments, and much more. 

For a business that is just starting, Woocommerce has plenty to offer- 

• Data Security 
• Order Management 
• SEO Management 
• Shipping Management 

These essential functionalities will see you through your initial journey. And as you grow, you will look for added functionalities for your online store. You won’t have to look further than the limitless WordPress plugins to suit your business needs. 

The plugins are a boon for growing businesses, which can automate their tasks and look for added functionalities without migrating. 

Does Woocommerce have Live Chat?

No. Woocommerce does not have a live chat feature. You can add live chat to your woocommerce website via a WordPress live chat plugin. Discover more on Ecommerce Live Chat Software

Why Do We Need a Live Chat Plugin for Woocommerce Store?

WordPress plugins might sound like a good solution initially, but they slow down the servers. 

This will negatively impact the website’s performance, not to mention its impact on the user experience. 

Slow servers will ultimately affect the SEO rankings as well. 

Hence, a live chat provider is advised for your online business. Here are some other reasons to add live chat widget to your Woocommerce online business: 

Improved Customer Satisfaction:

A Live chat window is one of the most accessible customer service channels, and helps provide instant customer service. It can be used to improve the pre-purchase experience and solve post-purchase queries as well. It is a convenient channel to replace frustrating phone calls, email exchanges and can save your customers from searching through an endless knowledge base. Learn more on How to Measure Customer Satisfaction.

Higher Conversion Rates:

A visitor browsing your website may not understand your value proposition or may have questions that keep them from trying out the product. With features like real-time monitoring, agents can use the live chat widget to target visitors who show interest in a product and nudge them to make a purchase. 

Higher Average Order Value:

Live chat allows customer representatives to try upselling or cross-sell a product. Modern chat window function as a customer support hub, integrating different channels and compiling customer data to create more personalized customer interactions and compelling pitches. It also solves for customer engagement and allows agents to reach out to website visitors and offer help or guidance.

Improved Agent Satisfaction:

A live chat window, when used correctly, can act as a vehicle for meaningful customer interactions that allow agents to concentrate their efforts on revenue-generating conversations or building lasting customer relationships. 

Read More: Benefits of Live Chat for Ecommerce

Factors to Consider while choosing Live Chat for Woocommerce:

Flexibility:

Woocommerce is the top pick for business owners looking for flexibility matching that of custom-built sites. When picking a live chat widget for Woocommerce, pick a solution that allows you to enjoy the same freedoms. You should be able to define workflows, automate assignments, or even route customer conversations according to your business needs.  

WordPress Integration:

The deeper the WordPress integrations, the higher will be your agent productivity. Deep integration with Woocommerce will allow your agents to take order actions from the live chat backend. Not only this, the ability of your live chat solution to pull customer data and order history will create more contextual and personalized conversations and eventually lead to a improved customer satisfaction scores. 

Essential Features Live Chat Should Have:

Omnichannel Support:

A generic live chat widget will only help you add another customer communication channel. To improve customer experience, streamlining customer support across all your channels is imperative. Look for a live chat software that monitors and manages customer conversations across multiple channels. Learn More on Omnichannel Support

Multilingual Support:

English is the preferred language of only 25.9% of internet users today. If your customer support is only available in one language, you risk alienating many website visitors, who would prefer a competitor if they could communicate with the brand in their native language. Providing multilingual customer support is an essential feature to look for in a live chat widget for Woocommerce. 

Workflow Automation:

Your live chat widget should support intelligent automation to improve work efficiency. Whether it is assigning tickets to the correct department, triggering specific canned responses, or even CSAT surveys. This will reduce the need for manual oversight, and your team can concentrate on quality conversations. 

Self-Service Feature:

Customer Self-service is the most effective and underutilized customer support tool. An advanced live chat solution should help you harness the power of self-service. It should empower customers to take order actions like cancellations without contacting customer support. It facilitates quick resolution without deflecting customer queries and reduces the load on your customer service team.

Best Live Chat Plugin for Woocommerce Store:

Richpanel:

Richpanel is an eCommerce customer support software with a live chat feature. Centered around its self-service feature, Richpanel’s live chat widget helps reduce ticket volumes by giving customers the power to initiate refunds, track orders and ask for exchanges. It provides a highly personalized and effective platform for customer communication without impacting the bottom line revenue

• A customizable knowledge base that helps customers find answers to frequently asked questions without contacting customer support. 
• A CSAT survey which is is very thoughtfully triggered. Richpanel sends out CSAT surveys when certain conditions are met, like when the chat is more than 50 characters. 
• The back end mimics popular social media like LinkedIn and Facebook. It is exceptionally intuitive and easy to use. 
• It provides agents with complete customer context and conversation history from different channels, giving them better insights into the customer’s problem.

Owing to its philosophy of reducing redundancy in customer tickets, Richpanel does not have a chatbot feature. It merely relies on self-service to answer simple questions. Richpanel may not be the right choice for businesses looking for chatbot automation.  Discover more on Chatbot Limitation

Checkout how leading E-Commerce brands are redefining customer service with Richpanel.

• Brute Force Training Achieved 69% Automated Resolutions
• How BumpBoxx resolves tickets in 5 Seconds!
• Pawz resolved 70% of tickets through self-service

Zendesk: 

Zendesk is a generalized customer support software built for various industries. It is highly customizable and can cater to the needs of different types of businesses.

The Zendesk Live Chat plugin is one of the most popular live chat solutions. Here are some of Zendesk features:

• Pre-chat forms collect customer information to provide agents with context.
• It allows you to preview website visitors.
• Allows you to send out CSAT surveys to evaluate the customer experience

Due to the overwhelming customizations, the learning curve is steep. Hence it may not be ideal for Woocommerce business owners, especially if you need a dedicated tech team to handle your website. Learn more on Zendesk Alternatives

Checkout Why Leading Ecommerce Brands Migrated from Zendesk to Richpanel

• Atlas Bars chose Richpanel over Zendesk. Here's why.
• How Bicycle Warehouse Improved CX with a Lean Team after Moving from Zendesk

Live Chat:

LiveChat is a Woocommerce extension for large-scale businesses, customer support, and sales teams. Here are some of its features: 

• Provides detailed CSAT reports on agent performance metrics
• Canned responses for quick turnaround time. 
• Live chat message templates with product carousels.

Livechat could be more reliable, however. Users reported frequent glitches, and Livechat also limits the number of queued conversations and sets a bar on the number of chat invitations you can send. 

JivoChat:

Jivochat provides a centralized hub for communication by integrating all social media and other support channels. Here are some of its features:

• It allows you to store customer information and give customer context to your support agents
• Allows you to review saved dialogues
• It enables you to analyze lead sources and gain insights into customer behavior
• It also allows you to explore the sales funnel and improve your workflows

Jovichat is excellent for businesses looking for a basic tool to integrate all communication channels. It does not support scaling businesses looking for a more comprehensive customer support app. 

FreshDesk:

Freshdesk is another customer service software that provides helpdesk support. It aims to resolve customer queries and increase agent productivity through workforce management and automation:

• It enables agents to split tasks allowing multiple agents to work on them simultaneously. It detects message collision, ensuring various agents don't reply to the same customer. 
• It provides multi-channel customer support and integrates with other apps from the Freshworks family, such as Freshcaller, Freshchat, Freshsales, Freshmarketer, and Freshdesk CRM.

Freshdesk is a generic helpdesk with limited customer service capabilities. It is suitable for small businesses but may not keep up with the needs of a growing business. 

Read Also: Best Woocommerce Support Ticket System

Reamaze Live Chat:

Reamaze is a live chat widget and ticketing software for small and medium-sized businesses. It is a ecommerce helpdesk software that combines various channels like email, live chat, video call, social media, mobile SMS, and VoIP through one window. Here are some of its features:

• It provides customer insights like browsing activity and geolocation.
• Allows you to create canned responses for redundant queries.
• It sends automated pop-up messages to convert your website visitors into customers. 

The Reamaze chatbot is notorious for misunderstanding customer intent and leading to discrepancies. Instead of reducing the burden on your customer support team, it requires manual oversight. Reamaze may not be the right choice for businesses prioritizing customer experience. Learn more on Reamaze Alternatives.

Recommended Read: Best Shopify Live Chat Apps

Conclusion: 

Your live chat plugin should support your customer service strategy and enable you to streamline your customer service across all channels. It should empower you to have quality conversations with your customers- whether through a robust self-service feature or by providing comprehensive customer context. Choose a live chat app that meets all your business needs, imporves customer engagement and helps your business increase bottom-line revenue. Book Live Demo or Signup for Free Account to Learn More