What is the best customer service strategy for online retailers? I think it is building a strong online reputation and maintaining efficient communication with your customers. That’s where Ecommerce chat tools come into play. In this article, I’m going to outline the top reasons why you need to be using ecommerce chat tools on your site.
When it comes to customer support, ecommerce chat tools make it easy for you to directly communicate with your customers. This allows you to resolve issues before they become problems and keep your customers happy. Today, there are many ecommerce chat tools available including Olark, Zopim, Drift, Intercom and more. Selecting the best option for your business or website can be tricky though. That’s why I’ve put together this guide to help you find the best ecommerce chat tool for your business.
Here is a list of live chat tools. Many of these tools come in multichannel support platforms with a variety of ecommerce integrations. All of these tools are affordable for small and medium sized businesses. Several offer free plans.
Tidio
Tidio is a great ecommerce live chat software that helps you have better conversations with your customers. You can use Tidio to connect with your customers and solve their queries in a timely and efficient manner. At the moment, it’s also the highest-ranked live chat app on the Shopify store.
Pros:
- Tidio enables you & your team to monitor conversations from live chat, messenger, and emails from one screen.
- Tidio’s live chat allows you to connect with visitors in real-time through customizable widgets.
- You can also automate the most frequently asked questions by your customers helping your agents save time.
- Tidio has integrations with most top business software that you’ll be using in your daily workflow.
Cons:
- Tidio is not a tool keeping only ecommerce store owners in mind. This means your specific set of requirements can’t be met by using this tool.
- You can’t view messages from multiple properties on one Tidio tab, this could be extremely inconvenient if you’re managing multiple ecommerce stores.
- Tidio’s ‘Communicator plan’ starts from $18/month but with an additional fee required for every additional user, this could work out to be quite expensive. And many reviews suggest an ‘unreasonable and unscalable’ pricing model.
Gorgias
Gorgias is a customer service software designed for ecommerce stores. They integrate with Shopify, BigCommerce & WooCommerce. They have a great integration with Shopify that helps support agents to dole out great customer support seamlessly.
Pros:
- Gorgias integrates with Shopify like no other. This enables them to pull customer data right into the dashboard. Additionally, it also helps in modifying an order, initiating refunds, and a range of things that you otherwise need to visit the Shopify admin dashboard to execute the same.
- You can use custom tags and use them to tag conversations for future reference in Gorgias.
- You can see full live chat and message history with a specific customer across different channels in one view
- You can create highly customized Macros to automate replies to commonly asked questions.
- Finally, they have intent-detection, which enables you to detect customer intents like shipping, refund, exchange, and many others. You can then set up automatic replies or route the tickets with tags.
Cons:
- Gorgias is not very easy to use. There’s a steep learning curve to draw value out of the product properly.
- It’s super expensive. The plan with all the features costs $750/month with a cap of 6000 tickets/month.
- Collaboration is not easy on Gorgias. It’s difficult to hand over a conversation to a different support rep or ask someone for help when you need it. You might end up using another internal chat tool to collaborate within your team.
- A lot of customers say that Gorgias is more of a ticketing system than a conversation tool. Additionally, many reviews suggest that it can be hard to get issues resolved by their support team.
Reamaze
Reamaze is another great live chat option for ecommerce brands. It’s said to be the closest competitor to players like DelightChat, Gorgias, and Richpanel. It helps your team resolve customer queries seamlessly. And the live chat from Reamaze is one of its main features.
Pros:
- Reamaze is known for its live chat feature owing to its customizable chat experience and instant ‘check order status’ bot. It also boasts other functionalities like FAQ-search, status page (you’ll know if your order’s delayed), pre-built bots, and more.
- Their chatbot feature, Cues, can help you trigger messages based on URL/UTM, time on site, Shopify activities, etc. This equips you to personalize your customer’s experience at a deeper level.
- You can see the users that are currently interacting with your site through their live dashboard. Armed with this, you can try and send a personalized message to generate a sale or simply help them better.
- It’s also one of those tools that integrate with almost all ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WordPress, Magento, and the likes. It’s also good with GDPR compliance that gives you peace of mind while selling in the European market.
Cons:
- The collaboration functionality within Reamaze isn’t exactly user-friendly. To manage customer support seamlessly, you might need to collaborate on a completely different tool like Slack or WhatsApp by sharing screenshots from Reamaze.
- The onboarding process and user interface leave a lot to be desired.
- Reamaze charges on a “per user, per month” model. This can turn out to be expensive when your support tickets grow, and you’d need to add more reps to the team.
- It’s more geared towards resolving tickets than having a conversation with a customer and building a relationship.
Richpanel
Richpanel helps ecommerce businesses to manage their customer service seamlessly. With Richpanel, you can easily track, manage & resolve queries in no time. You can manage all your support channels, viz., live chat, email, WhatsApp, Facebook & Instagram. This saves a lot of time & helps the support reps be more productive.
Pros:
- Richpanel saves you countless hours by bringing the most used support channels onto one dashboard. This includes live chat, email, Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp.
- You can eliminate up to 30% of repetitive support requests with its self-service feature. It offers a personalized experience where customers can view/track orders, peruse FAQs, and start a new conversation too.
- The live chat messenger can help you enable your customers to see orders, track packages & browse FAQs. Plus you can customize the branding to match your website.
- In Richpanel, you can create self-service workflows to resolve the commonly occurring scenarios for your support.
Cons:
- According to a lot of customers, Richpanel can be quite difficult to navigate. To put it simply, it’s not exactly intuitive.
- Their pricing starts at $249/mo for just 1000 customer conversations and can work out to be quite expensive.
- Richpanel isn’t built for seamless collaboration with your team. You might still have to use an additional tool to collaborate with your teammates for day-to-day activities.
- Richpanel caps the number of orders you can process on the platform. In their lowest plan, you can process a maximum of 1000 orders per month.
DelightChat
DelightChat is an ecommerce customer support tool built for SME brands that enables them to deliver out-of-the-box customer service. It’s designed with a conversation-first approach that enables you to manage your store’s support & painlessly resolve customer queries – all from a single screen.
Pros:
- DelightChat enables you to respond to customer queries & collaborate with your team, all from a single screen.
- DelightChat offers great value for money being significantly cheaper than the other options on this list.
- DelightChat doesn’t penalize you when you add more users to scale up your customer support operations.
- Most importantly, you can collaborate with your team right within the app itself. There is no need to toggle between tabs, which leads to a loss in productivity & loss of work hours.
Cons:
- For now, DelightChat only integrates with Shopify that allows it to access your Shopify admin dashboard data. However, it will soon be available for other ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce, WooCommerce & Magento.
- DelightChat is a relatively newer player on the market. So, there are still some features that are yet to be developed.
Tawk.to
Tawk.to is a free ecommerce live chat app that lets you monitor and chat with visitors on your website or from a free customizable page. It is an ecommerce support tool that lets you monitor and chat with the visitors on your website, respond to support tickets, and create a help center to empower customers to help themselves.
Pros:
- With tools like Live Chat, Ticketing, a Knowledge Base, and video & voice add-ons, you have what you need to be there for customers when and where they need you most.
- You can tag and assign conversations to members of your team and ensure the right person is responding at the right time. This means your agents can not only collaborate but also respond to queries with more context.
- You can create knowledge bases for both your team as well as customers. This empowers your agents to perform better and allows customers to resolve their queries independently without talking to an agent.
- The price is probably the most attractive part of Tawk.to. You have all the basic features that this customer support tool offers for free.
Cons:
- Tawk.to isn’t built for ecommerce. This is a big disadvantage since ecommerce store owners have a specific set of requirements that can’t be met using this tool.
- Their interface isn’t exactly attractive nor straightforward to use.
- There have been many reports of issues with notifications not showing up. This could result in messages getting missed and responses delayed, which is the last thing your customers want.
- While the tool may be free, the features you get are quite limited and you’ll need to purchase add-ons for multiple features including removing their company branding.
Chatra
Chatra is a live chat messenger app for ecommerce websites to help you increase online sales. You can add their live chat to your website and talk with your website visitors in real-time. Or use the messenger mode and reply to messages at your own pace.
Pros:
- Chatra allows you to see shopper’s cart contents which can help you identify your most valuable customers and provide tailored assistance.
- You can see who’s on your website and monitor visitors currently browsing your website with a real-time list.
- You can set up bots to initiate conversations when certain criteria are met or collect information outside your business hours.
- See what customers type before they hit “send”. Which allows you to save time on preparing an answer and boost FRTs.
Cons:
- Many of the key features aren’t available in their free plan.
- Their per agent pricing model could work out quite expensive if you have multiple agents managing support.
- The amount of customization possible is fairly limited.
- There have been reviews suggesting that the notifications don’t show up in time, which defeats the purpose of a live chat.
Looking for a helpdesk to manage support on live chat and all your other channels?
Switch to DelightChat, to ensure you never miss a customer query while saving 10+ hours every week through smart automation.💡 Learn more
JivoChat
JivoChat is an all-in-one business messenger that teams use to talk to customers everywhere: live chat, phone, email, and social. Their features aim to boost your support team’s efficiency and communication opportunities.
Pros:
- View who’s visiting, which webpages they are viewing, and which domain they are coming from.
- You can score your chat service quality and use their analytics to identify areas you can improve on.
- See the messages that visitors are typing even before they hit “send.”
- Transfer and invite colleagues to participate in open support chats with customers.
Cons:
- Many of the key features aren’t available in their free plan.
- Their per agent pricing model could work out quite expensive if you have multiple agents managing support.
- It doesn’t support rules and automation.
- There have been reviews suggesting that it can be hard to get support to look into and resolve your issues.
eDesk
eDesk is a leading ecommerce helpdesk used by thousands of major retailers worldwide. It empowers your support team to provide a positive experience for customers across all of your company’s channels: email, live chat, social media, and website.
Pros:
- You can customize the widget to match your brand colors.
- The auto-response feature is perfect for those busy weekends and holiday periods, meaning you can maintain speedy responses without ever becoming overwhelmed.
- They have a feedback tool that allows customers to leave you a review after their experience.
Cons:
- Their pricing plans start at $79/agent/month which is quite expensive for most ecommerce stores.
- Their interface is not particularly intuitive compared and can be hard to figure out.
- There have been reviews suggesting that it can be hard to get support to look into and resolve your issues.
Formilla
Formilla Live Chat Software offers free live chat and premium services for your Shopify store. It allows your visitors to chat with you live if they have any questions or need support on your website.
Pros:
- View your website traffic in real-time, and what country and region your visitors are located in.
- You can see which web pages they’ve visited, how long they’ve been on your site, and what browser and operating system they’re using.
- You can create Custom Chat Bots that work 24×7 to automatically qualify leads, book meetings, and handle common requests.
Cons:
- While it is reasonably priced, most of their main features are available at higher plans.
- It doesn’t have powerful automation features.
- There are only a few integrations available. So you may not be able to connect it with your existing tech stack.
Omega Live Chat
Facebook Message by Omega is a powerful all-in-one customer support software used by small and medium-sized businesses. Installation is fast and easy and doesn’t require any coding skills.
Pros:
- Connect to your Facebook page and live chat through Facebook messages.
- You can schedule business hours to Enable/Disable Live Chat.
- Save the history of conversations with your customers and you have a full overview of interactions on one page.
Cons:
- Many reviews suggest that the chat function doesn’t work.
- It isn’t the most professional-looking widget.
- The support is slow which means it may take a long time for them to look into and resolve your issues.
Autoketing Live Chat
Facebook Chat Box by Autoketing is a live chat solution you can use to connect to all your customers through the Facebook messaging platform.
Pros:
- Allow customers to send messages to your Facebook page through Messenger.
- Encourage customers to proactively send messages to you and create more online conversations.
- Show a popup with a discount code to stimulate your customers to subscribe.
Cons:
- Reviews speak of issues with the popup not showing or functioning at all.
- Some even suggest that their entire website fails to load when connected to the app.
- There is limited customization available.
WhatsApp Chat Button
The Chat button widget by GetButton.io (formerly WhatsHelp widget) takes website visitors directly to the messaging app such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp and allows them to initiate a conversation with you.
Pros:
- Supports Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, Snapchat, Line, Telegram.
- It’s quick to install and you can customize it according to your brand style.
- Works on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.
Cons:
- It’s an extremely basic and barebones solution.
- It does have a free version but most features you need will come with an additional fee.
- Reviews suggest it can slow down the overall performance of the website.
Olark
Olark.
Olark is an effective and inexpensive way to talk to your customers for sales and support. Give them the answers they need immediately and gain powerful insights about what they want for relationships that last. Olark features targeted chats, customer feedback reports, CRM integrations, custom CSS, and shortcuts for quick responses. Price: Free plan with 1 operator and 20 chats per month. Paid plans start at $12 per operator/month.
—
Zopim
Zopim.
Zopim is a live chat tool from Zendesk. Set triggers, and track and monitor your visitors in real-time. Get chat and agent reports to measure your successes and stay on target. Choose from different layouts and themes, or even change the picture completely. Integrate with Zendesk to provide seamless multichannel support over social media, email, and live chat. Price: Free for 1 agent. Paid plans start at $11.20 per month.
—
LiveEngage
LiveEngage.
LiveEngage is a popular live chat service from LivePerson. Create a personalized digital engagement campaign, and target specific visitors to reach particular goals. LiveEngage identifies those more likely to need a chat and sends them a personalized invitation. Others who just need a quick and easy answer will see different types of engagements, such as banners and panels. Access real-time data dashboards and reports to measure campaigns and track your success. Price: Free plan for 1 user. Paid plans start at $18 per month.
—
BoldChat
BoldChat.
BoldChat is a live chat tool and a multichannel engagement solution. Target visitors for live chat, including a unique set of rules tailored for mobile visitors. Create a manual or an automatic invitation strategy. Follow visitor browsing, and quickly access a customer’s entire visit and chat history. Manage internal tasks, customer follow-up, operations projects, or billing inquiries using BoldChat’s integrated ticketing. Provide pre- and post- chat surveys to ensure quality and capture contact info. BoldChat also features email, integrated SMS, and Twitter management. Price: Plans start at $599 per agent per year.
—
LiveChat
LiveChat.
LiveChat offers a broad range of features and ecommerce integrations. Chat features include canned responses, transcripts, file sharing, and more. Utilize automatic or personal greetings, after-hours forms, reports and analytics, ticketing, sales info, and goals. Measure how many visitors convert to customers after a chat. Security features include encryption and credit card masking. LiveChat integrates with popular third-party apps for merchants, including Google Analytics, Facebook, Salesforce, WordPress, MailChimp, Shopify, Bigcommerce, and more. Price: Plans start at $16 per agent per month.
—
Comm100
Comm100.
Comm100 is a provider of live chat, email marketing, and help desk software. Monitor visitors in real-time, invite visitors to chat, utilize surveys, and utilize live chat quality control. Get a full record or chat transcripts and offline messages. Run reports on how many of your visitors enter the queue, abandon the queue, choose to leave offline messages eventually, and more. Comm100 integrates with WordPress, Joomla, Shopify, Magento, Drupal, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Google Analytics. Price: Plans start at $29 per agent/month.
—
Kayako
Kayako.
Kayako began with the goal to help businesses offer better customer support. It offers a multichannel help desk — putting email, live chat, and web and phone conversations all in one place. Use the HTML tag generator to build custom live chat widgets for your website. Customize the interface to match your brand. Share screen grabs, files, and links to communicate faster and clearer. Target visitors and pre-route chat requests. Measure progress with metrics like customer satisfaction, response times and availability. Kayako download licenses are available free of charge to registered charities and open-source projects. Price: Plans start at $24 per agent/month.
—
LiveHelpNow
LiveHelpNow.
LiveHelpNow is a customer support solution with live chat, ticker management, a knowledge base, and call management. Monitor your visitors, generate lists, set triggers, and get feedback and analytics. Choose from a library of pre-made live chat icons or use any image you prefer. LiveHelpNow integrates with WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Prestashop, MailChimp, Salesforce, Google Analytics, and more. Price: $21 per operator/month.
—
Velaro
Velaro.
Velaro is a live chat platform with features for ecommerce. Velaro has options for monitoring and engagement, workflow and routing, reporting, and security. Deploy live chat across all of your sites and manage centrally. Customize buttons, surveys, and chat windows to support your brand. Access real-time visitor info, including leads, keyword search, and length of visit. Integrate with CRM tools, Magento, Google Analytics, Zendesk, and more. Analyze your success with call center analytics and sales conversion tracking. Price: Plans start at $29.95 per agent/month.
—
WebsiteChat.net
WebsiteChat.net.
WebsiteChat.net is an inexpensive way to add a live chat button on your website. Use a ready-made chat button or upload your own graphics. Customize all messages displayed to your customers in chat window. Operator can access chat history in an online control panel. Operators can chat simultaneously with multiple visitors in different chat windows. See in real-time how many visitors are on your site, and auto invite them to chat with your support team. Price: $4.99 per operator/month.
CONCLUSION
As an online business owner you know how critical it is to have a strong online presence. You want to hit the ground running. If you’re in the e-commerce space, then you absolutely need to use chat tools when selling your products online. But which one should you choose? I’ve tried a few of these and I’d like to share my experience with you in this review post.
Have you ever had a customer who wants to chat about their issues but you are afraid of the sales opportunity slipping away? Here’s a solution for your ecommerce business, the live chat tools. Live Chat helps you interact with your potential customers by engaging in conversation with them and giving them information they need before they feel the urge to go away.