Websites for businesses (regardless of scale), service providers, and online stores are designed particularly for high conversion rate, because duh; it’s literally how millions of people earn their bread. So it’s really not uncommon to see a button/tab on the bottom right corner of the screen when you visit such a website, offering you live assistance from the staff behind the website itself. And yes, it helps with conversion rates when you are establishing yourself to be proactive in offering support when the visitor has queries regarding this product or that service (provided you’re not obnoxiously popping up all the damn time, that is).
If your business portal/online store is built on WordPress, adding a nifty live chat feature is simple. Like integrating other wonderful features on WordPress, you do it with a plugin.
In this list-icle, I have compiled for you the 7 best WordPress Live Chat plugins (for customer support) based on user rating, active updates, good support, and great code.
Most of them are freemium (feature-crippled and/or time-bound free version, complete feature-set available on going pro) plugins, picked from WordPress Plugin Repository. Check out:
Note: For the sake of accuracy, keep in mind that the prices noted here are retail prices as on May 10th 2016; for monthly billing (annual billing costs less); and based on single (or a specified minimum) number of agents. Be sure to check out the links to the websites and check the feature list thoroughly for your favorite plugin(s).
1. FrescoChat
- Active Installs: 1K+
- Rating: 4.7/5
- Price: Free, 2 Premium plans ranging from $5-10/month
- Available at: WordPress.org, frescochat.com
FrescoChat, erstwhile known as FlexyTalk, is pretty sweet. You’re going to love it if you want features without complexity.
The plugin is armed to the teeth with mobile apps, working hours, agent grouping, Chat popup-triggers, queues, offline features like customizable message form, status depiction, optional display chat bar when offline, etc., and brilliant management/administration features like Google Analytics integration, Geo-location, social channel integration, chat archive with search filters and transcripts, and so much more.
The plugin is lovely to look at with custom templates available to stylize it as you see fit along with typing indicators and other aesthetic configuration options.
Pretty well-loaded, as it were… it’s also multisite compatible.
2. Chat by FlyZoo
- Active Installs: 2K+
- Rating: 4.3/5
- Price: 4 premium plans ranging from $9.9-89.9/month
- Available at: WordPress.org, flyzoo.co
Brilliant plugin for communities as well as live support, Chat by Flyzoo is a hit.
The plugin supports cloud based chat, subdomains, and SSL encryption (which is great news for those who have made the switch to HTTP/2.0). Features include role-based chat access, visitor monitoring, chat moderation and IP blocking, embeddable (group) and private chat, file uploads, pop-out and in-browser chats, translations, transcripts, and more.
It looks stunning, gives you control to customize colors, layouts, etc, and works fluidly on mobile devices (looks like a lovely app).
3. Formilla Live Chat
- Active Installs: 7K+
- Rating: 4.7/5
- Price: Free, 3 Premium plans ranging from $11.99-39.99/month
- Available at: WordPress.org, Formilla.com
Formilla has an arsenal of features starting with unlimited, highly customizable chat widgets (with built-in and your own custom templates), parallel chats, stunning apps for your support staff on iOS and Android, visitor monitoring, translation, white labels (removes ‘Formilla’ branding from chat-box), customizable offline message and email forms complete with user device stat recognition, CRM integration, chat queues, transcripts, easy data export, attention bubbles, auto-responders, and so much more.
The plugin has some remarkable features especially for digital service providers: hours of operation, email/phone/help-desk (ticket system) support, et al.
It’s a thorough support plugin for businesses everywhere that happens to have an amazing live chat feature.
4. Zopim Live Chat
- Active Installs: 70K+
- Rating: 4.6/5
- Price: Free, 3 Premium plans ranging from $15-55/month
- Available at: WordPress.org, Zopim.com
This one is, quite rightfully, the best live chat plugin available on the internet for WordPress.
Zopim is a beauty brought to you by Zendesk. It’s a cross-browser, cross-platform compatible and brilliantly mobile optimized (even has a Blackberry app) live chat plugin complete with features like triggers, ‘chat badges’, mail and offline support forms, social channel integration, beautiful interface with superb style customization settings and choices, monitoring (comes with a dashboard to rival WP Admin itself), SSL encryption and IP blocking, avatar support, translation, sound alerts, and I can go on and on…
It’s a truly amazing, highly integrate-able plugin with amazing analytics and reporting features. A must-have, especially for industries
5. Tidio Live Chat
- Active Installs: 6K+
- Rating: 4.9/5
- Price: Free, 2 Premium Plans for $12-24/month
- Available at: WordPress.org, TidioChat.com
Tidio will fit right in with any Flat 2.0 WordPress theme.
The plugin is simple, sophisticated, and doesn’t overwhelm with features you wouldn’t use/need. All versions have mobile apps with widgets that are highly customizable.
In addition to that, the Pro ($12/m) has auto-responders, opening hours, surveys, forms, pop-out and in-page chats, Multilanguage support and more.
The Premium ($24/m) is the beast, with all the aforementioned features plus high-end visitor tracking, analytics, tags, departmentalization, and a unique REST API for added integrations to create a complete enterprise grade solution.
Regardless of the plan, it’s a lightweight plugin that has something for everyone.
6. WP Live Chat Support
- Active Installs: 20K+
- Rating: 4.5/5
- Price: Free, Single Pro Add-on site licenses (One-Time Purchase) ranging from $39.95-$149.95
- Available at: WordPress.org, wp-livechat.com
It is a cost-effective plugin, pals.
WP Live Chat is serious business, with a free feature list taller than yours truly. With any pro add-on license, you get encryption enabled chat widgets for unlimited agents along with features like quick response, interface translation (and any other customization you want), chat transcripts, white-branding, offline message records, in-page and pop-out chat options, notifications, and bells and whistles like auto-responders, real time monitoring with IP blocking, et al.
Unlimited site license buyers also get goodies like Chat Experience ratings add-on, WP Pricing Table (premium plugin for responsive pricing tables), and Sola Support Tickets (premium plugin).
Easy, affable, efficient, concise – The plugin is just what a business should be.
WordPress plugin development service
7. Tawk.to
- Active Installs: 20K+
- Rating: 5/5
- Price: No catch. No spam. No wares. It’s truly free and always will be.
- Available at: WordPress.org, tawk.to
This one, ladies and gentlemen, works like a charm; better, in fact, than a lot of other premium chat applications, including the ones in this list. It also has an adorable mascot by the name of Mel.
Your AGENTS (it’s centered on your support team) manage everything that comes through a stunningly customizable chat widget on your site (Size, Colors, Position, Content, and Language). The plugin is complete with triggers (time, page, or action based), chat history and transcripts, lets you set-up shortcut answers (for FAQs), ‘alias’ system with different pictures, username etc for every agent; departmental grouping, custom pages for those who don’t have a website (damn!), real-time monitoring features (with blocking), notifications, audio settings, attention bubble, and more.
Your agents are free to choose one or a combination of apps for Windows, Mac OSx, iPhone, and Android to give your site visitors support.
Janet was right. Best things in life ARE free. And, that the main reason why different scales of businesses using WordPress plugin development services regarding live chat plugins to reboot their communication system.
Endnote
That should narrow your search field for a WordPress live chat plugin. Let us know your favorites (on or off the list) in the comments below.
Author Bio: Tracey Jones is a creative web developer for a leading WordPress development company called HireWPGeeks Ltd. Instead of this, she is a passionate blogger who is interested in writing everything related to new web development trends in the market. You can also follow her on Twitter
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