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Live Chat Features: The Top 10 Essentials for Your Website

Luca MicheliSep 19, 2023
Live Chat Features: The Top 10 Essentials for Your Website
Contents

Customer-centric strategy can affect nearly everything in your organization but can be improved almost immediately with the help of live chat tools.

Live chat software is an increasingly popular channel for handling service issues and produces a high customer satisfaction score for all channels.

It also has relatively cheap functionality for implementing the technology into existing products.

We developed live chat software and support tools for small businesses willing to help their customers via chat or email.

Your customer support team will love using live chat software in their daily routine.

You have done all the research you need to do, but the more you search, the more confused you become…

It’s not because there is no website live chat software out there, but finding the one that meets your need is difficult.

This is because there are 500+ providers of live chat in the market and finding THE one might be daunting.

If this is you, then you are in the right place.

Choosing a good website live chat software for your business is a laudable cause because you have just 10 seconds to communicate your product’s value to your website user.

And you know what?

75% of people prefer live chat over any other channel.

A robust live chat software will do three things for your business.

  1. Boost your conversion rate. Forrester discovered that live chat leads to a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour and a 40% increase in conversion rate.
  2. Offers faster customer support. 79% of customers say they prefer live chat purely because of its immediacy compared to other channels.
  3. Improved customer experience: 73% of customers were satisfied with their live chat experience, compared to 61% of email users and a worrying 44% of phone users.

Bad news!

Can I say it?

If you choose the wrong live chat software for your business, all the benefits above will be a mirage.

But you don’t have to worry.

Watch out for the good news at the end of the article.

This article is written to help you choose the best live chat software for your website.

Are you happy now?

Let’s move on.

In this article, you will learn the top 10 essential features to look for in a live chat software.

Let’s get started.

The best live chat service for websites meets the needs of your whole team

Make sure that you are looking for an online tool that can help you to get leads and help you to grow sales.

Integrations to Social or messaging systems allow users to begin the conversation and continue wherever they choose.

Chatbots are used for the qualification of leads.

A live messaging service can improve interaction. Form for collecting visitor information on websites: Integration of CRM with Lead Management Tools.

Lead scoring for determining the worth of lead.

1. Live chat with AI Capabilities

In the modern digital landscape, integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) with live chat services has revolutionized how businesses interact with their customers.

AI-powered live chat systems can handle many customer interactions automatically, providing immediate responses to common inquiries and ensuring customer service is available 24/7.

This is usually achieved through the help of a “source of truth” where you store all the FAQs and knowledge base regarding your product or services.

An AI chat widget can be programmed to understand and respond to various customer queries, providing instant support and freeing up human agents to handle more complex issues.

Programming a chatbot with AI based on your knowledge base and keeping it up to date every time you edit the knowledge is challenging. This is why we offer no-effort training for your AI Chatbot.

When you use Customerly Help Center; we’ll train the AI with your “source of truth” to let it serve your customers quickly.

This enhances the efficiency of your customer service and significantly reduces response times, leading to improved customer satisfaction.

Moreover, AI in live chat services can help analyze customer interactions and identify patterns.

This can provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, enabling businesses to tailor their services more effectively to meet customer needs.

One of the most significant advantages of AI-powered live chat is its ability to learn and improve over time.

Check out the capabilities of the Customerly AI for the team to use with customer conversations.

Through machine learning algorithms, these systems can learn from every interaction, continuously improving their ability to handle customer inquiries and provide accurate responses.

2. Live Chat Software Feature: Chat routing

The best live chat software will allow you to create team members and invite them to join the live chat support software when needed.

This feature will enable you to notify and assign incoming support tickets to support teams that can handle them.

The truth is there are some specialized inquiries that only a professional can answer.

For example, suppose the incoming chat conversations are about tech issues on your website.

In that case, assigning such conversations to a team member in the technical department who can answer the inquiry effectively will be appropriate.

Most of the time, you can transfer your chat manually, but the best live chat software will help you to assign conversations based on customer data or their inquiry.

live chat automated routing

There is free live chat software capable of automated chat routing. Continue reading this article until the end to discover it.

3. Live chat software feature: Profile leads

The best live chat software will allow you to profile your leads. You can create a pre-chat form to request details such as name, email address, and other information you need from your clients.

live chat profiling leads

When your lead starts a conversation with your customer service, the live chat software will display a form for them to fill in with the required information.

This information will help you profile your lead accordingly and to transfer the chat to the appropriate team.

Lead profiling

The pre-chat form is essential when you receive traffic on your website. It helps filter out time wasters or people who don’t know what they want.

Even when your traffic is low, it will help your sales team to engage better with the generated lead.

4. Live Chat Software Feature: Chat transcripts

While you support customers, your best live chat software must allow you to send transcripts to them. 

Send the chat transcript to the customer to keep a history of their conversation with your business and send a copy to your email.

live chat transcripts

Use this information to improve your product or service and create better marketing campaigns.

You can also use the questions in the chat transcript to create a knowledge base (available on our free plan) accessible to chat agents and your website visitors so that when a user asks a similar question, they can quickly search through the knowledge base to solve the problem.

Companies that use chat transcript in this manner enjoy a 10-time greater yearly increase in annual company revenue than all others.

Transcripts are also a must for chat tools cause, due to GDPR rules, you MUST provide a live chat transcript whenever a customer asks for it. Every free live chat should have it in their free plan. If not, they are not GDPR compliant.

5. Live Chat Software Feature: Notifications

It can be difficult to track incoming chats, especially when you are busy with a task. A live chat service with a notification feature ensures you never miss a chat. Notifications ensure that you respond to chat quickly.

An effective website live chat service will ensure you can receive notifications on major devices such as your desktop computer, mobile devices, and email. Team members should also be able to get notifications when chats are sent to them.

You can also enable browser audio so that when a user starts a conversation, the notification comes in with an audio sound to draw your attention to it.

6. Live Chat Software Feature: Canned responses

When visitors or customers land on your website, your live chat widget should greet them courteously. But it can be time-consuming for your chat agents to do it repeatedly. This is where you need canned responses.

The best live chat software should enable you to set canned responses to save time and increase effectiveness.

Canned responses are saved responses you can set up for your website users. You can automate it to appear on your website when the live chat comes up.

There are different messages you can set as canned responses. This includes greetings, answers to frequently asked questions, and promotion information.

Use canned responses

These canned response templates will help your team to reply to any incoming live chat. Not all chat tools have a series of canned responses template you can use in no time.

Hello {{name}}.
My name is [YOUR_NAME].

It will be my pleasure to help you with your issue.

Let me look into this quickly and I will get back to you in a moment with all the helpful information I can find.


Meanwhile, if you have any additional information please let me know. 😊

avatar

First reply

Personalize the first reply and take time to check into the issue

7. Live Chat Software Feature: Track referrer and UTMs of your visitors

It is always a delight to know where your visitors are coming from.

This is one of the great features of good live chat software. It should capture the URL parameters of user conversations with your chat agents.

This will help you know the source of your chats.

8. Live Chat Software Feature: File transfer, embed images, infographics

Among one of the live chat features you might be searching for, the capability to allow you to send files, videos, images, and take screenshots is not common.

Live chat attachments

Above all features, this one will help you send files or images to your chat users to help them personalize their experience on your website.

For instance, if they are experiencing an incorrect display of items on their web pages, you can ask them to take a screenshot and send it to you instantly.

You can also ask them to send you a screenshot of a problem they need to solve. This makes it easy to solve users’ problems and make your customers happy.

9. Live Chat Software Feature: Integrations

A live chat support software that will help your business to run effectively must have integration features. It must enable you to connect to third-party tools. Integrating with CRMs, social media networks (such as Facebook messenger), etc, should be easy. 

This is especially true if you can integrate your live chat tools with a CRM. Or use the integrated CRM Customerly offers on top of its live chat.

CRM contact lists

It will help you know more about your customer’s chat history and be able to update them accordingly for future reference.

For example, Customerly integrates with Zapier, Customer, and Facebook messenger. These are essential marketing tools when it comes to synchronizing your customer data.

10. Live Chat Software Feature: Real-time chats

The real-time chat feature of the website’s live chat software is very important. It helps to see the live chat user in real-time and to respond quickly to their inquiries.

You will also see the customers’ details, such as the browser, location, and other attributes you pre-defined. This will quickly help you know whether the visitor is the right lead for your business. Once you know, you can quickly provide the right response to their inquiries.

Extra Live Chat Features

We have covered all the features a live chat software solution might need to fully satisfy your customer’s needs.

Now we will add a pinch of salt and see all the chat features that your live chat solution must include.

Mobile apps

Your support team might need extra help when commuting, and nowadays, with remote work, a live chat app is crucial to reply from everywhere.

Our free live chat software plan has our live chat apps available completely free, so every support request can have an answer on the go.

Once the live chat widget is installed on your website, the live chat software will allow your support team to receive push notifications on their mobile apps and help with any support requests.

live chat mobile app

Message Sneak peek

Reading what your customers are writing before they hit send on your live chat will let you anticipate the proper answer and reduce the first time to reply.

Typing preview

Facebook Messenger

If you have a Facebook page, you might consider a live chat software that connects with Facebook messenger to receive live chats in one inbox.

Highly customizable chat widget

The live chat widget must match your brand and let your customers instantly recognize your brand. This is why having a customizable live chat is key to showing professionalism with your visitors, even on your website chat.

live chat appearance

Out-of-office hours

Each live chat app must suggest the website visitors whenever the team cannot reply instantly. For this reason, office hours must appear immediately after the chat has started in the chat window.

Set up the chat business hours like this, and Customerly will provide the best experience for your customers.

live chat business hours

Google analytics integration

When running campaigns on Google Ads or Facebook ads, it’s crucial to link your Google analytics with your live chat tool. This way, you can truly understand where your conversions are coming from.

Proactive chat

Having a Proactive chat means you can anticipate issues or avoid them completely, saving your support teams plenty of valuable time.

Live chat message account profile picture
Nadia from Customerly
Do you have any questions about our plans?
Reply to Nadia

Recover pricing page abandons

Recover people on your pricing page that are about to leave with a catchy message

Knowledge base

Small businesses nowadays, more than ever, need to search for a knowledge base included in the live chat functionality. Some live chat providers include a knowledge base software in their forever free plan.

live chat knowledge base

Automation tools

Don’t compromise your customer experience by using too many automation tools. Consider using a good balance of automation tools in your live chat tool that will increase your customer satisfaction.

For example, you can use a knowledge base to automatically support your customers at a glance.

live chat knowledgebase

Video Chat

What if I tell you that your chat widget allows your live chat agents to video chat in real-time with your website visitors without adding any external tool?

Now, while your support team handles support requests, they can use this live chat feature to provide the best customer support on Earth.

video live chat

Chat Routing

this is what a free live chat software must include in its free version. However, some live chat platform offers simple chat routing in their free plan and powerful chat routing in their advanced features.

Smart Chat Routing

Conversation history

When your website visitors start live chats with your customer support teams, you want to keep all your conversation history and check previous conversations with the same customer.

live chat conversation history

Record User sessions

While your website visitors will interact with your free live chat, you can record user sessions with all the customer data your customer support team needs.

The user session collection will have a positive live chat experience for them and your team.

Live Chat analytics

A live chat platform must offer analytics to your customer success team to improve your customer satisfaction and understand immediately.

live chat analytics

Multiple Channels

If you are looking for an all-in-one support software that offers live chat software, support email management, and social media connection, look no further than Customerly.

Live Chat Translation

Your live chat support software must speak any language; this is why this popular live chat software supports automatic translation of all your live chat.

Live chat translate

Our website chat automatically adapts to your customer’s browser language to ensure the best experience among all the live chat widgets.

Unlimited chats

You don’t want to lose your incoming live chats due to limitations on your live chat support software, so you want to look for a customer communication platform that gives you unlimited chats with your website visitors.

Visitor tracking

Another essential feature of a good live chat service is visitor tracking.

This live chat feature allows you to understand where your visitors are coming from, which can provide valuable insights for your marketing and sales strategies.

For instance, if you notice a significant number of visitors coming from a particular marketing campaign, you can tailor your live chat interactions to cater to these visitors more effectively.

Your Live chat app will tell you exactly if the visitor landed on your website from a Facebook campaign.

Customer Satisfaction

One of the key aspects of a website’s live chat service is its potential to significantly boost customer satisfaction.

When customers have immediate access to help and can get their questions answered in real time, their overall satisfaction with your service increases.

This is particularly true when the live chat software is easy to use and provides quick, efficient responses.

A robust live chat software can lead to a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour and a 40% increase in conversion rate, demonstrating its impact on customer satisfaction.

Customer Interactions

The best Live chat software provides a platform for immediate and direct customer interactions.

These interactions can range from answering product or service-related queries, providing technical support, and engaging in sales conversations.

These interactions’ immediacy and personal nature can greatly enhance the customer’s experience with your brand.

Moreover, with features like chat routing and profile leads, the software ensures that interactions are handled by the most appropriate team member, further enhancing the customer’s experience.

Customer Service Strategic Approach

Incorporating a live chat service into your website is a strategic move that can significantly enhance your overall customer service strategy.

It provides an additional channel for customers to reach out to you, and given its real-time nature, it can often lead to quicker resolution of issues.

Furthermore, features like chat transcripts allow for a record of customer interactions, which can be invaluable for understanding customer needs and improving your service strategy.

Customer Centricity

A comprehensive live chat service can serve as a central hub for all your customer interactions.

Whether it’s a sales inquiry, a technical question, or a customer service issue, everything can be handled through the live chat platform.

This not only provides a seamless experience for the customer, but also allows you to have a consolidated view of all customer interactions, making it easier to manage and improve your customer service.

How do I choose the best Live Chat Software?

After analyzing all the popular live chat apps available in the market, we conclude that almost all the support tools offer similar features.

Each has essential live chat capability in the starter package and offers integration and more live chat apps in the premium packages.

No company offers such unique capabilities as other live chat services as Customerly does. If you are considering a live chat option to add to a site, you must consider price, integration, and other features.

Cost: Chat services can be purchased through a monthly subscription. There are live chat apps with a free plan; one is Customerly.

Integrations: When considering integrations for your live chat, you want to have for sure a WordPress plugin if you are using it, Zapier that is basically integration on steroids, and much more. We do have all of them.

Next step: Install Live Chat

I know what you are thinking: “I want a live chat on my website, but I don’t know where to start”.

Well, It’s easy.

Integrate live chat on your website to quickly convert more website visitors into profiled leads.

Your live chat solution must also be easy to install on any website.

This is why you can install your live chat solution with our WP Live chat plugin.

Conclusion

Now you know the live chat software features that will help boost your conversion rate, offer faster customer support, and enhance customer experience.

What if I told you that your search for the live chat software had ended?

Sound good? Ugh!

Yes. It is too good to be true.

Customerly live chat software has all the 10 features mentioned above and much more.

That is not all!

It also has a free plan, so you don’t have to break the bank to get it.

Ready? Then get it here – Customerly.

Luca Micheli

Luca Micheli

CEO @ Customerly

Luca Micheli is a serial tech entrepreneur with one exited company and a passion for bootstrap digital projects. He's passionate about helping companies to succeed with marketing and business development tips.

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