It’s 6 p.m., and your best customer opens the box the shipper tossed at them like an NFL quarterback. To their dismay, the sticker marked “FRAGILE” wasn’t enough to protect its contents.
How can they get help right now? It’s hard to reach agents by phone during select business hours, and around-the-clock staffing can be costly for many businesses.
Email is starting to show its age and is not the first contact method many people opt for. They prefer live chat on their terms (and devices).
The solution: You can have support reps handle these requests around the clock with ease.
Let’s explore the key features, uses, and things to look for in live chat software. Spoiler: It’s not hard to set up for your business, and it could improve customer service.
What Is Live Chat Software?
Live chat software offers real-time chat functionality embedded in a business’s website or mobile app to communicate directly with site visitors and customers. This enables businesses to provide immediate support, reducing response times. Live support agents can answer questions, make product suggestions, and resolve customer complaints.
Live chat tools can help businesses improve the overall customer experience by offering fast responses on a convenient platform. Large and small businesses alike need it, mostly because customers want it.
A 2024 study from Tidio found that 15% of a website’s visitors will use the live chat function when it’s available, and 81% of customers rate their live chat experience as positive.
The same study found that many customers prefer live chat over other communication platforms, including email and phone. (As a caveat, however, many customers do prefer phone support if the issue is complex or sensitive, such as payment disputes.) As a result, live chat is becoming a pivotal part of the average user experience.
Must-Have Chat Features
When you’re looking for a live chat solution, several chat features are essential.
Chat pop-ups
Chat windows pop up on a company’s website or mobile app thanks to chat widgets. These windows manage two-way, text-based conversations between customers and agents. Customers and agents can minimize them at any time. Some businesses use pop-up chat windows to encourage conversations when users visit certain pages of a website.
Agent availability
Managing customer expectations is an important part of improving the user experience, so the last thing you want is to have someone waiting for an agent who won’t come.
Display the agents’ online or offline status along with estimated wait times when users initiate a chat. You can also provide standard working hours when the live chat function is available.
Chat history
The best live chat software stores past conversations for your support agents to reference later on. Even if customers can’t view their entire chat history, agents can quickly access past interactions to look for continued issues and attempted solutions and offer improved and personalized service. In some cases, chat history may be tied to a platform’s CRM integration.
While live chat software typically doesn’t provide customers with permanent access to past conversations, many platforms give them the option to send chat transcripts to their email when the conversation ends.
File sharing
Most live chat tools allow messengers to send and receive documents or images to improve issue resolution. It’s common for companies to ask for pictures of damaged products before issuing refunds or shipping replacement items. Agents may also send PDFs or documents that share important information with customers, including new or updated invoices for reissued products.
Offline forms
When agents aren’t online, chat widgets can display offline forms that can capture visitor information and inquiries, such as their name, email address, and question. This allows agents to follow-up through email or phone when they’re available.
Advanced Features
Some organizations have complex business needs that require sophisticated functionality from their live chat platforms. Many tools on the market now offer advanced features that can streamline, automate, and improve chat support.
Chatbots
AI chatbots are AI-powered virtual assistants that can answer basic questions and potentially qualify leads. They may deflect tickets from live agents by answering basic questions, essentially acting as a dynamic self-service FAQ resource.
The intelligent virtual agent can also collect information to qualify leads, direct customers to key product pages, and route customer communications to a live agent with the correct expertise as needed.
If someone needs help with a past order, the chatbot will route them to customer support and generate a ticket. If they want to learn more about custom pricing, the chatbot will route them through to the next available sales agent.
By resolving common but direct inquiries and redirecting those they can’t settle, chatbots can take an enormous burden off of your support team so they can focus more on the customers who need their help.
Canned responses
Canned responses are prewritten messages that you can quickly customize and place into a chat. Many businesses create canned responses for common inquiries, like “What’s your return policy,” or “When will my order arrive.” These canned responses can significantly increase support agent productivity.
Co-browsing
Co-browsing allows agents to navigate the visitor’s website screen live and in real time to troubleshoot. This is commonly used for online software, allowing technical support staff to see exactly which errors users are experiencing.
If a customer claims that the website keeps “stuttering” when they try to complete their checkout process, the support agent will want to know exactly what that looks like to offer a solution. The user may need to update their browser, or they may have an ad blocker that prevents the pop-up used in the checkout process and not realize it.
Co-browsing can be a valuable platform for IT and technical support teams, especially if any part of your business’s customer experience is online.
Chat routing
Advanced live chat software will route chats to specific agents based on their skills or current workload. Intelligent virtual assistants and chatbots are often capable of doing this, ensuring that users find someone who can help them quickly and efficiently. This can streamline agent workflows significantly.
If someone needs technical support to process a payment, they won’t want to get bounced around a general customer support department that lacks the technical skills to help them complete the task. Similarly, having sales inquiries start at customer support as a first line of defense can bog down support team members and increase their average response times, creating a frustrating customer experience for everyone involved.
Reporting and analytics
Advanced live chat software should provide detailed reporting and analytics, giving you insights into chat volume, agent performance, and customer satisfaction. These metrics may include the customer-reported satisfaction rates based on survey responses collected through chat or email at the end of the conversation.
You can define the key metrics you want to track based on your business goals and live chat use cases. Monitor them regularly to look for opportunities to improve agent training and the user experience.
CRM integration
The best live chat software should ideally come with multiple integration options (which we’ll discuss shortly), but a CRM integration is arguably the most significant. This integration connects your live chat tool with your CRM system, giving agents a unified customer view.
CRM integrations allow for personalized customer support, as agents are able to review past support interactions and purchases to offer custom solutions. They’ll likely be able to ask fewer questions, getting up to speed much faster and delivering swifter resolutions.
Sales agents can also use this information to view a customer’s past purchases, making appropriate suggestions for complementary products. This can lead to a direct increase in purchases or average order value.
Use Cases for Live Chat
There are various ways businesses leverage live chat to improve the customer experience. Let’s look at some of the most common use cases.
Customer support
Live chat is a common customer support solution. You can provide immediate assistance and resolve customer issues in real-time. Canned responses can increase the speed of issue resolution, but CRM integrations can be vital for more personalized support.
Sales lead generation
The other most common use cases for live chat software are sales and lead generation. E-commerce sites and self-service SaaS websites often use live chat to answer customer questions, share pricing information, recommend specific products, and potentially help customers place orders.
Businesses with complex buying cycles can engage website visitors, capture lead information, qualify leads, and book appointments or demos with qualified sales agents.
Marketing and promotions
Live chat can be used for marketing purposes. Businesses will promote offers, answer product questions, and collect customer feedback. Some brands will use live chat to recommend new or on-sale products during conversations or as part of the live chat’s opening greeting.
Technical support
Businesses are increasingly using live chat for technical support, especially now that advanced features like co-browsing are more accessible. IT support agents can provide real-time troubleshooting and problem-solving for customers while they’re actively on your site.
Value building
Some businesses go outside of standard live chat support and sales use cases, thinking of creative ways to offer value to their customers.
Chewy is an outstanding example of this. They have a connect with a vet chat service that’s available 18 hours a day. While vets can’t prescribe medication or formally diagnose pets, they can answer customer questions, like when to take a pet to urgent care, or share training tips. This offers incredible value to potential customers and helps build customer loyalty.
What to Look for in a Live Chat Solution
When choosing a live chat solution for your business, there are a few key things you want to look for in addition to their list of features.
Ease of use
It’s important to have an intuitive interface for agents and customers. Most customer-facing interfaces are relatively simple, so pay extra attention to the interface your support agents see. Ensure that it’s easy to integrate with key tools, manage multiple chats if necessary, and access unified customer information.
Scalability
As your business grows over time, you’ll likely see an increased chat volume and need more agents. Make sure that the tool you select can accommodate your immediate need and any future increases as you scale in chat communications and the number of agents offering support.
Security
Data security should not be overlooked. You need features to protect customer data and ensure secure communication, so make sure you choose a tool that follows all current security best practices. This should include modern encryption practices and secure sign-on processes for those accessing the live chat software.
Customization
Live chat should blend seamlessly into your website and mobile app. Some live chat software allows you to tailor the chat window according to your branding. You will also want to select a tool that allows you to customize functionality according to your needs.
Integrations
Many live chat tools on the market today have extensive integration capabilities. At a minimum, you’ll typically want to find a platform that incorporates your existing CRM, but some software also offers additional integrations.
There are four key integrations we recommend looking for when choosing your software.
- CRM integrations: Unify customer data for personalized support and targeted marketing. Popular integrations may include HubSpot or Salesforce.
- Help desk software integrations: Streamline ticketing systems and align chat transcriptions with relevant support tickets. Your team can also access knowledge base data easily with tools like Zendesk.
- Marketing automation integrations: Trigger automated marketing campaigns based on chat interactions.
- Ecommerce platform integrations: Provide support directly through your online store, potentially increasing retail sales. Popular examples are Shopify and BigCommerce integrations.
Challenges With Using Live Chat Software
From the customer’s perspective, live chat can be a relatively straightforward offering. There are some challenges that businesses may face when implementing chat software on their site or mobile app, and knowing about them in advance can help you proactively prepare.
Agent availability
The high demand for live chat surprises some businesses at first, so it can be a challenge to ensure that you have enough agents to handle chat volume during peak times.
To account for this, you can look at your peak traffic hours for general support requests and website traffic. If there’s a high volume of site traffic and an available chat option, expect that you’ll see heightened demand.
Technical issues
Technical glitches are unavoidable, but high-quality live chat software may help reduce them. It’s important to find a provider that can help maintain high levels of uptime and promptly address any technical problems with the chat software.
Pro tip: Look at customer reviews online to get insight into a product’s reliability and the brand’s customer support processes when something does go wrong.
Training needs
It’s important to equip agents with the necessary skills to handle customer inquiries effectively. This includes teaching them how to manage different chat options and features, including when to request images or how to leverage co-browsing features. Even experienced support agents should receive training specific to the live chat software and processes they use.
Data security
Not all live chat software is created equal, and any third-party tool can potentially open you up to additional security risks. Therefore, it’s crucial to choose a tool that will help you protect customer data with robust security measures.
Look for tools that prioritize data privacy. Keep in mind that free live chat software may be budget-friendly but may not have the kind of robust security features you’re looking for.
Embedding Live Chat in Your Contact Center
There are dedicated live chat software solutions, which are standalone tools that exclusively offer live chat widgets and functionality.
Many brands, however, are considering contact center solutions and unified communications platforms offering a broad range of functionalities that include — and go beyond — live chat software. These tools may integrate with other platforms, including support service channels like phone, voice, and SMS messages, as well as social media platforms like WhatsApp or Messenger.
As a result, you can create a unified and omnichannel customer experience, and businesses are able to effectively handle diverse customer interactions.
Where contact centers excel
Contact center as a service (CSaaS) solutions may be a strong option in the following scenarios:
- Complex inquiries: Not all questions can be resolved through text chat. Phone calls allow in-depth discussions and problem-solving for complex issues.
- Customer preference: Some customers prefer phone calls or emails for specific situations. Having options builds an accommodating customer service experience.
- Increased volume: Contact centers can handle high call volumes and surges in communication across all channels more efficiently than just live chat.
Handle All Your Customer Interactions With Confidence
We’re past the days when live chat support was considered unique. Now, many customers expect it, and it’s often considered a primary support and sales channel. It can help you offer faster and more diverse support, sell more products or services, and build stronger customer relationships, and it’s now considered essential customer service software.
However, it’s important to remember that real challenges can arise when implementing customer support software. Leveraging strong chat software that comes with advanced features, robust security options, and detailed analytics can help resolve some of these challenges if (and even before) they arise.
If you need advanced live chat and multichannel support, look for software tied to omnichannel contact center solutions. Your team can offer seamless and unified customer experiences across multiple support channels for an improved user experience. Nextiva can help by offering individual live chat products and services as part of our contact center solutions.
Learn more about Nextiva’s live chat software to get started.
