How to Integrate a Chat Function on Your Website

Live chat can no longer be imagined out of modern customer communication - we'll show you how you can set up this feature on your website.

No other form of customer service is as popular today as live chat. This is due, not least, to the low response time of 46 seconds. We will show you the other advantages this feature offers and how you can integrate a live chat on your own website in this article.

What benefits does a live chat function offer on the website?

Advantages for customers

Consumers prefer chatting to picking up the phone or writing emails. This is also reflected in a study on customer service conducted by eDigital. Thus a chat function for websites scored the highest customer satisfaction with 73 percent. Emails reached 61 percent, while telephone calls were only at 44 percent. Another reason that speaks for live chats is the fast response time. On average, it is just 46 seconds.

The supporting function during shopping should also not be underestimated. Customers have the opportunity to ask questions, appropriate to the page or product they are currently viewing.

Benefits for companies

By integrating a chat on your website, not only do benefits arise for your customers. Companies also benefit in many ways from using live chat. An important point here is cost efficiency. Like messaging apps, a live chat saves you key resources like employees and time. This way, your customer support doesn't need to always be on the phone and can handle multiple requests and problems simultaneously. Furthermore, you save the costs of your own call center.

Live web chats also benefit your brand's reputation. There are several reasons for this. On the one hand, your website visitors get a good first impression and feel supported on their customer journey. This strengthens customer loyalty and purchase readiness and leads to recommendations. On the other hand, the personal interaction with your customers creates more loyalty. It makes your brand more tangible and familiar.

​​What is the difference between a live chat and a chatbot?

In a live chat, your website visitors interact in real time with human representatives of your sales team. They generate new leads, answer customer questions and guide the visitors through the buyers' journey. A chatbot, on the other hand, is an automated bot that communicates with your website visitors via pre-planned or AI-supported conversations.

Both tools should play a role in your marketing strategy, as they perfectly complement each other. Your chatbot, for example, can be responsible for collecting information from your visitors. If it then forwards the leads to your live chat agents, they can respond to your visitors' questions.

How to set up a live chat function on a website?

1. Choose a live chat software

First of all, you need to decide on one of the numerous providers of live chat software. To find a suitable tool for your needs, you should be clear about which features you need at all.

Common features of live chat software include:

• Chatbots
• Chat Builder
• Support for various media formats
• Customizing of chat widgets
• Chat archiving
• Absent notes & welcome messages
• Templates for answers
• Automatic messages
• In-app messages
• Chat forms for collecting the email addresses of website visitors
• Reports to analyze your website live chat, such as first response time (FRT), average solution time or customer satisfaction.
• Helpdesk functions for quickly answering customer questions.

A list of the best live chat tools currently available can be found further down.

2. Install the live chat and place it on your website

Once you've made a decision on a tool, it's time to set up the live chat. You typically receive a live chat HTML code from your software provider to embed into the backend of your website. Most live chat programs also provide step-by-step instructions.

The next step should be well thought out. Where you place your live chat widget on your site decides whether you reach customers at the right point in the buyer's journey. If you build a live chat on the homepage, its text should be different than in the shopping cart area. To meet your customers' needs, you should therefore tailor your live chat strategy to the customer journey.

To strategically integrate chat into the website, for example, you should ask whether a homepage chat box should greet your visitors. Or do you want a live chat for your blog or shopping cart? Do you want the chat window to appear immediately or after a specific time when someone was on a page? Or should the live chat be offered on all pages and equipped with different greetings?

3. Customize your live chat widget

After installing the software, you can customize the design of the chat widget to match your website. In addition to the appearance of the widget, you should also determine the greeting and choose the desired language options for the chat.

4. Integrate the live chat into your CRM

The majority of live chat tools allow the integration of other software, such as CRMs and sales software. By integrating live chat into your CRM, your employees know exactly who they are chatting with. All information about the customers, such as their purchase history, is always at hand. Communication logs and recordings are all stored in one central place. In addition, switching back and forth between different tools and screens is eliminated, which makes interactions more efficient.

5. Familiarize your sales employees with the live chat

Once the chat has been set up for your website, your sales team should familiarize themselves with the software. They need to learn how to use the tool and guide leads through the live chat. Depending on your live chat program, you can automatically assign incoming live chat messages to your team members or process them manually.

6. Plan the conversation process

Now it's time for your sales employees to plan the conversation processes. These should always differ according to the needs of the customers. Your website visitors also expect a personal address and not standard messages. However, you can use a chatbot at the start of the live chat. This can collect information about potential customers. Based on this, your sales employees can ask the necessary questions to solve the customers' problems.

7. Collect and analyze the feedback from your live chat customers

After the conversation is before the conversation: If you were in contact with your website visitors via live chat and were able to provide them with the necessary answers, you can conduct a satisfaction survey. Try to find out whether they enjoyed using the live chat function and found it helpful. Was it able to help them make their decision and address their issues? What was the experience with the chat staff like? Using the feedback, you can optimize your live chat strategy.

What live chat tools are there for websites?

As mentioned before, the list of suitable Live chat tools is long. Here is an overview of the best software:

Sinch Engage

Userlike

Intercom

Freshdesk

ChatWerk

Tidio

LiveAgent

Freshchat

Zoho SalesIQ

tawk.to

Conclusion: is a live chat function worthwhile on the website?

In our fast-paced world, where time is one of the most important resources, consumers expect quick answers and solutions to their problems. This is where website live chats come into play, scoring with an average response time of 46 seconds. They guide customers through your website, provide them with information and ultimately advise them on their purchases. For your customers, it is much more convenient to use the chat function than to write an email or have to call customer support.

While customers particularly benefit from easy-to-use and fast support, businesses save time and costs. Sounds convincing? Then all you have to do is ensure that you, or an employee, can monitor the live chat at least during business hours. If you have a lot of web traffic, it can be a full-time job for one or more people. However, for small businesses, it is often sufficient to assign a office manager or shipping employee.

So if your company wants to take its customer service to a new level and has the resources to supervise the live chat, there is nothing to prevent its use - quite the contrary, it is a must for companies that want to offer a modern form of customer communication.