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9 Proven Steps to Implement Live Chat Strategy for Your Business

• Updated Apr 29, 2024
• Estimated Reading Time: 0

41% of consumers prefer live chat to connect with the support teams and have the highest consumer satisfaction rate at 92%.

Leveraging digital communication channels like live chat allows businesses to connect instantly with customers and address their queries. By implementing a live chat strategy, you can improve customer service communication that enhances the experience and develops strong relationships with customers.

Why live chat strategy is important?

Customer service can be challenging at times. Usually, the customers face a lot of challenges in their buying journey. One of the first common problems customers encounter is the long resolution time for their queries. Many customers lose their temper because they are being switched between departments. Sometimes a customer might receive a faulty product and the complaint is not accepted.

Live chat tool is the preference of customers as it helps to communicate with the support agent in real time via the chat window. Customer service representatives can provide support to users who have questions regarding products or website navigation.

Unlike reactive support like email or phone, the proactive live chat support enables you to see the activity of the user on the website. You can reach out to them and send proactive chat triggers based on their journey and deliver an effortless customer experience.

Implementing live chat as part of the overall customer communication strategy can help businesses across key business functions.

Sales and lead generation 

Lead generation is vital for all businesses, particularly for small businesses. According to the  Forrester  report,  “Live chat use among customers has escalated substantially in the past few years.” These growing numbers indicate that more and more customers are visiting company websites via live chat.

• Convert website visitors into leads: Live chat is an excellent way to maximize leads and optimize return on investment (ROI). The quicker and better is your customer service, you will have more repeat customers  and generate more sales. Online chat tool reduces the wait time of the website visitors and enhances the customer experience.
• Shortened sales process:  Proactive chat sessions with the target leads, helps in addressing their sales-related queries in real time and encourages customers in making quick sales decisions. Using live chat for sales  allows sales reps to assist customers in their journey and push them to make a final purchase. 

Customer support and engagement

As per the  Econsultancy  report, “Customers applaud the advantage of being able to use live chat without committing a huge chunk of time and priority to the task.” The quality product & customer support determines the success of your business. One of the best ways to deliver an excellent customer experience is to provide real time assistance by automating help 24×7 with live chat for customer support .

• Highly operational efficiency:  Live chat software with high operational efficiency when compared with reactive channels like phone or email, empowers agents to handle multiple conversations at the same time. 
• Reduce customer support costs: Online chat tools not only reduce your operating costs but also increases your revenue. It offers customizable routing capabilities, video chat, and co-browsing that allows collaborating with the customer in real time. 
• Increase customer engagement: If your visitors can easily connect with you with queries and issues related to your product or service they are using, they will be more confident in your company and a source of satisfying customer support and valuable knowledge.

How do I implement live chat on my website?

If you wondering how to add live chat to your website, it is a very simple process that includes few steps that don’t require technical expertise. Live chat starts functioning as soon as you paste the short snippet code into the web pages. 

Here the steps to be followed:

• Copy the code and then paste the code into your web pages. ( Integrate the code on specific pages where the customers are likely to have queries like contact page, pricing, sales, and home page)
• You can add live chat code manually by pasting the snippet code before the closing </body> tag on your website page.
• Also, you can also email the code to the IT administrator.

Once you paste the code, check that the integration is successful or not. Once it is successfully added to the website or mobile apps, your visitors can see the live chat widget on the lower corner of your website and initiate conversations.

9 Effective steps to implement live chat strategy

There are a couple of key areas that need to be properly planned for successfully implementing the live chat strategy. Defining the core objectives and defining the plan effectively will help to implement live chat service successfully.

Here is a list of important steps to be considered while outlining a live chat strategy for your business.

• Evaluate your business needs
• Define KPIs to measure RoI
• Select the right live chat platform
• Train your live chat agents 
• Define internal processes
• Complement live chat with AI bots
• Focus on customer experience
• Have regular calls with reporting
• Define an incentive program to reward your team

Go through the points discussed below to get an idea about the important steps to be considered.

1. Evaluate your business needs

Identifying your core business requirements is vital for implementing a live chat strategy. Evaluating the objectives and the use cases of live chat software  helps in making the deployment successful. Your support team should able to answer some of the following questions before you even start searching for the right solution.

• What are your customer’s expectations? Do they want to support the website or do they prefer support across multiple channels?
• What the objectives of implementing live chat? Is it for  lead generation or customer support or both?
• How you are going to measure the KPIs?
• What kind of training is required for your employees to deliver the right support?

Having a thorough understanding of the above will help to understand your customer’s preferences and the right features you need in your live chat platform. An article by  New York Times  says – customers hesitate to ask for assistance first. With live chat for small businesses , you will be able to get the upper hand and deliver proactive assistance whenever needed.

2. Define KPIs to measure RoI

Outlining the key performance indicators (KPIs) is important as it helps businesses to understand if they are able to meet customer expectations and measure customer satisfaction scores. The metrics also help to measure agent performance in terms of how they are handling customer conversations. Also, the live chat KPIs  help businesses to calculate the cost and RoI associated with the online chat support.

Here are the key metrics & KPIs you must track to review your live chat implementation in order to measure how profitable they have been in gaining the objectives.

• First response time (FRT): First response time refers to how long your live chat agent takes to make the first reply on a case. It helps to understand how agile the business is about customer communication. The high rate of first response time indicates that customers might switch for not getting any message so you have to keep your FRT as low as possible.
• Customer satisfaction ratings (CSAT): For every business customer satisfaction is the key ingredient. A CSAT score allows for a customized questionnaire so that we can go deep to find out different strengths and weaknesses and further seek the best way to make customers happy. 
• First Contact Resolution (FCR): First contact resolution helps to measure customer satisfaction and contact center efficiency. Higher the FCR, the happier the customers. For the average call center, an alarming 41% of customers are not able to resolve the inquiry or problem on the first contact. Lower the FCR means your team is not efficient and wasting efforts on useless processes.
• Cost per successful chat: As a business, you need to measure the RoI about how the resources and time you invested in terms of live chat, is helping your business. 
• Visitors to sales conversion: Live chat is the ultimate tool to maximize sales conversion. It is a simple yet powerful way to bump your website conversions in real-time. Studies show that live chat contributes 30% approximately in the conversion rate. Customers prefer the live chat option and it helps them in making buying decisions.

3. Selecting the right live chat platform

Customers expect faster responses to their queries and delay in response can risk your business to the competitors.

Hence, adding the best live chat tool helps to communicate with your customers. Live chat app not only adds another dimension to customer experience but also increases your sales by making your visitors into buyers. However, choosing the right live chat platform actually depends on your business requirements.

Here are some key criteria to look for while considering the live chat strategy.

Does it have an omnichannel platform?

Customers choose multiple platforms to communicate with you. They can contact you from web chat, social media, phone, email etc. and these touch points should be interconnected with your live chat platform for a seamless customer experience. Omnichannel service reduces your customer’s pain points and omits inconsistencies in your customer support.

 “C ompanies with good omnichannel customer engagement can retain 89% of customers , as compared to 33% companies that do not follow omnichannel customer engagement.

Does your business provide real-time engagement?

Advanced technology and new marketing strategies have offered a number of ways to connect with the customers and deliver a better customer service experience.

What if your website visitor is browsing the service or the pricing page?

Delivering real-time engagement through video chat or live chat guides the customer in the right way with his queries and help him to walk through the services and provide accurate information. Following real-time engagement benefits your company in several ways.

• Instant resolution of the customer queries
• Time-saving for the agent and the customer
• Simple and easy to use for the customer
• Raises chances of sales conversion
• Complete customer engagement and satisfaction

Do they provide ready integration with other business apps that you use?

Implement a live chat strategy that easily integrates with your CRM and other business services you use. Smooth integration is convenient and gets instant access to the required information right in a live chat. Live chat like Reve Chat, provides API that allows smooth integration with a large number of services.

There are a few other questions that need to be looked into while choosing the right live chat platform like – Do they have mobile apps? Does the live chat platform have access to API? And Should you go for an on-premise or cloud-based platform?

4. Support training as a part of live chat strategy

A well-planned live chat strategy enhances the customer experience and increases conversion rates. But your efforts might go to waste if you don’t have a well-trained support team. Your customer depends upon your sales and support agents to possess product or service knowledge and have the ability to deliver the information in a quick yet pleasant manner.

What should companies focus on when training the support team ?

Follow some tips that will help to take the benefit of the live chat to the brim.

Soft skills training:

• Train your support agents to be patient and empathetic. Agents should use, for eg. “you are completely right”, “I agree with you” to give a special feeling to the customers and trust that their problem will be resolved.
• Being polite and gentle towards your customers will end up with positive results. Using courteous phrases like “Let me find out for you”, “I’m glad that was able to help you” always adds a wow effect.

Product knowledge training:

• The customer support team should successfully handle inquiries and requests for support, product, and service knowledge.
• When the products and services are upgraded, ensure that you acknowledge and advise your support team. Upgrade the knowledge bases and inform the agents about the same.

5. Define internal processes wisely

For planning a live chat strategy there are multiple things that need to be defined in order to deliver excellent customer service. You can define –

• How your team will handle questions which they don’t answer?
• Where your internal knowledge management system?
• How your team will escalate issues when a customer is angry?
• What intervals do the agents need to get updated with product knowledge or internal training?
• How your agents can prepare the weekly or monthly reports for the team lead or management?

Properly defining the above areas will help to deliver a  customer experience.

6. Complement live chat with AI bots

Businesses both small or big can reap the advantage of chatbot implementation. With chatbots and automation, the live chat tools give you the ability to have live, dynamic, conversations even when the agent is not there at the end of the messenger. It helps in simple transactions, lead generation, sales, filtering of spam, and more.

According to  Gartner , “Customers will manage 85% of their relationship with the enterprise without interacting with a human.”

Key benefits of chatbots along with the live chat tool

• Bots are handy in delivering 24×7 instant replies to the customers
• Chatbots can multiple chats at the same time
• Easily collect data from the chatbots and further retrain them
• Customers get feedback immediately

7. Focus on customer experience

Customer experience is an imperative part of customer relationship management (CRM). A customer with a satisfied and positive customer experience with your business might become your loyal or repeat customer. Delivering better quality of service and reducing the response time helps in gaining better customer satisfaction.

There are different ways to check out what your customers are looking for or share their experience after using the product or service. You can implement chat surveys to collect feedback. This will help you to know the loopholes to fill and improve the areas that the customer is looking for. Planning to set an effective live chat strategy helps in complete customer satisfaction.

8. Define an incentive program to reward your team 

Many companies have well-defined incentive programs for the sales and support team. A target is set by the company and the sales/support agent has to meet or cross the target to showcase his exceptional competencies. Rewards in form of money or title are given to the best performer.

Here are a few examples:

• Give recognition to the employee who received maximum votes in a customer feedback survey.
• Start a “Great Customer Service Achievement email Award” on a monthly basis for the whole company acknowledging one employee with amazing performance.
• Start an internal award for customer satisfaction and encourage employees to nominate their friends whose work serves as an example for customers.

9. Regular calls with reporting

Live chat strategy implementation helps in reporting with the calls initiated by agents for customer service. You have to evaluate the customer conversations and communication on a regular basis to:

• Understand metrics: live chat helps to understand the customer journey.
• Follow-up things: With the help of the previous chat records follow-up can be made with the customers who have shown interest in the product or purchased the product.

Conclusion – The future road map of intelligent chat strategy

Planning a live chat strategy helps to achieve business objectives but you should also consider other key factors such as omnichannel, team management, and internal training to get optimum results. With AI bots, live chat can become the most powerful channel to deliver sales and support assistance and also automating your routine tasks. So it’s the best of both worlds, better performance, and lower costs.

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Snigdha Patel

Snigdha Patel is a customer experience researcher, author, and blogger. As part of REVE Chat, she focuses on helping organizations maximize customer experience using omnichannel messaging and conversational AI.

She creates contextual, insightful, and conversational content for business audiences across a broad range of industries and categories like Customer Service, Customer Experience (CX), Chatbots, and more.

Serving as the lead content strategist, Snigdha helps the customer service teams to leverage the right technology along with AI to deliver exceptional and memorable customer experiences.

Being a customer service adherent, her goal is to show that organizations can use customer experience as a competitive advantage and win customer loyalty.

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How to Implement Live Chat With a Small Support Team

The immediate concern of every support team when considering implementing live chat is the perceived increase in volume. Is it possible to provide a high quality experience on live chat with a small support team?

I’m here to tell you that it absolutely is.

Launching chat support doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice quality of support or hire a ton more agents to keep up. In fact, for many companies, live chat is more efficient and scalable than other support channels.

This is a chapter in our  Ultimate Guide to Live Chat Support . When you're ready, check out the other chapters:

Chapter 1 – Live Chat Support 101: Definition, Benefits, and Best Practices

Chapter 2 – Key Live Chat Statistics for Customer Service Teams

Chapter 3 – How to Implement Live Chat With a Small Support Team

Chapter 4 – The Big Benefits of Live Chat for Customer Service Teams

Chapter 5 – Important Live Chat Tips for Email Support Pros

Chapter 6 – 101 Best Live Chat Response Examples for Customer Service

Chapter 7 – The Best Live Chat Tools for Customer Support

Chapter 8 – 5 Reasons Why Every Ecommerce Store Needs Live Chat

Chapter 9 – Live Chat Best Practices and Common Mistakes

Chapter 10 – Why Contextual Support is Critical to Live Chat

Chapter 11 – Why You Don’t Need an AI Support Chatbot

Chapter 12 – Actionable Live Chat Metrics to Start Tracking Today

5 best practices for implementing live chat

Leading with chat is a great way to scale support as your company grows, but it does require some planning to get right. With a little preparation — and knowing what to focus on first — your team will be ready for success right out of the gate.

Follow these five best practices for a successful live chat roll out.

Prefer to watch a video instead? Check out this webinar on best practices for adding live chat support, featuring Mathew Patterson of Help Scout, Karl Pawlewicz of Olark, and Denise Twum of Issuu.

1. Limit chat support in the beginning

Managing the volume of chat conversations is like dealing with the flow of water. If you add a chat widget to every page and show it to every visitor, you’ll be dealing with a firehose of volume, making it difficult to find your footing.

Instead, be strategic about which pipes you open. Start small with a business-critical page where allowing customers to chat will have the biggest impact. This might be your checkout page, pricing page, or help center.

Deciding where to display the option to chat depends on your business goals for rolling out chat:

If you’re only looking to support existing customers to start, experiment with only showing the chat widget to logged-in users.

If you’re focused on driving conversions, start with only displaying chat on your pricing page.

Nicole Winstone, Customer Support Manager at Hootsuite, had great success with starting chat support with only a small percentage of their customers:

“As our team got more comfortable on the new channel and we brought on new team members, we were able to ramp up our coverage. When you’re starting out, don’t be afraid to only offer chat support to a subset of your customers and build from there.”

Remember, you are in full control of your live chat deployment. Roll out slowly, then expand as you and your team feel confident with how it’s going. As you become more comfortable with managing a chat queue, you can keep opening up the taps.

2. Plan ahead with knowledge base articles and saved replies

You can ramp up your chat efficiency by preparing resources for your chat teams to deploy at the touch of a button. Two resources are particularly important for speeding up chats: A thorough knowledge base, and a collection of saved replies.

A knowledge base is a collection of how-to articles and guides for using your product. These articles should provide step-by-step instructions on how to do common tasks in your product and should include videos, screenshots or GIFs.

If a customer asks you how to do something over live chat, you can include a link to the full article in your explanation. Knowledge base articles will come in handy again and again as you explain the most common features to your customers over chat.

Make your website or app more helpful

Beacon lets you suggest relevant help content, offer live chat, and give customers instant access to their support history — all without leaving your site.

Speaking of common questions, saved replies will save you time. If you can anticipate the most frequently asked questions, having a saved reply ready to go will make your life easier. Rather than typing out the reply every time, send your perfectly written saved reply to guarantee a fast resolution.

Preparing resources will pay off and make it so your team has an easy day in the chat queue.

3. Make sure customer information is easily accessible

Integrating your company’s data into your chat solution will give you full context about the customer you’re helping. Whether it’s from your CRM, a product analytics tool, or your help desk , more information about your customer will help you have the best conversation.

When using Help Scout's Beacon, customer data appears alongside every live chat conversation.

For example, say a chat request pops up from [email protected] . If you can see key pieces of data, you can see that he’s in the middle of his 14-day trial. If you can see his past support conversations, you know that he’s had some trouble with part of the onboarding already.

Armed with these two pieces of information, you can approach the conversation ready to help convert Sam into a paying customer — while also following up on his past concerns.

4. Offer chat support only when you can

A common misconception is that you can only offer chat if you’re available 24/7. That’s not the case at all. Instead, it’s about setting expectations for when you’re available and letting customers know how to contact you when you aren’t.

Decide chat business hours by looking at existing volume throughout the day and the availability of customer service agents. Staff up chat when most customers are online and visiting the website. When volume is lower, move agents away from chat onto other projects or working towards inbox zero .

Depending on your particular business, most agents will be able to handle between two and five chats at the same time when trained and comfortable. For the most efficient chat queue, it’s better to have one agent working with four customers than four agents dealing with four chats.

Also keep in mind that not all problems should be handled over a chat conversation. If you need to involve a developer in triaging bugs, it might be best to smoothly transfer the question to email so you can respond to the customer with more information later.

Set clear escalation paths to avoid wasting both your time and your customer’s time.

5. Promote live chat as your preferred support channel

Because chat support is so effective, it’s often worth pushing more customers to chat and reducing phone and email volume. Start removing your phone number from pages with a chat widget on it. Advertise chat as the best and fastest way to get support.

The higher percentage of volume that goes through chat (instead of phone or email), the happier your customers will be.

The best thing about chat support is how much control you have over it. If volume is high, remove the widget from some pages. If you have more staff available, initiate proactive chats with people who have been viewing a page on your site or help center for a while. It’s totally up to you how busy your team is on chat.

As your team gets more comfortable, you can roll out chat to more and more customers.

How to schedule your team for live chat support

Once you've finalized your strategy for implementing live chat, the next thing you'll need to do is decide how you'll schedule your team to provide chat support coverage.

Coordinating a team for live chat coverage is a lot more difficult than scheduling for email support. Rather than just letting everyone run wild in the email inbox, agents need to be scheduled for coordinated shifts because chat needs to be kept online.

Here are some tips you should keep in mind when scheduling your team for live chat, along with some advice from people who’ve made it work.

Figure out when you'll need people covering live chat

Forecasting how busy your chat queue will be at any given time is key to setting up a schedule with good coverage of the busy times. There are a few ways you can approach this challenge.

First of all, look into any historical volume data you have available, even if it’s for a different support channel:

When do your customers typically contact you?

Are there set business hours for your clients?

What regions (and timezones) are most of your customers based in?

Another way to decide what hours to open your chat up for is to simply look at the availability of your existing team. You can’t provide support when you don’t have team members available.

Valentina Thörner from Automattic says they started their chat schedule by simply having agents sign up for their desired shifts.

“Once we had some basic data, we started forecasting and planning by looking at the max number of simultaneous chats at any given hour,” Thörner says. This helped them determine whether agents needed to pick up more shifts or if they needed to start hiring.

Schedule a standby team for when the queue gets busy

Automattic also looks at the volatility of incoming chats to maximize productivity.

Most agents, once trained, can handle between three to five chats at any one time. It’s not very efficient if three agents are each handling one chat conversation each. They won’t be able to work on other tasks that demand their full attention, but they also aren’t working at full capacity.

“At Automattic,” says Thörner, “we assign about two-thirds of the coverage needed, and we expect everyone to be able to cover three chats at the same time. One-third of our team is also logged in as a ‘reserve’ team. That means they only get assigned chats once everybody else is maxed out."

The reserve team can focus on email support or other tasks until the queue gets busy — and then they are ready to step in to help.

Avoid scheduling overly long chat shifts

How you set up your agents’ schedules has a big impact on their overall work satisfaction. Long, challenging shifts on chat without flexibility to switch up tasks is a surefire way to wear down your team.

Giovanna Hopkins from Soomo Learning says that being on chat for eight hours is very demanding. You’re always “on” and multitasking between customer conversations. Reducing the chance for burnout is a key aspect of a great schedule.

Flexibility can really help keep agents fresh, even when the work becomes difficult.

Rachel Wallace from MassageBook emphasizes the need for agents to take time to themselves: “The team communicates heavily throughout the day and has the freedom to switch between channels should they have a really difficult phone call or chat.”

Negotiating lunch and bathroom breaks when stuck on an epic chat is a common concern for agents, too. Or even tougher: If a customer still needs help but the shift is ending, how does an agent handle it?

Set guidelines for how early agents turn off their availability before the end of their shift to prevent them from getting trapped in a never-ending queue of chats. Or alternatively, encourage agents to warmly transfer chats to someone else who is available, either by leaving notes in the chat or pinging details in Slack.

Keep your schedule consistent

Try to keep your chat support schedule as consistent as possible from week to week. Not only will it reduce the amount of time you spend scheduling, but it also limits mental overhead for agents who have to check their schedules and plan around it.

Sarah Betts at Olark says that everyone on their team has their own preference around how long they stay on chat each day, and their schedules reflect that:

“We all get to pick our preferred balance. Some folks work shorter chat shifts, but it’s a predictable pattern. For example, they may work from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. every Wednesday.”

Once the schedule is ready, distribute it to the team in a manner where everyone can see who is on which channel at what time. Transparency means that everyone will know who should be on chat or working on other things. It can also help teams coordinate lunch or break times where needed.

Evaluate your schedule and improve it

As your customer and team needs fluctuate, there will always be room for improvement when it comes to scheduling.

For agents, collect feedback periodically to check if they’re still happy with the arrangements you’ve made. Are they burning out from too much chat? Do they feel overwhelmed with the volume? Or are they bored with babysitting a quiet queue?

Change it up when it’s not working to keep employee satisfaction high so they can do their best work.

For customers, keep an eye on chat wait times and the number of unanswered chats. If you see either number increasing, it might be worth considering how you can expand your customer support availability.

A sudden increase in volume might be temporary and not require drastic changes in strategy — just more flexibility. A consistent trend upwards suggests that a plan is needed to increase your capacity.

Balancing chat coverage and agent happiness requires a constant reevaluation of what’s working and what needs improvement. As you become better acquainted with your company’s incoming chat volume, you’ll become better at meeting the needs of your customers.

Keep scheduling, keep improving, and keep seeing customer happiness grow.

Like what you see? Share with a friend.

Sarah chambers.

Sarah is a customer service consultant and the founder of Supported Content . When she’s not arguing about customer service, she’s usually outdoors rock climbing or snowboarding. Follow her on Twitter to keep up with her adventures.

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Boost Your Business with Live Chat

Updated: December 02, 2019

Published: August 09, 2016

Let’s discuss an underutilized tool called live chat and see how it can boost your business and give you a leg up on the competition.

What is live chat?

We all have come across a live chat window at some point during our online browsing. In a nutshell, it’s a customer service software that integrates with your website to initiate real time communication with visitors to your site. Live chat is extremely convenient for customers as it allows them immediate access to support, but it’s also a powerful marketing and sales tool that allows you to engage visitors to your site and start a relationship with them at the point when they’re most interested in learning more about you.

How does live chat work?

Typically a small customizable chat window will popup on the user’s screen inviting them to chat with customer support while still viewing your website. The chat window is usually discrete, yet noticeable and designed to look like part of your website to give users the peace of mind that they will not be directed away from your site.

The chat window can engage visitors with an automated greeting that is triggered when certain conditions are met, or a manual greeting sent by an agent. Either way, the proactive chat invitations are designed to increase customer engagement.

L ive chat systems are more affordable than you think

The cost to add live chat to your website varies from company to company, but here are some general pricing plans for all businesses ranging from startups to big enterprises. Pricing can begin as low as $19 per agent per month and go up to $149 per agent per month. You can have as many or as few agents as you want depending on your business needs.

Live chat tracking and reporting features often include daily reporting of online chat activity, post-chat survey, chat ratings, queued visitors and wait times, goals achieved during a chat, and much more. There are also typically options for visitors to leave a message via a ticket form and receive a response the next business day when your live chat is offline.

Why choose live chat?

According to a survey conducted by Forrester Research , “around 44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a web site can offer.”

Live chat is a powerful way to communicate with customers immediately and can reduce or replace your need for phone support.

Also, nothing turns off a potential customer faster than waiting on hold on the phone.  HubSpot Research found that 33% of customers rated waiting on hold as the most frustrating aspect of getting help from customer service. If you staff your live chat appropriately, then there should be no or very little wait time for a response from a customer support agent. Prompt communication in a chat window will keep your visitors engaged and creates greater potential to convert them into customers.

How to optimize your live chat

Live chat communication should be warm and friendly to assist customers in their shopping experience. One simple way to do this is by using photo avatars that customers can associate with chat representatives as a reminder that they are chatting with a real person. Another way to keep that human touch is to avoid any robotic greetings or responses.

You also should make the most of your live chat software by monitoring the activity on your site to be sure you have adequate staffing for your customers’ needs. Analytics can help you to determine when most visitors are using your site, which will enable you be prepared for surges in chat volume and reduce the amount of time a customer spends in a queue.

What are you waiting for?

Live chat is a powerful and cost effective way to get a leg up on your online competition, tap into your client base to get them out of research-mode, and convert visitors into buyers. Seems like a no-brainer to me!

Don't forget to share this post!

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Exploring the Pros and Cons of Implementing Live Chat for Your Business

In today’s fast-paced digital world, businesses are constantly seeking new and innovative ways to enhance their customer service and communication strategies. One such tool that has gained significant traction in recent years is live chat. This article will delve into the ins and outs of live chat for businesses, exploring its functionality, benefits, drawbacks, and strategies for maximizing its potential.

From improved customer service to potential drawbacks and tips for optimization, we will explore the full spectrum of using live chat as a business tool. Whether you’re considering implementing live chat or looking to enhance your existing strategy, this comprehensive guide will provide you with the insights you need to make informed decisions and maximize the benefits of this powerful communication tool.

Key Takeaways:

• Live chat can improve customer service, increase efficiency, and reduce costs for businesses.
• However, it may also have drawbacks such as limited availability, potential for miscommunication, and requiring adequate staffing and training.
• To maximize the benefits, businesses should offer 24/7 availability, train staff on communication techniques, utilize automation and AI, and monitor chat data.

What Is Live Chat for Businesses?

Live chat for businesses refers to a real-time communication channel that allows customers to interact with the business’s support team or representatives directly through the website or mobile app.

This direct interaction provides instant responses to queries, concerns, and issues, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

For instance, companies like LiveChat , SuperOffice , Zendesk , and Google offer live chat platforms that integrate seamlessly into websites and applications, enabling businesses to engage with customers in real time.

Whether it’s resolving product inquiries, troubleshooting technical problems, or guiding customers through the purchase process, live chat facilitates efficient and personalized assistance.

Businesses can use live chat to proactively initiate conversations, offer promotions, and gather valuable feedback from visitors, contributing to improved sales and customer experience.

How Does Live Chat Work?

Live chat operates through a specialized software or platform that enables businesses to offer real-time support to customers, addressing their queries, concerns, and requests promptly.

The integration of live chat into websites and mobile apps has become increasingly vital, providing a seamless channel for customer interaction. Leading live chat solutions such as Help Scout , Forrester , and Facebook Messenger offer advanced features like customizable chat widgets, automated responses, and chat routing based on customer profiles and behavior.

These solutions are designed to enhance customer support systems, leveraging analytics to track and improve response times, customer satisfaction, and overall performance. Businesses can also utilize live chat to gather valuable insights, such as common customer pain points, which can inform strategic decision-making and product development.

What Are the Benefits of Live Chat for Businesses?

Live chat offers a myriad of benefits for businesses, including improved customer service , increased efficiency , cost-effectiveness , and personalized customer interactions , leading to enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The ability to address customer queries promptly and in real-time through live chat significantly impacts customer service. Businesses that have integrated live chat have reported a notable upsurge in customer satisfaction ratings.

The immediacy and convenience of live chat contribute to operational efficiency and cost savings, as agents can handle multiple chats simultaneously, eliminating long wait times and resolving issues swiftly.

Improved Customer Service

Live chat facilitates improved customer service by enabling businesses to address customer queries and concerns in real-time, leading to higher satisfaction levels and quicker issue resolution.

With live chat, businesses can provide instant assistance to customers, reducing response times and increasing overall efficiency. This plays a pivotal role in ensuring that customer issues are resolved promptly, thereby enhancing the overall experience.

For instance, Natwest, a leading bank, has effectively utilized live chat to promptly address customer inquiries, resulting in positive feedback and improved customer satisfaction. Similarly, DebugBear, a web performance monitoring company, has integrated live chat to provide real-time technical support, leading to enhanced customer relationships and loyalty.

Increased Efficiency

Live chat contributes to increased efficiency for businesses by streamlining customer support processes , reducing response times, and enabling multitasking for support agents.

Utilizing live chat facilitates quicker problem resolution, thus enhancing response times. This tool enables agents to handle multiple inquiries simultaneously, thereby boosting their productivity. For example, businesses like May and Core Web Vitals have effectively utilized live chat to improve operational efficiency. By integrating live chat seamlessly into their support platforms, they have achieved significant reductions in customer response times, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. Such streamlining of support processes leads to a better overall customer experience.

Cost-Effective

Live chat serves as a cost-effective customer support channel for businesses, reducing the need for extensive phone support and minimizing operational expenses while delivering impactful customer interactions.

Businesses utilizing live chat, such as Stripe and Shopify, have realized significant cost efficiencies through its adoption. By diverting support inquiries from traditional, resource-intensive phone support to the efficient, real-time nature of live chat, these companies have minimized their operational overheads and resource utilization, resulting in substantial cost savings. This shift has not only cut down on staffing and infrastructure costs but has also improved the overall customer experience by providing prompt, personalized support.

Personalized Customer Interactions

Live chat enables businesses to provide personalized customer interactions, tailoring support experiences to individual needs, preferences, and inquiries, thereby fostering stronger customer relationships and loyalty.

By integrating live chat functionality into their customer service platforms, companies like Lorraine and Patrik have revolutionized their approach to one-on-one interactions. They have harnessed the power of real-time communication to address customer queries promptly and empathetically, thereby creating a lasting impression and enhancing customer satisfaction. Through personalized recommendations, proactive assistance, and targeted problem-solving, businesses are able to cater to the unique requirements of each individual, thereby establishing a solid foundation for long-term customer loyalty and retention.

What Are the Drawbacks of Live Chat for Businesses?

Despite its benefits, live chat presents certain drawbacks for businesses, including limited availability, potential for miscommunication, staffing and training requirements, and technical difficulties, which can impact customer experiences and operational performance.

One of the prominent challenges in implementing live chat is the limited availability for providing real-time support. This constraint can lead to delayed responses, especially during peak hours, causing frustration among customers.

The potential for miscommunication arises due to the absence of visual cues, making it challenging to convey tone and intention accurately. Businesses like Laura and Valerian have encountered instances where misunderstandings through live chat adversely affected customer satisfaction.

Limited Availability

One of the drawbacks of live chat for businesses is its limited availability, as it may not offer 24/7 support, leading to potential customer frustration during off-hours or peak traffic periods.

This limited availability can significantly impact customer experiences, especially in industries where immediate assistance and information are crucial, such as e-commerce, finance, and healthcare.

Customers expect real-time responses and solutions, and when businesses fail to meet these expectations, it can result in dissatisfaction and loss of potential sales. For example, businesses like Nerissa and Michele have encountered challenges due to limited live chat availability. During peak periods, their customers experienced delays in getting assistance, which not only led to frustration but also resulted in missed opportunities for conversions.

Potential for Miscommunication

Live chat poses a risk for potential miscommunication between businesses and customers, especially due to the absence of visual and vocal cues, potentially leading to misunderstandings or incomplete issue resolution.

One common example of this is when a customer uses sarcasm or humor in their messages, which might be misinterpreted by the agent. Technical jargon or abbreviations used by support staff might confuse the customer, leading to frustration.

Implementing clear communication techniques, such as active listening, paraphrasing, and using empathetic language, can help mitigate these risks. Providing training to customer service representatives on cultural sensitivity and language nuances can enhance their ability to effectively communicate with a diverse customer base.

Requires Adequate Staffing and Training

Live chat demands adequate staffing and training for support agents to handle customer inquiries effectively, requiring investment in resources and skill development to maintain quality interactions and service delivery.

Skilled personnel play a crucial role in successful live chat operations. The ability to multitask, communicate clearly, and empathize with customers are essential traits. Regular training sessions on product knowledge, communication techniques, and problem-solving skills are vital to keep agents updated and competent.

Companies like Cheryl have set a benchmark by investing in comprehensive live chat training and staffing strategies. They emphasize on hiring individuals with a customer-centric approach and then continuously hone their skills through workshops, role-playing exercises, and scenario-based learning.

Technical Difficulties

Businesses may encounter technical difficulties with live chat systems, such as platform outages, connectivity issues, or software malfunctions, leading to interruptions in customer support and service delivery.

These technical challenges can significantly impact customer experiences, as they may lead to prolonged response times, loss of critical conversations, or even complete inability to engage with customers. For instance, a sudden platform outage during peak hours can result in frustrated customers unable to reach the support team, affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty.

It is crucial for businesses to have proactive measures and contingency plans in place to address potential technical disruptions. This can involve regular system maintenance, adopting robust network infrastructure, and implementing real-time monitoring to swiftly identify and address emerging issues, thereby minimizing the impact on customer interactions and satisfaction.

How Can Businesses Maximize the Benefits of Live Chat?

To leverage the advantages of live chat, businesses can implement strategies such as offering 24/7 availability , training staff on effective communication techniques, utilizing automation and AI technology, and monitoring/analyzing chat data to optimize customer interactions and operational performance.

Implementing a 24/7 live chat support system can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. For example, businesses can allocate resources to ensure round-the-clock customer service, which has been successfully adopted by companies like Google and Facebook.

Training staff on empathetic and solution-driven communication can elevate the customer experience, contributing to improved customer retention and positive word-of-mouth. The integration of AI-powered chatbots can handle repetitive queries efficiently, reducing response times and human resource costs.

Data analysis of chat interactions can provide valuable insights for refining customer support, product enhancement, and operational efficiency.

Offer 24/7 Availability

Businesses can enhance their live chat offerings by providing 24/7 availability, ensuring that customers have access to support and assistance at any time, fostering trust and reliability in customer interactions.

This round-the-clock availability for live chat has become a crucial element in delivering exceptional customer service. Customers expect and appreciate the convenience of being able to get help whenever they need it. Take Natwest , for example, they have successfully implemented 24/7 live chat support, allowing their customers to resolve queries and concerns without delays.

DebugBear is another standout in this regard, offering uninterrupted live chat support, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Train Staff on Proper Communication Techniques

Training support staff on effective communication techniques is crucial for optimizing live chat interactions, ensuring clarity, empathy, and professionalism in customer engagements, thereby enhancing the overall customer experience.

Effective communication in live chat scenarios includes elements such as active listening, clear and concise language, and the ability to convey empathy. Support agents need to be adept at quickly identifying customer needs and addressing them in a courteous and efficient manner.

An example of a company that prioritizes communication training for live chat support is May, where agents undergo regular workshops to refine their interpersonal and problem-solving skills. By investing in staff training, businesses like Core Web Vitals convey a commitment to providing exceptional customer service through well-equipped support teams.

Utilize Automation and AI Technology

Leveraging automation and AI technology in live chat systems can streamline responses, personalize interactions, and handle routine queries, freeing up human resources and enhancing the efficiency of support operations for businesses.

Chatbots, automated responses, and AI-driven support solutions are revolutionizing how businesses engage with their customers. These technologies have the potential to improve customer experiences by providing instant, accurate, and round-the-clock assistance. By integrating automation and AI into live chat, businesses can ensure that inquiries are addressed promptly, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The adoption of these technologies also contributes to operational efficiency, allowing human agents to focus on more complex and value-added tasks while mundane tasks are seamlessly handled by automated systems.

Monitor and Analyze Chat Data

Businesses can optimize live chat performance by monitoring and analyzing chat data , gaining insights into customer preferences, support trends, and operational metrics, enabling well-considered choices and continuous improvement.

This process helps in understanding common customer pain points, identifying frequently asked questions, and recognizing patterns in customer behavior. For instance, Stripe leveraged chat data analysis to identify the most pressing issues faced by its users, enabling them to streamline their support system and reduce response time.

Similarly, Shopify utilized chat data insights to enhance their support strategies, leading to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Live Chat for Business: 9 Best Practices in 2024

Looking into the best ways to use live chat for business? Smart choice! Live chat gives you a competitive edge and makes so many creative marketing ideas possible.

People love using live chat to communicate with businesses because it’s fast, convenient, and efficient. 

Millennials, the age group in its prime as workers and consumers, love live chat support. 73% prefer it to email and 44% over phone calls. So whether it’s for B2B or B2C, you’d better offer that live chat widget on your site.

Live chat is not just a help desk tool for answering customer questions, however. Your conversion rates will benefit from the direct channel for customer interactions. According to Forrester , site visitors who use web chat are 2.8x more likely to convert than those that don’t. 

Let’s look at 9 creative ways you can use live chat for business.

Live Chat For Business: 9 Best Practices

Live chat is contextual marketing but these best practices will certainly help you navigate the complexities. 

1. Onboard new clients via live chat

Whether your business is ecommerce or not, live chat is handy for showing new clients and prospects around your website. Explain how things work and point them to more resources (e.g. links to the help center, knowledge base, or customer testimonials). 

Via live chat, you can give more information and add value so the customer understands the product better and buys. It’s similar to a shop assistant approaching someone browsing the shelves at a physical store with, “Did you know these sweaters are made of llama wool?” to spark interest.

2. Proactively help on high-intent pages

Pages like pricing, checkout, terms and conditions, and returns are your money pages. They’re too important to be left only to self-service. If the customer feels insecure or hesitant, they won’t buy.

That’s why engaging them at these crucial points of their journey can make or break the deal. Offer to answer questions and provide extra information to reassure them it’s safe to do business with you.

Or even offer deals if people stay on a product page too long. The live chat can work as an additional attention-grabbing popup CTA.

To initiate a genuinely helpful proactive chat that isn’t too intrusive:

• Don’t barge in too soon . Give people time to feel the need for help. Set your chat triggers considering the average time spent on the page.
• Personalize . Create different chat scenarios for each page. Thus, the visitor will get the most relevant message and information for the page they’re on.
• Be ready to escalate. If you use chatbots for this, prepare them to hand over to support agents if things get complicated. A real person will better handle a frustrated customer than a bot.

3. Make it multichannel

Not all chat conversations with customers will result in a sale and that’s ok. Sometimes people are just not ready to commit. But it doesn’t mean they should never hear from you again.

Before closing a chat, offer people to subscribe to your newsletter. Embed the signup form directly in the chat box to make it as easy as possible. It’s a creative email list building tactic and a lead generation tool. 

Or ask for their contact information and consent to alert them when the product they wanted is back in stock. It can be done over email, SMS, or WhatsApp. This way, you’re getting one more chance to reconnect and convert. On the other hand, if you’re willing to go the extra mile, you can promote your live chat service on social media (with a Start a chat button) or in your email marketing like Estée Lauder does.

4. Nurture leads every time they visit your website

In addition to customer engagement, one nifty live chat function is the ability to catch returning visitors and follow up on previous exchanges whenever they come back to browse again. Your sales team can use the chat history as a reference point to engage leads.

Inform them about what’s new since they last visited. Highlight current offers. Send a link to your freshest customer reviews. Bit by bit, nurture leads so they grow familiar with your company and products until they’re ready to buy.

5. Diversify your approach on different pages

One of the best live chat software functionalities is that it shows you which page the visitor is on. So if they write in the chat, you know where they are and can jump right in with relevant information.

The same goes for automation. Set up different content to be triggered on different pages for maximum impact. For example, push testimonials on your About us page to reinforce the brand image. But offer a sizing guide on product pages to help people choose.

6. Recover abandoned carts with live chat

The beauty of live chat is that it’s real-time. The moment a website visitor tries to leave without completing their order, your live chat automation can trigger a recovery offer. 

Since the live chat window isn’t as intrusive as the exit popup, it’ll be a nice change for customers used to websites screaming in their face. As a side note, another subtler option is to use web push notifications .

7. Use insights to tailor your approach

When the live chat tool is integrated with your marketing platform like Brevo’s Live chat , you can easily use customer insights to personalize the experience.

Location is one example. The live agent sees the customer’s IP location and they can answer straight how much shipping to that location costs. Quick and easy for both sides!

For your returning customers, use order history to tailor product recommendations and post-purchase support. Your service will be more relevant, increasing customer satisfaction.

You can even work out a tag system so that whoever on your team handles customer support has all important insights at their fingertips. They’ll know who’s a VIP customer and who often returns items and makes trouble.

Last but not least, chat transcripts can be a source of market research. Go through them and try to find common themes and repeat issues. Solve these and your customer support workload will instantly get lighter.

8. Plan for being offline

Naturally, small businesses can’t cover 24/7 customer service. So what happens when you’re offline? Visitors slip through the cracks. It’s a good idea to set up a backup communication channel so you don’t miss out on all those prospects.

Brevo, for instance, lets people drop you an offline message via email. This way, you can get back to them once you’re available again and take the conversation down the funnel. Discover what other features the best live chat widgets have to offer.

9. Set clear expectations

Consumers are quick to spread negative word of mouth about poor live chat experience. Don’t believe it? Here, have a look at an angry customer tweet about their user experience:

It’s understandable you can’t be around 24/7, but short response time is one of the live chat features customers love the most. So make it clear when the support team is available to prevent customer frustration. Olay does it simply and effectively.

Ready to Start Using Live Chat for Business?

See how all live chat best practices are about understanding customer needs better and delivering good customer experience? There are no secrets or gimmicks. 

And if you need a live chat solution, you’re in good hands with Brevo Conversations .

About the author

• Email Marketing
• Chat & Messaging
• Omnichannel
• Software Guides
• Inside Brevo
• Transactional

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• Live Chat for Business: Benefits, Best Practices & Software

Customer expectations are at an all-time high, and as a result, traditional communication channels no longer cut it. Emails and support tickets are too slow. Phone calls don’t work for customers operating in different time zones. Self-service can be impersonal, time-consuming and inadequate at times.

So, what’s the solution?

Live chat apps make it easy to give customers the personalized, on-demand service they crave with real-time communication and quick response times.

Below, we’ll dig into some of the reasons organizations are embracing this communication channel before looking at the benefits of live chat software for businesses and the best practices to know before getting started.

What is live chat?

Live chat is a type of online application that allows website visitors to instantly communicate with a business directly from the browser — either on your website or through an external platform like Facebook or WhatsApp.

Unlike chatbots , live chat services for business are managed by actual people. It allows customers to communicate with sales or service reps in real-time without having to pick up a phone or navigate away from your site.

More Businesses Are Adopting Live Chat

Today’s businesses — no matter their size, sector, or what kinds of products or services they sell — compete on their ability to meet rising customer expectations in a complex digital landscape. These statistics demonstrate the degree to which a business’s online presence can make or break the customer relationship:

72% of customers expect agents to know their contact details, product information, and service history without asking for them.

According to a Kustomer survey , 79% of customers experience frustration when they can’t connect with a brand on their preferred channel or communication method.

Of customers who said they prefer live chat to other types of support, 79% said that was because they get answers to their questions quickly.

Another report found that over 77% of customers won’t buy from a website if it doesn’t offer live chat.

Finally, a global CX study led by Oracle revealed that about 75% of senior executives believe that a great experience is one of the best predictors for whether a customer will become a loyal advocate.

In response to these challenges and the high stakes of falling short, businesses are looking toward technology for relief. An estimated 67% of B2C businesses have installed live chat solutions on their website to streamline the customer service experience and capture critical data they can use to enhance their business strategy from all angles.

Below, we’ll look at some of the more specific benefits that live chat for business software brings to the table.

How Do Businesses Benefit From Live Chat?

Whether you’re using live chat for small business applications or for enterprise-level campaigns, live chat helps you build better relationships with your consumers. You can capture behavioral data tracking how consumers interact with each touchpoint and engage visitors in real-time conversations.

By combining anecdotal data with big-picture trends, organizations can convert more visitors into customers — and bring in more revenue .

In these next few sections, we’ll look at some more specific ways that live chat benefits your business.

Live chat helps businesses understand customer needs

If your business doesn’t place consumers at the center of everything you do, you’re hurting your chances of success.

Live chat allows you to collect better data than you might if you relied exclusively on forms or behavior (think heat maps, click maps, or web analytics reports). Consider it another tool for understanding your customers — and the "why" behind their actions, options, and preferences.

Real-time conversations with leads, prospects, and long-time customers present a huge opportunity for brands to understand their audience, quickly introduce relevant products and resources, and build meaningful relationships in a way that channels like email, landing page forms, and support tickets cannot.

Live chat helps businesses increase sales and conversion rates

Live chat can increase website conversions by up to 45% . That makes sense, given that live chat allows your agents to engage customers and help them with the buying journey.

Let’s say your business sells athletic gear, and a customer asks an associate to recommend some running shoes that are good for trail running. In a physical store, it’s easy to ask someone for help, but when you can’t be there in-person, live chat allows you to recreate the experience of in-person support.

According to Conversion Scientist , roughly 44% of online shoppers say that one of the most important features an ecommerce site can provide is a live person to answer their questions in real time. By adding live chat to product or checkout pages (aka pages with high exit rates), customers can easily engage with knowledgeable sales and service agents who can help them find exactly what they need.

But, not everyone who visits your site is ready to make a purchase during that initial visit. Rather than hoping customers will remember to come back later, installing live chat on key pages (and external channels) helps reps address questions and concerns in-the-moment to keep shoppers on your site.

That, in turn, will prevent people from leaving to explore other options — and it could result in an immediate purchase (more typical of lower-cost consumer products like apparel, personal care items, sporting goods, or food/beverage).

Live chat helps businesses reduce cart abandonment

As mentioned in a previous post — an estimated 70% of customers abandon purchases just before making it official — costing ecommerce brands billions in lost revenue.

Shopping cart abandonment happens for all kinds of reasons — slow page load speeds, wonky credit card icons, hidden costs, and more. Live chat is a great way to build buyer confidence and guide shoppers toward a conversion — be it a purchase or a smaller commitment like a newsletter opt-in or a download — without being invasive.

It is worth noting, however, that someone with high commercial intent is more likely to chat with a service agent than someone who is just browsing. Still, live chat allows brands to start nurturing relationships with shoppers just beginning their journey.

If they don’t take the bait, live chat still enhances the on-site experience — its presence alone helps build trust, even among shoppers with no plans to use the feature.

Presenting live chat as an option has a similar effect to listing your phone number, address, and social profiles on your site — it signals that someone is there, just in case — and gives visitors the sense that you’ve got nothing to hide.

Live chat provides businesses with more upsell and cross-sell opportunities

Live chat also opens up more opportunities to upsell and cross-sell products and services that customers might be interested in.

The conversational nature of live chat allows agents to recommend additional purchases that are either a better fit or add to the value of the primary purchase. For example, if a buyer is shopping for a new iPhone, an agent might recommend protective cases, and accessories like headphones, charging cables, or Bluetooth-enabled speakers.

This tactic helps agents increase the average order total without applying too much pressure on consumers (and potentially scaring them away).

Live chat helps businesses reduce service response times

One of the most obvious benefits of live chat is that it’s fast. Speed is important when customers not only expect real-time answers, but also relevant solutions to their problems.

Providing an immediate response is great, but if you can manage to identify and implement a resolution during the conversation, you’ll impress your customers and increase the chances of a repeat visit.

On the business side, live chat saves agents a lot of time, too. They’re spending less time on phone calls and can instantly access a complete record of past interactions. It’s much easier to juggle multiple chats than multiple phone calls — allowing reps to take on multiple queries simultaneously without undermining the experience.

Live chat for businesses enables 24/7 support

Live chat support can be made available 24/7 — if that would be beneficial to your business — or any other selection of hours you prefer.

If you’re running a smaller operation, you might try routing live chat inquiries to your phone when you’re away from your desk, allowing you to respond to customer questions as easily as a friend’s text message.

By expanding your instant availability to cover the whole day, your customers will have little reason to complain about their questions going unheard.

If you’re unable to provide a round-the-clock live chat service, you might use a business chatbot to pick up the slack during off-hours.

Another option is syncing live chat with your knowledge base content. This allows you to guide visitors through your self-service offerings without the friction that comes from going it alone.

Live chat helps businesses minimize redundancy for customers

Customers know you’re collecting their data — they’re generally okay with it, provided you’re able to use that information to give them something they find valuable.

According to CustomerThink , 72% of customers expect an agent to remember details from past interactions. That includes what products they’ve purchased in the past, who they’ve interacted with, and the reason for those interactions.

Live chat allows organizations to reference historical data before and during customer interactions. This means agents can easily size up the situation before hopping on a chat and pick up right where the customer left off — even if they initially spoke with a different agent.

Live chat helps businesses increase customer satisfaction

Live chat allows you to collect information about customers, identify whether they’re a new or existing customer, and ask questions that help you understand what they’re looking for — and whether they’re even a good fit for your product/service.

Depending on where they’re at in the journey, you might gently guide visitors to specific CTAs — signing up for your newsletter, downloading an industry report, booking a meeting, etc.

Per Forrester data, 69% of online shoppers in the United States shop more with retailers whose customer service is consistent, both online and offline. Live chat helps brands improve consistency across all interactions.

Live chat gives businesses a competitive advantage

When customers are ready to buy, they’re ready to buy now — they don’t want to wait for you to respond to a question. If you can’t respond in real-time with the right information, well, you’ll lose business to faster-moving competitors.

Live chat plays a critical role in improving the experience for customers as they interact with your brand, while simultaneously allowing you to capture data that can be used to drive even more improvements.

The data you collect about your customers and their preferences can help you improve product quality, develop a new product line, create highly relevant ads, or improve certain aspects of your sales or support strategy.

7 Live Chat Business Best Practices

Live chat has the highest customer satisfaction rates compared to other communication channels: 92% of consumers prefer to connect with brands through live chat, and 80% prefer communicating through social media channels. By contrast, just 23% of consumers said they preferred to get in touch with support teams by phone.

That said, live chat for business software is far from a plug-and-play solution. Here are eight best practices that can help you set the stage for success:

1. Go omnichannel

Savvy brands understand that great service is all about meeting customers where they are right now by making themselves available on their preferred channels.

Customers now expect to be able to start a conversation in Facebook Messenger and then pick up where they left off on another channel. With an omnichannel live chat tool, your website’s chat widget, in-app support feature, and different social media platforms are all integrated and easy for an agent to review during a live chat.

Live chat allows customers to seamlessly engage with your business from their preferred channels, including asynchronous options like email or phone, as well as social platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger .

Source: JivoChat

2. Be proactive

One of the best ways to combat cart abandonment, boost satisfaction rates, and generate on-the-spot sales is to adopt a proactive approach to live chat , as opposed to a reactive approach where agents don’t "speak until spoken to."

If you’re using JivoChat, you can set pre-programmed triggers to proactively reach out to customers based on specific behaviors. For example, you might greet first-time visitors upon arrival to show them around.

Or, you might set it up so that a customer who spends more than, say, four minutes on the checkout page receives an automatic message — something like, "Is there anything I can help you with?"

Live chat allows agents to offer personalized product recommendations and insights, by asking qualifying questions to get a better sense of what they’re looking for.

3. Connect your CRM

Sync interactions with your CRM . This ensures that all live chat data links back to a "single source of truth," so that all agents, sales reps, and decision-makers have access to your entire conversation history. This is important for a few key reasons:

It prevents customers from the frustrating experience of repeating themselves over and over every time they speak to someone new.

It allows businesses to learn more about the impact live chat interactions have on the sales cycle.

It highlights issues about your products and services, allowing you to address them ASAP.

It allows organizations to identify new customer needs/evolve along with customers.

It allows you to identify gaps in messaging and weak spots in the sales process that you can improve.

The list goes on. But the point is, conversational insights from your live chat logs offer a wealth of information that can help you improve the customer experience from all angles.

4. Reduce response times with canned messages

Long wait times are a major problem for brands — they can kill conversion rates, prompt users to leave a negative review, and eventually, wreak havoc on a brand’s reputation.

Canned responses are a smart (yet simple) way to improve your response time and deliver a better overall experience. They allow busy agents to spend less time answering common questions and make it easier to achieve consistent brand messaging across multiple channels and touchpoints.

5. Train agents to upsell, cross-sell, and focus on value first

While live chat is known for providing instantaneous answers, you’ll need to make sure your agents understand how to effectively communicate with customers and guide them to solutions that align with their needs.

Customers generally expect agents to respond to requests within a minute or two but once the conversation is underway, it’s important to acknowledge that it is indeed a real-time conversation.

According to Kayako , while the speed of resolution matters, it’s not always the most important factor — 95% of consumers say a longer/slower chat time would be acceptable, in exchange for quality service. Meaning, a chat should last as long as it takes to solve a problem or answer questions.

For companies with longer sales cycles, live chat can help secure "mini-conversions" throughout the buyer’s journey — trial signups, demos, etc. Organizations need to make sure reps can identify opportunities to upsell or cross-sell based on the data that’s available.

For example, in JivoChat, agents can see which pages users are viewing in real-time, along with data like referring to the domain, location, and how long they’ve been on the site. Reps can then use those contextual clues to present relevant solutions.

6. Collect feedback

Live chat makes it easy for organizations to collect data that may contain valuable insights into customer pain points at various stages in the sales process, discover new needs, or identify opportunities to improve existing solutions.

7. Monitor metrics

Ideally, your live chat software should allow you to analyze chat records to measure the impact of your efforts.

You might opt to track more traditional metrics like customer satisfaction (CSAT) or net promoters scores (NPS), average-time-to-resolution, and so on. But, it’s also worth mentioning that live chat captures insights you won’t find elsewhere.

For instance, in the example below, you can see the number of conversations that started with proactive invitations, as well as opportunities for improvement (in red).

Key Features That Businesses Should Look for in Live Chat Software

You’ll want to do some research before committing to a live chat solution — comparing features, benefits, price, and of course, see what other users have to say.

Depending on your industry and business type, you may want to look for a solution designed around niche use cases: support features that help customers select an insurance plan, find the right lawyer, or protect sensitive data like medical records or financial information.

That said, here’s a look at some of the key features you should look for no matter what kind of business you’re in.

Widget customizations

Make sure you look for software that allows you to customize your chat widgets so that they match your brand.

Many of the options available today allow you to add images, animations, custom colors, fonts, and text to ensure that your live chat experience matches the look and feel of your website, socials, and content.

Beyond that, you might also look for a platform that allows your customers to customize their experience, too. That might mean changing the color, font size, button location, triggers, language or messaging frequency.

Live chat works as both a reactive tool — where shoppers initiate the interaction — and a reactive tool where the brand initiates the conversation.

Done right, proactive support can boost engagement , drive conversions, and help customers avoid the frustrations that can cause them to leave your site for good.

Your best bet is making sure that you nail down your messaging in advance and track its performance, as there’s a real risk of annoying your customers with too many notifications or alienating visitors with the wrong messaging.

With that in mind, you’ll want to look for a live chat platform with rules-based triggers, that allow you to segment messaging based on various data points such as actions/inaction, specific attributes, what page they’re on, and how they interact with the content.

One of the live chat features that’s an important part of a seamless customer experience is the ability to transfer chats. With this feature, a chatbot can transfer a chat to a live agent, and live agents can also transfer chats to each other.

If you don’t have the ability to transfer customers, you lose many of the benefits of live chat — immediacy, reduced wait time, resolution of customer issues. You never want to be in the position of making a customer wait too long for someone else to pick up the conversation.

Knowledge base integration

Look for a solution that integrates directly with your knowledge base, so you can guide customers toward self-service support documentation, downloads, and blog content that can help them find the answers they need when you’re not there to help.

Set it up so that your chat window presents users with a few questions (Are you looking for solution X or solution Y? Are you a marketer or a small business owner?) that point them in the right direction.

CRM integration

Integrating your live chat software with your CRM helps to sync support data from all connected data sources in a centralized dashboard. You can then automatically log interaction data alongside customer records, contact details, personal preferences, purchase history, etc., so that agents can easily understand the context of each interaction without performing extensive research.

With an omnichannel business messenger like JivoChat , you can engage your customers on a variety of digital channels from one centralized dashboard that syncs to your CRM.

Mobile optimization

With mobile now the platform of choice for many online shoppers, your live chat software should work seamlessly across devices — mobile, web, iPad, you name it.

JivoChat’s mobile widget allows you to connect with those customers who don’t favor browser-based live chat and prefer to communicate from their smartphone instead.

Customers can request one-click calls to continue the conversation after leaving your website or message you from WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger while they’re on the move.

Reporting Tools

You can’t improve your live chat strategy if you can’t measure its impact against critical KPIs like revenue, customer satisfaction, engagement, and retention rates.

Analyzing customer interactions and how they influence these "hard metrics" can help you gain a better understanding of your customers and how your team is meeting their needs.

You’ll want to look for solutions that help you discover new opportunities and weak points in your strategy, and allow you to instantly understand whether your communication tactics are working, without any irrelevant metrics getting in the way of critical insights.

Start Offering Live Chat Today

In the end, live chat for business is critical for creating the on-demand, personalized experiences your customers want.

Learn more about how JivoChat can help you provide better (and faster) service. Get in touch with our sales team or sign up for a free trial today.

When you use links on our website, we may earn a fee.

Best Live Chat Software of 2024

Table of Contents

• Best Live Chat Software

Things To Consider When Buying

• How We Chose

It’s uncommon to visit a commercial site these days without noticing the ubiquitous chat popup, usually in the bottom-right corner of the window. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ve interacted with one or more of the products on our list of the best live chat software, even if you’re unfamiliar with their names.

Sometimes referred to as “chatbots”, live chat software helps users find what they need faster. At its best, this technology can save your customers time and you, money. After our analysis of over 33 different products, we narrowed down our selections to highlight the live chat software that best offers organizations an effective and affordable way to establish one-to-one relationships with their customers.

• Best Overall: Tidio »
• Best Budget: tawk.to »
• Best for Small Businesses: Smartsupp »
• Best for Enterprises: Front »
• Best for Multilingual Support: Chaport »
• Best for Sales Teams: LiveChat »
• Best for Customer Support: LiveAgent »
• Best for AI and Automation: Intercom »
• Best for Ease of Use: Olark »

Best Overall: Tidio

Customizable live chat popup lets you add your company branding

Chatbot template library addresses support and sales needs

Full-featured free plan helps businesses get started with live chat

Lyro AI add-on speeds responses and improves customer answers over time

Lacks the analytics and reporting features of competing live chat products

High price of the Lyro AI add-on (includes 50 free conversations)

Tidio’s combination of live chat, chatbot, and ticketing features at affordable prices earns the product our best overall live chat software designation. The company’s live chat feature lets you see what your visitors are typing in real time to improve response times. You can prepare canned responses to common questions and view live chats alongside social media messages and emails. Tidio allows you to track visitors as they navigate your site, store all customer data in a single easy-to-access repository, and respond later to messages that come in while you’re offline.

The free version of Tidio includes the Lyro AI starter pack that you can use for up to 50 conversations. It allows up to 50 live chats per month and 100 chatbot triggers, supports up to three seats and unlimited tickets, and integrates with social media, messaging, and email systems. The Starter plan is priced from $29 a month and supports three seats. It includes 100 live chats and 500 chatbot conversations. Starter adds a live visitor list and 24/5 support via live chat.

Tidio’s other Communicator and Chatbot packages can be bundled. The Communicator plan adds live typing and visitor information, and it allows an unlimited number of live chats. The Chatbot package comes with sales and FAQ templates, as well as a visual chatbot builder.

• Pricing: Free plan includes three seats, 50 live chat sessions, and 100 chatbot triggers per month; Starter costs $29 per month and supports three seats, 100 live chat sessions, and 500 chatbot triggers; Communicator is priced at $25 per seat per month and features unlimited live chat sessions and 100 chatbot triggers; Chatbots start at $29 per month and include 50 live chat sessions and unlimited chatbot triggers; Tidio + costs from $394 per month and has custom plan limits; Lyro AI add-on costs $39 per month for 50 conversations beyond the 50 provided for free, $75 for 100 conversations, $110 for 150 conversations, and $140 for 200 conversations
• Features: Live chat, chatbots, custom chatbots, Lyro AI add-on, order management, ticketing, operator departments, analytics, messaging, and email marketing automation 
• Integrations: E-commerce platforms, CRM, sales and marketing, email, Google Analytics, and Zapier; also provides an Open API for creating custom integrations
• Reporting and analytics: Chatbot and operator performance, conversion-rate metrics, channel performance, customer satisfaction, performance improvement tips, sales metrics, and collected leads
• Security and privacy: TLS encryption and HTTPS for data transfers; encryption of stored data; two-factor authentication and roles and permissions for access control; encrypted backups; PCI-DSS for credit card transactions; GDPR and CCPA compliant
• Customer Support: Knowledge base, getting-started guide, case studies, podcasts, e-books, cost and savings calculators, product comparisons, and direct support via live chat, email, and the Lyro AI add-on
• Mobile: Mobile app available for Android and iOS devices

Best Budget: tawk.to

Live chat, chat landing pages, and CRM services are free

AI Assist automated chatbot costs only $29 a month

Hire trained human support for as little as $1 an hour

Offers 24/7 support via live chat and web form

Removing the company’s branding costs $19 a month

Far fewer integrations than competing live chat services (does offer a JavaScript API)

Limited reporting and analytics tools compared to other live chat options

It’s natural – and wise – to approach any offer labeled as “free” with a grain of salt, but tawk.to goes to great lengths to convince customers that its free live chat and other services are truly free. The company has managed to stay in business for more than 10 years by charging its customers only to remove the “tawk.to” branding from the product, and to add the AI Assist component that features the Apollo AI Bot that’s available to interact with your customers all day, every day.

Tawk.to’s three products are live chat, its Chat Pages chat landing pages, and its Contacts CRM system. Live chat claims to be installable in one minute. It monitors and tracks employee chat conversations and offers basic reporting on chat volume, duration, user satisfaction, and other measures.

Chat Pages convert any link into a conversation, including social media and email signatures. Your site can have an unlimited number of chat landing pages, and the pages can also be used when hosting virtual events. Contacts let sales teams track an unlimited number of leads and collect customer information to enhance your support operations. You can add custom attributes and segments to contact listings and tag conversations for follow-up.

• Pricing: Free to use the product’s principal features; $19 a month to remove tawk.to branding; AI Assist costs from $29 a month; trained support agents can be hired for as little as $1 an hour, and Virtual Assistant for $7.50 an hour
• Features: Live chat, Chat Pages hosted landing pages, Contacts lead generation and CRM, AI Assist using the Apollo AI bot; you can also hire chat agents and human Virtual Assistants
• Integrations: Integration partners include DataAutomation, EXADS, Integrately, Klickly, Make (formerly Integromat), and India-based nopCommercePlus; also offers a JavaScript API and supports integrations via webhooks and Zapier
• Reporting and analytics: Live chat statistics include chat volume, missed chats, offline messages, average chat duration, user satisfaction, and first response time; ticket reports are new ticket volume, solved tickets, ticket source, resolution, ticket reopened, and first response time
• Security and privacy: Data is encrypted at rest and in transit; complies with GDPR, FERPA, and CCPA privacy regulations
• Customer Support: Knowledge base, getting-started guide, FAQs, and other resources in the Help Center; 24/7 live chat support and web form
• Mobile: Mobile apps for iOS and Android devices

Best for Small Business: Smartsupp

Standard plan competitively priced at $19.50 a month and supports three agents

Free version allows 100 live chat conversations each month

Pro package includes five automatic messages sent to site visitors

14-day free trials offered for the Standard and Pro plans

Limited reporting and analytics (integrates with Google Analytics)

Smartsupp’s free and low-cost live chat plans are a great choice for small businesses that want to get their feet wet with the technology before plunging in. The company’s free package allows a single agent to conduct up to 100 live chat conversations each month and stores the conversations for 14 days.

Upgrading to Smartsupp’s Standard package for $19.50 a month gives three agents unlimited live chat conversations combined with email and Facebook Messenger. It includes 25 chatbot conversations each month, upgradable to 325, as well as one automatic message sent to your site’s visitors.

For $48 a month, Smartsupp’s Pro plan supports three agents, upgradable to 10, and allows 100 chatbot conversations a month, upgradable to 1,000. This package lets you send five automatic messages and includes more reporting features, lead generation, and priority support. Conversation histories are stored for one year with the Standard plan and for three years with the Pro and Ultimate packages; Pro features a multilanguage chatbot, visitor filters, and more features for teams.

• Pricing: Free plan supports one agent and 100 chat conversations per month; Standard costs $19.50 a month, supports three agents, includes 25 chatbot conversations per month, and allows unlimited chat conversations, plus email and Facebook Messenger; Pro is priced at $48 a month, supports three agents (upgradable to 10), and 100 chatbot conversations per month (upgradable to 1,000); Ultimate is a custom solution
• Features: Live chat, chatbot, lead generation, customer care, e-commerce, and AI-powered chatbots for chat replies, engagement, and shopping assistance
• Integrations: Live chat for Shopify, WordPress, PrestaShop, ePages, Shoptet, Google Analytics, and Facebook
• Reporting and analytics: Customer analytics include pages visited, money spent, and the number of times they’ve visited; the Smartsupp dashboard’s Statistics feature shows conversations replied to, closed, response time, and average rating, as well as agents’ summaries and online time, and tag statistics
• Security and privacy: Complies with GDPR; 256-bit SSL data encryption 
• Customer Support: Knowledge base, getting-started guide, and FAQs; Standard includes live chat support via the dashboard, while Pro and Ultimate add priority support

Best for Enterprises: Front

Live chat is part of the company’s multichannel communication and collaboration system

Customizable chat widget and email transcript summaries of chats

Shared inbox, message assignments, and other productivity tools for teams

Automatic routing and tagging of chat messages based on visitor information

Chatbots aren’t available in the Starter plan

The company’s four plans may have more features than many businesses need

Add-ons for Dialpad, Google Business, Telegram, and WhatsApp cost from $70 to $100 a month

Front sells complete team communication and collaboration solutions that include an omnichannel inbox serving as a centralized conduit to customers. The goal is to maintain a seamless connection to customers across any number of channels that integrate with the universal shared inbox. The Live Chat component of Front’s software includes a customizable chat widget for websites and mobile apps that captures information about the visitor to help identify the customer. It also emails summaries of the chat transcripts.

Other features of Front’s Starter plan for small teams are rule templates for automating message routing, knowledge base creation, CRM, and links to third-party email, messaging, and chat apps. The Growth package adds advanced message routing and tagging based on visitor information, chatbots, and integration with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Hubspot. Front’s Scale plan includes AI-assisted message composition, and the ability to hide employee names from chat visitors. Front’s high-end Premier plan features added support and custom development of APIs and integrations.

• Pricing: Starter costs $19 per seat per month, billed annually, for two to 10 users; Growth is priced at $59 per seat per month, minimum five seats; Scale is $99 per seat per month, minimum 20 seats; and Premier is priced at $229 per seat per month, minimum 50 seats
• Features: Live chat, knowledge base creation, collaboration, workflow automation, analytics, and omnichannel inbox; solutions for manufacturing, financial services, logistics, travel, and professional services
• Integrations: More than 100 integrations sortable by category and plan including Asana, ClickUp, Google Drive, Jira, Microsoft Outlook 365, Salesforce, Shopify, and Trello
• Reporting and analytics: Team performance, tags, SLAs, and customer satisfaction; reports can be scheduled, filtered, and exported 
• Security and privacy: AES 256-bit and TLS 1.2 data encryption, SOC 2 Type II certified server security and GDPR-compliant
• Customer Support: Knowledge base, getting-started guide, community,  academy, and direct support via web form

Best for Multilingual Support: Chaport

Chat widget identifies a visitor’s language and supports 35 languages

App for operators is available in Spanish, German, and Russian in addition to English

Free plan supports two operators and unlimited live chats and websites

Dashboard integrates with Facebook, Viber, Telegram, and other social apps (paid plans only)

Most third-party integrations rely on Zapier and manual configurations

Chatbots are available only in the high-end Unlimited plan

Lacks the advanced reporting and automation features of competing products

Firms that are active internationally or that hope to expand to other countries will appreciate Chaport’s support for multiple languages in its live chat widget and operator consoles. The company’s chat widget automatically recognizes and switches to 35 different languages used by site visitors, including simplified and traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Welsh, and other Asian and European languages. The Chaport app for operators is available in Spanish, German, and Russian as well as English. The company offers a file that will translate English text into other languages not currently on the supported-language list, and promises to add the language to its list.

The free version of Chaport lets companies get started with live chat without an upfront investment; it supports two operators and unlimited chats and websites, and maintains your chat history for 60 days. The Pro package supports four operators and saves chat histories indefinitely; it adds auto-invitations, social media integration, advanced chat widget customization, group chats, and detailed visitor information. The high-end Ultimate plan includes chatbots, creation of knowledge bases and FAQs, Zapier integration, advanced reports, and team management features.

• Pricing: Free plan supports two operators and unlimited chats and websites; Pro package supports four operators and costs $39 a month when purchased monthly and $29 a month with an annual contract; Unlimited plan supports any number of operators and is priced at $129 a month (monthly) or $99 a month (annually)
• Features: Unlimited chats and websites, multilingual chat widget, offline messages and notifications, and operator roles; Pro adds social media integration, REST and JavaScript APIs, autoresponder, advanced chat widget customization, lead generation via automatic invitations and pre-chat form, group chats, and detailed visitor information; Ultimate includes chatbots, knowledge base and FAQ creation, Zapier integration, advanced reports, and team management functions
• Integrations: Pro features social media integration and REST and JavaScript APIs; Ultimate adds Zapier integration; paid plans also integrate with Google Analytics, WordPress, Shopify, Joomla, Ecwid, Bubble, and CRM systems via Zapier
• Reporting and analytics: Free plan reports the number of chats served and missed in the past 30 days; Pro and Ultimate add operator and view breakdowns and Google Analytics; Ultimate includes chatbot analysis, chat ratings, response times, operator working hours, and on-demand reports
• Security and privacy: SSL data encryption, GDPR compliance, and PCI DSS for secure credit card transactions 
• Customer Support: Knowledge base and getting-started guide; direct support via email and live chat (available from 1:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET)
• Mobile: Mobile app available for iOS and Android devices

Best for Sales Teams: LiveChat

Lets sales teams collect and qualify leads 24/7, even while offline

Integrates with popular CRM apps, including HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Salesforce

All plans let you assign agent roles to restrict access to specific resources'

Offers a 14-day free trial

Per-agent pricing can get expensive for large sales and support teams

LiveChat Dashboard isn’t available with the Starter plan

Single sign-on is included only with the Enterprise plan ($20 per agent with the Business package)

With LiveChat’s lead generation features, sales teams no longer have to worry about missing a potential sales opportunity. LiveChat provides automated bots, offline forms, and asynchronous communication that keeps your site visitors engaged even when you’re away.

All LiveChat plans include pre-chat and post-chat surveys (default only in Starter), as well as automatic solicitation of visitors’ email addresses while they’re in the chat queue. You can create filters that help identify and respond quickly to hot leads (not available in Starter), and route chats from specific URLs to designated sales agents.

The four plans sold by LiveChat are Starter, Team, Business, and Enterprise:

• Starter lets you create direct chat links, save canned responses, automatically solicit email addresses from visitors in the chat queue, collect customer details, and route chats to the most appropriate available agent.
• Team adds the LiveChat Dashboard as well as SMS messaging from within the LiveChat app, chat tagging, interactive reports, group statistics, goal and sales tracking, announcements during chat sessions, conversion efficiency reports, and two-step verification.
• Business includes chat takeover, work scheduling, staffing prediction, agent activity reports, reports on first response time and average response time, and a private mode for agents responding to supervisors.
• Enterprise features audit logs, security assistance, removal of LiveChat branding, and enhanced support services, including training, software engineering assistance, and legal assistance.
• Pricing: Per agent per month pricing for Starter is $24 (purchased monthly) or $20 (annual contract); Team is priced at $49 (monthly) or $41 (annually); Business is $69 (monthly) or $59 (annually); Enterprise is priced based on a custom quote
• Features: Starter includes direct chat links, Facebook integration, canned responses, inactivity messages, agent rating, customer details, and tracking of up to 100 customers a month; Team adds support for SMS messages, private canned responses and response suggestions, chat tagging, tracking of up to 400 customers a month, and several types of reports; Business includes Apple Messages for Business, chat takeover, a work scheduler, advanced reporting, and enhanced support
• Integrations: The LiveChat Marketplace features more than 200 third-party tools, such as Zoom, Stripe, HubSpot, Google Analytics, Shopify, Salesforce, and Microsoft Teams; supports Text APIs for messaging, omnichannel, text analytics, and other purposes
• Reporting and analytics: Total chats, missed chats, greetings conversion, chat satisfaction, chat engagement, chat surveys, chat availability, chat duration, agent activity, response time, staffing prediction, queued customers, queue abandonment, sales and goal tracking, and local customer service benchmarks
• Security and privacy: 256-bit SSL and TLS 1.1 and 1.2 data encryption; servers secured with the SSAE16 standard; instructions for making the chat window GDPR-compliant; HIPAA and PCI compliance (Enterprise plan only); single sign-on for access control
• Customer Support: Knowledge base, getting-started guides for agents and managers, FAQs, webinars, product demo and how-to videos; direct support via 24/7 live chat, email, and telephone
• Mobile: Mobile app for Android and iOS devices

Best for Customer Support: LiveAgent 

Combines live chat with a complete help desk solution

Free version includes file sharing via chat and automated chat welcome messages

Gamification features promote agent engagement via praise and rewards

More expensive plans have extensive reports on agent, department, and overall performance

Social media integrations in Small Business and Medium Business plans require an added monthly fee of $39 each

Limit of one knowledge base in Small Business and Medium Business packages

Lacks native SMS integration

LiveAgent sells complete help desk solutions that combine live chat with an omnichannel customer service platform that includes ticketing, call center, knowledge base creation, and social media management. This full range of services makes it our selection for the live chat software that is best for customer support.

The company’s Medium Business and Large Business plans feature proactive chat invitations that can be customized to appeal to specific groups, including chat buttons available in multiple languages. The gamification feature available in all four LiveAgent plans enhances agent engagement by offering praise and rewards in the form of badges in various categories.

The company’s free plan comes with a live chat button, a custom chat welcome window, and a customizable chat widget, as well as contact forms, email ticketing, and other basic help desk features. The Small Business package supports up to 10 departments, 20 canned messages, 20 predefined answers, chat transcripts, and third-party integrations. LiveAgent’s Medium Business plan includes 24/7 support, and more than a dozen performance and analytical reports. Large Business and Enterprise add time tracking and SLA rules.

• Pricing: Per agent per month price for Small Business is $15 when purchased month to month, and $9 with an annual agreement; Medium Business costs $35 month to month and $29 yearly; Large Business is priced at $59 month to month and $49 yearly; Enterprise costs $85 month to month and $69 yearly
• Features: Free plan includes one live chat button, customizable chat widgets, email ticketing, and ticket management; Small Business has two live chat buttons, 20 predefined answers, chat transcripts, file sharing via chat, and automated chat welcome messages; Medium Business includes five live chat buttons, 100 predefined answers, real-time visitor monitoring, and satisfaction surveys; Large Business has 50 live chat buttons and adds audit logs and single sign-on
• Integrations: More than 100 third-party apps, including WooCommerce, Xero, RingCentral, Google Forms, PayPal, Salesforce, WhatsApp, and Jira
• Reporting and analytics: Agents’ ratings, agent and chat availability, analytics overview, chat load, time tracking, and agent, department, and overall performance
• Security and privacy: HTTPS data encryption and two-factor authentication for access control; PCI DSS, SSAE-16, and ISO 27001 server security; GDPR-compliant
• Customer Support: Knowledge base, getting-started guides, and video tutorials; Medium Business and Large Business include 24/7 support via email, live chat, and telephone; support for all LiveAgent plans is available in 45 languages
• Mobile: Mobile apps available for iOS and Android devices

Best for AI and Automation: Intercom 

Fin AI chatbot promises to resolve half of your support questions automatically

Targeted messages give marketing campaigns more punch

Intercom Calling feature lets agents shift from live chat to voice or video call in the company’s Messenger app

14-day free trial available for the Essential and Advanced plans

More expensive than competing live chat software

Many features, such as chatbot resolutions and some outbound messages, are available only for an added fee

The low-end Essential package excludes AI-generated conversation summaries

Intercom’s AI technology has the potential to reduce your business’s human support volumes, but the company’s technology doesn’t come cheap. The Fin AI chatbot leverages your existing support content to respond effectively to customer questions. Fin is able to understand complex questions, ask for clarification, and respond in natural language.

The chatbot integrates with Intercom’s inbox, ticketing, messenger, and reporting features. Its responses vary based on the conversation’s context, as well as on the customer’s plan, location, and other features. Fin serves as a first point of contact for complex questions that require a human support staff, contributing to a positive experience for customers and higher productivity for agents.

The three packages sold by Intercom are Essential, Advanced, and Expert which range from $39 per seat per month to $139 per seat per month. Many Intercom services require an added fee, including email campaigns and messaging via SMS and WhatsApp. For example, SMS segments sent and received cost from $0.035 to $0.18 each, and WhatsApp conversations cost from $0.03 to $0.10 apiece.

• Pricing: Essential costs $39 per seat per month, Advanced is priced at $99 per seat per month, and Expert is $139 per seat per month; the Fin AI chatbot costs $0.99 per resolution; Proactive Support Plus is priced from $499 a month; email, SMS, and WhatsApp conversations cost from $0.003 to $0.18 apiece
• Features: Complete help desk solution includes the Fin AI chatbot, proactive support via self-help tools, and a customer data platform; Intercom Messenger app for customer assistance
• Integrations: Third-party apps for support include Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Jira; apps for sales include Salesforce, Pipedrive, and HubSpot; apps for marketing include Google Analytics, Zapier, and Heap
• Reporting and analytics: Pre-built reports provide a workspace overview and analyze the impact of the Fin AI bot on performance; they cover workflows, conversation topics, suggestions, conversation tags, customer satisfaction, responsiveness, effectiveness, and team performance; also supports custom reports
• Security and privacy: 256-bit encryption for data transfers, and AES-256 encryption for stored data; AWS server security; GDPR-compliant; supports HIPAA-compliant businesses
• Customer Support: Webinars, academy, and community forums; direct support is available 24/7 via live chat, email, and the Intercom Messenger app
• Mobile: Mobile app available for Android, iOS, React Native, and Cordova

Best for Ease of Use: Olark 

Simple chat widget set up

Chat boxes are easy to customize to match your brand and site design

ADA-compliant to promote accessible chat services

Sends customers automated messages to encourage engagement

Same-day response to support requests available only with Olark Pro plan

Fewer integrations than competing products

Free plan is limited to 20 chats per month

Removing Olark’s branding from the chat box requires paying $59 a month for an add-on PowerUp

Olark’s live chat software is designed to be easy to install, use, and customize. Users can install live chat by adding a 12-line JavaScript snippet to your site’s HTML code, or via a content management system (CMS) plugin for WordPress, Shopify, or other site.

Olark sends your customers messages automatically based on their behavior as a way to encourage them to engage via the chat window. The chat box also can be customized to add your company’s brand and match it to your site’s style.

While Olark offers a free live chat plan, it limits the number of chats to 20 per month and has other restrictions that make it unsuitable for most small businesses. The company’s standard plan provides unlimited chat history, file sharing via the chat box, chat transfers, visitor information and page tracking, and desktop notifications of new chats. The Olark Pro package adds the CoPilot AI-powered chatbot, training services, a personal account manager, API integration assistance, and priority support.

Three types of reports are included with Olark: Chat Ratings, Email Reports, and Agent Activity. The company relies on integration with Google Analytics for the generation of more advanced reports on conversion tracking and deeper visitor insights. Many of Olark’s advanced features are sold separately as PowerUps, which include visitor co-browsing ($99 a month), visitor insights ($59 to $99 a month), and live chat translation ($29 a month).

• Pricing: Free plan is limited to 20 chats per month; fee-based self-serve plan costs from $29 per seat per month (discounts for one-year and two-year agreements); Olark Pro is priced based on a custom quote
• Features: Chat box customization, automated live chat messages, analytics and reporting, searchable chat transcripts, and custom forms; PowerUps add-ons for co-browsing, visitor insights, live chat translation, and non-branded chat box; team management add-on; accessibility add-on
• Integrations: More than two dozen third-party add-ons, including Salesforce, Slack, Zendesk, Google Analytics, WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, Calendly, Webhooks, and Zapier; Olark JavaScript API for custom integrations
• Reporting and analytics: Chat ratings via pre-chat and post-chat surveys, email reports, and agent activity reports; additional reports available via integration with Google Analytics 
• Security and privacy: SSL and AES data encryption; PCI-DSS-compliant for safe credit card transactions 
• Customer Support: Knowledge base, FAQs, getting-started guide, and troubleshooting tips; direct support via live chat and email; Olark Pro adds same-day responses to support requests
• Mobile: Beta versions of mobile apps for Android and iOS devices

The Bottom Line

Live chat can be a hit with consumers and businesses alike, but only if the chats facilitate rather than obstruct communication between companies and their customers. The first decision to make when choosing a live chat software product is whether to add live chat as a component of a full-fledged help desk or sales management solution, or as a standalone product that integrates with your business processes.

The vendors on our list that focus primarily or exclusively on live chat are tawk.to, Olark, LiveChat, Smartsupp, and Chaport, while those that provide chat services as part of a larger system include our pick for best overall live chat software, Tidio, as well as Front, Intercom, and LiveAgent. The services that do the best job of leveraging AI and other technologies to automate chat interactions and apply advanced analytics to the data collected by the systems about agents, departments, and customers are Intercom, Tidio, Smartsupp, and tawk.to. The products featuring the best integration options are Front, LiveChat, LiveAgent, and Intercom.

Features and functionality: Fundamental capabilities of live chat software are real-time messaging, customizable chat widgets, visitor tracking and behavior analysis, pre-built responses to common questions, file sharing, online status indication, mobile apps, and seamless integration with CRM, marketing, sales, support, and other business processes. Most of the live chat software options we’ve selected provide chatbots that allow firms to offer their customers 24/7 support, although some vendors include chatbots only in their higher-end packages.

Aspects to consider when evaluating the performance of live chat software include low latency when sending and receiving messages, automatic reconnections when a conversation drops, private messages and side channels in multiuser settings, typing indicators, read receipts, the ability to react to a message (such as by choosing an emoji), messages targeted to specific individuals or groups, and push notifications. Many businesses will require added authentication measures, roles and permissions, moderation, message history, and storage.

Customization options: Ensuring that the chat widget on your company’s site blends well with its overall design goes beyond simple aesthetics to contribute directly to the customer’s overall experience. Customization also provides you with an opportunity to boost your brand. For example, LiveChat’s chat widget configurator lets businesses choose one of several theme color sets, including a dark mode. The tool lets you preview the chat widget as it will appear in browsers and on mobile screens. In addition to changing the widget’s colors and theme, you can alter its position, visibility (always showing or only when activated), when to hide the minimized chat icon, and whether to display a logo and/or the agent’s image in the chat window.

The customization options available for Front’s chat widget include adding headings and subheadings, screen placement, welcome messages, and the information the widget displays by default. You can set the widget to hide during specific hours (the widget stays open for active chats), restrict the types of files that customers can share via the chat window, and set the chats to refresh or end at specific intervals.

Integration capabilities: The data that is generated by chat interactions with customers has great value to firms beyond the immediate conversation. Realizing this value requires mechanisms for gathering, sharing, and protecting this information. The nine products we feature in this guide connect to social media platforms, CRM systems, e-commerce services, and help desk systems. They support analytics services such as Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Kissmetrics, as well as email and messaging systems, and conferencing products such as Zoom.

Live chat vendors offer APIs that let their customers create custom links to the chat systems. They also support integration solutions such as Zapier and webhooks that simplify interactions between disparate systems. Chatbot APIs allow companies to create chatbots that link their site or mobile app to chatbot servers. AI-powered chatbots support conversational interactions that generate appropriate responses without direct human intervention. Popular chatbot APIs include Maytapi WhatsApp, Notify.eu, AlchemyText, BotDelive, BOTLibre, and ApiAI.

Customer support and reliability: Getting up to speed with live chat presents a challenge for many businesses because the systems need to work well with existing communication channels between the company and its customers. The live chat software vendors in our roundup support their products with self-help tools such as knowledge bases, video tutorials, and getting-started guides. As you’d expect, they also provide support via live chat, although not all operate their support lines 24/7. Telephone support is offered by LiveChat and LiveAgent, while Intercom provides 24/7 support via its Messenger app.

Many live chat software vendors sell premium support packages or offer priority support to customers who sign up for high-end plans. For example, Smartsupp’s Standard package includes live chat support, while the company’s Pro and Ultimate plans feature priority support that includes an individual account review (Ultimate adds a dedicated account manager). Similarly, the priority support that comes with Olark’s Pro package promises to respond to all questions within one business day.

Pricing and value: Companies can spend anywhere from nothing to hundreds or thousands of dollars a month for their live chat software. The free plan available from tawk.to comes with real-time monitoring, native mobile apps, customizable chat widgets, automated triggers, and more than 100 integrations. You have to pay only to remove the vendor’s branding and to add the AI Assist module, as well as to purchase human services from the company at rates that start at $1 an hour.

On the other end of the price spectrum are vendors such as Front and Intercom that sell solutions that combine live chat with help desk, sales support, and other features for prices that top $100 per seat per month.

How We Chose the Best Live Chat Software

The editors and contributors at U.S. News 360 Reviews analyzed live chat software products from 33 different vendors and pored over professional and user reviews of dozens more to narrow our list of the best in the category to 15 top contenders. After carefully vetting their features and considering the value of these products, we determined our selections for the best overall live chat software, as well as products that stand out in eight additional categories. Our selections represent the range of live chat options available to companies of all sizes, and the chat features and functions that bring customers and businesses closer together.

WHY SHOULD YOU TRUST US?

U.S. News 360 Reviews contributors and editors have years of experience researching, testing, and reviewing products. Dennis O’Reilly, the author of this piece and a contributing writer for 360 Reviews, has two decades of experience reviewing hardware, software, and tech services for businesses and consumers. Dennis served as a Senior Associate Editor at PC World and technical editor for the Windows Secrets newsletter. He has written for dozens of news outlets, business and tech sites, and educational institutions. Dennis is one of the few people who insist that their texts and chat messages follow the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage to the letter.

Live chat software can range from free services to thousands each month, depending on the extent of the features provided. Many of the live chat software vendors in this guide offer discounts for extended contracts. For example:

• Smartsupp’s plans are discounted up to 20% with an annual contract. 
• LiveAgent’s yearly agreements for its Small Business package are discounted to $9 per seat per month from $15 per seat per month when purchased month-to-month. 
• LiveChat’s Team and Business plans cost $20 and $41 per agent per month, respectively, when purchased annually, and $24 and $49 per agent per month when paying monthly.
• Chaport’s Pro plan is priced at $39 a month paid by the month and $29 a month purchased yearly, and the price of the company’s Unlimited package drops to $99 a month from $129 a month with an annual contract.
• Olark offers a 35% discount with a two-year agreement.

Conversely, some live chat software vendors require a monthly fee to remove their brand from the chat window. The free tawk.to service charges $19 to remove its brand from its products, and one of Olark’s PowerUp add-ons removes the company’s brand from the chatbox for $59 a month.

While the live chat set up process will vary by provider, there are some general steps to be aware of:

• Add the live chat program to your current website source, either by pasting in provided code or by downloading a plugin or app via a content management system such as WordPress.
• Customize the chat widget’s appearance and select a welcome message. Craft different online and offline messages to customers.
• Specify your support operating hours.
• Write some canned responses for agents to use when answering common questions. 
• Install mobile and desktop apps.
• Integrate your company’s email, messaging, and social media operations with the chat system using third-party apps from the vendor, or the company’s API to develop custom connections.
• Add chatbots to the site, if the feature is available in your live chat plan.
• Import your contacts

Three valuable metrics to track with live chat software are:

Business metrics , including the ratio of website visitors to chat participants, customer satisfaction rating, the rate of resolution on first contact, and the level of customer engagement with your company’s products.

Chat metrics are total chats, the rate of chats to conversions, missed (unanswered) chats, and queue reports, such as average wait time and queue abandonment rates.

Agent metrics measure first response and average response times, average resolution time, and agent performance in terms of customer satisfaction rate and time to resolution.

Chatbots are programs that simulate human conversation while interacting with site visitors. Most chatbots use natural language processing (NLP) and other conversational AI techniques to analyze text or spoken words as inputs and respond automatically. They are sometimes also referred to as “intelligent virtual assistants” or “virtual agents” for their ability to comprehend real-world conversations and determine the most appropriate response without direct human intervention. At their simplest level, chatbots are interactive FAQs, but the application of AI methods has transformed the programs into valuable resources for customers and productivity boosters for a business’s support, sales, and other customer service teams.

AI techniques enhance live chat interactions in addition to powering automated chatbots. For example, LiveChat’s AI Assist technology analyzes an agent’s response and suggests ways to expand and rephrase the message to improve its effectiveness. AI Assist helps agents match the tone of their response to that of the original message, such as friendly and casual vs. formal and business-like. The tool checks the agent’s grammar and spelling, and summarizes the complete chat session to point out the most salient elements. The system lets you associate tags with specific canned responses to serve up answers to customers quickly and boost agents’ productivity.

U.S. News 360 Reviews takes an unbiased approach to our recommendations. When you use our links to buy products, we may earn a commission but that in no way affects our editorial independence.

• LivePlan Review 2024

Is It the Best Business Plan Software?

• Resources For Planning A Business

Last Updated: January 23, 2024 By TRUiC Team

If you're an entrepreneur, one of the most important parts of starting a business is  writing a business plan ; however, you may need a step-by-step process to help lead your small business to success. That’s where  LivePlan  comes in.

Created by Palo Alto Software, LivePlan is a cloud-based  business plan software that walks you through the entire planning process. With video tutorials and examples at each section, it helps you write a solid business plan in half the time.

Read our LivePlan review to discover the pricing and features that set the tool apart, compare customer reviews, and more. By the end, you’ll know if it is the best business planning software for you.

Recommended: Transform your idea into an investor-ready business plan—Try LivePlan today and save 40% on an annual subscription!

Pros & Cons of LivePlan

Pros of liveplan.

• You don’t need prior experience with professional business planning because the LivePlan software is designed for startups and entrepreneurs who don’t have the time or budget for collegiate-style planning.
• According to many positive online LivePlan reviews, customers are incredibly satisfied with the business plan software.
• LivePlan’s user-friendly website makes it easy to focus and build presentation-ready plans. Also because it’s cloud-based, you can trust LivePlan to keep your data safe and 100% accessible.
• LivePlan provides elegant and fully-customizable template themes you can brand so your business plan looks amazing in presentations with investors, potential partners, lending institutions, etc.
• LivePlan allows you to easily import financial data from other platforms like QuickBooks and Xero…a big time-saver that gives you the peace of mind everything is importing correctly.
• With an annual subscription to LivePlan, you get access to tons of legal forms, fantastic educational e-books, and even an employee handbook template. Their system is set up so the more LivePlan features you add, the less it costs, which is awesome.
• LivePlan sports a great suite of collaboration tools for you and your small business team members. For example, LivePlan locks any section a team member is working on to prevent two users from editing the same section at the same time.

Cons of LivePlan

• You have to be connected to the Internet to use LivePlan. Cloud-based computing does still have its downsides.
• While you can develop more than one business plan using LivePlan, there is no way to copy an existing plan.

Should You Use LivePlan?

If it feels like LivePlan is the right choice, start to plan, pitch, and track your business with it today! And if you end up not liking LivePlan as much as we do, just ask for a refund within 35 days.

Get Started

LivePlan Pricing

It would be tough for LivePlan pricing to get any more straightforward, and you don't have to worry about any hidden fees. Here are the following LivePlan pricing packages that entrepreneurs and small businesses can choose from:

• Standard Monthly Subscription: Pay as you go for $15/month for first 3 months, then $20/month after
• Premium Monthly Subscription: Pay as you go for $30/month for first 3 months, then $40/month after
• Purchase a Standard annual subscription for $12/month 
• Purchase a Premium annual subscription for $24/month 

You can save 40% if you choose an annual plan. Go with whichever package you feel most comfortable with. Either way, you have 35 days to try the business planning software and explore everything it’s capable of.

With every pricing package, you'll gain access to a variety of LivePlan features, such as over 500 sample business plans, automatic financials, and more.

A Quick Look at LivePlan's Features

There are a multitude of helpful LivePlan features that guide entrepreneurs through structuring and writing a business plan. In addition to very good technical support, sample plans, and automatic financials, LivePlan offers the following features:

• Online dashboard for tracking information and creating progress reports. Simply use your LivePlan login.
• Step-by-step instructions and video tutorials
• Advice and tips from business plan experts
• Templates for financial information
• Professional business plan themes
• Tools for team collaboration
• QuickBooks and Xero integration

Granted this is just a tip of the iceberg of LivePlan features, but our favorites for getting a clean and effective business plan built as quick as possible.

LivePlan Reviews

What LivePlan review would be complete without customer testimonials? Below is a sampling of the huge growing reservoir of feedback from happy users. We didn’t cherry-pick either, as you’ll see on Shopper Approved , a third-party customer review site where LivePlan scores a 4.8/5. As of 2023, LivePlan now has over 1,500 customer reviews on Shopper Approved.

According to many LivePlan reviews, there’s some serious value in the business plan software. Customers often mention how LivePlan helps entrepreneurs and small businesses better manage, prioritize, and present a successful business plan. In regard to the non-5 star reviews, the main issue people are having is the overall LivePlan pricing, which is understandable if you’re starting a business on a budget.

"This was a wonderful tool for creating my business plan. I was overwhelmed by all of the online templates that offered no real guidelines for completing my plan. Liveplan was simple to navigate and offered “real life” examples in each section of the plan builder. I completed my plan quickly and now have a professional document that I am thrilled with! ”

"LivePlan was a great tool to use for building a Business Plan. It helped me, as a first-time business plan writer – because it outlined all the sections of the plan and gave detailed instructions and examples for each part. The financials part was great because it automatically generated graphs and charts for the financial planning of my company. ”

"LivePlan was a life-saver for me. I work for a non-profit whose potential funders require a business plan. I had no idea what a business plan looked like or even where to start, when I found LivePlan, I knew I hit the jackpot. With the examples, samples, and easy plug-in information areas, we wrote a plan that not only looks professional but meets all of the needs of the organization and our funders. I couldn’t be more grateful for everything LivePlan did for me/us. I will use LivePlan again for any other business plans I write and will certainly recommend them. Thank you LivePlan! ”

"It’s by far one of the best business plan software products that I’ve come to find. It’s very self-explanatory and user friendly. I would recommend Liveplan to anyone looking for a comprehensive business plan maker which needs to impress and get the results you are looking to achieve. ”

LivePlan also features several verified customer reviews on its website. Here are a couple more examples:

"LivePlan has reinvented business planning. It's the only tool that helps entrepreneurs track their progress with a unique dashboard specifically designed for small business."

"I needed to write a business plan for my investors. I was going nuts trying to create charts and properly format them. Then a friend recommended LivePlan! The financials were so easy to use and I liked knowing the calculations were all correct."

"I didn't only get value for the money paid but also got the best customer service experience as well. And of course, I'm sticking to LivePlan forever."

Frequently Asked Questions

What is liveplan.

LivePlan is business management software created by Palo Alto Software to help entrepreneurs and small business owners develop business plans, financial projections, and performance tracking.

How does LivePlan work?

LivePlan works through a step by step process, guiding users through customizable templates to create professional business plans. Users input their business's financial data, product plans, marketing strategies etc. and LivePlan uses the data to create a structured business plan document with projections, graphs, financial models and performance analytics.

What businesses does LivePlan work with?

LivePlan boasts over 500 sample plans, covering just about every business model imaginable. From mom-and-pops to larger corporations, from freelancers to nonprofit entities, LivePlan really does cover every possible base.

Does LivePlan have any hidden fees?

There are up-charges for premium features like the ability to simultaneously edit multiple business plans. But, LivePlan clearly communicates these from the get-go. Also, most people probably won’t need them because they’re working on one plan at a time.

How do I cancel my LivePlan subscription?

Within the first 35 days, if you decide you’d rather not use LivePlan after all contact them via their app, by email or by phone. They’ll cancel your account and refund your money, no questions asked.

How is LivePlan customer support?

LivePlan customer support is surprisingly responsive. Use the site’s live-chat option or give them a call on their toll-free line.

Is LivePlan secure?

LivePlan is about as secure as it gets. Your business plan — and all of the information within — is entirely confidential. All credit card transactions get bank-level encryption treatment. Also, your account and plan are both backed up to the cloud every few seconds, so there’s no chance you’ll ever lose any work.

How much does LivePlan cost?

Here are the LivePlan pricing plans:

• Standard monthly: $15/month for first 3 months, then $20/month after
• Premium monthly: $30/month for first 3 months, then $40/month after
• Standard annual subscription for $12/month 
• Premium annual subscription for $24/month 

We've chosen LivePlan as the best business plan software – it helped us get Startup Savant off the ground. Being able to take our core data and translate it into a beautiful presentation-ready business plan that’s refined and customizable was a lifesaver in so many ways.

If it feels like LivePlan is the right choice, start to plan, pitch and track your business growth with it today. And if you end up not liking LivePlan as much as we do, just ask for a refund within 35 days.

Showcase your startup with confidence — Try LivePlan and create an investor-ready business plan today.

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Lean Startup Business Plan Guide

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Can You Use ChatGPT to Write a Business Plan? Yes, Here’s How

Posted april 17, 2023 by noah parsons.

The new generation of generative artificial intelligence(AI) tools, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, are fundamentally changing how we create. They can competently write, generate ideas, develop recipes, and even help plan vacations. 

I’ve been looking into how these tools can help with business tasks, specifically business planning. Can generative AI take an idea for a business and transform it into a comprehensive business plan ? Can it be used as a business plan generator?

The answer is “yes”, but it’s not as simple as pushing a single button and getting everything you need. You have to follow a process. Even then, ChatGPT can’t do everything necessary to create a complete business plan. Even more importantly, these tools can’t help you implement the plan and manage your business (yet!).  

In this article, I’ll guide you through using ChatGPT to help you write each section of your business plan. You’ll learn how to quickly create a business plan using AI, understand its limitations, and forever banish writer’s block. 

For more on using ChatGPT to grow your business, check out our guides for creating a financial forecast and advanced ChatGPT prompts for better forecasting .

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an advanced AI language model developed by OpenAI. It’s designed to simulate human-like conversations by processing text inputs, understanding the context, and generating appropriate responses. While not perfect, recent advancements have significantly improved its ability to provide accurate, relevant, and context-aware information—making it more effective in various personal and professional applications.

How to create a business plan with ChatGPT

1. create a simple business plan outline.

Don’t go straight to ChatGPT and ask it to write you a complete business plan. This task is a bit too big for it—at least right now—and you’ll end up with a simple, shallow, and generic overview of your business. 

Instead, divide the business plan into bite-sized sections and use ChatGPT to help you write one section at a time. This approach generates far more detail and the combined results are much more impressive. To divide your business plan into sections, or chapters, you need a business plan outline.

Not sure what sections you need? Ask ChatGPT to create a business plan outline.

Overall, the plan outline ChatGPT provides is decent. It includes most of the sections you should include in a business plan. However, it isn’t organized very well and places topics like “legal structure” and “ownership and management” in positions that are too prominent. If you’re trying to raise money, or just exploring your business strategy—your plan should highlight your idea and the market opportunity instead.

To see better results from your ChatGPT business plan, try using this business plan outline instead:

• Executive Summary
• Products & Services
• Target Market
• Competition
• Marketing & Sales
• Milestones & Metrics
• Company Overview & Team
• Financial Plan

Need even more detail? Check out the complete, expanded business plan outline .

Using this outline will help you focus on defining what your business opportunity is and why your idea deserves funding. 

I’ll be using this structure for the remainder of this guide to help influence my prompts in ChatGPT and better organize my plan.

A quick note: You should write your executive summary last, so I’m skipping that section for now and will tackle it at the end.

2. Write about your product or service

In this section of your plan, you describe your product or service and the problems that it solves for your customers. You’ll also describe any initial traction, intellectual property, and future products or services that you plan to offer. 

To use ChatGPT effectively, start your prompt by describing what your business does. The more detail you can provide, the better. Then ask it to help write the products & services section of your business plan. You can see my prompt and part of the initial response here:

The initial output is honestly impressive, but also a bit generic (there’s a link to the full output at the end of this article). In this example, that’s caused by my generic prompt. I didn’t describe my business in much detail or explain what makes the business unique. 

If I had added those details to my prompt, I may have received a more specific output. Regardless, the text from ChatGPT will almost never be a straight cut-and-paste for your business plan. You’ll have to review it carefully and customize it for your business and your product offering. 

To get better results, I would add information to the product description in my prompt that includes the types of waterproofing technology my business is using and what makes my products stylish. I would also include some information about initial customer feedback that I’ve received on my prototypes.

As with all ChatGPT prompts, describing the output that you want is also important. I asked ChatGPT only to cover the problem that my business solves and future product offerings. I could have also asked it to describe our initial traction and intellectual property, assuming I’d provided that information in the product description.

Weakness: ChatGPT might not fully understand unique, niche, or complex products/services, leading to incomplete or inaccurate descriptions. As long as you’re aware of this, the text it generates is a good starting point.

3. Develop a market analysis

A market analysis provides an overview of your target market, total market size and segments, market trends, and an industry analysis.

To make the most of ChatGPT, provide a brief overview of your target market and any additional information you may have. If you’re unsure who your target market is, you can also ask ChatGPT for ideas. 

This is a great starting point but lacks a lot of detail. It doesn’t provide any real market size numbers or specifics on the growth of the ski industry. If you were starting this business, you’d want to know what your potential market size is in order to make some educated guesses about the potential revenue you might generate.

Investors will also want to know these details and a generic plan without facts and numbers is not all that useful. ChatGPT will politely decline to answer if you ask for more details, citing its lack of capabilities in this area. These current limitations are likely to change soon thanks to additional plug-ins that grant up-to-date web access to gather information.

For now, what ChatGPT is good for is generating some decent writing and structure for the market analysis section of the plan. At this stage, you’ll have to do a little bit of work on your own and go find some facts to plug into the paragraphs that ChatGPT has written. Our market research guide can help you learn where you can find these numbers and plug them into your business plan .

Weakness: ChatGPT’s knowledge is limited to information available up to September 2021 (as of March 2023), so it may not recognize recent market changes or emerging trends. You’ll need to fill in the details with your own research.

4. Provide an overview of your competition

A good competitive analysis reviews the current alternatives on the market and describes your advantages. You should also review any barriers that your company can create to prevent competitors from seizing your opportunity.

If you know who your competition is , provide ChatGPT with that information as well as a summary of why your business is superior. If you don’t know who your competitors are, you can ask ChatGPT for ideas. 

But, be careful to double-check the output that ChatGPT provides. It sometimes will invent information and confidently present that information as facts. Be sure to double-check everything and don’t assume that it’s true.

ChatGPT does an admirable job of comparing our product to the competition as well as summarizing the competitive advantages. Of course, it’s a bit generic and should be edited to add more specifics, but it’s a solid place to start. 

Weakness: ChatGPT isn’t a full-blown competitive research tool at this point. You’ll need to do some of your own research to understand who your competitors are and what their value proposition is in the market.

5. Develop a marketing and sales plan

A good marketing and sales plan will explain your market positioning, and unique value proposition, as well as outline your marketing, sales, and pricing strategies.

Again, providing ChatGPT with as much detail as you can yields the best results. The more you can describe the business you’re building and the type of marketing and sales strategy you plan on using, the better writing it will do for you.

If you’re short of marketing ideas, you can ask ChatGPT to list marketing and sales ideas tailored to your business. Provide your target market, product/service offering, and desired marketing channels, then ask the AI for suggestions. If you like the ideas, you can incorporate them into your prompt when you ask the AI to help write the marketing and sales strategy section of your business plan.

In your prompt for ChatGPT, be sure to ask that your marketing and sales strategy section includes:

• Market positioning
• Unique value proposition
• Pricing strategy
• Marketing plan

As a useful follow-up, you can ask the AI to generate some advertising copy, social media posts, or promotional materials based on the marketing plan that it generated.

Weakness: The AI-generated strategies may lack creativity or industry-specific insights, potentially limiting their effectiveness.

6. Operations

The operations section of your business plan describes how your business functions. If you have physical stores or manufacturing facilities, you’ll describe them here. If your products are manufactured in a different country, you’ll describe that process. 

Once again, to get the most out of ChatGPT, describe as much as you know about your operational plan and then ask the AI to flesh it out. Describe your location, manufacturing process, customer service, sales channels, fulfillment, and any other aspects of how your business runs on a day-to-day basis. From there, ChatGPT can craft the operations section of your business plan.

If you’re not sure about what your operations should look like, you can ask ChatGPT for ideas. Ask it, “How should I operate my [ski clothing] business?” and it will give you ideas based on your specific business. It might have suggestions around supply chain, customer service, sales, and more.

That said, every business is unique. Your location will be unique and how you choose to do your manufacturing and customer service will likely be different from your competitors. Use ChatGPT for ideas, but then fill in the details that you know specifically.

Weakness: You’ll get out what you put into this section. There’s not a lot of creativity that ChatGPT can add, so you’re really just using it as a writing assistant. Make sure to include as much detail in your prompts as possible.

7. Company overview & team

This section offers a detailed description of your company , including its history and ownership. To use ChatGPT for this section, summarize your company’s background and ask the AI to expand on it, focusing on aspects such as the business structure and core values.

You’ll also want to define your company’s organizational structure and management team. To use ChatGPT, briefly describe your management team’s roles and responsibilities, and ask the AI to create an organizational chart and expand on each role’s duties. You can even ask it to list out any role gaps that you should be aware of.

Weakness: The AI may generate generic content or fail to portray your company’s unique characteristics accurately. The AI may also not grasp the specific intricacies of your company’s hierarchy or be able to recommend the ideal structure for your business. Again, you know your company better than ChatGPT does, so make sure your prompt is detailed and you follow up with additional editing.

8. Financial plan

Using ChatGPT for this section was the real test. Investors and lenders need to understand your company’s potential for growth and profitability, so a detailed financial plan is important. 

Even if you’re not raising money, working on the financial projections is crucial. You need to understand how your business works from a financial perspective and what it’s going to take to be successful. While ChatGPT did a fairly good job at writing the strategy sections of the business plan, producing a viable financial model turned out to be a challenge. 

To test it out, I provided a brief overview of what I thought my revenue forecast might look like and asked the AI to generate financial statement projections for the next five years.

It turns out that ChatGPT just isn’t capable of helping very much with this section of the business plan, and it says as much in its response. 

I was hoping for a detailed financial forecast, with at least 12 months of detailed statements, followed by 4 years of annual detail. I was also hoping for a detailed expense budget and calculations on profit and cash flow over time, all formatted as standard financial statements.

Unfortunately, ChatGPT just is not ready to do that quite yet. In part, this is because the tool is a generative text tool and is not designed to create financial models in Excel or any other spreadsheet format.

That’s likely to change in the future as AI gets integrated into Excel, Google Sheets, and other spreadsheets. But, for now, it’s just not ready. 

That said, ChatGPT can help you come up with ideas to help you flesh out your financial plan. I asked it to suggest some ideas for revenue streams and it provided ideas I hadn’t thought of. I would do the same—ask for suggestions—for the expense forecast to make sure I didn’t miss anything when building my financial model.

Your business plan needs a full financial plan. It helps you determine how much money you need to start the business and keep the business afloat as you grow. You’ll also want to be able to easily change the numbers and see how that impacts your profitability and cash flow.

A good Excel spreadsheet or a business planning tool like LivePlan is likely a better option than ChatGPT for your financial plan. However, ChatGPT can help you think about how you’ll make money and what your key expenses will be.

Check out this article for a more detailed step-by-step guide for using ChatGPT to create useful financial forecasts .

Weakness: ChatGPT does not have the expertise to produce accurate financial projections or offer nuanced financial advice. The AI can also not currently produce a financial model that can be easily adjusted to help determine the key information you need to start and run your business successfully.

9. Simplify your plan into an executive summary

Wait until you’ve completed your business plan to have ChatGPT help you with your executive summary . You’ll get a much better result by asking the AI to summarize your plan rather than going the other way around and asking it to write the summary first before you’ve fleshed out the details.

Once you’ve completed your plan, you can cut & paste it into ChatGPT and ask it to create the summary. Or, if you’ve been getting help with your plan in a single chat session, you can just ask ChatGPT to summarize what you’ve created so far. You can even ask it to limit the summary to a certain number of words. 

Another tip is to tell ChatGPT to write in a certain style. For example, if your business plan is for a complex medical device, you might want your executive summary to be simple and jargon-free. In that case, you can ask ChatGPT to write in a simple, non-scientific style.

Be aware of ChatGPT’s weaknesses

ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for drafting a business plan but it’s essential to be aware of its limitations and weaknesses before you delegate your business planning task to AI.

• It can lack creativity
• Industry-specific insights may be hard to get
• You’ll need to do your own market research
• Only you have an understanding of your business’s unique position in the market.
• It may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.
• As of March 20, 2023, it only knows about the world up until 2021.

But, these weaknesses don’t mean that it’s not a useful tool. ChatGPT is a great writing assistant and it can help brainstorm ideas, even giving you new perspectives on your business that you may not have thought of. And, if you’re in need of a business name, it can do that too:

Should you use ChatGPT to help you with your business plan?

A business plan helps entrepreneurs in three core areas: 

• Figure out your strategy
• Understand the numbers behind your business
• Run a better business

ChatGPT can really only help with your strategy. 

It can take your ideas and expand on them, even providing new ideas that you might want to incorporate into your strategy. However, it cannot develop a full financial plan or assist you with ongoing analysis. A dedicated tool, like LivePlan, is really the better choice for these tasks.

Understanding the numbers that drive your business is crucial

A business can only be a business if it eventually makes money. The planning process helps you figure out the sales that you’ll need to make to cover expenses and what kind of cash you’ll need to get your business off the ground and keep it running. 

Without this knowledge, failure is a real possibility. ChatGPT can’t develop a full financial plan, but it can help you think through your revenue streams and key expenses. It can’t really do the numbers for you, but it can certainly help you get started.

Planning helps you run a better business

As you get up and running, tracking your results compared to your financial plan is an important part of running a responsible business. Using your accounting data, you can compare your actual spending to your budget and see where you’re on track and where you need to make adjustments. You’ll also see which sales channels are working well and which you’ll need to grow further. 

The process of using your plan to track your progress and refine your strategy is called growth planning . Turning your plan from a static document into a tool to run your business is one of the most important things you can do to improve your chances of success. In fact, businesses that track their growth against their plan grow 30% faster than those that don’t.

Unfortunately, ChatGPT isn’t really set up to help with this kind of detailed, ongoing analysis. A dedicated tool, like LivePlan , is really the better choice here.

The bottom line, ChatGPT can be a valuable helper in the business planning process. It’s like having a smart assistant at your side that can take your ideas and flesh out the details. But, it does have limitations, especially with the financial plan, and can’t help with the entire planning and business management processes just yet.

So, it’s not quite an AI business plan generator. But, when used correctly and with the right prompting it can help you break past writer’s block, think through each section, and ultimately write a solid plan.

Here’s the complete Ski and Snowboard Clothing Company business plan that ChatGPT helped write.

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Noah Parsons

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