When a customer on your online store has a quick question about, say, shoe sizing or rush shipping, they want easy access to an answer. A pleasant chat with a live customer service rep can leave a positive impression.
Using a live chat app is a smart way to mitigate common customer pain points and provide an easy communication option. Boost customer satisfaction, reduce cart abandonment, and provide instant responses for a minimal monetary cost with one of the top chat apps.
Top live chat apps for ecommerce
The best live chat software provides effective chat support tools that save you time and improve customer experience (CX). All of these options are highly rated and compatible with Shopify stores:
Moosedesk
Moosedesk allows you to offer real-time support to shoppers via various communication systems, like a WhatsApp button, live chat, email, and help desk via both desktop and mobile. It also features helpful templates to create FAQs and offers order management, so you can easily share tracking and delivery information with customers.
Pricing: Free.
Omega Messenger
Omega Messenger allows you to customize the chat widget style to fit your site, with smooth, responsive design. The app offers more than 20 chat channels, including Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, so you can offer customer service in their preferred space.
Chat analytics allow you to track visitors and clicks on each channel, providing important insights into how customers communicate with your brand.
Pricing: Free plan available. Basic plans are $5 per month, while the Pro plan is $7 per month and Premium plan is $12 per month.
Chatty
Chatty’s live chat is powered by a smart chatbot (ChatGPT4), helping you answer questions and build relationships with customers. It’s customizable to your shop’s theme and works with popular contact methods like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. This app offers multiple languages, allowing you to engage customers in real time, keeping customer satisfaction high. Chatty also offers an order tracking function and a mobile app to respond to chats and give customers access to their shipment status from anywhere.
Pricing: Free plan available. Basic plans are $15 per month, while the Pro plan is $50 per month.
Tidio
Tidio provides an easy-to-navigate interface with a built-in ticketing system that utilizes both an AI chatbot and live chat. It provides ready-to-go responses to common questions while allowing a customer support agent to handle complex issues. You can even customize automated greetings to align with your brand voice.
Pricing: Tidio offers a free plan with up to 50 live chat conversations per month. Paid plans start at $29 per month for additional conversations and access to the AI chatbot.
JivoChat
A mix of live chat, customer relationship management (CRM), and marketing, JivoChat aggregates all messages from Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, email, phone calls, and live chat into one inbox. This multichannel support approach supports interaction with existing and prospective customers across platforms to push marketing promotions and solve customer problems. Additional features include greeting messages as people visit your site, multilingual compatibility, file sharing, and screen sharing.
Pricing: The basic package is free, offering unlimited chats and temporary chat storage. If your business needs more powerful features like archiving customer details and creating automated responses, the Pro package is $29 per month.
Tawk.to
With a variety of features and a smooth interface, Tawk.to can help you engage prospective customers throughout the buying journey. The customizable mix of CRM, ticketing, and knowledge-base building makes this app a great addition to your Shopify store, functioning as both a live chat software and a help center with static resources.
There are no chat limits, and delegation is a breeze with the ability to reassign tickets to agents within your organization. If you cater to a global audience, this app can support customers around the world with more than 45 built-in languages.
Pricing: Free.
Zendesk
Easy to install within any digital storefront, Zendesk works seamlessly within your ecommerce website to provide a superb customer experience. Its communication functions span social media, email, phone, and live chat, so you can respond to all inquiries in one location.
Your customer service agents can manage complex cases inside the chat window by browsing your internal documents and previous communications with a customer, leading to quicker response times. Cart abandonment push notifications are another benefit of Zendesk, allowing your customer experience team to proactively reach out and make the most of sales opportunities.
Pricing: Plans start at $55 per month, per agent.
Gorgias
Gorgias is a help desk and live chatcustomer service platform allowing your audience to reach out about questions or concerns in real time. Gorgias lets you manage complex cases by providing visibility into order management, inventory, and shipment processes directly from the app.
It also helps you support smarter workflows using the AI chatbot and pre-written responses for common customer problems to solve tickets anytime, limiting the volume of inquiries that pile up within your ticket queue. Plus, you can change the ticket status based on topics and importance, or reassign chats to other team members with a single click.
Pricing: The Starter plan is $10 a month, providing access for three agents and 50 tickets per month. Additional chats are 40¢ each, or you can upgrade to the Basic plan for $60 a month, offering access to an unlimited agent list and 300 tickets per month.
Chatra
Greet customers automatically as they visit your website, funnel all communications from social media and email to one inbox, and utilize the power of AI chatbot technology by adding Chatra to your ecommerce shop. You can get an incoming message sneak peek as visitors are typing to get ahead of the curve and provide answers quickly. Plus, Chatra allows multiple agents to look at a single chat, which is excellent for training new customer service hires.
Pricing: A free plan is available with most of the features you need as a small business. If you are looking for a chatbot, file sharing, or typing insight functionality, the Essential Plan is $21 a month.
Live chat app FAQ
What are the benefits of using live chat apps on Shopify?
Live chat apps can help you communicate more efficiently with your store visitors, fostering better customer satisfaction through timely responses and real-time assistance. Chatbot functionality provides 24/7 assistance for simple inquiries, and help desk resources assist in avoiding large ticket queues for commonly asked questions. Not to mention, you can engage with potential customers as they shop to qualify leads and convert more sales.
What is a Shopify live chat assistant?
A chat assistant is a downloadable extension that is embedded within your Shopify store that funnels new conversations from social media, email, phones, and live chat to your customer support team. Many of these applications have AI-powered chatbots as well that you can use to provide customer service around the clock, taking the pressure off of your live chat agents.
How do I add custom chat to Shopify?
Adding a custom chat to your Shopify store is as easy as searching within the Shopify App Store, choosing the software that best fits your needs, and installing it. All of the apps are designed to integrate with Shopify, so setup takes minutes.