Ever wondered why a tiny chat window appears when you visit a website or an app? It’s a popular way of connecting with visitors in real time and responding to their queries instantly.
Online shoppers have less time to make phone calls to get answers to their queries and that is why marketers entertain their visitors with live chat support through a LIVE CHAT WIDGET.
Let’s explore what is a chat widget, its applications, and what makes it a marketer’s favorite tool and so important to have on your website.
What is a chat widget?
A chat widget works as an always-ready, live customer service representative on your website or mobile app. It is a small chat popup window that is embedded in a website or mobile application and connects with the users in real-time, offers them help regarding their concerns, and facilitates instant communication. A tiny prompt that usually appears in the bottom right corner of a website is the chat widget that initiates communication and offers visitors any sort of assistance if needed.
Businesses revolve around efficient customer support and more engagements and that’s where the need for a chat widget becomes pivotal. Consumers, today, don’t have enough time to make direct calls to the customer support team and they rely more on direct support which in this case, is available through a chat widget. With the live chat popup, the users are always welcome to ask related queries from a human agent or chatbot directly on the website. No need to make external calls or send an email to the support team, as the chat widget has made it simplified to get help without going anywhere else.
What are the features of a good chat widget?
A chat widget makes it easier for businesses to connect with their visitors in real-time and has significantly reduced the burden on the customer support team. Although it has a very minimal design, several key features should be considered in a good chat widget as it’s one of the most important things on your website.
Live messaging
A good chat widget at its core enables users to instantly communicate to get their queries answered. The human agent or the bot escalates the chat, making it easier to carry on two-way communications in real time without any interruption.
User-friendly interface
A chat widget should be easy to use for both the users and the team. It must have an interactive and easy-to-navigate interface to make it easier for the users to communicate and find their chat history. From ticketing, assigning the suitable operator to every chat, filtering chats based on specific topics, to uploading a file, a high-quality chat widget offers a smooth experience throughout to your team and the customers.
Automation
Automation has already made it possible to carry out repetitive tasks automatically without any external intervention. A live chat widget facilitates automation by automating responses to the most commonly asked queries so the users get an instant response even during busy hours or outside business hours. Not only that, automation allows the team to set up workflows in the chat with conditioning. For example, asking the user his preferred language so the chat continues in that language.
Customization
While the basic purpose of a chat widget is to offer instant support to customers, it can be designed and customized to attract more eyes. From its colors, size, text, and fonts to its placement on the page, you can play with every element to make it look more attractive. You may customize it to fit right into your business identity and website theme. A good chat widget allows you to add your logo and choose a color scheme that offers a consistent brand experience to the customers.
AI Compatibility
AI-compatibility enhances the capabilities of a chat widget in multiple ways. AI chatbots are always there to respond and reduce wait times. They even process the natural language queries and respond to them accordingly so the interactions look human-generated. If your business is receiving high traffic, the AI compatibility of a chat widget ensures that it provides immediate assistance to every query and improves customer experiences.
Data protection
A good chat widget should offer top-notch protection of the users’ data through features like data encryption to ensure that the sensitive data is prevented from unauthorized access.
Easy to integrate
A good quality chat widget easily integrates with multichannel messaging such as emails, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc to provide users the ease of continuing the conversation on any channel. Its seamless integration with CRM keeps the conversations organized in one place so the relevant information is easy to access when needed.
File sharing
The multimedia support of a chat widget makes it easy to share multiple types of files including images, text, documents, and videos to enhance interactions. The users can easily share files through the chat widget during the communication, and the agent can guide the user through multimedia files.
Mobile responsiveness
A good chat widget is responsive across all devices and facilitates mobile users without any interface disruption. The user experience should not be compromised when using chat widgets on their mobile devices.
Analytics
A chat widget makes you aware of the most frequently asked questions by the consumers that you can use to optimize your business. You can analyze what are the pain points of the majority of them, and understand their preferences which eventually lets you make informed decisions. A good chat widget makes it easy to track customer satisfaction levels, chat duration, peak hours, response time, conversion rate, and agent performance through analytical reporting.
Applications of a chat widget
If your potential consumer is not getting the support he wants, there is a high chance that he will bounce from your website. If you want to stay at the top of the competition, you must grab the attention of your prospects as quickly as possible, and for that, you have to provide them a reliable and quick customer service support.
That’s when chat widgets come into role play with their user-friendly interface that allows businesses to capture potential customers by offering timely responses. Here are some of the important applications of how you can implement a chat widget in multiple ways.
Customer support
The core purpose of a chat widget is to provide customer service support. Embed it into your website or mobile app and improve user interactions significantly. Use it to greet visitors when they interact with your website and tell them that you are always there to help them with their queries. You may offer a more personalized experience by referring visitors by their names and creating tailored responses to their queries.
Collect feedback
Use the chat widget to collect the visitors’ feedback regarding the chat experience. You may ask them to leave a review or offer star ratings to see how they rate your assistance. Use this feedback to analyze the areas of improvement. You may also offer special discounts to the visitors upon leaving feedback. Ask open-ended questions to allow customers to share their suggestions.
Sales & marketing
The application of a chat widget goes beyond customer support as it is also an effective marketing tool that you can use to capture potential lead data for follow-up campaigns. You may address the visitor via the chat widget to determine his interest in your business and show him the details regarding your offerings. Use this chatting platform to nurture your leads into conversions. You can also promote limited-time offers to convince visitors to avail of them. Capture the lead contacts and build a list for marketing campaigns. Your sales team can effectively use the chat widget to close the deals by offering timely support and describing the product usage.
E-commerce support
You can utilize the chat widget in your e-commerce website by displaying product recommendations to visitors based on their interests. Your potential customers might have encountered any issue on the check-out and by providing the on-time support, you can help resolve these issues for a smooth checkout process.
Mobile Apps
The applications of a chat widget are not only confined to websites but you can also embed it on mobile apps as well. Integrate the chat widget functionality into your mobile app by choosing chat widget platforms that facilitate mobile SDKs. Use the widget to capture users’ data and to offer them support regarding their mobile experience.
How does a chat widget work?
A tiny chat widget that appears on a website or app is functionally programmed to offer instant responses to the visitors’ queries. It has a user-friendly interface and allows real-time, two-way communication between the user and the customer support agent or bot.
When a user lands on a website, he will see a small widget that typically appears on the bottom right corner of the web page. Upon clicking on it, it displays greetings and offers visitors support regarding their concerns and queries. For instance; you are scrolling through a skincare website and looking for a skincare product based on your skin type. Instead of sending the email describing your skin type and condition, and waiting for the reply, you can use the chat widget to enter your skin details and ask for product recommendations. The live chat agent instantly responds with the right skincare product that is suitable for your skin. Without any waiting time, you get the product recommendation, thanks to the quick customer support offered by the chat widget.
The live chat agent can be a real human or a bot that is programmed to answer the most frequently asked questions. You may program a bot to offer instant responses to customers who are inquiring about the product refund policies, the store’s opening time, etc, and most frequently asked questions. For more specific queries or explaining the product benefits, the human agent is more likely to generate tailored responses. By getting direct and quick responses, the customers feel valued and might decide to make a purchase.
Benefits of a chat widget
According to Kayako, 41% of prospects prefer a live chat widget to communicate with the business. The stats make it clear that the importance of a chat widget on your website and mobile app is critical for its success. Connect a high-quality chat widget with your tech stack and offer rapid customer support.
Customer retention
When users get timely responses regarding their queries, they feel valued, and the chances of their retention increase manifold.
Scalability
A good chat widget seamlessly manages all chats regardless of the increasing traffic. It ensures that every conversation is responded to quickly hence, offering maximum efficiency.
Offline messaging
It’s hard to always stay active to respond to customer queries but with a chat widget, you can collect the user’s messages even when no agent is available. You may program your widget to respond to common queries and offer on-time assistance even during busy hours.
Customer satisfaction
With the chat widget, the customer wait time cuts down significantly with the immediate response. Tailored support is offered to nurture every customer interaction.
Increased sales
A chat widget ensures support to every customer regarding the purchase process. When prospects are responded to efficiently regarding the product/services and their purchase path is streamlined with timely assistance, they usually end up becoming a customer.
Cost-effectiveness
A chat widget has reduced the need for a 24/7 customer support team as it handles multiple queries at a time which makes it a cost-effective solution.
Data collection
A chat widget can be effectively used to collect the data of prospects. You may embed a form in the chat window with fields such as contact number, email address, etc. Utilize this data to create effective targeted campaigns and analyze the chat interactions to study customer behaviors, concerns, and preferences for effective marketing.
Minimize cart abandonments
One of the major reasons behind cart abandonment is the unanswered queries. But with a chat widget, you can offer rapid responses to the prospects regarding their queries which leads to reduced cart abandonments and eventually finalizing the deal.
24/7 availability
The customer support through the chat widget is accessible round the clock. Your prospects can use it any time of the day and with automated responses, you can automatically reply to the commonly asked questions and ensure that every customer is responded to right on time.
Multi-tasking
Unlike phone calls, a chat widget allows the customer service team to respond to multiple queries simultaneously. Every query is answered on time which maximizes productivity, without any limitations.
Advertise your business
Use the chat widget to advertise your products, special offerings, upcoming events, or subscriptions, as it catches the visitors’ attention directly. With a chat widget, you can keep your prospects engaged by sharing relevant information and encouraging them to take action.
Competitive advantage
Don’t let the leads slip through the cracks and offer them quick assistance through the chat widget. It shows that you are always there for your customers and stand out in the crowd by offering tailored support.
Should your website chat widget be a bot or a human?
You cannot simply choose between a real human or a bot for your chat widget as these both can amp up the performance of your customer support service. The best you can do is to combine them both to articulate personalized yet quick responses to your customers.
You may program a bot to respond to simple questions, offer visitors immediate assistance, and save the time of your sales team. Based on their preferences and interests, route the visitor to a specific page or online resources, it could be a Home Page, a specific product page, technical support, a services page, etc. You can assess if the visitor should be directed to a human agent based on the conversations. The data collected by the bots can help human agents to strategically manage the visitor such as for negotiation, resolving specific issues for the visitor, etc.
Best chat widget tools to use
Below we have mentioned our top picks of the chat widget tools that are widely used today and are popular among multiple businesses.
| Tool | What it offers | What it is best for |
|---|---|---|
| Kemo SaaS | Customizable chat widget, all communication in one place, supports live chat, pre-defined messaging, personalization, multi-channel support, booking, AI compatibility, and advanced automation to improve customer experiences. | Small to medium size businesses. |
| Tidio | Immediate assistance through live chat, bot support, and personalized recommendations. | Small to medium businesses. |
| Tawk. to | Easy to customize chat widget, initiates chat based on specific triggers, stores communications in one place. | Medium-sized businesses. |
Bottom line
A chat widget is your vital asset to collect data and to facilitate visitors with the required assistance. It could be a game changer if utilized the right way and can benefit you in unimaginable ways. It’s a cost-effective solution to offer always-accessible support to the customers and help your sales team track the users’ interest for future campaigns.
Above that, it’s the customer satisfaction that matters the most. They don’t have to wait for hours or even days to get responses, rather they find quick support directly on the website or mobile app. Multiple chat widget tools are available to choose from and to create a chat widget that adapts to your business needs the most and offers your customers a smooth and personalized chat experience.
FAQs
How can I customize the chat widget?
You can customize a chat widget by matching its color scheme according to your website or app. Add a logo, choose its placement on the website, personalize greetings, and you can even set conditions to display the chat widget such as displaying it after the user spends a specific amount of time on your website.
Where can I use a chat widget?
A chat widget can be used on a website or mobile application to offer real-time customer assistance.
Who can benefit from a chat widget?
Both customers and businesses can benefit from a chat widget. The prospects and customers can get quick and real-time assistance through it while the businesses can use this widget to improve customer interactions and support, promote their offerings, and collect the lead data for follow-ups.
Can a chat widget be integrated with the CRM?
Yes, a chat widget can be seamlessly integrated with CRM software to organize and manage the prospect’s and customers’ data in one place and to offer them personalized interactions.
