Live chat is functionality on a website that allows real time conversations to take place between visitors and representatives of the website. Live chat is great for pre-sale questions and providing technical support to users. This communication can take place in other mediums, but live chat is personalised and builds relationships with your visitors.

Live chat communication is usually typed but can also be conducted via voice or video if the software supports it. On top of the actual chat functionality, chat programs often provide logging and client relationship management.

Website Live Chat Tools

Live chat tools are complex and require a lot of client side and server side scripting. Thankfully there are several ready made tools for implementing live chat into websites, meaning you don’t have to build it from scratch. Some live chat tools are installed as website plugins and some are installed as low level software, separate from the website.A few examples of these tools are:

• Zendesk Live Chat a (very) basic account is free.
• Intercom Live Chat
• Live Chat Inc

If you’re building your site on WordPress, then these live chat tools often have plugins which make them nice and easy to implement. Some WordPress live chat plugins include:

• The aforementioned Zendesk Live Chat
• The aforementioned Intercom
• WP Live Chat Support
• Tawk.to Live Chat – free to use
• and many more

Read More

Read more about live chat at the Wikipedia live support software article.