Top Chat Software for Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce eCommerce Stores 2019

Chat software helps replicate the sales staff of retail stores. These chat apps and chatbots provide an effortless channel for customers to connect with a representative when they need it.

Having a chat option is essential to an eCommerce store because it has the potential to turn visitors into paying customers. It also helps take care of grievance redressals and queries.

So integrating chat into your eCommerce store is no doubt beneficial. But in our world today, we’re spoilt for choice. Choosing the right becomes difficult simply because there are too many options.

Here, we take a look at 10 popular chat options available for your Shopify, BigCommerce, or Magento store.

Gobot

Gobot is one of the top-rated sales-focused chatbots. While it does have a very useful FAQ answering capability, it’s primary focus is on increasing your sales, conversion rate and average order value. You can use Gobot for guided sales, i.e., to guide customers to just the right product and to address any hesitations holding them back from buying. This is all in addition to the basic chatbot functionalities of collecting emails and offering discounts.

Some of the features we liked:

• Gobot can detect when your customers open/close their carts or add particular items to their carts (see here).  This is the perfect time for your chatbot to volunteer assistance or a discount to make sure you seal the deal.
• It can cross-sell and upsell your visitors increasing average order value.
• Gobot can tag visitors based on their interactions with your bot and send all of this valuable data to your email marketing platform to build your list and enhance segmentation.
• It allows for handoff to many live chat tools (and, by the way, we understand will be adding their own live chat module in 2020).

Gobot is completely free to use regardless of how much volume you generate. For enterprise plans, you can contact them directly.

ShopMessage

ShopMessage is said to be trusted by over 12,000 brands. It enables you to add a chatbot to your site or on Facebook messenger. Here’s what we like:

• It can be easily integrated into your eCommerce site. The setup process is quick and easy.
• It has a drag and drop builder to create interactive conversations.
• Customers can opt-in to receive your messages with a single click.
• You can send messages to recover abandon carts, alert customers on ‘back in stock’ products and ‘price drops’.
• A dashboard to see the results of your chatbot.
• It has a dedicated support team.

ShopMessage has a 30-day trial after which plans start at just $9 per month.

Chatbot - Paldesk

The chatbot from Paldesk enables you to talk to your visitors and customers from one place regardless of how they connect with you. It supports your website, Facebook, Twitter and email. It gives you the tools you need to provide personalized support and follow-ups. Some of the features we liked are:

• You can talk to visitors from the dashboard while customers use different channels.
• The setup is easy and very fast.
• It’s customizable so you can tailor it to fit your brand.
• You can access Paldesk from your mobile phone, so you can chat with customers on the go.
• You can also integrate Paldesk into your business app.
• It enables you to create, respond and resolve tickets from customers.
• There’s a predefined FAQ section to make responses faster and relevant.

Paldesk has a free version. To upgrade, plans start at $14 per month.

Botsify

Visitors always prefer a little homework done on what they want, what they have been looking for and what might interest them (based on data available) and this is exactly why 47% of buyers have no problem shopping off of a chatbot. And Botsify offers what your visitors/customers want - Personalization. They want retailers to do a little more than getting to first name bases and Botsify chatbot can be of great help here.

Botsify offers a 14-day free trial and monthly plans start from $50.

Mochi Texting and Live Chat Support

This app is powered by Mochi.ai and enables you to provide your customers with quality support even on a small budget.

It is a smart application that identifies customers who are moving towards or away from a purchase by analyzing their behavior like where they came from, what they’ve purchased, what they added to their cart. Based on the user’s actions, you can prompt them towards a purchase accordingly.

The features we liked are:

• It’s easy to install on Shopify as well as stand-alone sites.
• It’s got a well-designed user interface that makes it easy to use and navigate.
• You get access to web chat and text messaging.
• The app has a centralized dashboard to view who’s on your site, their activity, and their conversations.
• It records chat logs so you can review the previous conversation before launching a new one.
• It offers an off-hours contact form during your non-business hours. Customers can enter their name, email, and a message and you can respond directly to the email.
• It offers a ton of customization options for your chat widget such as color to match your theme, user profiles, positioning, and custom schedules.

Mochi has a free plan that caters to single users for up to 500 monthly messages. If you want to upgrade, plans start at $15 per month.

Maxwell WhatsApp & Messenger Marketing

Maxwell has made it extremely easy to launch WhatsApp & Messenger support and marketing. It comes with pre-built chat and pop-ups. Maxwell claims that Shopify merchants generate 7-15% extra sales within 30 days of using the app.

• It gives you access to pre-designed templates that you can use to power instant messaging.
• Send notifications to recover abandoned carts.
• Automate and schedule your messenger marketing campaigns.
• Get real-time analytics from any device to keep track of your campaign performance.

Maxwell is completely free to use regardless of how much volume you generate. For enterprise plans, you can contact them directly.

Provide support - Live chat

Provide Support gives you an easy way to serve your customers at the right time and guide them in their purchases. The app is easy to integrate into your eCommerce website even if you don’t have the technical know-how. Some of the features that stand out are:

• It’s easy to add to your website.
• You can predefine your responses and also send files and images.
• Accept chat requests and you can initiate a chat.
• Customize the theme to suit your brand.
• Use one live chat account with an unlimited number of domains.
• It comes with an unlimited number of chats.

Plans begin at $8.25 per month. They have various plans depending on the size of your business. They offer a free trial for any package you choose.

Live Help Now

Live Help Now is on a mission to enable eCommerce stores to create real relationships with customers. Their solution is simple yet effective.

• It gives you access to live chat plus an FAQ dashboard to solve problems in real-time.
• The AI technology can determine whether the customer’s interaction is negative, neutral or positive.
• You can provide SMS support to customers who prefer to text.
• It supports omnichannel interactions on live chat, text, email, and Facebook.
• It automatically tags all chat and email inquiries.
• You can generate custom reports that help improve your chat service.

Live Help Now works on an a la carte basis. You choose which services you want to avail of. It starts at $21 per month and comes with a 30-day free trial.

Pandorabots

A leader in the chatbot space, Pandorabots has a lot to offer. It has an open-source small talk library containing the top 10,000 chit-chat inputs. So you don’t have to start from scratch.

It also offers a free course on Udemy for anyone who wants to learn about the basics and best practices of crafting conversations using Artificial Intelligence.

• The app is multilingual so you can write scripts in any natural language.
• It’s built for those who don’t know coding as well as developers and web designers who do.
• It supports cross-channel support
• It’s voice-enabled to add speech-to-text or text-to-speech.

Pandorabots has a basic plan that’s free. Premium versions start at $19 per month.

Owner Listens

This is a great tool if you want to interact with your customers via text or Facebook messenger. The team behind Owner Listens has considered the fact that in our world today, customers shift between devices and apps constantly. The latest iteration of the app makes omnichannel messaging possible.

This app is slightly different from regular chatbots. Here, customers can send you text messages or IMs on Facebook. The owner listens and responds in order to improve your business, satisfy customers and respond privately to negative feedback.

• The dashboard gives you a real-time view of all messages sent to your business.
• It makes it easy to manage multiple locations.
• You can respond to messages using your phone or directly from the dashboard.
• It enables you to generate insightful reports.

Plans start at $30 a month with a 14-day trial.

Zebo

Zebo is built to instantly create a Facebook Messenger chatbot for your online store. You can choose from plenty of templates to suit your industry. Zebo sets itself apart from automated natural language responses. You can set custom responses to reflect your authentic voice.

• It uses plug-and-play templates that require no coding knowledge.
• You can choose to receive and manage orders, leads, and signups.
• It enables easy notifications to broadcast promotions, updates, and offers.
• You can even collect payments through your chatbot.
• It gives you insightful analytics on engagements and user retention.

Zebo has a free demo plan. Their premium plans start at $19.99 per month.

Reply.ai

This app automates your customer service from email and ticketing to live chat and messaging. With the power of AI, reply can provide your customers with the immediate support they need through multiple channels.

• It helps you identify and eliminate repetitive support tickets
• Built on AI, the app can self-learn and self-improve.
• It’s fully customizable.
• You can handover bot to agent seamlessly.

Reply has a free plan and a free live demo. You’ll need to contact them for pricing options.

Chatfuel

Chatfuel is a leading platform for automated chatbots on Facebook messenger. You can automate your FAQs and reduce your support costs.

• No coding or previous experience is required to use the tool.
• You can engage with your customers 24/7 using chatbots
• Warm leads can be transferred to sales reps.
• You can add the bot to your landing page and payments page.
• You can integrate your bot with Facebook Ads to drive subscribers to your bot.

There’s a free plan with basic features. Premium plans start from $15 per month.

Concluding Thoughts

Though all chat software on the market looks quite similar, they vary vastly in what they have to offer. So, we wouldn’t say there’s just one that’s the best. It’s recommended to see what each has to offer and which one would suit your business needs.

We hope this article was helpful in finding the right chat option for your online store. Next, we recommend checking out the Top Email Marketing software to enhance your customer relationships and boost your business.