How to Add Free Live Chat in WordPress (2 Easy Ways)

Adding a free live chat feature to your WordPress site can boost customer engagement and support by providing real-time assistance to your visitors.

It lets you interact with website visitors in real time, so you can answer their questions and solve their problems immediately. This can get you more sales and encourage existing customers to stay loyal to your brand.

Many of our partner brands have been using live chat to assist customers, guiding them through the purchase process and answering any questions they may have. We have seen that this helps them create a positive impression on users, leading to more leads and increased conversions.

In this article, we will show you how to easily add live chat to your WordPress site. We’ll walk you through two easy methods—one using a totally free plugin and one using a live chat service.

Why Use Live Chat on Your WordPress Site?

According to eConsultancy, live chat has the highest level of satisfaction among all customer service channels. In fact, live chat satisfaction is 73%, much higher than email, phone, and SMS satisfaction.

For more live chat statistics, check out our marketing statistics, trends, and facts.

If you run an ecommerce store or have a small business, then live chat can convince customers to buy your products. You can also talk to shoppers who fail to complete the checkout process, which can help you recover abandoned carts. You might even suggest products or notify customers about a sale.

Additionally, you can use live chat to provide support to your existing customers in real-time and turn them into brand ambassadors who will recommend your business to friends and family.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily add a free live chat in WordPress. You can use the links below to jump right to the method you’re interested in:

• Method 1: Adding Free Live Chat to WordPress with WPChat (Recommended)
• Method 2: Adding Live Chat to WordPress with LiveChat Inc.
• Bonus: How to Find Trained Live Chat Agents

Method 1: Adding Free Live Chat to WordPress with WPChat (Recommended)

The easiest way to add free live chat to your WordPress site is by using WPChat. It’s a free live chat plugin that lets visitors start a conversation right on your website, then seamlessly move the chat to WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, or Instagram.

This way, customers can begin the chat on your site but continue it on the messaging app they already use—so they don’t have to stay on your website, and you can provide faster, more convenient support. To learn more, see our detailed WPChat review.

To get started, you need to install and activate the free WPChat plugin. If you need help, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once the plugin is activated, click on the new WPChat menu item in your WordPress dashboard. From there, click on the ‘Set Up’ button.

On the next page, you need to enter your WhatsApp business phone number in the standard international format (including country code).

Then, click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.

In the following step, you can select a theme for your new live chat widget. There are three themes to choose from, including Basic, Night, and Pastel.

Simply click on the dropdown menu to choose your preferred theme. If you’re not sure what theme to pick, don’t worry, you can always change it later.

After picking a theme, click on the ‘Next’ button.

Next, you need to decide where the live chat widget will appear on your WordPress site.

With the free version of WPChat, you have two options:

• Display on all pages
• Don’t display on any pages

Select the ‘Display on all pages’ option and click the ‘Next’ button to continue.

Now, you’ll see a success message that the plugin is all set up.

If you want to upgrade from the free version to WPChat Pro, you can do that from this page.

Otherwise, simply scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Complete Setup Without Upgrading’ button.

Customizing the Appearance of the Live Chat Widget

After the initial setup, you’ll be redirected to the WPChat dashboard.

From here, you can further customize your live chat widget so that it matches your brand. To do that, simply click the ‘Customise’ button.

This will open the WPChat Chat Assistant Editor. On the left side, you’ll see all the design options, including theme, color palette, header, icon, assistant avatar, and more.

Whenever you make any changes, the live preview on the right will show you how it looks.

For example, you can click the ‘Header’ option from the menu on the left.

From there, you can type in a new header message, which is the first thing visitors see when they hover over your live chat widget.

When you’re happy with your header message, don’t forget to click ‘Save.’

You can also change how the Assistant Avatar looks. The Assistant Avatar is what visitors see when they open your chat widget—an assistant that guides them straight to your WhatsApp chat.

To customize it, click ‘Assistant Avatar’ from the menu on the left. From here, you can choose from the collection of pre-built avatars.

Again, don’t forget to click ‘Save’ to store your changes.

When you’re done making customizations, click the ‘Close Editor’ button.

Configuring Your Live Chat Agent

Next, we recommend customizing your default live chat agent. This gives visitors the sense that a real person is ready to help, which builds trust from the start.

To do that, go to the WPChat » Agents page from the WordPress dashboard and click on the ‘Edit’ button next to your default agent.

From here, you can click ‘Upload’ to choose a profile picture for your live chat agent.

Below that, you can type an agent name in the field provided.

You can also add contact details for other messaging services, including Telegram, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram. That way, visitors will have additional ways to message you besides WhatsApp.

When you’re happy with your live chat agent, click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

That’s it! Now, you can visit your WordPress site to see your live chat window in action.

When a visitor clicks the chat button on your site, they can choose what messaging app they want to chat with you on.

Then, WPChat opens a new conversation in their preferred messaging app (if they’re on their phone) or on the web application (if they’re on their computer).

Method 2: Adding Live Chat to WordPress with LiveChat Inc.

Another way to add a live chat feature to your website is by using LiveChat Inc. It is one of the best WordPress live chat solutions with advanced features, and we use it on our own OptinMonster site.

You can learn more about it in our LiveChat review.

The LiveChat WordPress plugin is free, although you will need to buy a paid subscription to use the LiveChat service. Subscriptions start at $19.00 per month, but there’s also a 30-day trial, so you can test the service for free.

To get started, head over to the LiveChat website. Then, type in your business email address and click the ‘Sign up free’ button.

This takes you to a page where you can type in your email address, business phone number, and password that you want to use.

After entering this information, click on ‘Sign up.’

After a few moments, you’ll get an email asking you to verify your account. Simply open the email and click on the ‘Verify your account’ button.

Customizing the Appearance of the Live Chat Window

Your LiveChat window needs to grab users’ attention while complimenting your WordPress theme.

To change how the LiveChat windows look, log in to your LiveChat account using the email address and password you entered earlier.

In the left-hand menu, click on Settings. Then, select ‘Chat widget’ and ‘Customization.’

You can now style the live chat window and see your changes applied in real time.

To start, you can choose a theme for the minimized chat window.

Simply click on ‘Appearance’ to expand this section, and then click on the different themes to preview how they will look on your WooCommerce or similar store.

You can also switch between light and dark themes or apply any of the theme colors.

If you want to change the color of individual elements inside the chat window, then click the ‘More color settings’ button to access additional controls.

For tips on designing your chat window, see our step-by-step guide on how to choose the perfect color scheme.

By default, LiveChat shows a ‘Powered by LiveChat’ message next to the company logo at the bottom of the chat window.

To strengthen your branding, click on the ‘Additional Tweaks’ section and replace this with your own website logo.

Then, click on ‘Upload your logo’ and choose the image that you want to show instead.

You can also choose whether to show the agent’s photo, allow customers to rate agents, enable sound notifications, and more.

When you’re happy with how the chat window looks, click on ‘Save changes.’

Setting Up Live Chat on Your WordPress Website

The next step is adding LiveChat to your online marketplace or store using the free plugin.

To get started, install and activate the LiveChat plugin. If you need help, then check out our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll be asked to log into your LiveChat account. Just type in your email address and click on the ‘Log in’ button.

After a few moments, you will see a message that LiveChat has been successfully added to your WordPress website. Clicking on that bubble will open a live chat widget on your screen.

Now, if you visit your WordPress website, you’ll see the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Every time someone tries to contact you, you’ll get a notification on your LiveChat account.

To reply to the visitor, simply type your response into the LiveChat dashboard.

Bonus: How to Find Trained Live Chat Agents

WPChat and LiveChat make it easy to add live chat to your WordPress blog or website. However, you also need people to provide real-time support to your visitors.

The easiest solution is to outsource your customer support to LTVPlus, which is a managed live chat service for online businesses.

LTVPlus was started by the co-founder of MaxCDN, the content delivery solution we use on our WPBeginner website.

LTVPlus offers affordable live chat agents who can provide 24/7 support. This allows you to grow your business without having to hire expensive support and sales staff.

By using WPChat or LiveChat combined with LTVPlus, you can add live chat to your website and take your business to the next level. In fact, we’ve used LiveChat and LTVPlus to get more sales on our OptinMonster website.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to easily add live chat in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the best bookkeeping services for your online business and our WordPress tutorial on how to add a chatbot in WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.