Live chat is a great way for you to offer customer service to your website visitors. There are several apps that allow you to add Live Chat to your Shopify store and use it to offer better experiences to customers. But what is live chat and why is it important to your site? Also, how can you add it to your store?

Key Takeaways
1
Live chat enhances customer service by offering real-time interaction on your Shopify store.
2
Several apps enable easy integration of live chat into Shopify, enhancing customer experience.
3
Harness the power of customization and automation in live chat to offer personalized and efficient customer service.

What Is Live Chat?

Live Chat is any function that allows the visitor to speak to you or a customer service representative in real time through your website or via a messenger system. Live chat usually has an interface that shows the conversation, people can type in their next conversation point through their computer’s input device (keyboard, touchscreen, etc.), a send button and sometimes emotions.

Live chat will have two people using it at one time, the customer and the operator.

Live chat apps offering live chat might also offer other services. Like offering to send messages when you’re not online, or being able to have conversations while on the go.

Why Use Live Chat On Your Shopify Store?

Live chat is a very powerful tool. It helps you to create conversations with customers that can quickly resolve lots of issues without the need to speak to someone on the phone. Some live chat apps allow you to have multiple chat windows per operator. Therefore, you can reduce reaction times and improve resolution speeds.

In addition, live chat is known to build trust between customer and brand. This leads to more conversions and higher revenues from your store. This can also be used to build a strong case for higher rankings on search engines. Some SEO experts think that live chat does improve ranking.

Finally, you can also use Live Chat to recommend products and this can be linked directly to the cart page to help improve sales.

How To Add Live Chat To Your Shopify Store

If you’re looking to add live chat to your Shopify store then you need to install an app to your store. There are several apps that you can use. For instance, you can use any of the following:

Facebook Messenger ‑ Live Chat - Allows you to connect your Facebook account so you can use Facebook Messenger as a Live Chat agent. This is a free app.

Reamaze Live Chat Helpdesk+Bot - One of the most highly used Live Chat apps on Shopify. This app offers a lot of functionality, including automating chat responses using AI chat bots.

WhatsApp Chat ‑ Live Chat - Create a live chat system using WhatsApp. A great way to connect your site to the medium. It also allows you to have conversations on your phone and will impress guests to your site.

WhatsApp as a Shopify live chat channel

Many Shopify stores add live chat not through a widget on the page but through a WhatsApp button that opens a direct conversation on the shopper’s phone. In regions where WhatsApp is the default inbox, a chat button pointing at a WhatsApp Business number does the same job as an on-page chat window with less friction, because the shopper does not have to leave a thread open in the browser tab.

Our WhatsApp button adoption data tracks how often the pattern shows up across Shopify stores we scan, regardless of which app places the button. The practical takeaway: if your orders are concentrated in markets where WhatsApp is already the main messaging channel, that button is often the one that moves the needle, not a traditional live chat widget. If your orders are mostly in markets where WhatsApp is a niche app, a live chat widget still wins on reach.

WhatsApp Button Adoption on Shopify

Share of Shopify stores running a WhatsApp chat button, from our live store dataset.

0.9%
Share of stores in our dataset
6.5
Avg apps on their stores