One of the best ways to improve the customer support experience on your website is to offer live chat support using a website chat widget or box.
Even though you can integrate other direct communication methods such as emails, helpdesk support, and phone assistance, using live chat widgets on websites gives you many advantages and opportunities as a website owner.
There are many live chat widget providers. But, services categories based on the type of service:
- Social Live Chat widget providers: These services integrate social messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, and Viber and let you provide customer support through those platforms.
- Business Live Chat messengers: These are custom live chat software developed by companies that provide functionalities such as Chat Bots, Product Tours, Event Tracking, and In-app messages.
- Group chat widget providers: These custom-built chat widgets allow website users to chat together in one room and see each other’s messages. They are similar to YouTube’s Chat widget and Twitch’s chat box on live streams.
Each live chat widget type has its own pros and cons. Essentially, social live chat widgets give you direct access to people’s social messaging accounts while business messaging services are more suited for businesses who are looking for more than a live chat box widget on a website.
How can you add a live chat widget for a website?
In our recent article on best social media HTML widgets, we shared a few social live chat widgets, including Instagram DM widgets. However, in this article, you will find out the best chat widgets for websites, their top features, and demos.
Some of these widgets are unique in that they support multiple social messaging services and allow you to offer multiple chat options for your website users.
5 tips to consider when using website chat widgets
- Customize the widget: Most social messenger chat widget creators provide templates and let you change the widget’s appearance using designing tools and custom CSS. Add a human touch to the widget and emphasize the instantaneousness of replies (by adding a convincing chat header text such as ‘Typically replies within minutes’) and display human faces.
- Utilize available messaging platforms: Provide as many messaging channels as possible. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Instagram DM are some popular services you can consider.
- Concern about the user experience: One of the biggest complaints about using fixed HTML widgets on a website, such as a floating live chat box, is that it directly impacts the user experience. Hence, display it only where required, such as the pricing comparison and services details pages, and position it on the proper placement on your site (e.g., left bottom or right bottom).
- A/B test: Although studies and data show that using live chat widgets on websites can yield positive results for your business, it is not guaranteed. Test your landing pages with and without chat prompt messages and entire chat widgets.
- Concern about website loading speed: One potential issue with using excessive third-party plugins and apps on a website is that it can significantly impact how quickly your site loads. According to studies1, web page loading time inversely impacts the conversion rate. Since messaging services such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp can load third-party scripts dynamically, using a social chat widget can increase HTTPS requests and page loading time. You can use a script management service such as Google Tag Manager or Cloudflare’s Zaraz to load third-party scripts asynchronously and control the script loading sequence.
Best Chat Widget Creators to Add Chat Box for Websites
Elfsight’s All-in-One Chat Widget
Elfsight is an online service that allows no-code widget builders to create HTML widgets for websites, online stores, shops, and HTML web apps. Its app catalog consists of over 90 apps, ranging from review aggregators (e.g., the All-in-One Reviews, Facebook Reviews, and Amazon Reviews) to web components (e.g., the Contact Form, Store Locator, Photo Gallery, and Business Hours) and website chat widgets (e.g., Line Chat, Facebook Chat, and Viber Chat).
Elfsight’s All-in-One Chat Widget is free-to-use and provides ready-to-use templates, visual editor, and customization features.
Features:
- Stay reachable in all most used messengers at once: One of the reasons why Elfsight’s Chat widget is the best chat box for a website is the choices you can provide for your website users to contact you online. The list includes WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Instagram, Line, Rumble Talk, Viber and Call, SMS, and Get Directions. Also, you can create a custom contact button to direct people to your favorite instant messenger app.
- 14 templates: Elfsight has added fourteen social chat widget designs to get you to start. And you can customize each of these on a customizable panel.
- 3 variants of chat position variants: Floating Bubble, Embed Bubble, Embed Chat Window. Floating Bubble will follow when visitors scroll the page and stay visible. Embed Chat Window will add a chat box without opening messages, making it best to use as an inline chat box widget. Furthermore, the floating website chat widget can be aligned at the center, left, or right while setting custom vertical and horizontal offset to improve user experience on your site.
- Chat widget display settings: These settings activate/deactivate the widget based on pages, devices, and visitors. For instance, you can enable Elfsight’s website Chat box for new visitors to your service, pricing, and booking pages and hide it on the client dashboard.
- Date and time settings for chat widget occurrence: These settings allow you to control when the chat box appears on your site. For example, you can disable it from appearing on weekends. A Time Schedule feature lets you automatically show/hide the live chatbox widget depending on a specific time. For example, you can disable the chat widget outside of business hours.
- Chat-opening triggers: Set the type of user behavior that will automatically open the chat window. The choices are One-Page Load, Time On Page, Time on Site, Scroll Position, and Exit Intent.
- Greeting message: You can create a custom welcome message for your chat widget by adding text, fonts, lists, and links to the greeting text field.
- Browser notifications: To attract visitors’ attention to your chat, add a notification marker to the chat bubble and a notice to the title.
- Customize widget: You can customize the widget’s appearance by changing fonts, colors, and animations. A custom CSS field allows you to transform the look of the website chat widget.
- Preview the widget before publication, custom JavaScript, share a widget via a link, duplicate widgets, stats, and more.
How to create a Chat widget for a website using Elfsight
Use the following widget builder to create a live chat widget:
Or sign up for Elfsight from here, search for the “All-in-One Chat” app on the Apps Catalog, and start designing your widget.
Here’s a video tutorial on using Elfsight to create a free chat widget.
Live Chat HTML Code
Once you have created the widget, you will be given an embed code for the live chat widget, slightly similar to the one shown in the screenshot below.
The live chat HTML code consists of a JavaScript part and an HTML div
with the class identifier.
<script src="https://static.elfsight.com/platform/platform.js" async></script>
<div class="elfsight-app-3389fe7f-e33a-4371-afdd-a196cb7e03d9" data-elfsight-app-lazy></div>
Copy and paste the embed code before the closing body tag (</body
) if you created a floating website chat widget. You should place the HTML code (especially the div
HTML code) in which you want to embed the chat widget (if you created an embedded chat window).
Note: You only have to place the JavaScript part on your website once, even if you have installed other Elfsight widgets, such as a back-to-top button, background music, and Tumblr feed widgets.
Pricing
Elfsight’s All-in-One Chat widget is free to use. However, the free plan is limited to one free website chat widget, with 200 total views per month and Elfsight branding on the widget. Paid plans start from $5 per month, and each plan offers more chat widgets and views per app, removing Elfsight branding.
Click here to try Elfsight’s All-in-One Chat widget.
Common Ninja’s All-in-One Live Chat Widget
Common Ninja is another website that provides widgets for websites to add functionalities and display data. It’s an alternative to services such as Powr. The site offers 200+ widgets in different categories, including Reviews (e.g., the Etsy reviews widget), User Engagement (e.g., the Comments widget), Images (e.g., the Photo Gallery widget), and Forms (e.g., the Booking widget).
Common Ninja’s All-in-One Chat is the widget you should use to create a social chat widget for your website.
Features:
- Multiple contact sources: You can add WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, Email, or link to any other service.
- Customize chat: You can modify the chat button and header, which includes the assistant’s profile picture and body. The chat body is the first message your website users will see.
- Suggestions: Common Ninja lets you add suggestions (such as a link, email, or phone number) to your social chat widget.
- Two layouts: Each one has a dedicated orientation for the chat widget.
- Change appearance: Common Ninja provides tons of design capabilities. There are skin that you can use to switch to different styles. For deeper customizations, utilize advanced and custom-style options. For more options, you can use custom CSS as well.
- Settings: Automatically showcase chat widget or after a specific time.
- Display conditions: Specify when and where to display your chat widget on your website. It can be based on the user’s device, page scroll percentage, number of page visits, etc.
- Localization: This handy feature is only available on Common Ninja. It allows you to translate front-end messages, such as welcome introductions, into different languages and serve the proper version to the right audience. Common Ninja detects the user’s language based on web browser settings.
- Device-specific editing tools and more features.
Pricing
Common Ninja’s All-in-One Social Messenger widget is free to use, but it has caveats. Its free plan is limited in page views and features. Paid plans are customizable, as you can see from the screenshot below:
Click here to try Common Ninja’s All-in-One Live Chat widget.
WidgetSquad’s All-In-One Chat Widget
WidgetSquad is a service similar to Elfsight that offers 20+ Social Proof, Fomo, and feed widgets. Some of its widgets are WhatsApp Chat, Facebook Chat, Emoji feedback, Cookie banner generator, and social email collector.
WidgetSquad’s All-in-One Chat widget lets you offer website users chat options via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, or Telegram and provides customizable options to make the widget unique.
Features:
- Connect multiple messaging platforms: WidgetSquad supports WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, and Telegram platforms for the All-in-One Chat plugin.
- Trigger options: Specify where, on which devices, and how often the chat widget should appear. For example, you can delay the appearance by a specific time (in seconds) and hide widgets on particular pages on your site.
- Display position: Available options are Bottom Right and Bottom Left.
- Customization: Change colors, borders, shadows, and entrance & exit animations.
Pricing
WidgetSquad’s All-in-One Chat widget is free-to-use. However, the free plan is limited to up to 5,000 widget impressions per month, and the website chat box contains WidgetSquad’s brand logo.
Click here to try WidgetSquad’s All-In-One Chat widget.
Sleekflow’s Live Chat
Seekflow’s Live Chat and Chatbot solutions for businesses allow you to embed a social chat widget on a website that supports multiple social messaging networks.
Features:
- An all-in-one social live chat widget: Sleekflow supports WhatsApp, Instagram (DM), Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Telegram, and Line platforms.
- Omnichannel message inbox: Manage conversations from all messaging platforms with different real-time customers on your website in one place.
- Real-time tracking and analytics: You can understand what page your customers are browsing on your website.
- Widget customization: Design your widget to match your brand identity.
- Mobile application, team collaboration, and more.
Pricing
Sleekflow is free to use. However, the free plan is limited in many ways. Paid plans are expensive compared to other solutions; however, Sleekflow’s paid plans include many features and tools that others don’t.
Click here to try Sleekflow’s Live Chat solutions.
NovoChat’s Multi-Channel Widget
NovoChat is a website chat widget provider with features like WhatsApp automation, Team Inbox, and Shopify integration.
Its Multi-Channel widget lets you add a live chat widget to a website and embed a two-way social messaging app widget on your site.
Features:
- Add multiple channels to one chat widget: Connect with WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Instagram, and LINE and give users options to chat.
- Analytics: Measure conversational activity, agents’ activity, and resolution times.
- Team members: Add your staff to assist customers via the live chat widget.
Pricing
Novochat is a paid service. To use the Multi-Channel chat widget, you must subscribe. Plans start at $25 per month.
Click here to try Novochat’s Multi-Channel widget.
Fouita’s Social Chat widget
Fouita is an HTML widget generator for websites with 60+ widgets available to use. Its widgets include the table of contents, click-to-call floating widget, audio player, and AI Chatbot.
Fouita’s Social Chat widget lets you add chat links to your social messaging accounts using one widget.
Features:
- Multiple social messaging platforms: WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, Line, Telegram, Messenger.
- Templates: Choose a preferred widget template to use on your website.
- Customize widget: You can customize the agent’s name, profile picture, and welcome message, turn the auto prompt on/off, and change the widget’s appearance. There is also a custom CSS insertion field where you can edit the widget’s look even more.
- Triggers and conditions: Specify when and where to display the live chat widget on your website. For example, you can show it after a visitor spends a particular amount of time on the page or schedule the widget showcase to hide it during business offline hours.
- Stats on widget displays, preview widgets on mobile, and more.
Pricing
Fouita’s widget pricing starts at free. Depending on your monthly view consumption and storage, you can upgrade to a custom paid plan.
Click here to try Fouita’s Social Chat.
SocialProofy’s All-in-One Chat widget
SocialProofy is another website that provides widgets for websites. Its 20+ Social Proof widgets include ones such as Scratch & Win, Video Popup, Live Visitors, and live chat widgets for websites.
Its All-in-One Chat widget lets you create and embed a multi-channel social messaging widget on websites.
Features:
- Link all your social messaging platforms: SocialProofy supports Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, Line, Discord, RumblrTalk, and X.
- Customize widget: You can change the appearance of the chat header (chat representative name, profile picture, job position, organization), chat body (welcome message and button title), and widget.
- Triggers: Specify where to display the chat widget on your site.
Pricing
SocialProofy’s plans are as follows, as shown in the screenshot below.
Click here to try SocialProofy’s All-in-One Chat widget.
Which is the best live chat widget solution?
It depends on your needs and situation. In this article, you found several services to create social live chat messaging widgets using social messengers such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Skype. Additionally, there are simple live chat widget generators such as Get.chat’s Chat widget creator and GetButton.io and WordPress plugins such as Chaty. But most of those are expensive and do not provide substantial features.
The best part is all of the listed live support widgets are all-in-one chat widget providers.
Sleekflow’s Live Chat has an omnichannel inbox for managing messages. However, it’s expensive compared to others.
If you are looking for a simple yet customizable and, most importantly, reliable (from a privacy policy standpoint and platform-wise), Elfsight’s All-in-One Chat widget would be a good choice.
It’s free to use (it provides all the features even in the free plan), can upgrade or downgrade whenever required, and can try all other Elfsight widgets, such as social feed widgets. Also, it can be installed on any platform, including WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, Shopify, Google Sites, and custom HTML sites created using a static site generator.
Furthermore, in many situations, you might have to embed Instagram feeds on your website, add a contact form to a page, or use an HTML number counter. In those cases, you can use Elfsight.
You can also try others, such as Common Ninja and Fouita, as those platforms offer many widget types.
Final words on Best Live Chat Widgets
According to studies2, adding live chat software to a website typically causes a 20% increase in conversion. Chatters are 2.8x more likely to convert than visitors who don’t chat. Among the two chat widget types, social chat widgets are the easiest to implement, and they get you messages from real people.
Please choose the right chat widget for your website, customize it, position it on the proper placement on the webpage, set accurate business hours, and add your assistants to respond to messages.
Resources & Footnotes: