‘Facebook’ is shutting down Live Chat: how do you keep in touch with website visitors after these changes?

As of May 9, 2024, the ‘Facebook’ platform is ending support for the live chat plugin (Live Chat). That means all website owners using this feature will lose the ability to communicate live with potential customers browsing their site. Because of this, many difficulties arise in trying to build a warmer connection with the user and sell the desired product or service.

A live chat feature on a website, like a phone call or registration, is a tool that helps businesses reach the conversion goals they want at the ‘hottest’ stage of the user’s journey. In this way, potential customers who run into uncertainties about a product or service that interests them can submit a query directly. The most common questions are about delivery times, payment, or the availability of the desired service. Since users starting a live chat are already inclined to make a purchase, it’s essential to respond to questions as quickly as possible, so they don’t go looking for answers elsewhere.

• Quick and direct connection with the potential customer. The live chat feature gives visitors the chance to engage with businesses without leaving their page. This significantly improves the user’s positive experience, since they can get answers very quickly without using any other additional means (e.g., no need to call, send an email, or look for information elsewhere).
• Personalized customer service experience. Very fast contact lets businesses provide a maximally personalized customer service experience for every user. This is especially important for dental clinics and online stores, where customers may have specific questions about a scheduled appointment time, changing it, or order status.
• Quick problem-solving. The ability to reach out immediately using the live chat feature lets customers get help and a solution to their issues quickly. This is especially important for online stores, so customers can resolve questions related to order status, delivery, or returns.
• Much faster conversion completion. The ability to contact the business live helps users complete conversions faster. In this way, the move from browsing the website to specific actions like registration or purchase happens more quickly.

Of course, these are just a few of the advantages a live chat feature offers websites. Every business can take advantage of this tool in its own way by integrating it into its environment.

There are now plenty of various live chat programs online for websites — they differ in functionality. Depending on the requirements, every business can pick the option best suited to it.

Pros:

1. It’s a great solution for those wanting to replace ‘Facebook’s’ live chat tool, since this program is fully free and can offer very similar functionality.
2. Its intuitive control system is easy for any user to understand.
3. The program lets you properly manage chat flows, since the system can be used by several users — chatting with several site visitors at once.
4. It also lets you send small files during the live chat.

Cons:

1. When using this tool, an ad for the ‘Tawk.to’ brand is always shown to users in the chat window.
2. There’s no option to enable automatic responses for users.

Pros:

1. The platform offers an auto-responder that lets users automatically reply to frequently asked questions.
2. ‘Tidio’ provides detailed statistics reports that help understand user behavior and properly optimize customer service.
3. This tool lets you see which page the user is currently on, so you can prepare the right answers in advance and give the user a faster customer service experience.

Cons:

1. The free version of the program won’t let you enjoy full functionality, so to fully take advantage of this tool, you’ll have to pay.
2. Although the tool is very functional, using it is fairly complex — so to get the best results, you’ll have to learn how to use it properly.

Of course, these are just a few tools that can replace the soon-to-be-discontinued ‘Facebook’ Live Chat. Every business is unique and its needs are different, so there’s no single answer to ‘what to choose?’