Most firms looking for a live chat plugin for website use already have one. It was installed years ago, it answers to one person's login, and its chats never reach the CRM. The real question is whether to keep it, and how to replace it without losing a week of enquiries. This article answers exactly that: how to judge an existing chat plugin, and how to switch to the chat widget on the levelpartner.ai platform so chats land on contact records in the same inbox as every other channel.
The hidden cost of a standalone chat plugin
A standalone plugin often works well as chat. The problem is everything after the chat. The transcript sits in the plugin's own dashboard. Someone copies the visitor's details into the CRM, or does not. Follow-up happens from a personal inbox. Nobody can report on how many chats became clients, because the chats and the clients live in different systems.
For a company of 10 to 250 staff with flat revenue, those gaps are where leads leak. A chat that never became a contact cannot be followed up by a workflow, assigned to an owner or counted in a pipeline.
What to check in any chat plugin
If you are weighing up a plugin, whether you already have it or are choosing one, ask these questions.
- Does each chat create or match a contact in your CRM automatically, without copying?
- Can a chat continue by SMS or email after the visitor leaves the site, in the same thread?
- Who has the login, and what happens if that person leaves?
- Can an AI agent answer first, with a handover to a named person?
- How many separate tools does it connect to, and who maintains those connections?
- What does it add to page weight and load time?
We do not review other vendors' features or prices. Check each plugin's current documentation against this list.
Before you start
You need access to Sites, Conversations and Settings, and edit access to your website or a developer who has it. Find where the old plugin is installed: a website plugin directory, a site-wide code setting or a tag manager. Export or save any old transcripts you need to keep, following the old tool's own instructions. Configure the new widget fully before you switch.
How to set it up
The switch itself is mostly planning. List where the old plugin is installed and who holds its login, save any transcripts you need, decide who answers new chats, and pick a quiet day to change over. Tell the team which inbox to watch from that day. Then build the replacement.
- Go to Sites > Chat Widget.
- Click New and select Live Chat.
- Customise the widget's appearance to match your brand.
- Click Save.
- Click Get Code, then Copy.
- Remove the old plugin, then add the copied code in exactly one place.
Send test chats from a phone and a laptop and confirm each one arrives in Conversations. Keep the old tool's login for two weeks to catch late replies, then cancel it once it shows no activity.
Running both at once is the mistake to avoid
It is tempting to keep the old plugin running alongside the new widget while you get used to it. Two chat bubbles confuse visitors, and two inboxes split the team's attention. Pick a day, switch fully, and keep the old login only to catch stragglers.
Picture an old plugin that handles about 50 chats a month, with transcripts emailed to one adviser who copies around half into the CRM. That would leave roughly 25 conversations a month with no record. Once every chat becomes a contact in Conversations and starts the same follow-up workflow as a form enquiry, none of them would be lost. If even 10 of those were returning clients, that is 10 people a month who would otherwise never reach their adviser.
Moving the chat without moving the follow-up. If chats arrive as contacts but no workflow acts on them, you have only changed where they are ignored. Build the assignment and first reply before the switch.
What changes for the team, and the time it takes
Staff stop opening a second dashboard to answer chats. Chats sit in Conversations with SMS, email and calls, assigned to an owner. Managers can see unanswered chats in the same view as everything else.
The switch itself takes half a day, including testing. Expect a week of the team adjusting their habits. After that, chat costs no more time than before, and usually less, because nobody is copying details between systems.
When to keep the old plugin
Keep it for now if it handles something your team relies on that you have not yet rebuilt, such as a specialised integration your service desk uses. Keep it, too, if your website is about to be replaced; switch chat as part of the new build. Otherwise, one inbox beats two.
Widget settings such as greeting and fields are in configuring the live chat widget. For where the chats land and who owns them, read running one inbox for every channel. And if you want an AI agent to take the first reply, see splitting live chat between AI and your staff.
Troubleshooting
The old chat bubble still appears after removal. The page is cached, or the code is in a second place. Clear the website cache and search templates and the tag manager for the old script.
Visitors reply to old chat emails. The old tool sent transcripts with a reply address. Keep that mailbox forwarding to your connected email for a few weeks.
New chats arrive but nobody answers. The assignment rule was not set before the switch. Assign new chats to a named owner straight away.
Chat volume drops after the switch. The new greeting is vaguer than the old one, or the widget is hidden on pages where the old one showed. Compare pages and greetings, and match the old placement.
Frequently asked questions
Can I import old chat transcripts?
Treat old transcripts as a record, not live data. Save them from the old tool and attach important ones to the matching contacts by hand if needed.
Is a chat plugin different from a chat widget?
The terms overlap. A plugin usually means something installed through your website system's plugin directory. A widget is the panel visitors see. The platform's widget is added with a short code snippet.
Will switching chat tools affect search rankings?
Not directly. Check that page speed does not fall after the switch, since speed affects rankings and conversions.
How long should the old and new tools overlap?
Not at all on the website. Keep only the old login open for about two weeks to catch late replies.