Live chat is a powerful sales tool. But don’t confine it to your web page.
Giving your site visitors the option to chat with a sales representative is a key driver in increasing revenues. If you don’t yet have Rhino Support set up on your business website, then you’re missing out on major impact potential. Chat options help in terms of conversion optimization and loyalty marketing. Research indicates that 85 percent of US online consumers like to give repeat business to e-commerce companies that resolve their issues quickly with live chat.
A study from Forrester shows that 44 percent of online consumers say having live chat is one of the most important features a website can offer. However, live chat (whether for sales or service purposes) shouldn’t be relegated to your hosted web pages.
Integrating the power of live chat across your brand’s omni-channel experience allows your business to keep leads and customers happy and your revenues flowing.
Develop a multi-channel conversation strategy
Adopting real-time, social media-driven interaction as a central aspect of your multi-channel marketing program isn’t going to happen overnight.
Take some time to develop a strategy that enables you to reach the lion’s share of your audience in as many places as possible. The last thing you want to do is wave the flag that you’re available to talk shop any time, anywhere if you can’t.
To help develop your strategy, consider:
What channels are your target customers frequenting the most?
What will you need to do to maintain a thriving presence on all of these platforms?
How do you plan to integrate all of these channels to create a cohesive customer experience?
Also consider what types of content drive the most sales for your specific audience. Should you be promoting a gated e-book as a magnet for lead capture? Can you close a lot of deals by hosting a sales-oriented webinar? Lots of testing will determine which ploy works best for you and your company.
Leverage technology for cross-channel success
Buyers have questions. If you can capture their contact information and promise to follow up with them, or answer their question immediately, you’ll see increased sales conversions.
But individuals have different preferences when it comes to communication channels. Giving your customers the choice of where they want to chat with you is a branding win, simply because they get to choose the option that’s most convenient for them. It also tells your customers that you’re invested in meeting their needs, which is a critical part of building customer loyalty.
Today’s technology makes it possible to integrate live chat across all of your primary media channels. You can even make it all work together holistically, using a centralized dashboard for multi-channel chat management that also tracks onsite activity, measures conversions and pushes interaction and browsing data to your customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Your website visitors can start a chat with you on your site and then choose to move the conversation to a different channel. They can request callbacks via phone or Skype, and they can discuss solutions with you on Facebook Messenger — or even SMS. As such, you can expect higher customer satisfaction and conversation rates.
Safeguard consistency in your messaging
For your multi-channel approach to be effective, messaging with consumers must be consistent, regardless of the channel. Establishing standards is easy when you have visibility into prior customer interactions across channels. Integrate all your enterprise systems whenever possible to capture and store customer data.
Messaging should be adjusted according to the platform it’s meant to appear on. Obviously, the 140-character limit on Twitter is more restrictive than a WhatsApp thread, for example, and photos on Instagram and Pinterest are different beasts entirely.
When developing your strategy, consider how you can create and reuse various content assets across all your channels — social media and beyond.
Don’t make them talk
Research shows that the average American millennial interacts with customer service 65 times per year. Thirty-three percent of them would rather clean a toilet than speak to a customer service agent. For many, speaking on the phone is an intolerable. If we were to equalize all communication options in terms of ease of use and privacy, customers would consider increasing their use of text by 367 percent, and chat by 250 percent.
The takeaway here is, keep your leads happy and in control of how they interact with you. In most cases, live chat options like Rhino Support are the best options.
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