Top Six Reasons for Offering Live Chat

Face it, online consumers don’t want to have to pick up the phone to get a questioned answered. We’ve moved past that. It’s too time consuming! The majority of people browsing your website prefer to use live chat and receive immediate assistance rather than waiting in telephone queues or even worse, waiting for an email response.

Research shows that your potential customers are more than twice as likely to purchase your products and services after using live chat than by not having that option. Live Chat increases and builds customer trust and confidence in your businesses products and services. Customers are easily able to have their questions and concerns answered before they leave your website – and you can get feedback as to how the conversation went.

The trouble with online shopping is that many customers are disconnected from someone who can answer their questions in real time with precision. Rather than watching potential customers click away from their e-commerce sites, many businesses have been adding live chat support. As it turns out, live chat has the ability to provide the convenient answers that customers want, while also adding significant benefits to the staff and bottom line of companies.

Convenient for Businesses & Their Clients

For the most part, gone are the days of having face-to-face conversations between business owners and their customers. Now even talking on the phone seems archaic. It’s much more efficient to chat than to talk on the phone. For one, you could have music or machines blaring and the client would be none the wiser. You could ask your supervisors for answers without putting customers on hold or muting them. You could multi-task with two simultaneous chats – something my daughter Stephanie does all the time as her full-time job at Home Depot’s call center. Oh, and when customers yell at you through a chat, it sounds just like chats where they don’t. Clients, for the most part, want to communicate with a human being, but don’t necessarily want to talk with them. Chat helps them in a personal manner without having to stop eating, drinking, listening to music or watching a video.

Increases Your Conversion Rates & Up-Sales

Live Chat increases sales. Period. Don’t let your customer bounce off your pages, offer them live help and make sure you secure the sale the first time round. In a brink-and-mortar shop, you are more likely to convert a prospect to customer if you go and talk to them and offer help – than if you make them go it alone. Online is no different.By engaging with customers at key drop off points, you can stop a customer abandoning the shopping journey with time relevant help.

Provides Cost Effective Support

Live customer support will enable your company to reduce the overall cost of providing customer service via. toll free telephone support lines within your conventional help desk system. These savings may range from $10 – $30 per customer support incident. When you have a lot of customers, that can really start to add up. Also, because happy customers are your most effective sales team, there is a high probability that your happy chat-using customers will refer their friends to you which will save you more money per-incident because you use live chat.

Instantly Resolve Concerns

When customers get helped immediately, their relationship with you increases exponentially. Not only that, but because you are resolving issues as they arise, you don’t have to worry about emails that get lost or phone messages that get deleted. The probability of you maintaining a positive relationship with your clients increases significantly when they don’t have to wait around for an answer to their problem.

Get a Competitive Edge

With your competitors only a click away, giving customers the experience they demand, while still at the browsing stage means you keep customers on your site and you keep them happy. If they can’t get their questions answered by you, they’ll go to someone else.

Good customer service will retain your new and old website visitors and increase organic growth by word of mouth. Live chat has the highest satisfaction level of any other communication channel in 2014 and by adopting the technology early will give you that competitive advantage over your rivals.

Build & Maintain Relationships

Live chat increases and builds customer trust and confidence in your businesses products and services. Customers are easily able to have their questions and concerns answered before they leave your website – and you can get feedback as to how the conversation went. By engaging in real time, each visitor feels valued and the trust built will give you lasting relationships.