Ten reasons why you have not yet implemented live chat on your website
Companies, educational institutions, and other organisations have embraced the Internet to increase their presence and attract customers; all this in an attempt to generate more sales in a cost-effective manner. However, many website visitors feel no connection to the organisation when they have questions. A phone call can mean paid 0900 numbers, long waiting times, conversations with multiple employees and selection menus, while with e-mail, it can take days before you receive a response and need multiple exchanges to reach a solution (also see our study of response times within the 50 biggest webshops in the Netherlands). More and more consumers want immediate, accurate answers to their questions and concerns. Those same consumers tend to want to do business with someone who can provide quick, accurate answers as soon as they have questions. Websites with live chat enable businesses to offer quick and easy answers in a way that also has a positive effect on the business result.
1. I already have a physical location, a website, a Facebook page, an 0800 number, and a contact form. Isn’t that enough?
Not really. In your store or at your location, you need sales and service staff to help customers and sell your product.
You have people who answer the phone and e-mails, help the customers, and generate more sales. Hopefully, you also have someone who manages the Facebook page of your company to respond to comments to protect your brand, help your customers, and increase sales. A Forrested study from 2010 showed an increase of 19% in average order values for companies who sell online and use chat for this compares to webshops without chat. So, if you have a website, why not offer consumers a way to ask for help when completing an online purchase? You wouldn’t open a physical store or location without hiring staff for it, either.
2. It’s not really important to MY customers, is it?
Many companies are seeing increased interest in live chat, but believe their customers will always prefer talking to a person in the flesh. It is important to meet your customers where and when you want to talk to them, through the communication channel that suits their needs best at that time. When a customer is on your website, at the moment just before their purchase decision, the ability to respond to their questions and immediately remove all barriers is crucial to your brand and your ability to realise the sale, while improving the overall satisfaction of your customer. According to a 2012 study by BoldChat, two thirds of online consumers have chatted in the past, a 50% increase compared to 2009. After experiencing live chat, most consumers prefer sites that offer live chat over sites that do not. Live, proactive chat is an effective tool that offers support with online orders, technical support, registrations, service, appointments, online banking, and much more. It’s all about providing timely and reliable service, increasing sales, and building loyalty.
3. Just a few of my competitors appear to use it, so why should I worry about it?
A recent study shows that 25% of the 100 largest webshops in the Netherlands have live chat, and this percentage increases every year. Surely, you do not want to be the last one to set up live chat
4. I was bombarded with pop-up invitations for chat on a website I (once) visited. I do not want this on my website. It would annoy my customers.
Every company today with a website with that problem should listen well to the voice of its customers and take action to improve its processes. Properly implemented chat software works well for almost every brand. The key is in setting up a plan with clearly defined objectives, using the right business rules to only invite the most valuable potential customers based on their behaviour on your website. This means evaluating the chat performance and fine-tuning the business rules to reduce intrusion and improve effectiveness must be a continuous part of your business processes. The immediate help offered by a properly set up proactive chat platform with well-trained agents is proven to increase conversions by up to 35%. This way, you avoid irritating your customers, reduce unprofitable communication, and approach the customer in the right place at the right time (when they welcome your help AND are ready to place the order).
5. From a marketing perspective, there seems to be no added value in investing in chat. So why do it?
Live chat allows you to read chat reports in real-time so that you can collect usable data for analysis. Chat rules and related web analytics enable you to gather a huge amount of information about your customers, so you can focus your efforts on high value customers based on historical and current website behaviour. In addition, live chat enables you to generate high-quality leads.
6. I am not sure that chat can really reduce the number of abandoned shopping carts on my website.
Chat offers your online customers the option of contacting an expert, immediately. It enables your operators to answer customer questions and increase their comfort levels to shorten the sales cycle. Your operators can do competitor comparisons and price matching for the customer, which enables you to proactively attract orders through better customer service, discounts, free shipping, without customers leaving the site and having to hope for their return.
7. I am not quite sure how to manage this. Would my existing customer service staff also be able to chat?
Yes, but it should come as no surprise that the skills needed for voice operators and chat operators are very different. Instead of asking more of your existing customer service employees, who are already so busy, to also take care of chats, it is better to use dedicated chat operators with the right skills and appropriate training. At LiveChat Pro, you can start small and have your own team for as little as 499 euros a month.
8. I don’t have time for all this. It sounds so complicated.
There are reliable live chat contact centres which help you with a simple evaluation of your needs and the resources necessary to meet those needs. If you approach contact centres, ask for their experience with live chat. There are contact centres which specialise in live chat, such as LiveChat Pro. Choose the company that can prove its chat expertise and makes you feel comfortable.
9. It’s too expensive!
If implemented correctly, live chat can actually lower costs and raise the sales from your website. According to Forrester, proactive chat shows a 105% ROI. While the average chat and voice handling times are not necessarily different, it is true that a chat operator can handle up to four chats at a time, which reduces waiting times and overhead by rerouting traffic from voice to chat.
10. Ultimately, it’s all about results. If you can do these three things, more customers will buy from you.
- Answer their questions in real-time
- Make comparisons for them in real-time
- Keep them on your site and keep them satisfied
With the help of proactive chat, you will not only increase sales and customer satisfaction, but live chat will also save you money and generate a huge ROI if done well. Let us help you do things right.
Click here if you want to download our whitepaper on how to generate leads with live chat.
