No matter whether you have an ecommerce website or a brochure website, your online presence is helping your prospects make a choice.
However, there is a huge difference from the traditional, bricks-and-mortar business: there are no “human beings” to talk to! When a customer walks into a physical store, customer service representatives are available to answer questions, help compare products, provide information on products and so on. There is no doubt their role is to guide you through the purchase process.
But – don’t you love technology?
You get where I’m going, right? How can your online business offer the same support you’d get in a physical store, in order to drive more sales? Exactly: via live chat.
Hint: live chat has a huge impact on your sales conversion rate – but only if you use it smartly. So, here are a few reasons you should install it today on your website.
1. Customers spend more time on your website
I said it in my ecommerce book already: the longer your customer browses through your website, the more likely it is for them to make a purchase.
It is exactly the same reason why you now need very long web pages: the more they scroll, the more they buy. And the longer they spend on your website, the more likely you can convert that sale!
A live chat functionality on your website can help increase your average order value as customers spend additional time on your site while getting great suggestions and promotions from your sales personnel.
Expert tip: have your live chat popping up after 2 minutes. At that stage, the customer is already engaged and ready to buy (she would have left very early if she wasn’t!). At this stage, entice the user to ask you questions, and within your reply offer a 5% discount if she buys now.
5% off is better than no sale at all. Don’t forget: a user could be put off completely by anything on your website, absolutely anything! Live chat allows you to “capture” that prospect and convert the sale right NOW, and it also gives you the opportunity to upsell.
2. Online customers deal with a human being
One of the best features of offering live chat on your website is the presence of a real person to talk to. Customers don’t read your website information. And customers don’t enjoy pre-recorded messages either. Customers love humans.
A live person humanizes the website allowing the employee to find a custom solution for the customer’s query, like if they were talking in a physical store.
When users get in touch with you through the live chat, always make sure to mention your name and write as a human would speak:
“Hello Andy, thanks for contacting me! I’m Rodolfo, the shop owner, and I understand your issue. Don’t worry, the item you’re looking for will get back in stock next Tuesday. And because you enquired about that, here’s your 5% OFF and free delivery if you order today – we will ship as soon as we get it back! Thanks for your time.”
Compare the example above with a very common, non-human live chat conversation:
“Hi, the item will be back in stock on Tuesday”
See? The way you humanize a written conversation, and the way you reward your customer just because she got in touch, is the magic formula to dramatically increase your sales conversion.
3. You can get awesome feedback
Whether good or bad, feedback is awesome. Live chat allows you to collect powerful feedback and frequently asked questions. This is SOOO important. Feedback is your key to success!
The problem: Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) pages are often outdated or – in the worst case scenario – are nowhere to be found on your website.
As products change and business evolves, it’s important to make sure customers have access to the resources they need while shopping online. Live chat provides a solution for this as well: providers such as Olark, Zopim, Live Chat INC and Click Desk (my favourite ones) allow the conversation transcript to be downloaded, which you can then use to update your FAQ page fast.
Having your FAQ page reflect real-life enquiries will likely save your employees from answering the same questions a million times!
Question: does this mean you have to be online 24/7 to chat with your customers? No! That’s the great thing about live chat: you can turn your “chatbox” into a contact form when you are not there – customers will still think that’s a very cool feature.
4. You can turn browsers into buyers
An employee/customer interaction presents the possibility to establish a well-standing relationship between the company and customer, which will no doubt grow over time.
Converting first-time buyers to long-time customers mostly depends on that first interaction.
You can use live chat to make that first interaction a great one. For example, you might like to offer a coupon code for 5% off or free shipping.
Also, as I already said earlier, live chat can also help you make up for a bad experience by listening to your customer’s feedback and making it right.
Live Chat recommended Providers
Now that you know you definitely need live chat on your website, I decided to go through the internet on your behalf to find the best Live chat software. Many of these companies are free of charge up to a certain threshold, or give you a 30-day trial. No matter what company you choose, there will be a monthly fee to pay – but consider how much money you can actually make by having this functionality and you won’t even think a second about it!
Live chat can greatly make up the difference between online and in-store, while generating more online revenue for your business. Using live chat, customers will be spending more time on your website increasing their average order value. Chat also humanizes the experience giving customers the help and service they expect, as if they were to walk into the physical store. Updating your websites FAQ page with real-customer questions and feedback will not only provide more value to your business, but also save your employees precious time answering repeat questions. Lastly, live chat offers the opportunity to make a long-lasting relationship with the customer to boost future transactions.
Live chat offers Customer Service at a level that can’t be replaced or replicated, and will therefore increase your online sales. So, here’s where you can get it:
Zopim
Made in Singapore, Zopim is the most downloaded Live chat plugin in WordPress.
It’s also compatible with any other CMS, but the WordPress stats are really important to define the quality of a piece of software.
Zopim is very easy to use and easy to integrate and customize. Definitely worth a try.
You can try Zopim by clicking here .
Olark
If you are not on WordPress, go Olark, it’s definitely the best you can get. You can start using Olark by clicking here or on the image below.
I personally think we are missing live2support live chat service here.Having live chat from Live2support on our website was one of the best decisions we have made. We have increased the conversion rate 10% on our website. The customers are now more satisfied by the accurate and pointed replies that we are able to give to them for their queries. It’s a win a win situation on both end. . This Live chat service is available at https://www.live2support.com/
Thanks for the tip Sylvia!