As more and more companies are expanding their business operations online—or are based online altogether, adding new methods of real communication with customers can open new possibilities to reach potential customers directly.
According to Kissmetrics, an online company with stats and resources for online marketers and Online Chat providers like Zopim and Zendesk:
- 44% of online costumers consider live chat as a means to get their questions answered is one of the most important aspects of a website.
- 77% of people online prefer to talk with a real person before purchasing something
- 63% of online consumers reported that they are more likely to visit a website again if it includes live chat
- Around 38% stated that a positive live chat experience has influenced the decision to buy from that company
Pros of using live chat:
With the numbers speaking for themselves, you have at your hands vast potential and many pros to reap such as:
- Decreased levels of bounce rates
- Better customer service
- Improved ability to promote products and services without being pushy
- Cultivation of trust and familiarity in your customers
Additionally including a live chat, could also give you valuable insights on how users interact with your website and what questions or issues they may have. The online chat agent then can forward these to the relevant technical or marketing departments for facilitating improvements.
Unlike offering telephone-based customer services where the customer waits for minutes in the que to get an answer—live chat is more direct and less frustrating.
Live chat is available in various formats—sometimes it appears as a pop-up window while in some websites it appears as integrated menu item on the top or bottom of the page. With interfaces constantly expanding, there are numerous ways you can integrate live chat in your website.
Cons of using live chat:
The question is? Are there any drawbacks of including online chat to your website?. Like all inbound marketing or customer support methods live chat can have the following cons:
You’ll sometimes need to hire many agents working at once to keep up with customer queries in a manual and personal manner. You can take shortcuts and use canned responses but most users can tell right away they are talking to a robot rather than an actual human.
Visitors can sometimes get uneasy and feel they are closely being monitored by an agent who appears to respond to their every move.
To minimize these drawbacks, online marketing experts claim that it would be wise to use online chat only when appropriate e.g. when some users seem to visit your website again and again and seem more interested to buy something from you. Your metrics will show you where you can take advantage of user behavior to your benefit. If you can use a “selective” process to weed out any potential unnecessary uses of live chat, you’ll have a very useful tool for increasing quality leads in your arsenal.
