Having a live chat tool on your website used to be seen as optional but as time went on, we hardly see a website now without the live chat tab. This is because the digital world is continuously evolving, hence companies have to digitally evolve so as to meet up with their customer's expectations. Currently, more than 30% of people expect to see a live chat tool on your website and if you as a company does not have that function, you can be said to be ignoring your customers. What other way is there to lose both sales and customers if not by "ignoring" them?
Live chat can be seen as a form of personalized customer service that helps to increase sales in that customers like to communicate with those they are buying from. In a case where an individual is having a hard time deciding which product to go for, if there is a live chat tab, he can easily start a chat to get the help he requires and in most cases, ends up buying what was prescribed just because the person at the other end of the system knows better. Also, many people find it difficult to call a company for help so they opt for the live chat. The fact that the response is instant is another thing that attracts customers as it tends to be faster than when you call the phone number meant for the company's support.
42% of customers prefer live chat as opposed to email with 23% and 16% for social media accounts. However, recent research shows that only 9% of companies have a live chat tool on their website. This is not so good as you can meet your customer's demands and just have an edge over other companies.
Live chat can also help you increase sales because it allows you to respond to more than one customer at a time. This is not applicable to email and phone support in that with those, you can only respond to a customer at once.
You can also increase your sales by having a live chat tool on your website because just by having the live chat option on your site, it can trigger a boost in your sales. A study shows that as many as 77% of customers will not buy from a website that does not have the live chat option available. As mentioned earlier, some customers might need help deciding on what product and service to go for and when you do not have the live chat, they will be left with no other choice than to leave the website. One thing to note when considering having a live chat option is the speed with which users will get responses to their questions. The response from a live chat should be instant as compared to other communication channels that might take 12 hours for emails and 10 hours for social media platforms. A report (Forrester's Raising the Bar) shows that at least 1 out of 5 customers is ready to stop using a product or service if the response time is slow for online chat. Therefore, you have to consider that.
Live chat is an essential means of communication for any business most especially when it is recorded that companies are making more sales using the tool. I can assure you that in no time, some of your competing companies will start using it.
As mentioned above, using live chat will help you:
- Increase sales and revenue
- Talk to your customers personally thereby delivering a better customer experience.
- Provide instant responses to your customer's questions.
With all of these, if you have not been using the live chat tool in your business, now is a good time to start.
