Using a live chat provides customers with quick answers and instant solutions without queueing up complaint emails or long waiting phone calls. In fact, an INC report also suggests that 42 percent customers prefer live chat as they don’t have to wait on hold. Moreover, using a live chat option allows you to approach customers while they are browsing your website and introduce them to your products. Business opportunities are practically endless after you start offering a live chat option to your customers. Most organizations have an impression that live chat is only a customer support tool, which isn’t the case. In this blog post, we discuss how a live chat does more than streamlining customer support. Take a look.
Boost Conversion Rates
Superior customer support and sales go hand in hand. The better your customer support, greater are the sales numbers. Live chat software is a valuable tool that has the potential to drive sales and improve your business bottom line. Using a live chat software, you can reduce cart abandonment rate by providing appropriate support to the prospective buyers. As you address customer concerns in real time, it creates a positive impression of your business that helps your customer reach a buying decision.
Reduce Business Cost
Live chat software can be installed in a matter of minutes, requires no coding knowledge and it also offers the flexibility to choose a subscription going along with your business needs. Unlike traditional phone support, a lesser number of agents are required and each of them can handle an average 3-4 live chats sessions simultaneously, thereby cutting your support costs. In fact, a leading research also suggests that using live chat is 50 percent affordable than conventional phone support. On top of that, a live chat application offers can also be accessed remotely by agents via mobile apps, which is effective for reducing the dependency on full time workforce.
Resolve Problems Faster
Conventional phone support is noisy and distracting, which annoys the customer’s on call. Using live chat software eliminates this problem and enhances customer satisfaction. Moreover, customers don’t have to go through several options on phone support or IVR to reach an agent for help. Just a few clicks, and your customer can interact with a live chat agent without requiring to wait in the queue, even during peak hours. For increased efficiency, you can also integrate your live chat solution with a knowledge base to respond to customer questions, without having to reiterate over and over.
Provides Competitive Edge
A happy customer gives you a competitive edge over your competitors as they keep on coming for more, thanks to your superior customer service. Unlike offline purchases, online stores lack a human touch. Instigating a direct conversation with the customer through live chat support helps in building trust and rapport with the website visitors. Once you convince visitors about your product, word-of-mouth promotion can go a long way in skyrocketing your sales numbers. Apart from that, many live chat applications also offer multilingual support, so that you never miss out on global customers.
Helps You Know your Customer
Every visitor that lands on your website doesn’t buy straight away. Without having an idea about buyer persona, you are most likely to face a tough time selling. Through live chat software, you can collect valuable data about their choices and preferences. You can train your agents to drop promotional material either midway during the conversation or after completing a successful chat session. They may not buy from you today, but data collected through live chat sessions can be leveraged for product improvement or to tailor marketing strategies. Moreover, live chat also allows you to fetch crucial metrics that can be used to recommend products and services that match their interests.
To understand better, consider this real-life situation:
If a visitor is interested in buying a mobile phone, a chat agent can help in recommending various models and configuration of mobile phones available on the website. Then, he can put forward other information regarding the mobile accessories available on the website to drive sales.
Live chat software has its set of benefits compared to other modes of communication which makes it a win-win choice for customer support. Moreover, it saves time, is quick and easily accessible without the network reception tantrums. Customers can access it anywhere and anytime while doing multiple tasks and get effective customer support and interact easily without any hindrances. The biggest advantage of Live chat software is that it helps customers get support without any delays which is a big issue in Email and Phone services. While email customer support response takes hours, the phone support option is no better either. Constant network issues, noise hindrances and numerous extensions that a customer needs to press before finally reaching the agent results in delayed support. Comparatively, Live chat software emerges as the big winner among most customer support and interaction options.
