Why your business needs a live chat system

It is fair to say that everyone has dealt, at least once, with email responses arriving days after the initial request, or even the dreadful call center queues. Barriers like those are exactly the ones live chat systems aim to break, smoothing out the process your customers have to go through to get in touch and speeding up your response times.

Nowadays, if your website is lacking a live chat alternative for users to get in touch with you, your business is risking losing a lot of those potential customers precisely for the aforementioned issues. People in general are getting busier and busier as time goes by, so any time wasted while waiting for responses to simple requests are, to put it bluntly, out of the question.

And we believe the benefits of a live chat go beyond speeding up your customer support and smoothing out your customer experience - to see why, keep reading.

5 important statistics that show how live chats are a great addition to your website

It's easy to say that a certain tool is important, or at least interesting, for commercial use, but a simple statement like that does nothing without actual data to back it up, so, to better ilustrate the advantages, we have some data points that you might find important (or, at the very least, interesting) for your decision-making, courtesy of 99Firms:

1. Over 70% of online customers prefer to get in touch with businesses via live chat over any other contact channels;
2. Customers who use live chat tools to interact with your team spend up to 60% more per purchase than those who don't;
3. Younger generations are big adopters of live chats, with Millennials opting for live chats 20% more often than Baby Boomers;
4. The mere presence of a live chat on your website can increase your conversion rates by 4%;
5. Businesses using live chat solutions save between 15 and 33% in customer support costs over those focusing on support via phone and email.

The data above shows only some of the many points regarding why live chats are a highly valuable contact channel, capable of engaging with your customers and winning leads for you - by following 99Firms's article above, you can also find additional information regarding faults and traps other companies sometimes fall into in their use of live chat solutions, in the name of making sure your company avoids committing the same mistakes.

What live chat solutions can do for your business

With the stats above, there's a good chance that you might already be considering adding this powerful tool to your website, but it doesn't end there! As is true of every big and powerful solution aimed at businesses, a live chat can bring huge benefits both to you and to your clients, as long as it's used appropriately.

So, with that in mind, let's check out some of those benefits:

Fully tailored customer service in real time

No one wants to wait for customer service, we simply cannot deny that. If your prospect is browsing through your catalog and suddenly has questions or has found issues that can't be solved immediately, there's a non-zero chance that they might give up on their purchase - or, worse, look for help from your direct competitors.

As competition among companies rises, losing opportunities to a lacking customer support in this fashion is borderline unacceptable. And, to that end, working with a live chat tool highly increases your chances of retaining visitors and converting them into customers (or even brand advocates) if they receve proper, fully tailored service from your team.

Better conversion rates at your customers' shopping carts

For e-commerce owners, the benefits of live chats are even bigger. Picture this: a visitor is on your website, with products in their shopping cart, but they've been idle at this screen for a while, now. What if, for example, you could check on your customer to see if there are any questions about the product on their cart, or perhaps about your payment options? With the proper live chat tool, you can interact in real time to avoid the rate at which potential customers abandon their shopping carts, increasing your conversion rates.

Higher credibility for your website

For better or worse, many people still are afraid of making online purchases. One way of breaking this barrier is through live chat, showing that, even in a virtual environment, not only are there real people behind your store, but they are also available to aid your users.

Plus, it also serves as a way to showcase that your company takes its business seriously, with a focus in making sure the customer is satisfied at every step of the buyers' journey.

Constant feedback on your processes

With a live chat system, your agents become your company's first line of contact with the customer. Whatever they hear through their daily chats must be carefully listened to and analyzed, applying the suggestions that make sense for your business and which seem like fair criticisms and improvement points.

Many companies end up relegated to dealing with only dealing with feedback on the medium to high-term, while a live chat tool can be the best way to understand your customers' perception of your business in an extremely short amount of time.

Keep in mind: even with a live chat available in your website, you should never leave it as the only customer service channel for your business. Emails and telephones are also vital - you can never predict nor control your customers' taste. 

Increase your conversion rates with landing pages and live chats

Whoeveer thinks live chats should only be used as a passive customer service channel could be in for a rude awakening. If you can tie your live chat tool to the proper marketing strategy, it can noticeably boost the conversion rates in your landing pages. To that end, here are two quick (but important) tips:

Engage in proactive live chats - with moderation

Proactive chats can (and sometimes should) be used in your landing pages, to make full use of this environment built to convert visitors into leads or actual customers. Having the visitors know that, if needed, they can talk to a customer service agent through the very same page they're currently looking at brings an extra layer of security to their minds when it comes to analyzing your offer.

But keep mind that your live chat should never pop up instantly as soon as the user loads your page, as that can negatively affect the user experience and actually damage your conversion rates.

Make full use of A/B tests

As you do (or at least should) with the content of your actual campaigns, it's also important to execute A/B tests with regards to your live chat.

Test its positionig on your page - even if most companies who use these tools tend to opt for the lower right-hand corner of the page, you can test the changes in performance from moving it to another spot on the page, just be careful to not let it overlap your conversion form.

But, beyond the positioning, you can also analyze multiple other aspects, such as the color of the icon, the welcome message shown when extended, how much time it takes to load up, etc. But keep in mind to maintain a visual contrast between the live chat and the landing page itself, so that the user can easily find how to get in touch with you.

Live chat vs chatbot: what's the difference?

As the use of chatbots in both websites and mobile apps has risen over the years, the two terms sometimes get mixed up, so it's important to set things straight.

Everything we've talked about up to this point pertains exclusively to traditional live chats, where agents - real humans - talk to your user and customers. When dealing with a chatbot, however, it's either an artificial intelligence or even a simple automated tool with a series of canned questions that interacts with your customers

It might seem like an incredible way to save on time and resources, but many people - including those responsible for implementing chatbots at their companies - don't realize that a full strategic planning is absolutely required to understand if the tool makes sense for your business - you need to choose the right tool, have well-defined objectives, and so on.

And that's just the beginning, as we're talking about a set of tools that only work based on pre-programmed responses and patterns, requiring a human to set the tool up. Therefore, to implement a chatbot, you must study the most commonly asked questions in live chats, what topics usually come up and, above all, understand what's a good way to approach your users - after all, no one likes to knowingly talk to a robot, so the more humanized it can be, the better.

Our personal tip for you is: before implementing a chatbot in your website, make sure both the tool itself and the customer service processes are perfectly aligned and working flawlessly. Only then will you be able to analyze the aforementioned aspects and plan your business' next steps. 

I want to implement a live chat, what's next?

The first step is always to research and find the right tool - doubtlessly, when looking up "live chat tools" on your search engine of choice, you'll find endless numbers of solutions that promise to be the best choice for you.

Some of the most popular ones, that you're bound to come across, include Jivochat (which can be installed on most ecommerce platforms, mobile apps, and even works with Facebook Messenger), Zendesk Chat (Zendesk's own proprietary live chat solution), LiveChat (which is notable for allowing agents to preview what the user is typing before they send it), among so many others.

However, before signing up for one of these soltions, it's important to analyze how they interact with any other platforms and systems that your company uses - you always need to look for the best workflow possible.

For companies that prefer to centralize their toolbox and informations, we recommend HubSpot, a complete solution that unites marketing, sales, and customer support modules in a single spot. Plus, HubSpot offer all user a free CRM module, further reinforcing the centralization of the solutions used by your company.

Of course, HubSpot also includes a live chat solution and even the option to use chatbots, for companies with more complete customer support processes. Plus, everything included in your live chats gets registered to your CRM, and, through the multiple HubSpot "Hubs", you can do a lot with the information gathered via a conversation.

With a live chat, you connect your company to visitors in real time, increasing your chances to convert them into new leads, to close new deals, and allowing you to bring a better customer support service to your already existing clients.