What is Chat or web chat or more commonly web chat, it’s an online service that enables businesses to have real-time conversations with website visitors and customers. The chat feature was initially used as a customer support channel, although it still is, with the evolution of research and buying, sales and marketing teams are able to convert visitors into leads by using chat and to the delight of their customers.
In this article, we will find out all about chat and how important it is to implement it on your business website.
What Are the Benefits of Chat?
Reduced Expenses
Companies have traditionally been there for customers through phone support, but this can be quite costly when you factor in toll charges and person-per-hour costs.
Chat is cheaper than a quality email service provider and much less expensive than phone support. This is because agents or team members can multitask and assist many visitors all at once. A benefit called chat concurrency, which saves businesses thousands of personnel costs.
Boost Sales
Several studies have shown that chat has the ability to increase sales. Customers who use chat have been found to make purchases more than those who don’t. Because visitors and prospects get instant access to support through a chat channel, this makes it useful in generating leads and making sales. Live chat ensures your business can quickly attend to paying clients or customers.
Improves Customer Service and Loyalty
Chat provides the highest customer satisfaction levels with email and phone support trailing behind. The reason customers return to businesses that offer a chat option is clear to see. Customers are more confident doing business with companies that provide a hassle-free, instantaneous chat service.
Your business benefits greatly in that you can quickly answer questions about your products, solve problems faster, and keep customers confident that you are always going to be there when they need you. This is a very effective recipe that can tremendously improve customer service and loyalty.
Faster Problem Resolutions
Some of the great ways of providing support and solving customer problems are through helpful articles and knowledge bases. However, some customers find it hard accessing these documents, or they are not able to get the answer quickly.
With chat, agents are able to “push” links to help or training documents quickly via the chat window. Therefore, rather than helping users step by step through troubleshooting and resolution procedures, agents are able to direct visitors to the appropriate document or content directly.
What’s more, the ability to screen share means that no matter how complex an issue is to troubleshoot, it can be solved quickly and efficiently.
This is something you simply cannot do with phone support. These features can save agents and businesses plenty of time in helping resolve customer problems.
Dose Online Chat Increase Sales
Before chat, there were two main options for contacting companies if there were questions. They are by phone and through email. These were problematic as phone calls were often a game of listening to automated prompts and waiting a few minutes to press the right keys. That can be annoying, and not many people like to talk on the phone. Emails were the other option, but many businesses don’t respond for several hours, and sometimes days.
Neither of these can be helpful if a customer were on a site and needed to learn more about a product or service. This is the gap that live chat has filled, and this is why it has proven to be very good for increasing sales. Customers love to chat, and these statistics show why they do.
It is super convenient
When customers are looking for more information about a product or service, Chat presents an easy way to do that. With a chat box that usually sits at the bottom corner of the screen, users can get answers to questions in a flash, and this is why 79% of them use the chat. People can multitask why using the chat. They don’t have to suspend other things to call or write an email.
Customers can make decisions faster
Most customers using live chat are at the point of making a purchase or still in the decision process. Communicating with customers at this point is vital, and it works. A Forrester Research found that about 44% of online customers say that having a live person available to answer questions while purchasing something is one of a website’s most important feature. The simple act of providing a response to a customer’s question can be the difference between a sale and a bounce.
Customers feel satisfied
Since customers get their questions answered easily and quickly, the interaction leaves them with a positive view of the site. Chat is better than most other forms of B2C communication. People just love real-time communications, and in business, customers want to get answers to questions in a jiffy.
Chat for Websites
Chat used to be a function reserved for customer support reps in the past, but nowadays, more and more websites are using the chat feature, and you should too. You might have some questions about if it is necessary, here are some answers.
Do I need Chat on my website
You might probably be thinking to yourself, “ should I try this on my business website?”. Almost all businesses have four objectives with messaging, and they are:
1. To convert more visitors into leads
2. Qualify leads through qualification questions
3.Have a channel of engaging hot prospects that are actively seeking answers
4. Learn more about what information the business should present to visitors and what not to show.
Having a chat box is very helpful in retaining customers on your website for longer. They might have a real-time question about your product or service, but being able to get the answer quickly will be the difference between them staying on your website or leaving.
While you seek to improve customer service experience, offering a chat service will endear customers to your brand and keep them coming to your website again to find out more about your product or service because they know they’ll get answers to enquirer right away. Chat is a priority retention strategy used by entrepreneurs in building customer trust and loyalty while increasing the company’s profits.
Most marketing and sales teams have started focusing on chat messaging as a major means of communication, and it is thus necessary you join in to offer a competitive advantage.
Importance of Email and Chat
Along with having chat for your business, an email is just as vital. These two have been around for a couple of years, and they satisfy the needs of companies every day. Email and chat have proven to be useful depending on the specific things a company hopes to achieve. Here are a few reasons why email and chat support are essential.
1. Fast Customer Support
Email and chat communication are done instantly, which can boost communication levels of your business by allowing the spread of information quickly and speedy response to requests.
2. Chat Increases Conversion And Sales
If you own an e-commerce website where you sell goods or services, you would have experienced customers abandoning sessions because they might be confused with your website or face complications navigating. These customers might have questions they are seeking quick answers to. Chat or an email support system provides the answers to questions related to your websites, products, and services, which in turn increases conversions and sales.
3. It Reduces Cost
Rather than incurring costs on telephone bills, email and chat can help reduce the average cost of interaction. This feature boosts efficiency by letting customer representatives be able to manage several chat windows at once, removing the need for hiring more people.
Website Chat vs. Phone Support
It is essential to know that today’s customer service tools offer different benefits to the company and customer. While we have made a serious case for chat, phone support also offers its benefits as well. Both make it easy for an agent and customers to connect and lets customers get immediate answers to problems or questions. However, there a few differences between these channels, which determine when and how they can be used.
Proactive support
One significant difference between website chat and phone support is timing. Phone support is reactive as the customer mostly initiates the conversation, online chat is a more proactive channel as it can be used to gently nudge customers towards a purchase in real-time and answer any question keeping them from making a favorable buy decision. Something that can’t be difficult to do over the phone.
Real person interactions
Phone support wins here as this presents a real person for real-time communications compared to a chat where the prospect is speaking to someone, which usually doesn’t bring a personal connection. For many people, hearing a human being at the other end can be hugely reassuring and prevent ambiguity, which can be difficult with a live chat. A statement might seem different or convey a tone that was not intended by the sender.
Keeping Records
Another key difference between website chat and live support is about how they keep records on customer conversation. This is possible with chat and phone support, but chat enables you to search through text and find critical information about help that is offered to customers and why. Chat analytics can also provide insight about referral links, operating system and device, status, time spent on the site, location, number of chats, and so on. When new prospects communicate via chat this presents a great opportunity to begin list building for sales, this could open the door future follow up.
Conclusion
If success in business is what you desire, you can no longer ignore chat. Your customers want to be able to access fast and immediate support that helps them in their purchase process. Not many businesses have turned to chat, which means it is easier for you to stand out from the competition. Chat provides a way to communicate with your customers and leave them with an unforgettable experience.
