Discover how the innovative software can help your business
Are you considering the benefits live chat could bring to your business? In today’s fast-paced digital world, customers are looking for immediate answers and support, something that can be achieved with the help of an integrated live chat app.
By bridging the gap between your client base and staff, you offer a streamlined service, which can boost customer satisfaction and lead to a greater customer retention rate. Not only that, but your business saves time and money, often wasted through the use of traditional customer support methods like telephone or email.
Live chat is simple to integrate and offers numerous benefits, but don’t just jump at the first live chat offering you see. Take some time to find the right live chat app for you and your business, learn exactly how it works so you can get the most out of it for your business, and you’ll see your conversion rates and ROI soar.
So, what is live chat?
We all know the frustration of listening to call center music as you wait on hold for customer service, only to be hung up on or not have your questions answered. Even if customer service is excellent and you manage to speak directly with a staff member, you may forget to specify valuable information or need further support, resulting in an infuriating back and forth that leads nowhere.
That’s where live chat comes in, offering a novel solution to the customer's problem. Depending on its features, customers can easily talk directly with staff via a widget in the website window. Then through different live chat features, customers may even be able to send images and evidence to support their case and can continue the conversation at any time.
Having all this information in one place is exceptionally useful for both businesses and consumers. Staff and customers can look back at the chat as a reminder of information, and businesses can store customer data for future reference — an excellent marketing tool for customer retention and conversion.
When it comes to the benefits of live chat, the stats speak for themselves:
- Live chat is the most popular customer support method. 63% of customers are likely to return to a website if it offers a live chat option. This shows just how beneficial it could be for customer retention.
- Overall customer satisfaction is improved through the use of live chat. After surveying more than 45 million live chats, Comm100 found that 82% of live chat customers were satisfied compared with just 61% of email queries and 44% of phone users.
- Response time is much faster than traditional methods. In fact, the average response time for live chat is 2 minutes compared with 17 hours for email. In a study undertaken by Forrester Research, 57% of customers were found to abandon a purchase if they couldn’t get their questions answered immediately.
How does live chat work?
Live chat takes place in a window on your company website, allowing your staff and customers to chat in real-time.
It is easy software to integrate into your business, and customers will not have to download or install any software to use it and connect with your customer support team in real-time.
The software simply installs an easy-to-use widget, providing a pop-up window for customers to chat and ask questions.
How does live chat work for consumers?
The live chat process is simple to use and can offer ongoing support while customers browse the site. No information is lost, and customers can continue to revisit the window before they make their final purchase.
- Step 1: Customers will see a widget (either one that automatically pops up or a clickable window).
- Step 2: Once opened, a chat box will appear either with a proactive, automated prompt or an empty window where customers can type questions. This allows customers to multitask while on the website, as they can go back to the chatbox to ask further questions.
- Step 3: Customers can attach files, images, links, and emojis (depending on the features available on your live chat software). This is very helpful for those needing materials to support their query or issue.
How does live chat work for operators?
Operators have significantly more power within the live chat solution. They have a window where they have incoming chats and can open and close chats as they interact with customers.
Often, they’ll be delivered key information about the consumer; where they are based, the language they are writing in, and perhaps even the pages they have been browsing. This way, operators can offer tailored responses and services.
With selected software, they can also create automated responses to save time answering frequently asked questions and revisit chats if they need to look back at the important information.
The operator’s analytics board
The features you have will depend on the live chat software you’ve chosen, but many also offer detailed analytics. This is usually a board for agents that shows feedback and ratings. It also allows companies to track the customer journey. For example, how long has the consumer browsed for? How long did they consider a product? What is the most popular service on offer? This supports you in converting leads, building up your customer database, and improving your conversion and retention rate.
Use live chat to troubleshoot
The operator has a vital role in solving customer problems as quickly as possible, something live chat can really help with. For example, if a customer is having an issue mid-way through the purchasing process, they can alert the operator and have it fixed before it prevents them from buying.
Many sites without this feature will lose consumers, particularly those who lose patience and, ultimately, leave the site. With traditional methods like email and telephone, technological issues could take a lot of time and effort to resolve.
How live chat doesn’t work
Although live chat may seem like the whole package, it doesn’t mean you should eliminate all other forms of customer contact. For the most outstanding customer experience, it’s essential to have numerous channels of communication.
This is better for the consumer but also for businesses, allowing you to access data from various different platforms and painting a more detailed picture of where you can improve.
The benefits of live chat
You may be wondering, ‘how does live chat work for my company?’ Well, the benefits are numerous when it comes to the integration of live chat for your business. It provides an all-around customer experience that replicates one you would find in-store, offering consumers near-instant support and answers to questions that can be drawn from a variety of informative and reliable sources.
Convenience for customers
Live chat offers unparalleled convenience for customers who want to resolve a query or issue as quickly as possible from the comfort of their homes. Rather than the long wait times and endless back and forth associated with phone and email, live chat is integrated flawlessly into the user experience. This means customers can chat with agents, resolving issues as and when they come up on their purchasing journey.
Saves time for businesses and consumers
Quicker response times are beneficial for both businesses and consumers. With extra time, agents can set up automated prompts, questions, and responses for the most-asked questions, leaving them more time to focus on excellent customer service.
Customers also gain precious time they would otherwise lose using traditional customer service methods, such as telephone, email, or social media, giving them more time to shop for your products and services.
Saves money
Integrating live chat software is far cheaper than staffing call centers, most of which are overstretched and will take far longer to get to the query. This results in longer wait times and more minutes paid.
Instead, live chat offers a more efficient and affordable solution with various software options priced according to the features you require.
Increases customer retention
As customers browse your website, they want to know that they can have any doubts clarified before purchase without having to leave your site or pick up the phone.
Excellent and fast customer service via live chat increases the likelihood that customers will return to your website again. Customers love a simple and user-friendly shopping experience, and this will stay in their minds as much as the purchase itself.
Captures leads
Occasionally, customers won’t always follow through to purchase. But don’t despair. Live chat offers a great way to capture leads and secure return customers to your site. By integrating email marketing software with your live chat, you can build your database of contacts so that you can contact consumers in the future.
For example, you could do a pre-chat form to help inform the agent or a post-chat survey, both of which will obtain the customer’s contact details. From here, you can use this for email marketing purposes or to send a follow-up, capturing leads in the process.
Consider also creating a clever email flow personalized to the customer, including teaser subject lines reminding them about the product they were browsing or asking if you can help with anything further. This kind of personalized marketing can help you get results further down the line.
Better relationships due to direct contact
Better relationships between customers and staff result in more sales and a greater ROI.
There are multiple ways you can continue to strengthen this relationship through the use of live chat. For example, ensuring staff are equipped with the right knowledge, excellent writing skills, and customer-centric language so that they can conduct fantastic customer service from start to finish.
By offering a more informal, friendly approach, you speak as a human, not a brand, which creates an emotional link with the customer, in turn making them more likely to buy from you.
There is also the option of integrating a live video, so customers have a more personal experience of seeing an agent, or screen sharing so that operators can access the customer’s window (with permission) and fix any technical issues in record time.
A competitive edge for your business
In our ever-advancing technological world, customers depend on companies to keep up with the digital pace, and the number of those who expect to see live chat on a website is growing. You can stand out from your competitors by not only offering this service to your customers but optimizing it for the greatest user experience.
Optimizations could include anything from software updates and chatbot integration to further staff training. This all helps you build a better rapport with your customer, creating a positive user experience.
Minimizes the risk of repeat problems
A customer may be struggling with a repeat technological issue on your site. Rather than having to go through the difficulty of contacting you each time and explaining the problem again, live chat offers an instant response.
It also stores all data in one place, meaning the business can easily access customer details and past information in repeat cases. This makes a customer feel valued, ensures they don’t have to repeat themselves, and helps you reach a solution faster.
Built-in marketing data tool
Live chat is a fantastic way to gather and analyze data and monitor the customer experience. This offers companies an insight into their products and services, allowing them to continually improve as a result.
Is there one issue that is repeatedly being reported? Then you can tackle that issue and ensure it doesn’t keep being repeated. Are you receiving questions more often about a certain product? Now you know some information must be missing from your product description and can rectify that to pre-empt any questions.
Customer satisfaction is higher
In a large-scale survey by Comm100, 82% of customers were found to be satisfied with their live chat experience, in comparison to only 44% of phone users. In those cases where the staff member could access the customer window and fix the problem directly themselves, customer satisfaction rates were even higher at 89.3%.
By creating these positive interactions with your brand, you make it more likely that customers will return and recommend you to their friends. This all helps you build stronger customer relationships and continue increasing your sales further down the line.
The effectiveness of live chat
Still wondering if live chat is an effective tool for your business? The stats say ‘yes’. In fact, over 41% of customers expect to have a live chat option on websites now, so if you fail to integrate one, you could be accused of essentially ignoring your customer needs.
In our rapid world of instant results and advancing technology, businesses that fail to include live chat are likely to fall behind. For such an affordable and simple integration system, it seems unwise not to join the digital chat revolution.
The benefits are numerous, from improving your customer retention to providing you with an all-in-one data analysis tool for product and audience improvement. The biggest plus, though? The greater ROI that your business is almost guaranteed to see — a staggering 6,000% increase in some cases, according to Comm100.
How to get the most out of live chat
The efficiency of live chat is dependent on the features included and your choice as a company to take a proactive or reactive approach. Businesses can be reactive or proactive, implementing a pop-up window that prompts customers to ask questions while they move through the website or directing customers to the widget if they require answers. There are pros and cons to both, so it will really depend on your company's USP and strategy.
Reactive approach
A reactive approach waits for the customer to engage with live chat and ask a question, similar to a customer having to ask a staff member questions in the store.
The problem with this method is that customers don’t always think to ask questions, or the widget may go unnoticed, meaning they leave the site and you lose out on a sale.
Proactive approach
A proactive approach involves a live chat window popping up while the customer is on the website, usually with an automated prompt, comparable to a staff member approaching you in the store to offer help.
In some cases, if this prompting is initiated too often, it can feel spam-like and potentially frustrate customers if there are too many visual and auditory notifications.
Instead, companies may want to be selective in this approach, targeting specific consumers or only allowing for one pop-up on the first website entry. This way, businesses can engage customers and support them with questions without hassling them.
The best practices to use for live chat
Live chat offers a streamlined experience for customers and businesses, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways you can make it even better. Here are some of the best live chat practices to get the most out of the software.
Consider your strategy
Consider your strategy before embarking on the live chat experience. What’s your unique selling point? Who is your target audience? You can target specific audiences with live chat, whether that’s high-value clients that may need a tailor-made response or a prompt for return visitors who leave items in their basket.
Another key strategic consideration is incorporating your brand voice and style into your live chat. The experience has to be coherent for customers; they expect the same tone and aesthetics from live chat as they do from your website.
By being strategic and knowing what you want to get out of your live chat software, you can put the right training and approach in place, start to measure results, and ensure the software is working for you and your business goals.
Stay up to date
With the arrival of new technology and features, you can constantly improve your live chat service, offering a more organized and efficient experience for customers
and staff. The more you keep up to date with the latest advancements, the more you’ll stand out against your competitors by offering new experiences. This helps you ensure a positive experience with your brand.
Ensure a quick response
The main advantage of live chat for customers is the quick response time. Don’t lose customers by being unable to live up to these expectations. Instead, always ensure that live chats are staffed by operators who can manage multiple chats at any one time. It may take trial and error in the beginning, but don’t be afraid to make changes to ensure this valuable touchpoint is really of use to your customers.
Monitor feedback
Incorporating a post-chat customer survey is a great way to monitor customer feedback. You can use this information to continually improve your live chat service and analyze what you could do better as a company in general. It’s a great way to ensure your customer service operators are working at their best, to pick up on any minor issues and correct them, perhaps even integrating them as examples in future training sessions.
Be polite and friendly
Agents should always use a friendly and polite tone of voice with customers while moving through the chat experience. Not only that, but they should offer continued support after the live chat ends.
For example, asking a final question like ‘do you need further help with anything’ or sending a follow-up email. This makes the customer feel supported and acknowledges that they may want to revisit the live chat in the future.
One key piece of advice for agents is not to be lulled into the immediacy and informality of live chat too much; they are still representing the brand and need to respond appropriately, no matter what.
Incorporate a chatbot
For an even more efficient customer service experience, incorporate a chatbot for faster response time. The rapid development of AI means chatbots can offer a customer experience that simulates humans, responding to queries with ease and seamlessly passing them on to agents when the problem can’t be solved through AI.
It means you can offer the same support across time zones and at different times of day and night without losing control of your personnel costs. When your staff come in the next day, they can read the chatbot conversations and have all the information to hand for picking up the conversation with the customer.
How to get started
You’ve been asking how does live chat work? This explanation should have given you all the basic information to decide whether it is right for your business.
Before you get started with live chat, make sure to analyze your business, strategy, and current customer data for the most user-friendly experience. You also need to manage and set expectations. For instance, are you going to expect your agents to respond within a certain timeframe? Or do you have the type of audience who will expect an instantaneous response?
Is an AI chatbot a better choice for your business?
You should also consider which software is the right solution for your business. Do you want to incorporate only live chat, or do you want to upgrade to chatbot technology? As AI becomes more and more developed, chatbots are offering a customer experience that rivals, if not exceeds, one that you may have with a human agent. It offers a variety of technological benefits for businesses and consumers:
- Round-the-clock service. It’s an expensive task to staff your live chat 24/7. Chatbots offer a solution to the problem, allowing you to answer customer queries outside working hours.
- Unlimited use. Depending on your chosen software plan, you could have unlimited chatbots integrated into your live chat, meaning unlimited options for customer response. This means no time wasted for customers waiting for available agents and instant answers.
- Dual-purpose. You can offer customers the most streamlined experience by combining chatbot and live chat. Chatbots can start the conversation, initiate prompts and determine the customer's problem. If it can’t be resolved, the chatbot can seamlessly transfer over to live chat with an agent who can look further into the issue.
- Saves time and money. Chatbots can take care of the more repetitive customer problems that often arise, leaving more time for agents to focus on complex issues. This kind of software can also be integrated across multiple platforms. For example, you could use WhatsApp, Slack, and Facebook Messenger to provide even greater customer support.
Whatever you decide as a business, with a little strategy, live chat can be incredibly beneficial for your company. Choose a plan that works for you, and you’ll find it’s easy to implement, affordable, and far more efficient and effective for both customers and your staff.