Live chat is a platform that allows individual users to get in contact with a business directly. Similar to an instant messenger application, live chat occupies a middle ground between phone and email customer support. Live chat has a huge number of benefits comparing to traditional forms of customer service, and the businesses that invest in the technology tend to find that it offers opportunities to increase sales, resolve issues, learn more about customers and even enhance customer loyalty.
This is especially true for ecommerce businesses that can live chat to be a more cost effective form of customer service as well as a way to remove barriers to sale. Here we will take a look at some of that ways that live chat can completely revolutionise an ecommerce business.
Answering queries and resolving problems
There are two major factors that make live chat such a fantastic option for both businesses and their customers. Firstly, live chat is a fast, easy and silent way to ask questions or check for availability of a particular product or service. The speed of response is an important factor – customers can have their query answered much faster than if they were to email, and there is also no need to go through the sometimes lengthy process of calling.
Live chat can also be an excellent tool for customers who have already bought your product or used your service, and now require help. It can be a useful way to resolve an issue immediately. If a customer feels that they can easily get in contact with you through live chat they can potentially deal with a small issue before it evolves into a larger problem that would take more time to solve.
Convenience is king
One of the reasons that live chat has become such a popular tool for businesses is the level of convenience it offers. Interestingly in a survey from Software Advice, convenience as the most important reason that individuals used live chat, along with a lack of holding times that would be faced if they called.
Being able to click on a chat box, ask their question and have it answered by a real person instantly is very appealing to customers. Far more so than the prospect of waiting and listening to hold music or hoping that the business will reply to their email promptly.
Also remember that many customers will want to get answers to their queries as soon as possible, but may not want to be overheard speaking on the phone. For potential customers who want confidentiality, are at work or are in another public place, this can be an excellent way to get answers to their questions quickly without having their conversation heard. It is also a very helpful service to provide for hearing or speech impaired customers.
Image source : Into the blue
Cost effective customer service
Another major benefit of using live chat is that it can be a very cost effective way of providing excellent customer service. It is typically the case that multiple customers can be dealt with simultaneously by members of staff which increases efficiency enormously. Once a customer has been replied to, the member of staff can then move on to another query and send a response to that, juggling a number of different cases satisfactorily.
It should also be noted that customer service staff can typically deal with problems much faster in the context of a live chat than if they are emailing back and forth with a client over a period of hours or even days. This not only helps to get problems sorted out much faster for the customer, but also ensures that there is no wasted time in your customer service team.
Track returning users
Once a potential customer has interacted with the live chat it becomes easy to track them as a returning user. While this is a secondary benefit from live chat, it can still be extremely useful as it provides the business with the ability to gain insights into customer behaviour. This can provide opportunities both to target that customer individually but also learn more about the customer journey in general to make broader improvements to the site.
Get in touch with the team at PAGE and install Livechat on your website today.
