How Can Live Chat Help Your Business?
There are many potential benefits of being able to chat directly with your website’s visitors. These advantages make live chat a critical communication platform for all businesses focused on delivering an enhanced customer experience.
Live chat can be a huge advantage for online business models, especially e-commerce. It’s because the platform enables the businesses to attend to their online customers in the same way as they would with customers in their physical store.
From the customer’s point-of-view, having someone to answer their queries in real-time and with precision, would not only lead to better customer experience but will also increase their trust in the brand. Discussed below are many more benefits that live chat can deliver.
Convenience
The phone-based service, for which the customers have to navigate through lengthy IVR options, can sometimes get annoying. On the other hand, the live chat offers them instant attention without making them wait for a long time to get the service, leading to a positive impact on the customer’s overall experience.
Also, if required, the chat allows customers and customer service personnel to easily share any documents with each other, which in some cases can be a significant aspect of their discussion. This, however, is not possible over a call. Moreover, customers can also perform other important tasks while chatting with the agents and that adds to the convenience.
Competitive Advantage
Usually, customers who land on your site can be looking for either a piece of information or perform a specific task. It could be as simple as a product-related query, general feedback on the product or just seeking an assurance that the ordered goods would reach on time. On the other hand, it could be a query on how to get through an emergency that has put their lives at risk. Irrespective of the situation, when the customers find out that the company is not making an effort handle their queries quickly, they could leave the site with frustration, and never return. Instead, they could end-up at a competitor’s site, who possibly could offer them a prompt solution. All it means, that the inability to handle a query on time can ultimately be an opportunity missed to convert or retain a customer.
When the customers’ queries are handled promptly through live chat, the chances of them leaving the site without a solution to their query are minimal. Subsequently, it also reduces the customer’s necessity to visit the competitor’s website, which in turn adds to your competitive advantage.
Efficiency
Customers seeking help over the phone can face several issues such as static or noise in the connection. Sometimes they can even misunderstand certain important phrases due to the agent’s accent or voice. Situations such as these may require the agents to put an extra effort.
However, with live chats, these hassles can be eliminated, as customers would not have any problem in reading the transcripts on their screens. Also, the agents can be much more efficient, as these transcripts can be predefined based on the situation.
Analytics
Most of the chats can be easily recorded and stored in the form of basic text files, which occupy much lesser space than that needed for voice calls. Being easy to store, they can also be analyzed with much more accuracy.
By analyzing the data gathered from the live chats on the website and other digital channels, analytical experts can figure out the various trends in customer interactions. Also, the data can be useful in identifying the major concerns faced by them, which can be addressed promptly to achieve maximum customer- satisfaction.
Moreover, live chat tools can be acquired at a reasonable price, which makes them a cost-effective option. Also, it helps in providing much more personalized service to the customers, which also increases conversion rate. On the whole, when you have more conversions at a much lower investment, then there is an explicit boost in the net ROI. Together these factors enable live chat to contribute towards better profitability and higher efficiency for the company.