How Live Chat Increases Sales Conversions | by Ashok Sharma | Mar, 2021
Live chat plays a crucial role in offering high-quality customer support. By instantly interacting with customers and quickly answering their questions, you can ensure that they have the best possible experience with your organization.
In fact, live chat also drives sales conversations. Studies have shown that live chat is responsible for over 30% of sales conversions.
Despite this, some businesses still hesitate to use a live chat solution in their sales process because they find live chat complicated. If you are one of these hesitant businesses, stay tuned to see what you’re missing out on and learn how to get started with ease.
In this post, we will discuss how live chat bridges the gap between traditional customer service and customer expectations while helping brands achieve more sales. Let’s begin.
You may be surprised to know that more than 92% of customers prefer live chat to other communication channels like email or phone calls. Here’s why:
Live chat provides customers with quick, personalized assistance and gets rid of the only thing they hate the most — waiting for replies.
In fact, the easy-breezy and user-friendly experience of live chat is the reason why according to a study by American data & analytics firm JD Power:
- over 42% of people preferred live chat over any other mode of assistance during online shopping;
- customers seemed more satisfied when they used the chat function.
According to the ATG Global Consumer Trend study, 90% of customers believe that live chat is very helpful to them during online shopping. It provides them with much-needed assistance when they are confused about products and their features. As a result, they can buy products much faster without any unnecessary hassle.
Live chat also improves customer satisfaction by quickly answering questions in a personalized manner. Hence, people are more inclined to buy products, and sales conversions improve.
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Most customers who use live chat on a company’s website are either about to buy a product or in the process of buying one.
Communicating with your customers is crucial at this stage. They have a lot of questions. Having these questions answered during a live chat can increase their chances of buying your products. As Neil Patel says, this simple act of answering customer questions can make the difference between a sale and a bounce.
Here are some interesting findings from SoftwareAdvice to help you understand how live chat can help customers make quick buying decisions:
- more than 56% of customers have used live chat at least once to seek answers to product-related questions;
- 49% of customers prefer live chat to other channels for queries related to online shopping;
- over 56% of customers between 18–34 years favor live chat instead of emails or phone calls. The results are almost half (27%) for people older than 34.
As you can see, live chat can improve the customer decision-making process and increase your likelihood of making sales.
Introducing a live chat feature to your website costs very little. Yet, the average revenue generated easily exceeds the revenue generated from email or phone-based marketing or support. Customers are most likely to buy from a live chat because they are treated well, and their queries are answered quickly.
Live Chat also saves the cost you might want to spend on hiring call center specialists. The beauty of live chat is that one person can chat with multiple customers at the same time. Imagine how many unnecessary costs it might save you.
More than 60% of customers are likely to return to a website that offers live chat, according to a study by eMarketer. Even the buying frequency is high among customers who use live chat because they find it more informative and helpful than emails or phone calls.
Another major reason driving the popularity of live chats is that it also helps you establish a loyal customer base by forging strong relationships, in turn, bringing in more revenue.
- According to Forrester, 50% of adults don’t complete a purchase if they can’t find quick answers to their questions during online shopping. This makes live chat a necessity.
- According to a poll by Anderson consulting, 62% of online customers would purchase more products if live chat and support are easily available.
- According to eDigital research, live chat has a 73% customer satisfaction rate — higher than any other channel.
- People who engage in live chats are 60% more likely to make a purchase, according to an Invesp survey. Even 38% of customers have reported that they purchased the product after they had a great session with a live chat agent.
- According to a study by American Marketing association, adding a live chat feature is likely to boost conversion rates by 20%.
So, you can see from these stats that live chat can be a valuable addition to your website. It can boost your conversion rates and open more sales opportunities.
Actively interacting with customers is not the only way to enhance your sales conversions. You will also need to communicate value in your chat.
While interacting with customers is one way to increase your conversion rate using a live chat, you can also use the chat to increase conversions.
Here is an example:
Most live chats buttons are simple. Somewhat like this:
It is good from a beginner’s point of view. However, there is a lot that can be improved.
Now, look at this live chat button from the marketing automation platform 13chats.com:
You see the difference. Even if the chat is closed, we have a caption that is hard to ignore. Just a simple trick and your conversions will see significant improvements.
These little tactics can make a huge difference in sales conversions. Visitors can feel more welcomed and have a good impression of your business right from the beginning. The chances of them buying products or services from you also increase.
Your chat support team is the backbone of your live chat system. If they are not adequately trained, chances are you will miss out on a lot of opportunities that live chats have to offer.
First, you need to understand how critical it is to have a good chat support team. Customers will not remember the chat software you use. Instead, they will remember their interaction with your chat representative. In simple words, great live chat representatives have the power to single-handedly boost sales conversions.
So, it is essential to adequately train your chat support staff. Your live chat representatives should be able to understand your customers’ problems, speak their language, and provide meaningful support. They should also be flexible enough to identify how customers speak and successfully adapt to the customer’s tone without any difficulty. All of these things are only possible with training and practice.
It takes a lot to build a live chat system. Not only do you have to create a powerful chatbot, but you must also establish chatbot protocols and modify them as needed.
Here are a few steps for establishing a seamless chat protocol:
- create warm and friendly greetings;
- prepare templates but do not hesitate to modify them as needed;
- take proactive actions that lead to meaningful conversions.
Following these steps will ensure that you are prepared for any situation, have a clear goal in mind, and are ready for whatever it takes for a successful conversion. This is one thing that will make you stand out among your peers and establish you as a brand that prioritizes customer satisfaction over anything else.
While the popularity of live chat is on the rise, there are still some businesses that do not want to use it because they find it very complicated. However, the benefits live chat offers are something you will not find anywhere else. It can almost double your conversion rates and cut your costs by half. So, there is no reason why you should not use it.
Here is how to get started if you are making up your mind for using live chat in your sales process:
Find an ideal live chat solution that offers a wide range of customization options and customize it to suit your business needs. The next step is to implement the knowledge we shared above and then see the results for yourself.
Also, do not forget to share your experience with us in the comments. We are excited to hear from you.
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