Nowadays, what’s missing in the online customer’s life is actual contact with a HUMAN. It’s great to be able to shop online (I am an addict myself!), but when it comes to customer service, we all know it can sometimes be a stressful experience. When I want to buy things online, I’m not just looking at the brand or product – I also want the customer experience to make me want to stay – and buy – on that website. This user experience can come in various forms: website structure, content, navigation, design… and a live chat system.
Yes, this is the topic for today.
In order to stay competitive, an e-commerce website should be able to answer a potential customer’s questions almost instantly. One of the solutions to this is live chat support. With such a tool, you can actively engage customers, and answer any questions they may have – just like you would in a physical store. The only difference is that you can now offer that service while they’re sitting in front of their laptop or on their mobile.
This could become an undeniable competitive advantage. Here’s why.
Why should you have live chat on your website?
- Increase in conversion rate
According to a few studies, e-commerce websites using a live chat system have a conversion rate 3 times higher than other websites. This argument alone should be enough of a good reason to set one up! Because this tool is free, easy and quick to use, potential customers will get the answers they need immediately and will ease their way through to the checkout and payment process.
- Build customer trust
Your e-commerce website will gain in customer trust, and will lead to a more professional and serious looking website. Visitors will likely feel safer to shop online. Why? Because they have a permanent, visible and available live help support. A lot of users can get lost if they visit a website for the first time. A live chat can improve the legitimacy and credibility of the website and the company that runs it. It also builds a (somewhat) real relationship with the users: it humanises the website and shows a real care for good customer relationship.
- Save money
While a hotline can only serve one customer at a time, a live chat operator can manage several questions at the same time. Needless to say all the conversations – since recorded in writing, will be registered and can be used later for investigation on how to improve the customer relationship management.
- Collect demographic data
A live chat support allows you to track the demographic data of users who contact you through it. You can also track which pages they’ve visited before using the chat as well as their search queries. These data can be essential in finding out ways to solve website access issues for example.
Make sure you are available to chat
By definition, a live chat allows users to chat with someone who works for the company, and the online status of the operator(s) can be visible. If you are offline, users will send you a traditional email, and the live chat system loses all its appeal. Beware not to appear offline all the time: if users never see that the live chat is online, they will probably think your website is a ghost town.
If you consider setting a live chat system on your website, you may want to make sure first that someone will be available as often as possible (or at least during normal business hours) to answer users’ enquiries.
The one thing to keep in mind
The improvement in the customer experience is a true added value for e-commerce websites. How Amazon treats its customers might be the reason why they became so big in the first place! Remember that it is definitely not an aggressive tool to generate leads (such as pop-ups). Potential customers receive immediate and personalised support and guidance in their buying process.
For more info or personalised help with setting up a live chat functionality on your site, get in touch with the Reef team.