Increased sales, more leads, higher customer satisfaction and a shorter sales cycle. These are just some of the benefits of having a live chat on your website.
Imagine that you enter a shop. You look around and the products seem interesting. You look around for a member of staff, but behind the counter… it’s empty. You soon realize that the whole store is unmanned. There is no one to answer your questions. There is only a mailbox next to the cash register, where you can leave a message.
What is the probability, that you will buy something in such a store? Probably not very high. Yet this is often exactly how customers are treated online.
You’ve spent time and money on product development, on marketing and on your website. But once you’ve broken through the noise, and attracted a potential customer to visit you online – what happens next?
If your website lacks live chat, there is an imminent risk that you are missing out on major business opportunities on a daily basis.
1. More leads and more sales
Increasing demand for fast service
Customers today are impatient and easily distracted. They are used to all information being at their fingertips, and will quickly move on if something seems slow or they can’t find the answers they are looking for. A whopping 44% of Zendesk customers surveyed said that access to specialist help via live chat is one of the most important features a business can offer online.
Long response times = lost leads
In a comprehensive study, the company Drift compared 433 different sales teams and how quickly they responded to online enquiries. It also measured how response time affected the number of leads generated. The results spoke for themselves:
The chance of establishing contact with a visitor decreased by 10 times if the visitor was left without an answer for more than 5 minutes. A waiting time of more than 15 minutes meant that virtually all potential leads were lost.
Studies show that once someone expresses interest in your product online, you have five minutes to establish a contact.
If your response takes more than five minutes, your chances of reaching them are drastically reduced. And what does it mean when a visitor leaves your site too quickly? Well, it means that all the resources you put into getting the visitor there in the first place went to waste.
Increasing sales with live chat
Live chat provides invaluable direct contact with potential customers who are interested here and now . According to Forrester, visitors who have used live chat are 2.8 times more likely to make a purchase than those who have not. In addition, live chat customers spend on average 60% more than other customers.
Live chat means instant communication – on the customer’s terms.
It is important to remember that digitalization has fundamentally changed the shopping journey. Today’s consumers typically conduct thorough research online, first comparing different options on their own.
This means that by the time they make contact, they are often far along in the buying process, rather than at the beginning. Visitors to your website are therefore often very close to closing, and should be prioritized and treated accordingly.
2. B2C: Your customers prefer to chat
Live chat – a competitive advantage
Think about it, how do you prefer to communicate in private? How often do you actually pick up the phone and call someone, or sit down and write an email? And how often do you write a text message instead? Probably more often, if you’re like the vast majority.
The fact that we like to “text” is nothing new. Back in 2016, a survey by Twilio showed that 9 out of 10 consumers want to be able to send text messages to businesses in the same way we do privately. Yet this is an area where many businesses are lagging behind. Offering live chat gives your business an immediate competitive advantage.
Highest customer satisfaction and more loyal customers
For anyone serious about creating a positive customer experience, live chat is a must. A study by Zendesk clearly shows that live chat, with 92% customer satisfaction, leads the way over phone (88%), email (85%) and social media (Facebook 84%, Twitter 77%). 63% of customers surveyed also stated in another study that they would rather and more often return to websites that offer chat, than to those that do not offer chat.
For companies that realize the benefits of live chat, great business opportunities are opening up. Although the majority of people want to be able to communicate in real time with companies via chat, only a minority of companies offer this option.
In other words, fast response time is one of the most crucial competitive factors in the market – but many companies are slow to adapt.
Answering questions in real time
No matter how good and informative your website is, a visitor who is seriously interested in your offering is likely to have questions and concerns. A live chat gives your team the opportunity to answer questions, solve problems and address objections – right when they arise. Instead of risking your potential customer surfing the web for answers from a competitor.
3. more effective support
Up to three times higher productivity
Live chat not only makes your support team more accessible, it can also work smarter and more efficiently. Multiple tickets can be handled in parallel, which means that live chat can more than triple support productivity in many cases. Many parts of the call can also be automated, making work even more efficient.
Shorter waiting times
No one likes to wait. A live chat on your website means both reduced waiting times and reduced phone queues. Customers can do other things while chatting, reducing the risk of frustration.
4. B2B: Shorter sales cycle
Faster business
Live chat turns the traditional sales funnel on its head. Used correctly, it can dramatically reduce the time it takes to go from a first visit to your website to a deal. Instead of a long and often laborious detour via forms, emails and CRM to the first sales call, live chat allows you to start a dialog immediately.
Qualify leads at an early stage
With a smart introductory message or a well-formulated question, your live chat allows you to instantly sort through visitors, qualify leads and send them to the right person in your sales or support department – without the visitor feeling complicated and awkward.
From pitch to dialog
There’s a reason conversational marketing and conversational sales are some of our most common buzzwords. The reason is simple: it works. When the customer, rather than the salesperson, initiates a dialog, there is a shift in the roles between them.
Used correctly, live chat transforms the salesperson from someone who sells, to someone who helps. And as any good salesperson already knows, that’s the key to maximizing both customer satisfaction and results.
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Install live chat on your website
With Telavox, you get a free live chat that you easily install on your website. The live chat is part of the Telavox widget, which makes it easy for you to talk to your customers in real time. In addition, the Telavox widget shows the waiting time in your phone queue, your company’s opening hours and contact details.
Please contact us to find out more!
