Top Live Chat Benefits You Should Know

If you’re reading this, you’re undoubtedly already aware that live chat is a platform that allows you to communicate directly with visitors to your website.

You should also be aware that, while live chat and instant messenger apps (such as Facebook and Twitter) have some similarities (for example, they both allow you to communicate and send files), they are not the same.

What you might not realise is how much better live chat is for your business than email, phone assistance, instant messaging services, and other contact methods.

This blog post will explain why live chat is a must-have tool for your organisation, as well as the primary benefits of live chat software. Here’s an overview of some of the most important live chat advantages:

1. Reduce expenses
2. Increase sales
3. Improve customer service and loyalty
4. Discover customer pain points
5. Faster problem resolution
6. Customer convenience
7. Competitive advantages
8. Expand market reach
9. Proactive outreach
10. Reports and analytics

Phone support is how firms have traditionally provided customer service, although it may be expensive in terms of toll charges and person-per-hour costs.

Live chat isn’t much more expensive than a good email provider, and it’s a lot less expensive than phone assistance. According to Forrester Research, live chat customer assistance is 17-30% less expensive than a phone call.

This is due to the fact that live chat allows your agents or team members to multitask and assist multiple visitors at the same time. Most live chat operators can handle three or more chats at once if they are properly trained.

Chat concurrency, a feature of live chat that allows a few live chat agents to serve the same number of customers as a bigger team of phone support staff, saves businesses a lot of money on personnel expenditures.

Increased sales Live chat has been demonstrated to improve sales time and time again, and businesses are reaping the advantages. Live chat has been shown to increase conversions by 3x–5x and provide a 6000% return on investment.Customers who utilise live chat are three times more likely to make purchases than those who do not, according to the same survey.

These figures show that live chat is an excellent way to generate leads and close deals. Because live chat allows visitors to communicate directly with your support and sales teams (and vice versa), your team has a greater chance of converting these visitors into paying clients or customers.

Increased Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Consider the eDigital Customer Service Benchmark survey of 2000 customers, which indicated that live chat had the best customer satisfaction levels at 73 percent, compared to 61 percent for email assistance and only 44 percent for traditional phone support.

It’s simple to see why customers return to firms who offer live chat with figures like these. Customers are more likely to conduct business with organisations that make customer service simple, hassle-free, and immediate. In fact, 90 percent of customers stated the “Live Chat” option gives them confidence that they can receive help if they need it, according to an Oracle consumer research study.

Live chat allows you to provide quick responses to product queries, handle problems more quickly, and reassure your customers that you’ll be there for them when they need you. This is a straightforward yet highly effective recipe for increasing customer service and loyalty.

Find out what customers are complaining about.

Many new business words have emerged as a result of the Internet Revolution and digital marketing, and “pain points” is one of them. A customer’s pain point is a problem that has not been solved or a need that has not been met.

It’s sometimes tough to discover your customers’ pain points using traditional support tools like email or phone calls because they may only be heard or received by one team or individual.

Administrators and supervisors, on the other hand, have access to all chat history, which can be sorted, searched, and filtered to rapidly learn about client issues.

As a result, management can quickly identify their customers’ problems or requirements and devise strategies to address and resolve them. One of the most significant advantages of live chat is this.

Problems are resolved faster.

Knowledge bases and help articles are fantastic resources for giving support and assisting consumers with problems. Customers or users may not be able to find or use these documents or assistance articles fast if you have a large number of them available.

Agents can swiftly “push” links to assistance or training documents via the chat window with live chat. As a result, rather than leading customers through step-by-step troubleshooting and resolution methods, agents can route visitors to the right page or material.

Furthermore, screen-sharing features allow even the most difficult of problems to be resolved quickly and efficiently.

This is something that phone help just can not provide. These are characteristics that can save agents and organisations a lot of time when it comes to assisting consumers with problems.

Convenience for customers

At the end of the day, the overall quality of your product or service will be the most important factor in determining the success of your company. However, your customer service’s accessibility and convenience may be a close second.

Visitors to your website can communicate with salespeople and customer service representatives via live chat. Visitors will have more confidence in your firm as a vendor and a source of vital knowledge and help if they can readily reach you with any queries or difficulties they may have.

When compared to other communication channels, live chat was hands down the preferred way of communication for online buyers, according to an Aberdeen Group study report.

If you look at the data, you’ll see that live chat makes it simple for your customers to do business with you, which usually results in improved loyalty and expenditure. Better ratings on sites like Amazon, Yelp, or your own website can also help you attract new clients.

Customers like the simplicity of being able to use live chat without devoting a significant amount of time and attention to the work, according to another Econsultancy survey. According to the survey, 51 percent of customers choose live chat for multitasking, and another 21% prefer live chat so they can shop while working. As technology makes things more easy, convenience has become a big element of what motivates us as customers and individuals.

Advantages in the Market

So, what are the competitive advantages of live chat?

Many major organisations still do not employ any kind of live chat system on their websites, according to a new survey issued by TELUS International. In reality, according to a recent study of 1,000 websites, only 9% of them employ live chat to provide real-time customer service.

This means that if you choose to implement live chat software on your site (s) — and you should — you will have a significant advantage over your competitors in terms of courteous, immediate service. You’ll also have more chances to proactively engage your website visitors and close more transactions, capturing clients before your competitors.

According to Forrester, the percentage of online shoppers in the United States who use live chat has climbed from 38 percent to 58 percent in the last five years, implying that more organisations are implementing live chat every year to match this demand. Millennials also love live chat, and many businesses are vying for their business as this large demographic increases purchasing power.

As a result, the time to deploy live chat on your websites is now, not later, if you want to start distinguishing your firm from competitors — and get more revenue in the process. Check out some of the best practises for introducing live chat to your website.

Increase your market reach.

If your company is like most, people who fly or drive long distances to make purchases or request services are unlikely to come to your store or office. This is because customers and clients like to do business with organisations that are easy to reach.

While the Internet allows you to reach far beyond your immediate area, having a website does not guarantee that visitors will feel safe putting orders there. If your site offers a live chat function, however, even clients who are thousands of miles distant from your physical presence can contact you and make enquiries or make purchases right away. This includes overseas consumers who, due to high international dialling rates, may be unable to contact your company by phone.

Live chat might help you reach out to new markets you might not have explored before. So, if you receive an inquiry from someone on the other side of the globe, you can greet and treat them like you would someone who comes to your office or business.

Outreach that is proactive

The ability of live chat to allow your visitors and customers to contact you immediately cannot be overstated. Live chat’s proactive outreach capabilities, on the other hand, are what make it truly powerful.

While your website users can contact you at any time by clicking your chat button, better live chat solutions allow your agents to do the same.

Agents can not only receive but also initiate conversation requests with modern live chat systems. Live chat solutions can alert agents to visitor arrivals on websites and provide crucial data they can use to create conversations using sophisticated monitoring and tracking features.

Agent chat requests can be delivered manually or automatically according to pre-defined rules. This type of proactive discussion initiation can assist visitors in quickly finding the information they need, potentially converting more browsers into purchasers.

Reports and Analytics

With email support, you can keep track of the messages transmitted between you and your customers or other inquirers, which gives you a limited level of accountability and the ability to assess employee performance.

However, unless you record all calls and have time to listen to at least some of the conversations, monitoring employee performance with phone assistance can be tough.

You may access all kinds of custom reports as well as the chat histories of all your agents if you choose a good live chat provider.

You may monitor how many visitors your site (s) receives, how many chat requests are granted or refused, and a variety of other visitor metrics that can help you better implement marketing techniques to attract more traffic if you have access to this type of data.

Live chat analytics can also provide you with useful information on your agents. You may monitor agent performance and change staffing and training as needed by combining visitor statistics with access to chat history, agent performance reports, wait time reports, and more.

Wrap-up

It’s time to start shopping if you think live chat is the proper tool for you and your consumers. There are other live chat services on the market, so check out Votiko’s FREE 7-day Live Chat Support Trial.